Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations
Author(s): John Gerard Ruggie
Source: International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Winter, 1993), pp. 139-174
Published by: The MIT Press
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and beyond:
Territoriality
in
modernity
problematizing
internationalrelations
JohnGerardRuggie
Weshallnotceasefromexploration
And theend ofall ourexploring
Willbe toarrivewherewestarted
And knowtheplace forthefirsttime.
-T. S. Eliot,LittleGidding
The year 1989 has alreadybecome a convenienthistoricalmarker:it has been
invokedby commentatorsto indicate the end of the postwarera. An era is
characterizedbythe passage not merelyof timebut also of the distinguishing
attributesof a time,attributesthat structureexpectationsand imbue daily
In that
eventswithmeaningforthe membersof any givensocial collectivity.
sense,what thejournalistTheordoreH. Whiteobservedin 1945 is trueonce
again: theworld,he wrote,is "fluidand about to be remade."1Argumentswill
of thecollapse of the
continueformanyyearsto come about the determinants
old postwarorder and the contoursof the new post-postwarorder.But even
amongdiversetheoreticaltraditionsthereexistsa sharedvocabularydescribing
"the world" that has become fluid and is being remade: in its simplest,
irreducibleterms,it is theworldof strategicbipolarity.
The same cannotbe said ofanother"world"thatalso maybe fluidand in the
processof being remade: the modernsystemof states.This worldexistson a
deeper and more extendedtemporalplane, and its remakinginvolvesa shift
not in the play of power politics but of the stage on which that play is
An earlier draftof this articlewas presentedat the BritishSocial Science Research Council
Conferenceon Nation-Statesand the InternationalOrder, Emmanuel College, Cambridge,4-6
September1991. I am gratefulto BarryBuzan, Caroline Bynum,ErnstHaas, Andreas Huyssen,
StephenKrasner,HendrikSpruyt,TracyStrong,and AlexanderWendtfortheircommentsand to
David Auerswaldforresearchassistance.
A PersonalAdventure(New York: Harper & Row,
1. Theodore H. White,In Seach of History:
1978),p. 224.
Organization
47, 1, Winter1993
International
? 1993bytheWorldPeace Foundationand the MassachusettsInstituteof Technology
140 InternationalOrganization
performed.2Here, no shared vocabularyexists in the literatureto depict
Indeed, littlevocabularyforitexistsat all.
changeand continuity.
of the European Commuto expressthe emergingarchitecture
Take efforts
whichfirstimposes
nity(EC) as a case in point."It is a negativecharacteristic
itself,"the MarxisttheoristEtienne Balibar concedes. "The state today in
Europe is neithernational nor supranational,and this ambiguitydoes not
slackenbut onlygrowsdeeper overtime."3Fromtheotherside of thepolitical
spectrum,The Economistagrees and gropes formetaphor:in place of older
federativevisions,it sees "a Europe of manyspires,"a European "Mont Saint
Michel."4For theirpart,Eurocratsspeak of overlappinglayersof European
economicand political"spaces," tiedtogether,in thewordsofEC Commission
to organize
"spiderlikestrategy
PresidentJacquesDelors, bythe community's
of a GreaterEurope."5
the architecture
These formulationsare not terriblyprecise or definitive.Still, they are
over the treatmentEurope typicallyreceivesin the standard
improvements
academic literatures.In Kenneth Waltz's classic neorealisttreatise,the EC
earned only a few fleetingreferences,and then onlyto argue that it would
neveramountto much in the "internationalstructure"unless it took on the
rationalityof game theoryand
formof a unifiedstate.6In the instrumental
are either taken for grantedor
transactionscost analysis,macrostructures
treatedas relatively
unproblematicconsequencesof the interplayofmicromotives,and hence generate littleinterestas independentsocial facts.7And,
theorylongago acknowledgeditsown obsolescencein the
regionalintegration
In none of these theoreticalperspectivesis
face of the new European reality.8
thereso muchas a hintthatthe institutional,
juridical,and spatial complexes
associatedwiththecommunity
mayconstitutenothingless thantheemergence
of thefirsttrulypostmoderninternational
politicalform.
2. For a specificationof the ontologicaland epistemologicaldifferencesamong incremental,
conjunctural,and secular or epochal time frames,see JohnGerard Ruggie, "Social Time and
in a
Patternsand EmergentStructures
InternationalPolicy,"in MargaretP. Karns, ed., Persistent
the"normalpolitics"
WaningCentury
(New York: Praeger,1986),pp. 211-36. Withinthattypology,
relationsfieldfallsintotheincrementalcategory,thecold war
studiedbymuchoftheinternational
and themodernsystemof statestheepochal timeframes.
theconjunctural,
exemplifies
3. EtienneBalibar,"Es GibtKeinenStaatinEuropa: Racism and Politicsin Europe Today,"New
LeftReview186 (March/April1991),p. 16,emphasisoriginal.
4. "Many-spiredEurope," The Economist,18 May 1991, p. 16. Some twentyyears ago, I
terms)to
suggestedthatintegrationtheorymove fromthe model of a "tree" (in graph-theoretic
processto one of a semi-lattice-thedefinition
depicttheinstitutional
end-pointof theintegration
ofwhichsoundsverymuchlike a formalrepresentation
of TheEconomist'sEuropean Mont Saint
Michel. See John Gerard Ruggie, "The Structureof InternationalOrganization:Contingency,
and PostmodernForm,"Peace Research Society(International)Papers,no. 18, 1972.
Complexity,
5. "Inner Space," The Economist,18 May 1991. Delors is cited in Alan Riding,"Europeans in
Accordto Create VastlyExtendedTradingBloc," New YorkTimes,23 October1991,p. Al.
Politics(Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1979).
6. See KennethWaltz,TheoryofInternational
7. See, for example, GeoffreyGarrett,"InternationalCooperation and InstitutionalChoice:
The European Community'sInternal Market," InternationalOrganization46 (Spring 1992),
pp. 531-60.
Theory,Research Mongraphno.
8. See ErnstB. Haas, The ObsolescenceofRegionalIntegration
of California,1976).
25 (Berkeley:Instituteof InternationalStudies,University
Territoriality141
describingand explainingthe
Prevailingperspectivesmay have difficulty
butnone suggeststhatit is notoccurring.
processof European transformation,
At theleveloftheglobaleconomy,in contrast,thephenomenonoftransformation not onlystrainsthe available vocabularybut on some accounts,its very
occurrenceremainsin doubt.
There has been a remarkablegrowthin transnationalmicroeconomiclinks
yearsor so, comprisingmarketsand productionfacilities
over the past thirty
thatare designatedbytheawkwardterm"offshore"-as thoughtheyexistedin
some etherealspace waitingto be reconceivedby an economicequivalentof
are
theory.In thisoffshorearea, sourcing,production,and marketing
relativity
and
in some instances"global offices,"10
organizedwithin"global factories,"9
most recentlythe "global lab""1-real-time transnationalinformationflows
beingtherawmaterialof all three.Financialtransactionstake place in various
"Euro" facilities,whichmaybe housed in Tokyo,New York, and European
financialcentersbut whichare consideredto existin an extranationalrealm.12
amongthe leadingfirmsor othermeans of forgingtransnaCross-investment
Trade is made
are the norm.13
alliances increasingly
tionalizedintercorporate
of intrafirm
transactionsas opposed to the conventional
up disproportionately
And,
exchangethatis the stapleof economicmodels and policy.14
arms-length
(and in theory)is assumedto followand
thefinancialsector,whichhistorically
servicethe"real" sector,now dwarfsit completely.15
Furthermore,the largestshare of the "goods" that are "traded" in this
offshore
worldactuallyare "services."16 TheEconomistmagazine,withtonigue
9. For a descriptionof global factories,see JosephGrunwaldand KennethFlamm,The Global
Factory:ForeignAssemblyin InternationalTrade (Washington,D.C.: The BrookingsInstitution,
1985).
10. Steve Lohr, "The Growthof the 'Global Office',"New YorkTimes,18 October 1988. For
example, Citibank does some of its financialdata processingin Jamaica; American Airlines
processes ticketstubs in Barbados and the Dominican Republic; and New York Life processes
renewals,in Ireland.
claimsand McGraw-Hill,magazinesubscription
plantsoverseas,
11. The termis drawnfromPollack: "Justas theyonce movedmanufacturing
American companies are now spreadingtheir research and product developmentaround the
thattranscendsnationalborders."
world,helpingto turnthecreationoftechnologyintoan activity
See AndrewPollack, "TechnologyWithoutBorders Raises Big Questions forU.S.," New York
Times,1 January1992,p. Al.
