Of Systems, Boundaries, and Territoriality: An Inquiry into the Formation of the State System

1986 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich Kratochwil
Keyword(s):  
Power Systems ◽  
Conflict Management ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Territorial Rights ◽  
Boundary Characteristics ◽  
Buffer States

The author explores the changing functions of boundaries in territorially and nonterritorially based social organizations. By focusing on the exchanges that boundaries mediate, a fuller account can be given of the systems characteristics in which the units interact than is afforded by traditional systems theory. Two case studies demonstrate that imperial boundaries differ significantly from those in the state system. Boundaries are shown to be the major means for conflict management in the international system. The author also investigates shifts in the location of the boundary, characteristics of balance-of-power systems, and the restriction and expansion of the exchanges that boundaries allow through the bundling or unbundling of territorial rights. Most of the latter devices that gave rise to spheres of influence, buffer states, suzerainties, and so forth have been overtaken by events, but functional regimes and spheres of influence based upon tacit rather than explicit rules remain important.

Alliance Behavior in Balance of Power Systems: Applying a Poisson Model to Nineteenth-Century Europe

1975 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 859-870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J. McGowan ◽  
Robert M. Rood
Keyword(s):  
Power Systems ◽  
International System ◽  
Poisson Model ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Alliance Formation ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
System A ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
International Systems ◽  
Verbal Model

This paper is a partial systematic test of Morton A. Kaplan's “theory” of alliance behavior in balance of power international systems first proposed in his well-known System and Process in International Politics (1957). Three hypotheses are inferred from Kaplan's writings predicting that in a stable balance of power system, (a) alliances will occur randomly with respect to time; (b) the time intervals between alliances will also be randomly distributed; and (c) a decline in systemic alliance formation rates precedes system changing events, such as general war. We check these hypotheses by applying probability theory, specifically a Poisson model, to the analysis of new data on fifty-five alliances among the five major European powers during the period 1814–1914. Because our research questions are so general, our findings should not be regarded as definitive; however, the data very strongly support our hypotheses. We conclude that Kaplan's verbal model of a balance of power international system has had its credibility enhanced as a result of this paper.

scholarly journals The Magnitude of Warfare Revisited – System Polarity and War Duration

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-46
Author(s):  
Marco Nilsson
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
International Conflict ◽  
International System ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Hazards Model ◽  
Initial Support ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

One of the intractable debates in the study of international conflict is the linkage between polarity and magnitude of interstate warfare. Speculations about the effects of the structure of the international system can be traced back to the Treaty of Westphalia. This article revisits this debate with a focus on war duration, which has received little attention in the literature, and presents the first theoretical discussion of the connection between polarity and war duration. It also uses a hazards model to statistically test whether five different measures of polarity are associated with war duration (1816-1992). The results provide initial support for the hypothesis that an increase in the number of poles in the state system is associated with longer wars on average. The empirical analysis and the theoretical discussion are important for understanding the consequences of the declining U.S. hegemony.

Metternich's Theory of European Order: A Political Agenda for “Perpetual Peace”

1998 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Sofka
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
State System ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
European Politics ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Perpetual Peace

This article examines the foreign policy of Prince Clemens Metternich of Austria, the chief architect of the Vienna Treaty of 1815, in the light of Enlightenment political thought. Metternich is commonly considered a reactionary and practitioner of callous balance-of-power diplomacy, and this article seeks to refute this conclusion. By examining Metternich's deeply held theoretical beliefs on the nature of the European state system, and above all his Kantian belief in progress and federalism, this essay concludes that Metternich pursued a reformist, and indeed idealistic, program in international politics which cannot be divorced from late Enlightenment philosophy. His Conference System, which was designed to regulate European politics in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, represented a novel experiment in European union which remains a pressing concern in the contemporary international system.

scholarly journals Geopolitics, social forces, and the international: Revisiting the ‘Eastern Question’

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 492-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cemal Burak Tansel
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The State ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Eastern Question ◽  
Analytical Category

AbstractThis article contributes to current debates in materialist geopolitics and contemporary IR theorising by restating the centrality of social forces for conceptualising geopolitics. It does so by offering a detailed conceptual reading of the corpus of the ‘Eastern Question’, which is composed of a series of political analyses written by Marx and Engels in the period of 1853–6. This archive presents unique analytical and conceptual insights beyond the immediate temporal scope of the issue. I unpack this argument in three movements. The article (i) offers an overview of the debates on materialist geopolitics; (ii) contextualises the historical setting of the ‘Eastern Question’ and critically evaluates the great powers’ commitment to the Europeanstatus quo; and (iii) constructs an original engagement with a largely overlooked corpus to reveal the ways in which Marx and Engels demonstrated the interwoven relationship between domestic class interests, the state, and the international system. I maintain that revisiting the ‘Eastern Question’ corpus (i) bolsters the existing materialist frameworks by underscoring the role of class as an analytical category; (ii) challenges an important historical pillar of the balance of power argument; and (iii) empirically strengthens the burgeoning scholarship in international historical sociology.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Swati Parashar ◽  
J. Ann Tickner ◽  
Jacqui True
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International System ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Gender Analysis ◽  
Western State ◽  
System States ◽  
Economic Inequalities

