scholarly journals Pufendorf and Leibniz on duties of esteem in diplomatic relations

2021 ◽  
pp. 175508822110022
Author(s):  
Andreas Blank

The striving for self-worth is recognized as a driving force in international relations; but if self-worth is understood as a function of status in a power hierarchy, this striving often is a source of anxiety and conflict over status. The quasi-international relations within the early modern German Empire have prompted seventeenth-century natural law theorists such as Samuel Pufendorf and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to reflect about this problem. In his De statu imperii Germanici (1667), Pufendorf regards the power differences and dependencies between the Reichsstände to be an expression of the deficits of constitutional structure of the Empire—a structure that, in his view, causes internal division because it leads to distorted practices of esteem between the estates. Against Pufendorf, Leibniz argues De jure suprematus ac legationis (1671) that political actors such as the German princes who are not Electors could fulfill functions under the law of nations such as forming confederations and peace keeping. Incoherently, however, Leibniz excludes less powerful estates such as the Imperial cities and the Hanseatic cities from the ensuing duties of esteem. This shortcoming, in turn, is arguably remedied in Pufendorf’s later considerations concerning duties of esteem in diplomatic relations.

Grotiana ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Weindl

AbstractIn this article Mare liberum is placed within the context of seventeenth-century European politics. It focuses on the development of conventional relations between European States regarding their interests outside of Europe and their importance concerning the status of Asian and African 'actors'. It turns out that in spite of Mare liberum's high-sounding proclamation of equality of non-European sovereigns with European States, Grotius's position as well as Dutch policy was inspired by self-interest and was essentially opportunistic. The Dutch Republic – as well as other European States – used the 'liberal' principles of Freedom of trade and the Universality of the Law of Nations to attack the Portuguese/Spanish claims of monopoly. However, as the Dutch Republic, Great Britain and France developed their own 'Spheres of Interest' in Asia, Africa and the Americas, they effectively excluded would-be competitors. Indeed, in the eighteenth century the 'pacte colonial' constituted a distinctive characteristic of the conventional and customary 'European Law of Nations'. As non-European political actors in the eighteenth century relatively lost military and political power, the European States finally relegated them to an inferior position, beyond the charmed circle of full 'subjects of Public International Law'. The article also is a contribution to the ongoing discussion about the relation between European imperialism and the development of the doctrine of European International Law.


2014 ◽  
Vol 127 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurits Ebben ◽  
Louis Sicking

Abstract New Diplomatic History in the Premodern Age. An IntroductionThe study of medieval and early modern diplomacy has long been considered one of the most conservative subdisciplines in the field of history. During the last three decades, however, diplomatic history has undergone profound changes. This introductory article shows how these changes were triggered by developments in other disciplines and happened under the influence of the cultural turn. Until recently most general histories of diplomacy were based on the conceptions of Donald Queller and, more particularly, of Garrett Mattingly. Scholars working on medieval and early modern history have applied new international relations theories and moved away from analyses that were strictly oriented towards diplomatic relations between sovereign territorial states. The cultural turn gave rise to a range of innovations in diplomatic history, leading historians to focus on the diplomatic process and its cultural dimensions rather than on the results of diplomatic activity. The special issue for which this article serves as an introduction shows that historians working in the Netherlands have also been influenced by these developments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-71
Author(s):  
Devi Yusvitasari

A country needs to make contact with each other based on the national interests of each country related to each other, including among others economic, social, cultural, legal, political, and so on. With constant and continuous association between the nations of the world, it is one of the conditions for the existence of the international community. One form of cooperation between countries in the world is in the form of international relations by placing diplomatic representation in various countries. These representatives have diplomatic immunity and diplomatic immunity privileges that are in accordance with the jurisdiction of the recipient country and civil and criminal immunity for witnesses. The writing of the article entitled "The Application of the Principle of Non-Grata Persona to the Ambassador Judging from the Perspective of International Law" describes how the law on the abuse of diplomatic immunity, how a country's actions against abuse of diplomatic immunity and how to analyze a case of abuse of diplomatic immunity. To answer the problem used normative juridical methods through the use of secondary data, such as books, laws, and research results related to this research topic. Based on the results of the study explained that cases of violations of diplomatic relations related to the personal immunity of diplomatic officials such as cases such as cases of persecution by the Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Indonesian Workers in Germany are of serious concern. The existence of diplomatic immunity is considered as protection so that perpetrators are not punished. Actions against the abuse of recipient countries of diplomatic immunity may expel or non-grata persona to diplomatic officials, which is stipulated in the Vienna Convention in 1961, because of the right of immunity attached to each diplomatic representative.