12. JoanE. Spero,"GuidingGlobal Finance,"ForeignPolicy73 (Winter1988-89),pp. 114-34.
13. See RobertB. Reich, The WorkofNations(New York: Knopf,1991).
variety,a ratiothatincreasesto close to
14. Some 40 percentof U.S. trade is of the intrafirm
trade has
of "related party"are used. Moreover,intrafirm
two-thirds
ifmore relaxed definitions
and it is less sensitiveto such macroeconomic
been growingmorerapidlythanthe standardstuff,
Trade: An Update,"
factorsas exchangerates.For evidence,see JaneSneddon Little,"Intra-firm
NewEnglandEconomicReview(May/June1987),pp. 46-51; and theearlierbutstillusefulstudyby
Tradeand theDevelopingCountries(London: Macmillan,1981).
Gerald C. Helleiner,Intra-firm
15. Internationaltrade amounts to some $2.5 to $3 trillionper year; internationalcapital
marketsturn over at least $75 trillion,and foreignexchange transactionsnow amount to
$1 trillionper day.
approximately
is off
16. Definitionsare so bad thatthebalance ofworldservicesimportsand exportsroutinely
of all traded
byas muchas $100 billionper annum-a marginof errorequivalentto fullyone-fifth
services;see Ronald K. Shelp, "Trade in Services,"ForeignPolicy65 (Winter1986-87). Bhagwati
thatthe term"trade
distinctions
but ends up recommending
suggestsseveralcreativedefinitional
in services"be abandoned in favorof "internationalservicetransactions";see JagdishBhagwati,
142 InternationalOrganization
has proposed definingservicesas "thingswhich can be
only half-in-cheek,
boughtand sold butwhichyoucannotdropon yourfoot,"-acknowledgingthe
Nor is it entirelyclearwhatit
difficulty
of devisinga morerigorousdefinition.17
means to say that services are traded. In merchandisetrade, factorsof
productionstand still and goods move across borders; in traded services,
typicallythe factorsof productiondo the movingwhile the good (service)
standsstill:it is producedforthe consumeron the spot. What is called trade,
therefore,is really "investment,"or at the least "rightof establishment,"
tradetheoristsand negotiatorsalike.18
baffling
The orthodoxliberalpositionthatthese developmentssomehowimplythe
growingirrelevanceof states is, as Janice Thomson and Stephen Krasner
misplaced."19Indeed, states are anythingbut irrelesuggest,"fundamentally
vant even in the ever more integratedEC. Nevertheless,the standardrealist
potentialof these developmentsis
groundforrejectingthe transformational
equally misplaced. A leading realist journal of opinion recentlyoffereda
particularlyegregious illustrationin response to Robert Reich's probing
"Who
productionnetworks,
questionabout thenewworldoftransnationalized
is 'Us'?"20 Reich sought to voice the conceptual complexitiesentailed in
determiningwhether somethingis an American product any longer and
whetherthe legal designation,"an Americancorporation,"stilldescribesthe
same economicentity,withthe same consequencesfordomesticemployment
thatitdid in the 1950sand 1960s.The responseto Reich
and economicgrowth,
not atypical-stringof non sequiturs,for
and
bizarre-but
was a baffling
corporate interestsin international
the
state
can
defend
"Only
example:
and marketaccess.... If the existenceof
negotiationsovertrade,investment,
countrieswho
thestateis in doubt,just ask thedepositorsofBCCI in somefifty
"Trade in Servicesand the MultilateralTrade Negotiations,"The WorldBank EconomicReview,
vol. 1,no. 1, 1987.See also DorothyI. Riddle,Service-LedGrowth(New York: Praeger,1986); Orio
Giarini,ed., TheEmergingServiceEconomy(London: PergamonPress, 1987); TerrenceG. Berg,
"Trade in Services,"HarvardInternational
Law Journal28 (Winter1987); and Mario A. Kakabadse,
International
Tradein Services(London: Croom Helm forthe AtlanticInstituteforInternational
Affairs,1987).
17. "A GattforServices,"TheEconomist,12 October 1985,p. 20. See also "NettingtheFuture:
A SurveyofTelecommunications,"
TheEconomist,19 March 1990;and "A Questionof Definition:
A Surveyof InternationalBanking,"TheEconomist,7 April1990.
18. At the time of thiswriting,indicationsare that the UruguayRound will bringinto the
thatportionofinternational
services
GeneralAgreementon Tariffsand Trade (GATT) framework
whichfitstheconventionalunderstanding
trade.However,thatportionis relatively
ofinternational
small compared with the whole, and numerous highlydisputatiousissues lurk beyond the
conventionalframework.
See "GATT Brief:Centre Stage forServices?" The Economist,5 May
1990,pp. 88-89; and "GATT and Services:Second Best," TheEconomist,3 August1991.
19. JaniceE. Thomsonand StephenD. Krasner,"Global Transactionsand theConsolidationof
in Ernst-OttoCzempieland JamesN. Rosenau, eds., Global Changesand Theoretical
Sovereignty,"
Challenges(Lexington,Mass.: LexingtonBooks, 1989), p. 198. See also Stephen D. Krasner,
"Global Communicationsand National Power: Life on the Pareto Frontier,"WorldPolitics43
(April 1991),pp. 336-66.
20. See Ethan B. Kapstein,"We are US: The Mythof the Multinational,"TheNationalInterest
26 (Winter1991/92),pp. 55-62. The fullexpositionof Reich's argumentis in The WorkofNations,
thefinalchapterofwhichis entitled"Who is 'US'?"
Territoriality143
woke up one morningin Julyto findtheiraccountsfrozen.... If the United
States wanted to preventthe gatheringor transmissionof informationby
satellite,it could easilydo so by shootingthe satellitedown."21And thusthe
conclusion,in thetitleof theessay,that"We are US."
impoverishedmind-setat workhere,one thatis
There is an extraordinarily
able to visualize long-termchallengesto the systemof statesonlyin termsof
forthe state.Since global markets
substitutable
entitiesthatare institutionally
and transnationalizedcorporatestructures(not to mentioncommunications
satellites)are notin thebusinessof replacingstates,theyare assumedto entail
no potentialforfundamentalinternationalchange,Q.E.D. The theoreticalor
historicalwarrantforthatpremisehas neverbeen mooted,let alone defended.
of analyticalproblemsof thissortcan be multipliedmanytimes
Illustrations
over in other issue-areas.The global ecological implosioninherentlyinvites
epochal thinking,yet analyticallyinformedempirical studies of "ozone
diplomacy"or of attemptsto save the Mediterraneaninvariablyfocus on
as opposed to
negotiationprocessesand the dynamicsof regimeconstruction,
exploringthe possibilityof fundamentalinstitutionaldiscontinuityin the
Theydo so because, amongotherreasons,prevailingmodes
systemof states.22
of analyticaldiscoursesimplylack therequisitevocabulary.
The worst offenderby far is the American field of securitystudies.
its alleged renaissance,no epochal thoughthas been exNotwithstanding
pressed by any serious specialist in that field since 1957, when John Herz
published his essay, "Rise and Demise of the TerritorialState"-and this
technologyand in therelationsofforce
despitethefactthatchangesin military
are widelyacknowledgedto have been drivingfactorsof politicaltransformahumanhistory.23
tionthroughout
The longand the shortof it is,then,thatwe are notverygood as a discipline
in the international
at studyingthe possibilityof fundamentaldiscontinuity
21. Kapstein,"We are US," pp. 56 and 61.
22. See Richard Elliot Benedick, Ozone Diplomacy (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University
Policy (Durham, N.C.: Duke
Environmental
Press, 1991); LyntonKeith Caldwell, International
Cooperation:BuildingRegimesforNatural
UniversityPress, 1984); Oran R. Young, International
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1989); and Peter Haas,
Resourcesand theEnvironment
Press,1990).
(New York: ColumbiaUniversity
SavingtheMediterranean
23. On the field'salleged "renaissance,"see Stephen M. Walt, "The Renaissance of Security
35 (June 1991), pp. 211-39. For JohnHerz's view,see his
StudiesQuarterly
Studies,"International
articles"Rise and Demise of the TerritorialStates," WorldPolitics9 (July1957), pp. 473-93, and
"The TerritorialState Revisited-Reflectionson the Futureof the Nation-State,"Polity1 (Fall
1968),pp. 11-34,inwhichhe elaboratedand modifiedsome ofhisearlierideas. The recentinterest
in the "obsolescence" of war among democracieswas not initiatedby internationalsecurity
specialists-see, forexample,JohnMueller,RetreatfromDoomsday: The Obsolescenceof Major
War(New York: Basic Books, 1989)-though ithas nowattractedseriousattentionfromsome. For
examplessee Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Robert W. Jackman,and Randolph M. Siverson,eds.,
Democracyand ForeignPolicy: Communityand Constraint,special issue, Journalof Conflict
Resolution35 (June 1991). A partial exceptionto my characterizationof the securitystudies
literatureis RobertJarvis,TheMeaningoftheNuclearRevolution(Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity
see
changesand politicaltransformation,
Press,1989). On the historicalrelationbetweenmilitary
ofChicagoPress,1982);and CharlesTilly,
ofPower(Chicago:University
WilliamH. McNeill,ThePursuit
1990).
