The sovereign state system as political-territorial ideal: historical and contemporary considerations

1996 ◽  
pp. 81-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander B. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
State System ◽  
Sovereign State

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anuschka Tischer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
State System ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Swiss Confederation ◽  
Peace And War ◽  
Precise Role ◽  
350Th Anniversary

The Peace of Westphalia, concluded in 1648 in Münster (Germany), ended the Thirty Years War, which started with an anti-Habsburg revolt in Bohemia in 1618 but became an entanglement of different conflicts concerning the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, religion, and the state system of Europe. This contest was a civil “German war,” but foreign powers played a crucial role. The Peace of Westphalia ended with the signing of two treaties between the empire and the new great powers, Sweden and France, and settled the conflicts inside the empire with their guarantees. A new electorate was established for the exiled son of the revolt’s leader, the elector Palatine. Bavaria kept the electorate that it had been given for its support of the emperor Ferdinand II during the revolt. This compromise in 1648 meant a change of the empire’s fundamental Golden Bull of 1356 and was a symbol that all conflicts occurring since 1618 were resolved and that those who made peace did not avoid radical cuts and invented fresh ideas in order to make peace. Catholics and Protestants (now including Calvinists as well as Lutherans) accepted each other. Several regulations guaranteed their balance: 1624 was declared the “normal year” of any territory’s denomination, minorities were tolerated or had a right to emigrate, and no one could be forced to convert any longer. The Peace of Westphalia is regarded as a milestone in the development toward tolerance and secularization. This settlement also strengthened the imperial Estates: they could enter into foreign alliances and decide important matters, such as peace and war, along with the emperor. The suspected ambition of the Habsburgs for a “universal monarchy” was thereby controlled, in particular because the Franco-Spanish negotiations in Münster did not bring peace between France and Spain and left open conflict areas, such as Lorraine. Moreover, France and Sweden got territorial “satisfaction,” especially in Alsace and Pomerania. The Peace of Westphalia also confirmed the legal independence of the Swiss Confederation, whereas by a separate peace with Spain, in Münster, the United Provinces of the Netherlands officially became a sovereign state after eighty years of war. The Peace of Westphalia was crucial in German and international history. Its precise role in the European state system and international law is, however, subject to controversy, such as the debate over the “Westphalian System” in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Controversies about the Peace of Westphalia are not new. The history of its reception and interpretation is as long as the history of its emergence. Unquestionably, though, the negotiations were a milestone in diplomacy and peacemaking. Sources on the peace are most valuable for always changing methods and perspectives of history. Research on the Peace of Westphalia increased enormously with its 350th anniversary in 1998 and its several conferences and exhibitions.

Global security hierarchies after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Phillips
Keyword(s):  
International Security ◽  
International Order ◽  
State System ◽  
Global Security ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
United Nation

Since 1919, world leaders have sought to uphold and advance international order by sponsoring a succession of global security hierarchies, understood as authoritative arrangements that are global in scope and dedicated to mitigating international security challenges. These hierarchies have progressively broadened in the inclusivity of their security referents. Explicitly racist and civilizational answers to the question ‘security for whom’ have given way to more cosmopolitan visions of security hierarchy. The scope of the challenges these hierarchies have aimed to mitigate (‘security from what’) has also broadened, alongside the intrusiveness of the measures (‘security through which means’) licenced to manage them. The progression towards more inclusive, ambitious and intrusive global security hierarchies has nevertheless evolved in tension with the parallel globalization of both nationalism and the sovereign state system. These countervailing influences – in conjunction with the recent worldwide resurgence of illiberal forces – now threaten the prospective longevity of today’s United Nation (UN)-centric cosmopolitan global security hierarchy.

The great trilemma: are globalization, democracy, and sovereignty compatible?