The Western state system is a unique historical entity that has survived in various forms for almost four hundred years. After independence, postcolonial societies were eager to join this system. States can offer protection to their citizens, but they can also be perpetrators of human rights violations and economic injustices. Feminists claim that in order to fully understand the state in its various manifestations, it is necessary to understand its gendered dynamics. This chapter considers the various ways in which states are gendered. Authors in the volume offer analyses of many forms of states—liberal, postcolonial, and religious—using a variety of methodological perspectives. They demonstrate how gender analysis is necessary for understanding how the state can act both as a buffer against the international system and also as a perpetrator of political, social, and economic inequalities. The conclusion offers a brief overview of each of the subsequent chapters.

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.

States and state systems: democratic, Westphalian or both?

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
CORNELIA NAVARI
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Transition ◽  
International System ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
Transition Theory ◽  
Modern State ◽  
English School ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State

AbstractTwo rival accounts have come to dominate discussion of the origins and character of the contemporary international system. One, closely associated with the English School and the traditional account, places its origins with the appearance, and acceptance, of the centralised authority of the modern state. We might call this ‘the Westphalia version’. In this account, the modern state system is often represented in terms of what it is not. It is not a feudal regnum with a multiplicity of functionally distinct authorities. It is not a theocratic imperium where one power aimed at ‘the control and protection of Christendom’. It is a society of sovereigns, of de jure equals, each of whom accorded the others’ right to exist, and whose common ideological quantum is low. The rival is located within democratic transition theory. It postulates the modern state system as an extension of the liberal democratic state. The liberal state is not sovereign in the Westphalian sense: liberal authority is diffuse. Moreover, the liberal state produces its own, distinctive, international impulses that distance it in significant ways from the Westphalian pattern. Both see the state system as ‘produced’ by the state, as an immanent effect of stateness, but the account of the state’s trajectory differs radically.

The position of the State in the international system from the perspective of major schools of thought in international relations

2019 ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Salah Hassan Mohammed ◽  
Mahaa Ahmed Al-Mawla
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
International Order ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Status ◽  
Future Vision

The Study is based on the state as one of the main pillars in international politics. In additions, it tackles its position in the international order from the major schools perspectives in international relations, Especially, these schools differ in the status and priorities of the state according to its priorities, also, each scholar has a different point of view. The research is dedicated to providing a future vision of the state's position in the international order in which based on the vision of the major schools in international relations.

Formation of the research tradition of studying the institute Parliamentarism as a mechanism for the establishment of democracy

2017 ◽  
pp. 187-198
Author(s):  
Akil Ibrahim Al-Zuhari
Keyword(s):  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
The State ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Research Tradition ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
The People ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Government ◽  
Parliamentary Regimes

The article defines the features of the process of forming the research tradition of studying the institute of parliamentarism as a mechanism for the formation of democracy. It is established that parliamentarism acts as one of the varieties of the regime of functioning of the state, to which the independence of the representative body from the people is inherent, its actual primacy in the state mechanism, the division of functions between the legislative and executive branches of government, the responsibility and accountability of the government to the parliament. It is justified that, in addition to the regime that fully meets the stated requirements of classical parliamentarism, there are regimes that can be characterized as limited parliamentary regimes. The conclusions point out that parliamentarism does not necessarily lead to a democracy regime. At the first stage of development of statehood, it functions for a long time in the absence of many attributes of democracy, but at the present stage, without parliamentarism, democracy will be substantially limited. Modern researchers of parliamentarism recognize that this institution is undergoing changes with the development of the processes of democracy and democratization. This is what produces different approaches to its definition. However, most scientists under classical parliamentarianism understand such a system, which is based on the balance of power. This approach seeks to justify limiting the rights of parliament and strengthening executive power. Keywords: Parliamentarism, research strategy, theory of parliamentarism, types of parliamentarism

Territorial Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Stilz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
International System ◽  
Core Values ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Political Units ◽  
Territorial States

This book offers a qualified defense of a territorial states system. It argues that three core values—occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination—are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all of the sovereignty rights states currently claim and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states’ sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people’s preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and facilitates its people’s collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought.

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