Mass.:BasilBlackwell,
Capital,andEuropeanStatesAD990-1990(Cambridge,
Coercion,
144 InternationalOrganization
system;that is, at addressingthe question of whetherthe modernsystemof
statesmaybe yieldingin some instancesto postmodernformsof configuring
politicalspace.24We lack even an adequate vocabulary;and whatwe cannot
Geertz's
describe,we cannotexplain.It is thepurposeofthisarticle,in Clifford
apt phrase,to help us "findour feet"in thisterrain,whichis thenecessaryfirst
endeavor,no matterhowhardor softthescience.25
stepof anyscientific
In the next section,I summarizebrieflythe major featuresof the lively
thathas been takingplace in thehumanities.It is
debate about postmodernism
suggestivein manyrespects,but it does not solveour problementirelybecause
themodernstateand systemof statesbarelyfigurein it.The bulkofthisarticle
task:to searchfor
modestand pretheoretical
is devotedto a relatively
therefore
a vocabularyand forthedimensionsofa researchagenda bymeansofwhichwe
can start to ask systematicquestions about the possibilityof fundamental
today. The central attributeof modernityin
internationaltransformation
unique configuration
politicshas been a peculiarand historically
international
thetransformation
of territorial
space. Hence, I shallproceedbyre-examining
space firstcame to be.
ofterritorial
wherebythisconfiguration
The ends ofmodernity
suggestsa periodizinghypothesis,an epochal
The concept of postmodernity
That muchis clear. But,whatis
threshold,the end of "an historicalproject."26
the universeof discourseand practicesto whichit pertains?To thatquestion
numerouspossible answersexist,not all of which are of equal interestfor
presentpurposes.
in the 1970sand 1980s,
firstgainedcurrency
Whentheterm"postmodernity"
itreferredlargelyto recentdevelopmentsin therealmofaestheticsor style:the
nostalgiceclecticismin architecturalforms,the prevalenceof pastiche and
impulse in
abrupt juxtapositionsof imageryin art, the deconstructivist
literature.Simultaneityand superimpositionreplaced sequence; the subject
was decentered,dismembered,and dispersed;and languagewas made to turn
wherethequest formeaning
signification
in on itselfto createa void of infinite
had previouslyunfolded.27In the field of internationalrelations, these
have been symptomaticat best; as Pauline
expressionsof postmodernity
Rosenau has shown,theyare preoccupiedwithstyleand methodand offeronly
limitedsubstantiveinsight.28
to which I returnbelow, is James N.
24. One recent attemptto correctthis shortcoming,
Press,1990).
in WorldPolitics(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversity
Rosenau, Turbulence
ofCultures(New York: Basic Books, 1973),p. 13.
Geertz,TheInterpretation
25. Clifford
26. The termis due to AlbrechtWellmer,"On theDialecticofModernismand Postmodernism,"
4 (January1985),p. 337.
PraxisInternational
27. Ihab Hassan, The PostmodernTurn (Columbus: Ohio State UniversityPress, 1987),
modernfrompostmodern
especiallychap. 4, whichpresentsa widelyused schemadifferentiating
aestheticpractices.
relationsmaybe
28. Attemptsto relatethepostmodernreadingoftextsto issuesin international
Relations
found in James Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro, eds., International/Intertextual
145
Territoriality
It was notlong,however,
beforepostmodernity
cameto be associatednot
merelywithmattersof stylebut witha historicalcondition,indicating,
according
to AndreasHuyssen,
a "slowlyemerging
culturaltransformation
in
Westernsocieties."29
This transformation
concernsthe fateof whatJurgen
Habermascallsthe"project"ofmodernity,
first
formulated
bytheeighteenthoftheEuropeanEnlightenment;
century
philosophers
i.e.,systematic
efforts
"todevelopobjective
science,universal
morality
andlaw,andautonomous
art,
accordingto theirinnerlogic."30
The Enlightenment
was animatedby the
desireto demystify
and secularize,to subjectnaturalforcesto rational
explanation
and control,as well as bythe expectation
thatdoingso would
promote
socialwelfare,
moralprogress,
and humanhappiness.
The optimism,
certitude,
and categorical
fixity
ofthisprojectwereshattered-by
Nietzsche,
Freud,Wittgenstein;
Darwin,Einstein,
Heisenberg;
Braque,Picasso,Duchamp;
Joyce,Proust,Becket;Schoenberg,
Berg,Bartok;twoworldwars,a Great
Depression,Nazi deathcamps,Stalin'sGulags,Hiroshima,
and Nagasakiand celebratedits
longbeforeLyotard,Foucault,and Derridapronounced
demise.
thesubsequent
theterrain
is highculture,
battlebetween"FrankAlthough
furters
has
and Frenchfries,"as RainerNagelehas describedit irreverently,
beenfought
largely
on politicalgrounds.
toholdon
Habermashasendeavored
in orderto completeits project.31
to the intentionsof the Enlightenment
toHuyssen,
Habermas"triestosalvagetheemancipatory
According
potential
ofenlightened
reasonwhichto himis thesinequa non ofpoliticaldemocracy.
Habermasdefendsa substantive
notionof communicative
rationality,
espethatby
ciallyagainstthosewhowillcollapsereasonwithdomination,
believing
ishostile
reasontheyfreethemselves
fromdomination."32
abandoning
Lyotard
"We havepaida highenoughpriceforthenostalgia
ofthe
totheverythought:
let us be
wholeand the one," he shouts."Let us wage a war on totality;
witnessesto the unpresentable;
let us activatethe differences."33
Even
ofhisquest.34
Habermas's
admirers
doubtsabouttheviability
Nevertheexpress
less,the Paul de Man saga,especiallythe shamefuldefenseof de Man by
severalleadingdeconstructivists,
showspoignantly
howdeleterious
thepoliti-
(Lexington,Mass.: Lexington/Heath,
1989). For a sympathetic
yetcriticalreviewofthisliterature,
see Pauline Rosenau, "Once Again into the Fray: InternationalRelations Confrontsthe
Humanities,"Millenium19 (Spring1990),pp. 83-110.
29. AndreasHuyssen,"MappingthePostmodern,"New GermanCritique33 (Fall 1984),p. 8.
30. JurgenHabermas,"Modernityand Postmodernity,"
New GermanCritique22 (Winter1981),
p.9.
31. These are Habermas's terms;see ibid.
32. Huyssen,"Mapping thePostmodern,"p. 31.
33. Jean-FrancoisLyotard,The PostmodemCondition(Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota
Press,1984),pp. 81-82.
34. See Huyssen,"MappingthePostmodern";and MartinJay,"Habermas and Modernism,"in
Richard J. Berstein,ed., Habermas and Modemity(Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), pp.
125-39.
146 InternationalOrganization
cal consequences can be that followfromthe moral vacuum-if not moral
vacuity-the Frenchfrieswould have us inhabit.35
relations
modernprogramsformasteringinternational
The twodistinctively
are deeply implicatedin this projectof modernity:realistbalance-of-power
both of whichhave theiroriginsin the
thinkingand idealistinstitutionalism,
eighteenthcentury.On therealistside,theTreatyofUtrecht(1713) enshrined
equilibriumas a core featureofEuropean society
thenotionofa self-regulating
togetherwiththeidea thatthedefenseofthatequilibriumshouldbe ofconcern
to one and all.36For realisttheoristsof the day,"the sovereignstatesfollowed
theirorderedpaths in a harmonyof mutualattractionand repulsionlike the
On the idealistside,the
law thatswingsplanetsin theirorbits."37
gravitational
plan
eighteenthcenturyopened withtheAbb6 de Saint-Pierre'sinstitutionalist
to secure a "PerpetualPeace," and closed withKant's.38Post-WorldWar II
are but the latest incarnationsof realist
realismand liberal internationalism
and idealistthought,and neither,as I suggestedabove, has muchto say about
today.39
fundamentaltransformation
also has been projectedbeyondthe cultural
The conceptof postmodernity
realm, into the political economy, initiallyby Marxist analysts. Frederic
depicts"the thirdgreat
Jamesonled the way.40For Jameson,postmodernism
originalexpansionof capitalismaroundtheglobe (afterthe earlierexpansions
of thenationalmarketand theolder imperialistsystem)."The productionand
are the raw materialsof this
manipulationof signs,images,and information
new "mode of production"as well as the means by which its expansionis
thatineffect"internalizes":
achieved.Butthisis an expansion,Jamesonsuggests,
just as the BonaventureHotel in Los Angeles or the Eaton Centerin Toronto
seeks to internalizeitsexterior,aspiring"to be a totalspace, a completeworld,
a kindof miniaturecity,"so too does globalcapitalismtodayinternalizewithin
its own institutionalformsrelationshipsthat previouslytook place among
distinctnational capitals. This results in a "postmodernhyperspace,"as
and theFall of Paul de Man (New
35. See David Lehman, Signsof the Times:Deconstruction
York: Poseidon Press,1991).