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur A. Stein
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
State System ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
Global Marketplace ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

Current economic and political developments spotlight the relationship between domestic and global governance and the impact of globalization on both. A key question is whether a sovereign state system, democratic governments, and an integrated global marketplace can coexist. The paper assesses analytic materialist arguments for their incompatibility and the key assumptions on which they rest. The paper describes the extant pressures operating to limit each of the three: how sovereignty and democracy work to constrain globalization, how globalization and sovereignty generate a democratic deficit, and how globalization and democracy lead to limitations upon, and even the transcendence of, sovereignty. How to make the three compatible, and failing that, which facet to restrain, characterizes political contestation in a globalizing age. Global and domestic governance reflect the need to reconcile the combined implications of globalization, sovereignty, and democracy, and to do so by restraining, limiting, or transforming one or more of these features.

Normative Initiatives and Demilitarization: A Third System Approach

1980 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Falk
Keyword(s):  
System Approach ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
The Third ◽  
Creative Space ◽  
Political Structures

This paper explores and identifies “creative space” in the struggle against militarization. Taking into account the political structures and restraints of different polities, the author examines normative initiatives that challenge the root assumptions of militarization and that can be linked to actual social forces working for principled demilitarization. The author points to the primacy of the Third System in this effort. He argues that, at the present time, the First System (the state system and its support infrastructure) is supportive of the underlying logic of militarization, that the Second System (the UN and regional international institutes) being a dependency of the First System is unable to implement demilitarization initiatives, and that only the Third System (represented by people acting individually and collectively through voluntary institutions) is able to sustain normative initiatives of consequence to demilitarization. Normative initiatives relevant to demilitarization undertaken in the Third System can aid in mobilizing effective opposition to militarization in all three systems by altering the normative climate, thereby producing new “creative space” for political innovation. Finally, the author provides examples of the most promising Third System normative initiatives at the global, regional; sovereign state and individual levels.

The Grotian Tradition, Grotian Moment, and Decolonization: A twail Perspective

Grotiana ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-276
Author(s):  
B.S. Chimni
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
State System ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Times

Abstract The times of Grotius were a period of transition from a feudal to a capitalist order in Europe, ushering in new thinking on subjects such as human nature, commerce, state, war, and colonialism. In articulating his views, Grotius was not seeking to shape the law of nations for all times but to recast it in order to respond to the problems encountered by Holland (or the United Provinces), and more generally European nations, in the ongoing transition. In the backdrop of a brief discussion of the ‘Grotian tradition’, this article distinguishes different uses of the term ‘Grotian Moment’ and contends that ideally the term should be reserved for capturing developments that profoundly impact both the ‘logic of territory’ and the ‘logic of capital’ with the law of nations playing a significant role. While decolonization saw the expansion of the sovereign state system and certainly was a setback to the global accumulation of capital, the law of nations did not pro-actively support that process. Furthermore, efforts by postcolonial nations to bring about the transformation of the colonial legal order did not succeed making less meaningful the characterization of the decolonization process as a ‘Grotian Moment’.

The rise of the state system in Africa

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 65-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn M. Warner
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
The West ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Alternative Structures ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Rule Out

Africa's relation to the concept and practice of ‘state’ and ‘states system’ has been problematic since its first encounters with those who were armed with the concept. In observing the collapse of authority and governance in a number of African states, some scholars have suggested that Africa presented the states system with alternative political organizations. Others argue that so long as there is a kernel of armed authority in territorially demarcated areas, a state exists. Africa's polities have often responded unconventionally, yet strategically, to interaction with the sovereign state system first elaborated by the Europeans. To comprehend the novelty, or lack of it, in the ‘state system’ of contemporary Africa, we need to know something about its pre-colonial political structures and organizations and about the imprint of empires (the construct which effectively limited the ‘international’ system of sovereign states to the West) on Africa. Did colonialism and the Western system of sovereign states rule out alternative structures for the newly independent African states? What might alternative structures have looked like? What impact did colonial rule have on the development of states in Africa? Does contemporary Africa have a ‘state system’? This article addresses these questions in the context of the Special Issue's concern with both the structure of the international system and developments among and between the units.

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