Author(s):  
Douglas I. Thompson

In academic debates and popular political discourse, tolerance almost invariably refers either to an individual moral or ethical disposition or to a constitutional legal principle. However, for the political actors and ordinary residents of early modern Northern European countries torn apart by religious civil war, tolerance was a political capacity, an ability to talk to one’s religious and political opponents in order to negotiate civil peace and other crucial public goods. This book tells the story of perhaps the greatest historical theorist-practitioner of this political conception of tolerance: Michel de Montaigne. This introductory chapter argues that a Montaignian insistence that political opponents enter into productive dialogue with each other is worth reviving and promoting in the increasingly polarized democratic polities of the twenty-first century.


Author(s):  
David Boucher

The classic foundational status that Hobbes has been afforded by contemporary international relations theorists is largely the work of Hans Morgenthau, Martin Wight, and Hedley Bull. They were not unaware that they were to some extent creating a convenient fiction, an emblematic realist, a shorthand for all of the features encapsulated in the term. The detachment of international law from the law of nature by nineteenth-century positivists opened Hobbes up, even among international jurists, to be portrayed as almost exclusively a mechanistic theorist of absolute state sovereignty. If we are to endow him with a foundational place at all it is not because he was an uncompromising realist equating might with right, on the analogy of the state of nature, but instead to his complete identification of natural law with the law of nations. It was simply a matter of subject that distinguished them, the individual and the state.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147488512110020
Author(s):  
Alexandra Oprea

Ryan Patrick Hanley makes two original claims about François Fénelon: (1) that he is best regarded as a political philosopher, and (2) that his political philosophy is best understood as “moderate and modern.” In what follows, I raise two concerns about Hanley’s revisionist turn. First, I argue that the role of philosophy in Fénelon’s account is rather as a handmaiden of theology than as an autonomous area of inquiry—with implications for both the theory and practice of politics. Second, I use Fénelon’s writings on the education of women as an illustration of the more radical and reactionary aspects of his thought. Despite these limits, the book makes a compelling case for recovering Fénelon and opens up new conversations about education, religion, political economy, and international relations in early modern political thought.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Jorg Kustermans ◽  
Rikkert Horemans

Abstract There is increasing agreement that states and other political actors on the world stage sometimes achieve international authority. However, there is less agreement about the nature and functioning of international authority relations. What determines whether an actor will be recognized as an authoritative actor? And what are the effects thereof? In this essay, we identify four distinct conceptions of authority in the study of international relations: authority as contract, authority as domination, authority as impression, and authority as consecration. Consideration of the typology leads to two important insights. First, the phenomenon of authority has an essentially experiential dimension. Subordinate actors’ emotional experience of authority determines their response to authority and thus also has a fundamental impact on the stability of authority. Second, the emergence of forms of international authority does not entail, at least not necessarily, the weakening of the sovereignty of states, but can equally be argued to strengthen it.


The history of war is also a history of its justification. The contributions to this book argue that the justification of war rarely happens as empty propaganda. While it is directed at mobilizing support and reducing resistance, it is not purely instrumental. Rather, the justification of force is part of an incessant struggle over what is to count as justifiable behaviour in a given historical constellation of power, interests, and norms. This way, the justification of specific wars interacts with international order as a normative frame of reference for dealing with conflict. The justification of war shapes this order and is being shaped by it. As the justification of specific wars entails a critique of war in general, the use of force in international relations has always been accompanied by political and scholarly discourses on its appropriateness. In much of the pertinent literature the dominating focus is on theoretical or conceptual debates as a mirror of how international normative orders evolve. In contrast, the focus of the present volume is on theory and political practice as sources for the re- and de-construction of the way in which the justification of war and international order interact. The book offers a unique collection of papers exploring the continuities and changes in war discourses as they respond to and shape normative orders from early modern times to the present. It comprises contributions from International Law, History and International Relations and from Western and non-Western perspectives.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-224
Author(s):  
Ellen R. Welch (book author) ◽  
John H. Astington (review author)

Author(s):  
Le Thi Anh Dao ◽  

China, Japan and Ayutthaya (Thailand) are three countries located in Asia - a cultural, civilized and economic center of the world in history and at present. In the 16th - 17th centuries, building diplomatic relations and implementing foreign policies with Southeast Asian countries were always the concern of major countries in the region, especially China and Japan. In the foreign policy of China and Japan, Ayutthaya was one of the countries that had an important position and brought many economic and political benefits. On the contrary, establishing a good relationship with a powerful country like China and a country with a developed maritime trade like Japan would benefit Ayutthaya in many ways in international relations, expanding its sphere of influence as well as economic and political development in the 16th and 17th centuries. The article delves into the policies of China and Japan towards Ayutthaya (16th - 17th centuries) in order to clarify the similarities and differences in the regional policies of two major countries as well as the role and position of Ayutthaya in Southeast Asia during the pre-modern centuries.


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