1713-1783(London: Longmans,1963).
Century,
36. See M.S. Anderson,EuropeintheEighteenth
37. MartinWight,"The Balance of Power and InternationalOrder," in Alan James,ed., The
Press,1973),p. 98.
Bases ofIntemationalOrder(London: OxfordUniversity
Press, 1963),
38. F. H. Hinsley,Powerand thePursuitofPeace (London: CambridgeUniversity
chaps. 2 and 4.
39. In a certainsense, JamesRosenau's recentbook toucheson thisculturalcategoryof the
today,Rosenau
postmodernistdebate. The major drivingforceof internationaltransformation
contends,consistsof new sensibilitiesand capacities of individuals:"withtheiranalyticalskills
street
today'spersons-in-the
moreself-conscious,
enlargedand theirorientationstowardauthority
are no longeras uninvolved,ignorant,and manipulablewithrespectto worldaffairsas were their
prerequisiteforglobal
ofthecapacitiesofcitizensis theprimary
forebears.... [T]he enlargements
in WorldPolitics,pp. 13 and 15.
turbulence."See Rosenau, Turbulence
or theCulturalLogic ofLate Capitalism,"NewLeft
40. See FredericJameson,"Postmodernism,
New LeftReview
1984), pp. 53-92; and "Marxismand Postmodernism,"
Review146 (July/August
1989),pp. 31-45.
176 (July/August
Territoriality147
Jamesontermsit, a heteronomyof fragmentswhich neverthelessremains
unifiedbyvirtueofexpressingthelogicoflate capitalism.41
Severalotherworksof thisgenrehave elaboratedon Jameson'snotionsof a
postmoderncapitalist mode of production and its consequences.42They
resonate at a superficiallevel withthe briefdescriptionof global microeconomic changes at the outset of this article,as well as with the images of
spaceship earth,global warming,nuclear winters,and the like, by means of
whichtheecosphereis popularlyvisualized.But,theyremainsilenton theissue
inlightof
ofthestateand thesystemofstates,whichintheend is notsurprising
framework.
thefactthattheyare cast in a modes-of-production
Nevertheless,theseworksare suggestiveat a deeper level in theiremphasis
on the space-time implosion experienced by advanced capitalist societies.
Harveynotesthat"space and timeare basic categoriesofhumanexistence.Yet
we rarelydebate theirmeanings;we tend to take themforgranted,and give
Ultimately,he contends,
themcommon-senseor self-evidentattributions."43
in capitalistproductionrelationsis merelyone
the currenttransformation
in social space-timeexperiencesto a
specificexpressionof a reconfiguration
degree not witnessedsince the Renaissance. HarveyconcurswithJameson,
however,that"we do not yetpossess the perceptualequipmentto matchthis
new hyperspace,... in partbecause our perceptualhabitswere formedin that
olderkindofspace I have called thespace of highmodernism."44
And so the postmodernistdebate has shiftedin barelytwo decades from
the domain of aesthetics,to culture more broadly,to political economy.
the meaningof "modern"in "postmodern"has shiftedfrom
Correspondingly,
first,to
what it is in modernart,the modernnovel,or modernarchitecture,
the so-called age of Enlightenment;next, to the structureof capitalist
productionrelations;and thento the veryepoch in Westernhistorythatwas
initiatedby the Renaissance. It is the last of these space-timeframesthat
thatproducedthe
concernsme here,because it also marksthe transformation
modern mode of organizingpolitical space: the systemof territorialstates.
However,since no perceptualequipmentexists,as Jamesonremarks,through
41. The quotations are from Jameson, "Postmodernism,or The Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism,"pp. 80 and 81.
(Oxford:
42. The mostcomprehensiveworkis David Harvey,The Conditionof Postmodemity
Basil Blackwell,1989). For a detailedempiricalstudyoftherelationshipbetweenglobalcapitaland
City(Oxford:Basil
of urban spaces, see Manuel Castells, The Informational
the reconfiguration
encounteran inherentcontradiction,to
Blackwell, 1989). Marxisttheoristsof postmodernity
on
borrowtheirterm,by theverynatureof the enterprise.One of the featuresof postmodernity
of producing
whichvirtuallyall otherschoolsof thoughtagree is thatit invalidatesthe possibility
or metarecits,
more fashionably-that"totalizing"and "logocentric"practiceof
metanarratives,
on whichLyotardurgesus to wage war.Of course,fewnarrativesare more"meta" than
modernity
is thata system
Marxism.Jameson'ssomewhatfeebleresponse,in "Marxismand Postmodernism,"
is stilla system.
thatproducesfragments
p. 201.
43. Harvey,TheConditionofPostmodernity,
44. Ibid.
148 InternationalOrganization
which to grasp what he calls "global hyperspace,"I hope to advance our
of internationalpoliticalspace by
understanding
of the possiblerearticulation
lookingforclues to the past to discoverhow the modernpoliticalformitself
was produced.
Modernterritoriality
Historically,the self-conscioususe of the term"modern" to denote "now"
The epochal sense of modernto denote
dates fromthe sixteenthcentury.45
whenthethresholddemarcat"modernity"dates fromtheeighteenthcentury,
ingitsbeginningwas put at roughly1500.46Writingin the eighteenthcentury,
Lord Bolinbrokedefinedan epoch bythechainofeventsbeingso broken"as to
have littleor no real or visibleconnexionwiththatwhichwe see continue....
[T]he end ofthefifteenth
centuryseemsto be just sucha periodas I havebeen
describing,forthosewho live in the eighteenth,and who inhabitthe western
partsofEurope."47
One of the chainsin whichvisibleconnectionto the past was rupturedwas
the organizationof political space. The fact of that ruptureis well enough
known.But,what,if any,categoriesand modes of analysisdoes it suggestfor
the studyof internationaltransformation
more generally?To that,the main
taskofthisarticle,I nowturn.
Differentiation
Let us begin at the very beginning:politics is about rule. Adapting a
formulation
byAnthonyGiddens,we can definethe mostgenericattributeof
of
anysystem ruleas comprising
legitimatedominionovera spatialextension.48
I use the term"spatial extension"advisedly,to drivehome the point that it
need notassumetheformofterritorial
of anyspatial
states.The social facticity
extensionin turnimplies some mode of differentiating
human collectivities
fromone another.By thisI do not mean the progressivestructural
differentiation thatwas long a staple of macrosociologicaltheorizingand whichis now
thoroughlydiscredited.49
Instead, I mean the notion of differentiation
that
JohnLocke had in mind when he asked "how men mightcome to have a
45. RaymondWilliams,"When was Modernism?"New LeftReview175 (May/June1989), pp.
48-52.
46. ReinhartKoselleck,FuturesPast: On the Semanticsof HistoricalTime,trans.Keith Tribe
(Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press,1985),p. 243.
47. Cited in MartinWight,Systemsof States (Leicester, England: Leicester UniversityPress,
1977),p. 111.
48. AnthonyGiddens, A Contemporary
Critiqueof HistoricalMaterialism,vol. 1 (Berkeley:
of CaliforniaPress,1981),p. 45.
University
49. See, for instance,Charles Tilly,Big Structures,
Large Processes,Huge Comparisons(New
York: Russell Sage, 1985).
Territoriality149
propertyin severalparts of thatwhichGod gave to mankindin common."50
There are at least threeways in whichprior or other systemsof rule have
state.
differed
in thisregardfromthemodernterritorial
at all. That is to say,thebasis on
First,systemsof ruleneed notbe territorial
whichthe humanspecies is sociallyindividuatedand individuals,in turn,are
has taken) forms
bound togetherinto collectivitiescan take (and historically
quaintlyused to characFor example,anthropologists
otherthanterritoriality.
terize as "primitivegovernment"those systemsof rule whereinthe spatial
extensionwas demarcatedon the basis of kinship.Moreover,theyheld thata
to
criticalstagein societalevolutionwas preciselythe shiftfromconsanguinity
was occupied
To be sure,territory
contiguity
as therelevantspatialparameter.51
in kin-basedsystems,
but itdid notdefinethem.
fixed.Owen Lattimore's
Second, systemsof rule need not be territorially
work on nomadic propertyrightsis of relevance here.52Writingof Mongol
tribes,Lattimorepointedout thatno singlepasturewouldhave had muchvalue
forthembecause itsoon would havebecome exhausted.Hence, drivenbywhat
Lattimorecalled the "the sovereignimportanceof movement,"the tribes
wandered, herdingtheir livestock.But, they did not wander haphazardly:
"They laid claimto definitepasturesand to the controlof routesof migration
"the rightto move prevailedoverthe
betweenthese pastures."53Accordingly,
rightto camp. Ownershipmeant,in effect,the titleto a cycleof migration."54
The cyclewas triballyowned and administeredbytheprince.
and evenwhereterritorialThird,evenwheresystemsof rule are territorial,
need not entailmutual
fixed,theprevailingconceptof territory
ityis relatively
exclusion.The archetypeofnonexclusiveterritorial
rule,ofcourse,is medieval
Europe, with its "patchwork of overlapping and incomplete rights of
whichwere "inextricably
superimposedand tangled,"and in
government,"55
interwoven
and stratiinstances
were
which"different
geographically
juridical
and
anomalous
enclaves
suzerainties
fied,and pluralallegiances,asymmetrical
50. JohnLocke, "On Property,"in the second of the Two Treatisesof Govemment,sec. 2.25,
Thomas I. Cook, ed. (New York: Hafner,1947), p. 134. Luhman has developed a nonteleological
that I have found useful in which he distinguishesamong
formulationof differentiation
withsegmentationhavingan obvious
and stratification,
functionaldifferentiation,
segmentation,
of Society,trans.StephenHolmes and
temporalpriority.See Niklas Luhman,The Differentiation
Press,1982). I use thetermherein thesense of
CharlesLarmore(New York: ColumbiaUniversity
segmentation.
51. The classic statementof the traditionalanthropologicalview is found in Lewis Henry
Society,firstpublishedin 1877;a reprintededitionwas editedbyEleanor Leacock
Morgan,Ancient
discussion,see JonathanHaas, The
(Gloucester,Mass.: Peter Smith,1963). For a contemporary
Press,1982).
State(New York: ColumbiaUniversity
EvolutionofthePrehistoric
52. See Owen Lattimore'sworksInnerAsian Frontiersof China (London: OxfordUniversity
Press,1962).
History(London: OxfordUniversity
Press,1940) and StudiesinFrontier
p. 535.
History,
53. Lattimore,StudiesinFrontier
ofChina,p. 66.
54. Lattimore,InnerAsianFrontiers
55. JosephR. Strayerand Dana C. Munro, The MiddleAges (New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts,1959), p. 115. See also Joseph R. Strayer,On theMedieval Originsof theModem State
Press,1970),passim.
(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversity
150 InternationalOrganization
abounded."56The differencebetween the medieval and modern worlds is
in thisrespect.57
striking
Brieflyput, the spatial extension of the medieval systemof rule was
in whichauthority
was both
structured
bya nonexclusiveformof territoriality,
personalizedand parcelized withinand across territorialformationsand for
whichinclusivebases of legitimationprevailed.The notionof firmboundary
lines between the major territorialformationsdid not take hold until the
thirteenthcentury;priorto that date, there were only "frontiers,"or large
The medievalrulingclass was mobile in a mannernot
zones of transition.58
dreamedof since,able to assumegovernancefromone end of thecontinentto
formeda
because "public territories
the otherwithouthesitationor difficulty
continuumwithprivateestates."59In this connection,Georges Duby writes,
of HenryPlantagenet:"This was Henry,countof Anjou on his father's
wryly,
side, duke of Normandyon his mother's,duke of Aquitaine by marriage,and
forgood measure-but onlyforgood measure-king ofEngland,althoughthis
was ofno concernto the countryin whichhe spentthebest partof his time."60
In addition,the medievalsystemof rulewas legitimatedbycommonbodies of
law, religion,and custom expressinginclusivenatural rights.Nevertheless,
of the constituent
theseinclusivelegitimations
posed no threatto the integrity
political units because these unitsviewed themselvesas municipalembodiHence the "heteronomousshackles,"
mentsof a universalmoralcommunity.61
in FriedrichMeinecke'swords,on theautonomy-indeed,on theveryabilityof
thinkersto formulatetheconcept-of thestate.62
State(London: New Left
56. The quotationsare fromPerryAnderson,LineagesoftheAbsolutist
Books, 1974),pp. 37 and 37-38, respectively.
at greaterlengthin JohnGerard Ruggie,"Continuityand
57. I have exploredthesedifferences
in the World Polity:Toward a NeorealistSynthesis,"WorldPolitics35 (January
Transformation
1983), pp. 261-85. MarkusFischerhas recentlyclaimed thatI and othertheoristswho findfault
"imply" or "would
with neorealism'sinabilityto capture the phenomenonof transformation
expect" medievallife to have been more harmoniousand less conflictualthan moderninternabacked onlybyFischercitinga
tionalrelations.Certainlyin mycase the claimis entirelyfictitious,
sentencein myarticlethat had nothingto do withthis point and linkingit to what he "would
expect" me to have said. See MarkusFischer,"Feudal Europe, 800-1300: CommunalDiscourse
46 (Spring1992), pp. 427-66; the questionand ConflictualPractices,"IntemationalOrganization
able referenceis citedin hisfootnote12.
58. Accordingto Edouard Perroy,as paraphrasedbyWallerstein,thiswas "the 'fundamental
change' in the political structureof Europe." See Immanuel Wallerstein,The Modem World
vol. 1 (New York: Academic Press,1974), p. 32. An extendeddiscussionof the difference
System,
See also
History.
zones maybe foundin Lattimore,StudiesinFrontier
betweenbordersand frontier
WorldPolitics34 (October
FriedrichKratochwil,"Of Systems,Boundaries and Territoriality,"
1986),pp. 27-52.
State,p. 32.
59. Anderson,LineagesoftheAbsolutist
60. Georges Duby, The ThreeOrders:Feudal SocietyImagined,trans. ArthurGoldhammer
of Chicago Press,1980),p. 286.
(Chicago: University
RenaissanceDiplomacy(Baltimore,Md.: PenguinBooks, 1964),p. 41 and
61. GarrettMattingly,
passim.
62. Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellism,trans. Douglas Scott (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
to thebook,
to MeineckebyScottin hisintroduction
Press,1957). The termis attributed
University
whichwas firstpublishedin 1924.
Territoriality151
The antonymof Meinecke's term is "homonomous."63The distinctive
signatureof the modern-homonomous-variant of structuringterritorial
space is thefamiliarworldofterritorially
disjoint,mutuallyexclusive,functionallysimilar,sovereignstates.
The chief characteristicof the modern systemof territorialrule is the
consolidationof all parcelized and personalized authorityinto one public
realm. This consolidationentailed two fundamentalspatial demarcations:
betweenpublicand privaterealmsand betweeninternaland externalrealms.64
The publicspherewas constitutedbythemonopolizationon thepartofcentral
authoritiesof the legitimateuse of force.Internally,thismonopolizationwas
expressedthroughthe progressiveimpositionof what was called the "king's
peace," or the sole rightof the king'sauthority
to enforcethelaw. As Norbert
Elias notes,thisidea was "verynovel in a societyin whichoriginallya whole
class of people could use weapons and physicalviolence accordingto their
meansand inclinations."65
themonopolizationofthelegitimateuse
Externally,
offorcewas expressedin thesovereignrightto makewar.PhilippeContamine
has put itwell: "' The king'swar' and 'the kingdom'swar' must,in the end, be
identical."66
Finally,theinclusivebases oflegitimation
thathad prevailedinthe
medievalworld,articulatedin divineand naturallaw,yieldedto thedoctrineof
andjus gentiumslowlygavewaytojus intergentes.
sovereignty,
To summarize,politics is about rule. And, the distinctivefeatureof the
modernsystemof rule is thatit has differentiated
its subjectcollectivity
into
territorially
defined,fixed, and mutuallyexclusive enclaves of legitimate
dominion.As such, it appears to be unique in human history.67
Withoutthe
63. The term "heteronomous"refersto systemswhereinthe parts are subject to different
biologicallaws or modesof growthand "homonomous"to systemswhereintheyare subjectto the
same laws or modes of growth;see The OxfordEnglishDictionary,
2d ed. s.v."heteronomous"and
"homonomous."In the original,biologicalsense of the terms,the fingerson a hand would exhibit
homonomous growth-for a current internationalrelations meaning, read "all states are
functionally
alike"-and the heartand hands of the same bodyheteronomousgrowth-read "all
statesare functionally
different."
64. Accordingto PerryAnderson,"the age in which'Absolutist'public authority
was imposed
was progressively
was also simultaneously
theage inwhich'absolute'privateproperty
consolidated";
see Anderson,LineagesoftheAbsolutist
State,p. 429. Eric Jonesreachesa similarconclusionvia a
different
route:"Productiveactivitiesthathad been subjectto collectivecontrolswere becoming
individualized.This is a staple of the textbooks.But thatEurope movedfromthe guildsand the
The missing
halfis thatjustwhenproduction
was
commonfieldstowardlaissez-faire
is onlyhalfthestory.
becomingfullyprivatised,
serviceswere becomingmoreof a collectiveconcern,or wheretheywere
alreadycommunal,nowthegovernment
was beinginvolved."See E. L. Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle.
Environments,
Economics,and Geopolitics
in theHistory
of Europeand Asia (Cambridge:Cambridge
to theprovision
ofsuchservicesas internal
University
Press,1981),p. 147.Jonesis referring
pacification,
internal
colonization
ofuncultivated
lands,disastermanagement,
and thelike.The gradualdifferentiathelensofchanging
tionbetweeninternal
andexternal,
as seenthrough
normsandpractices
ofdiplomatic
inRenaissance
representation,
is portrayed
brilliantly
byMattingly
Diplomacy.
65. NorbertElias, Powerand Civility
(New York: Pantheon,1983),p. 202.
66. Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones (New York: Basil
Blackwell,1984),p. 169.
67. For a sophisticatedsurvey,see Robert David Sack, Human Teritoriality:
Its Theoryand
History(New York: CambridgeUniversity
Press,1986).
152 InternationalOrganization
concept of differentiation,
then, it is impossibleto define the structureof
modernityin internationalpolitics-modes of differentiation
are nothingless
thanthefocusoftheepochal studyofrule.Hence thesupremeironyofWaltz's
continuedinsistencethatthedimensionofdifferentiation
"dropsout" fromthe
neorealistmodelof international
structure.68
The obviousnextissue to addressis howone accountsforthispeculiarform
of sociopoliticalindividuation.
Now,providingan accountof thingsin contemporaryinternational
relationsresearchtypically
means specifying
theircauses.
That in turn requires that we have a theory-in this case, a theoryof
international
transformation.
But we have no suchtheory.As I havesuggested,
we can barelyevendescribetransformation
in theinternational
polity.Hence, I
mean somethingfarless ambitiousby the phrase "providingan account of."
The modern systemof states is socially constructed.The issue I mean to
addressis simplywhatwere the rawmaterialsthatpeople used and drewupon
in constructing
it? I findthatdevelopmentsin threedimensionsof European
collectiveexperiencewere particularly
salient,and thatthe threedimensions
are irreducibleto one another: namely, material environments,strategic
behavior,and social epistemology.
Material environments
The studyof thelonguedureehas become a special provinceof theAnnales
school of historiography.69
The startingpointof theAnnales approach is the
of human collectivities,
dimension
on the premisethat it
"ecodemographic"
poses thebiggestlong-term
It thenmoveson to
challengeforsocial structures.
variousconstructed
and patternsofroutinesocial practices.Ifwe
environments
wereto viewtheemergenceofthemodernmode ofstructuring
territorial
space
fromthe vantagepointof thisperspective,what sortsof developmentswould
catchour eye?
Consider the materialside of life throughoutthe thirteenthand into the
fourteenthcentury:human ecology, the relations of production,and the
relationsof force.Climatologically,
the earlyphase of the period remained
favoredbythe so-calledlittleoptimumof the earlyMiddle Ages.70Population
grew markedly.Land clearing, draining,and diking progressed rapidly,
increasingthe size of the cultivatedarea and breakingdown barriersto
68. Waltz,inexplicably,
viewsthe differentiation
of a collectivity
intoits constituentunitsto be
an attributeof the units ratherthan of the collectivity.
His originalargumentis in Theoryof
IntemationalPolitics,chap. 5; and a defense of his position can be found in Kenneth Waltz,
"Reflectionson Theory
Politics:A Response to My Critics,"in Robert0. Keohane,
ofIntemational
ed., Neorealismand Its Critics(New York: ColumbiaUniversity
Press,1986).
69. The exemplarofthisschool,ofcourse,is FernandBraudel; hisgeneralapproachis discussed
in Braudel,On History,
trans.Sarah Matthews(Chicago: University
ofChicago Press,1980).
70. David Herlihy,"Ecological Conditionsand DemographicChange,"in RichardL. De Molen,
ed., One ThousandYears:WestemEuropein theMiddleAges (Boston: HoughtonMifflin,
1974), p.
13. See also EmmanuelLe Roy Ladurie's classicstudy,TimesofFeast,TimesofFamine:A History
of
ClimateSincetheYear1000,trans.Barbara Bray(Garden City,N.Y.: Doubleday,1971).
Territoriality153
communicationwithinterritorialformationswhile expandingtheirexternal
frontiers.7'
Althoughthe overwhelming
proportionof the populationcontinued to livein ruralareas,medievalcitiesgrew,and some (Milan, Paris,Venice)
mayhave reached 150,000inhabitants.72
A sustainedeconomicexpansiontook place as well. Productivity
increased;
more and moregoods were producedforsale or exchange;and trade revived,
in staples.That last pointis crucial.
notmerelyin luxurygoods butincreasingly
In thewordsof Eric Jones,"the peculiaritiesof European tradearose because
of the opportunitiesof the environment.Climate, geologyand soils varied
greatlyfromplace to place. The portfolioof resourceswas extensive,but not
everything
was found in the same place."73 Moreover, economic relations
became increasinglymonetized,and developmentsin "invisibles,"including
the greatfairs,shipping,insurance,and financialservices,furtherlubricated
commerceand helped to createa European-widemarket.74
In therealmofforce,thefeudalcavalrywas comingto be underminedbythe
longbow,pike, and crossbowand the feudal castle,subsequently,bygunpowder.75The monetizationof economicrelations,togetherwiththe commutation
rulersto
offeudalservicesintomoneypayments,
made itpossibleforterritorial
retainmercenaries.Generatingrevenuethroughtaxationaugmentedthetrend
toward standingarmies. The more effectiveinternalpacificationproduced
therebyprovided a more secure economic environment,
which in turn increasedbothprivateand publicreturns.76
Nevertheless,territorially
defined,territorially
fixed,and mutuallyexclusive
state formationsdid not emerge at thispoint. It was not that simple.What
happened instead was that this period of expansionand diversification
was
arrestedsuddenlyand ferociouslyin the mid-fourteenth
century.Famines,
wars,and plagues decimatedthe populationof Europe, reducingit by at least
one-thirdand probablymore. Entire localities disappeared; deserted lands
revertedto heathsand swamps.The economywentintoa deep and seemingly
permanentdepressionand pillaging,robbing,and civilunrestagain became
endemic. Recovery did not returnuntil the second half of the fifteenth
century.77
71. Jones,The EuropeanMiracle,chap. 4.
72. According to Herlihy,even in the most densely populated areas, northernItaly and
Flanders,threeout of fourpeople continuedto live in the countryside;
elsewherethisproportion
was roughlynineout often.See Herlihy,"Ecological Conditionsand DemographicChange,"p. 30.
For a moreelaboratediscussionofthestructures
and functionsoftownsin premodernEurope, see
Paul M. Hohenbergand LynnHollen Lees, TheMakingof UrbanEurope,1000-1950 (Cambridge,
Mass.: HarvardUniversity
Press,1985),chaps. 1-3.
73. Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle,p. 90.
74. See ibid, chap. 5; Herlihy,"Ecological Conditionsand DemographicChange"; and Elias,
Elias explorestheimportanceofmonetizationnotonlyforeconomicbutalso for
Powerand Civility.
politicaldevelopment.
75. McNeill,ThePursuitofPower,chap. 3.
76. See ibid.;Elias, Powerand Civility;
and Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle,chap. 7.
77. Surelythe mostreadable accountof thisperiod is Barbara Tuchman,A DistantMirror:The
Calamitous14thCentury(New York: Ballantine,1978). For a standardhistory,see Denys Hays,
2d ed. (London: Longman,1989).
Europein theFourteenth
and Fifteenth
Centuries,
154 InternationalOrganization
These changes in the materialworld,both positiveand negative,were so
profound,however,thatexistingsocial arrangements
werestrainedto thepoint
ofcollapse.
Strategicbehavior
fromthe thirteenthto the
Indeed, economic growthand diversification
limitswell beforetheywere
fourteenth
centuryhad encounteredinstitutional
snuffedout by the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War. These limits
included the feudal structureof propertyrightsand formsof labor control;
inadequate investment,especially in agriculture;the maze of secular and
thatpervadedmedievalsociety;and the
ecclesiasticaljurisdictionalconstraints
of territorialrulers.One way to
sociallyparasiticnature of the multiplicity
characterizethe impact of the material changes discussed above on the
orderis to saythattheyalteredthematrixofconstraints
prevailinginstitutional
forsocial actors,givingriseto different
situationsofstrategic
and opportunities
interactionamong them. This is the subject matterof the "new economic
history."78
Considerthefollowingillustrations.
First,the drasticdemographicdeclines of the fourteenthcenturyaffected
relativefactorprices,favoringagriculturalworkersand industrialproducers
whiledisadvantaging
theland-owningclass-the verybasis offeudalsociety.
calamities created
Second, as Jones has argued, the fourteenth-century
opportunitiesfor"entrepreneurialpoliticians"to prove theirsocial utilityby
providinga varietyof social services,rangingfromdisaster reliefto more
fortheconductofcommerce.Accordingto
effective
institutional
arrangements
to
the
forces
institutional
Jones,
favoring
changerespondedmoreimaginatively
thecalamitiesthantheforcesthatsoughtto impedeit.79
A third example involves the relationshipbetween medieval juridical
authoritiesand thetradefairs-a relationshipthatin some respectsresembles
thatbetweenthe transnationaleconomyand nationaljurisdictionstoday.The
medievaltrade fairswere encouragedby local lords; some took place onlya
stone's throwfromthe feudal castle. The fairswere favoredfor the simple
reason that theygeneratedrevenue. In the case of the famousChampagne
fairs,0. Verlinden writes that revenues were gained from"taxes on the
78. For the purposes of the presentdiscussion,the pathbreakingwork is the briefbook by
Douglass C. North and Robert Paul Thomas, The Rise of the WesternWorld:A New Economic
History(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
Press,1973).
79. See Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle,chap. 7. Perhapsthedrollestillustration
citedbyJones,but
nonethelessa significant
one, actuallycomes froma later century,
when the AustrianHapsburgs
builta cordonsanitairesome 1,000mileslong,promisingto shutout theplague thatpersistedin the
Ottoman empire. Their feat had little epidemiologicaleffect,but it called forthconsiderable
administrative
effortand social mobilizationand contributed,
thereby,to statebuilding.Douglass
North and his colleagues have produced a fascinatingformulationof the process whereby
innovationsin contractswere createdand enforced;see Paul R. Milgrom,Douglass C. North,and
in the RevivalofTrade: The Law Merchant,Private
BarryR. Weingast,"The Role of Institutions
Judges,and the ChampagneFairs,"Economicsand Politics2 (March 1990),pp. 1-23.
Territoriality155
residencesand stallsof the merchants,entryand exittolls,levieson sales and
purchases,dues upon weightsand measures,justice and safe-conductcharges
upon the Italians and Jews."80Moreover,local lords at any time could have
closed down a fair in theirdomain-much as states today can close down
offshoremarketsor even shootdowncommunicationsatellites-thoughother
lords in otherplaces probablywould have been onlytoo pleased to provide
alternativessites.
In no sense could the medievaltrade fairshave become substitutsforthe
to the demise
institutions
offeudalrule.Yet, thefairscontributedsignificantly
of feudal authorityrelations. They did so because the new wealth they
of economictransactionstheygenerated,the
produced,the new instruments
new ethos of commercetheyspread, the new regulatoryarrangementsthey
required,and the expansion of cognitivehorizonstheyeffectedall helped
underminethe personalisticties and the modes of reasoningon whichfeudal
rested.As MarvinBecker has put it,the medievaltradefairswere a
authority
Like
place in which"the exchangesystemwas freedfromrulesand rituals."'81
the exchange system,the systemof governance also ultimatelybecame
unraveled.Once momentumshiftedfromfairsto towns,greaterinstitutional
did come to existbecause, in the wordsof a medievalmaxim,
substitutability
"Town air brings freedom"-that is to say, the towns actually exercised
jurisdictionoverand evokedthe allegianceoftheirnew inhabitants.82
HendrikSpruytrecentlyhas shownthattheerosionofthe
Fourthand finally,
medievalsystemofrule,thegrowthoftrade,and theriseofthetownstriggered
new coalitional possibilitiesamong kings,the aristocracy,and the towns.
Indeed, Spruytexplainsthe patternin politicalformsthatsucceeded medieval
rule-territorialstates in some places, city-statesin others,and city-leagues
In short,
elsewherestill-by the specificnatureofthe coalitionsthatformed.83
strainedthe
the exogenous shocks of the fourteenthcenturyfundamentally
existingsocial orderand createda newmatrixof constraintsand opportunities
forsocial actors.
Some of the new economichistorianswant to go further,
however,to imply
80. 0. Verlinden, "Markets and Fairs," CambridgeEconomic Historyof Europe, vol. 3
Press,1963),p. 127. Verlindenalso pointsout anotherpossible
(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
centuryonwards,
analogue to thepresentsituation,namelythat"fromthemiddleof thethirteenth
[in the fairs] begins to take precedence over trade" (see p. 133). Also see
money-changing
Robert-HenriBautier, The Economic Developmentof MedievalEurope, trans.Heather Karolyi
1971),chap. 4.
(London: HarcourtBrace Jovanovich,
(Bloomington:Indiana Univerand Creativity
81. MarvinB. Becker,MedievalItaly:Constraints
sityPress, 1981), p. 15. See also the excellentreviewarticleof Becker's book byJanetColeman,
28 (October
StudyofSocietyand History
"The CivicCultureof Contractsand Credit,"Comparative
1986),pp. 778-84.
82. The originalquotationis "Stadtluftmachtfrei,"and is foundin FritzRorig,TheMedieval
of CaliforniaPress,1967),p. 27. See also JacquesLe Goff,"The Town
Town(Berkeley:University
as an Agentof Civilization,"in Carlo M. Cipolla, ed. TheMiddleAges (London: HarvesterPress,
1976).
83. Hendrik Spruyt,"The Sovereign State and Its Competitors:An Analysis of Systems
of California,San Diego, 1991.
Change,"Ph.D. diss.,DepartmentofPoliticalScience,University
156 InternationalOrganization
fromthisprocessbecause the
thatthemodernsystemof statesresulteddirectly
units
thatwas requiredto provide
staterepresentedtheoptimalsize ofpolitical
units simply"had to
security.
Smaller
propertyrightsand physical
efficient
In the economicrealm,
grow,"Douglass Northand RobertThomas contend.84
thisdriveforjuridicalexpansionis said to have come,on thedemandside,from
a desire for efficientpropertyrights,which would reduce the discrepancy
betweenprivateand social ratesof return.On the supplyside, expansion,they
In the
argue,was drivenby the fiscalinterestsof rulersforhigherrevenues.85
the
in
to
offense
and
a
shift
advantage
new
technology
weapons
securityrealm,
allegedly drove the desire for larger and fiscallymore capable political
formations.86
determinedinthismanner
The theorythatthemodernstatewas functionally
value is severely
First,its retrodictive
has at least two serious shortcomings.
monarchiesemergedin thewest,to be sure;butcity-states
limited:centralizing
were consolidatingin Italy and principalitiesas well as city-leaguesin
Germany,thuspreventingtheirformationintolarger(and by the logic of the
new economichistory,presumablymore efficient)politicalunits.Meanwhile,
easternEurope merelysankback intothesomnambulanceof anotherroundof
twoothersuccessorformsto the
serfdom.Moreover,as Spruytdemonstrates,
medieval systemof rule, the Italian city-statesand the Hanse, in factwere
state,fullyable to levytaxes and
viable politicalalternativesto the territorial
In social life,twocenturiesis
raisearmies,forthebetterpartoftwocenturies.87
no meretimelag.
Second, there is a substantiallogical and empirical gap between the
existenceof some functionalpressurefor political units to grow,and their
fixed,
intoa systemof territorially
defined,territorially
blossomingspecifically
of the
To assertthatthe specificities
and mutuallyexclusivestateformations.
modern state systemalso were functionallydeterminedentails a claim of
staggeringhistoricaland intellectualproportions,which the new economic
cannotvindicate.We shallnow see why.
history
World,p. 17.
84. Northand Thomas,TheRiseoftheWestern
85. See ibid; and Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle.
86. See McNeill,ThePursuitofPower.
87. For a more elaborate summaryof prevailingpatternsof state forms,see Charles Tilly,
"Reflectionson the Historyof European State-making,"in Charles Tilly,ed., The Formationof
Press,1975),pp. 3-83. Tilly
NationalStatesin WestemEurope(Princeton,N.J.:PrinstonUniversity
pointsout a methodologicalproblemthat the "new economic historians"gloss over: there are
ofEuropean statebuilding."The disproportionate
manymorefailuresthansuccessesin thehistory
of successand failureputsus in theunpleasantsituationof dealingwithan experience
distribution
inwhichmostof thecases are negative,whileonlythepositivecases are well-documented"(p. 39).
Tilly exploresa greatervarietyof state-buildingexperiencesin his most recentwork,Coercion,
Capital, and European States,AD 990-1990. Spruyt'smethodologicalcritique is even more
damning,however.He pointsout thatbecause successorformsto themedievalsystemofruleother
excludedfromconsideration,thereis no fundamenthanterritorial
stateshavebeen systematically
side in theoriesof statebuilding.See Spruyt,"The
tal variationin unitson the dependent-variable
SoverignState and itsCompetitors."
Territoriality157
Social epistemes
Michael Walzer pointsthe way."The state,"he once wrote,"is invisible;it
mustbe personifiedbeforeit can be seen, symbolizedbeforeit can be loved,
imaginedbefore it can be conceived."88The process wherebya societyfirst
comesto imagineitself,to conceiveofappropriateordersofruleand exchange,
to symbolizeidentities,and to propagate norms and doctrinesis neither
materiallydetermined,as vulgarMarxistsused to claim,norsimplya matterof
would have it.
instrumental
rationality,
as theirrepressible
utilitarians
Germansocial theoristsin a line fromMax Weber to JurgenHabermashave
In the French
viewedsocietyas comprising
webs of meaningand signification.
fromDurkheimto Foucault,therehas been a continuingexploration
tradition,
of mentalitescollectives.
No singleconceptcapturesboth sets of concerns,the
For lack of a betterterm,I
one beingmoresemiotic,theothermorestructural.
shall referto theircombinationas expressingthe "epistemic" dimensionof
of its constituentelementsas a
social life,and to anyprevailingconfiguration
"social episteme."89The demiseof the medievalsystemof rule and the rise of
in social epistemology.
Put
the modernresultedin partfroma transformation
simply,the mental equipment that people drew upon in imaginingand
formsofpoliticalcommunity
itselfunderwentfundamental
change.
symbolizing
At the doctrinallevel, studentsof internationallaw and organizationhave
of the novel religious
long noted the impact on the concept of sovereignty
whichplaced thechoicebetweenProtestantism
principlecujusregioejusreligio,
and Catholicismin the hands of local rulers,and the correspondingsecular
principleRex in regnosuo est Imperatorregnisui, which stipulatedthat the
rulersin theirdomainswas identicalto thatof
politicalstandingof territorial
theEmperorin his.90SirErnestBarkerexclaimedthatin thesetwophrases"we
of the
mayhear thecrackingof the Middle Ages."91Moreover,the rediscovery
conceptof absolute and exclusiveprivatepropertyfromRoman law no doubt
theconceptof absoluteand exclusivesovereignty.92
aided in formulating
historiansof politicalthought
At the deeper level of politicalmetaphysics,
have long noted the impact on the emergingself-imageheld by European
territorial
rulersof a newmodelofsocial order:a viewof societyas a collection
88. Michael Walzer, "On the Role of Symbolismin Political Thought," Political Science
82 (June1967),p. 194.
Quarterly
89. Withdue apologies,I adapt thelattertermfromMichelFoucault,TheOrderof Things(New
York: Random House, 1970).
90. See, forexample,Leo Gross,"The Peace ofWestphalia,1648-1948,"in RichardA. Falk and
Law and Organization(Philadelphia, Penn.: Lippincott,
WolframHanrieder,eds., International
and the RelationsbetweenStates,"Journal
1968); and F. H. Hinsley,"The Conceptof Sovereignty
vol. 21, no. 2, 1967,pp. 242-52.
ofInternational
Affairs,
91. Cited byGross,"The Peace ofWestphalia,"pp. 56-57.
92. Berkiwritesthat" 'private'. . . refersnotso muchto the natureof the entitythatowns,but
theexclusionofothers
to the factthatit is an entity,a unitwhose ownershipof nature... signifies
fromthisownership."See R. N. Berki,"On MarxianThoughtand the Problemof International
Relations," WorldPolitics24 (October 1971), pp. 80-105. On the relationshipbetween private
in theWorldPolity."
see Ruggie,"Continuityand Transformation
propertyand sovereignty,
158 InternationalOrganization
in a fieldof forcesenergized
of atomisticand autonomousbodies-in-motion
solelyby scarcityand ambition.This is a viewwithinwhichsuch distinctively
modern theoristsas Machiavelli and subsequentlyHobbes framed their
thinking.93
It maybe possible to claim,thoughI thinkhard to vindicate,thatboth the
doctrinaland perhaps even the metaphysicalchanges were determinedby
considerations,to use the more clinical
power and greed,or by "efficiency"
term favored in the literaturetoday. However, the new formsof spatial
on which the novel political doctrinesand metaphysicswere
differentiation
politicalexpressionsmirrored
constructedare anothermatter:theirspecifically
in social epistemologythat reached well
a much broader transformation
beyondthedomainsofpoliticaland economiclife.
Consider,forexample,analogouschangesin thelinguisticrealm,suchas the
growinguse of vernaculars,and the comingto dominanceof the "I-form"of
speech-which Franz Borkenau describedas "the sharpestcontradistinction
betweenI and you,betweenme and theworld."94Consideranalogouschanges
and
in interpersonalsensibilities,as in new notionsof individualsubjectivity
new meaningsof personal delicacyand shame. These changes,among other
of households,frompalaces to manor
effects,led to a spatial reconfiguration
houses to the dwellingsof the urban well-to-do,which more rigorously
demarcatedand separatedprivatefrompublicspheresand functions.95
93. See Walzer,"On the Role of Symbolismin PoliticalThought";Sheldon Wolin,Politicsand
Vision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960); C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theoryof Possessive
Press,1962); and J.G. A. Pocock, TheMachiavellian
Individualism(New York: OxfordUniversity
Press,1975).
Moment(Princeton,N.J.;PrincetonUniversity
94. On the use of vernacular,see Lucien Febvre and Henri-JeanMartin,The Comingof the
Nowell-Smithand David Wootton,eds. (London: Verso,
Book, trans.David Gerard,and Geoffrey
statisticson books in printby subjectand
1984), especiallychapter8, whichcontainsinteresting
of
On theGenerations
language.On the I-formof speech,see Franz Borkenau,End and Beginning:
and theOriginsoftheWest,RichardLowenthal,ed. (New York: ColumbiaUniversity
Press,
Cultures
1981).
95. Changingsensibilitiesare illustratedand analyzedat lengthbyNorbertElias, The Civilizing
Process (New York: Urizen Books, 1978). To illustrateonlyone aspect of medieval household
century,considerthe followingexcerptsfromTuchman,A
organizationas late as the fourteenth
Distant Mirror:"Even kings and popes received ambassadors sittingon beds furnishedwith
elaborate curtainsand spreads" (p. 161); "Even in greaterhomes guestsslept in the same room
withhostand hostess"(p. 161), and oftenservantsand childrendid too (p. 39); "Never was man
less alone.... Except for hermitsand recluses,privacywas unknown"(p. 39). See also David
Herlihy,MedievalHouseholds(Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress, 1985); and Georges
Duby, ed., A Historyof PrivateLife, vol. 2, Revelationsof the Medieval World,trans. Arthur
Goldhammer(Cambridge,Mass.: Belknap,1988). Martinesdocumentsthat"Francesco di Giorgio
Martini(1439-1502)-the Sienese engineer,architect,painter,sculptor,and writer-was one of
witha
thefirstobserversto urgethatthehousesof merchantsand smalltradesmenbe constructed
clean separationbetweentheroomsintendedforfamilyuse and thosefortheconductofbusiness."
in RenaissanceItaly(New York: Vintage
See Lauro Martines,Powerand Imagination:City-States
betweenpersonand officealso evolvedduringthis
Books, 1979),p. 271. Finally,thedifferentiation
thatone humanbeingcould separatelybe botha human
period.As Strongnotes,"the possibility
being and a king-a notionon whichour conceptionof officedepends-is firstelaborated by
betweennaturaland artificial
beingsin theLeviathan."See TracyStrong,
Hobbes in hisdistinction
"DramaturgicalDiscourse and PoliticalEnactments:Toward an ArtisticFoundationforPolitical
Consciousness,and History(New
Space," in StanleyLyman and Richard Brown,eds., Structure,
Press,1974),p. 240.
York: CambridgeUniversity
Territoriality159
Arguably,the singlemostimportantof those developmentsoccurredin the
visual arts:the inventionof single-point
perspective.Previousvisualrepresentationexhibitedtwospatialcharacteristics.
First,artistsrenderedtheirsubjects
fromdifferent
sides and angles "ratherthanfroma single,overallvantage."96
Second, variationin figurescale was determinedby the symbolicor social
importanceof the person or object representedand "not by any principleof
As Harold Osborne explains,in single-pointperspective
optical inversion."97
(the inventionof which is generallycreditedto Filippo Brunelleschiabout
1425) "the pictorialsurfaceis regardedas a transparent
verticalscreen,placed
betweentheartistand his subject,on whichhe tracestheoutlines[ofthevisual
"98 The corollaryto the fixed
field]as theyappearfroma singlefixedviewpoint.
viewpoint,fromwhichtheworldis seen,is thehorizonvanishingpoint,at which
objectsrecede out ofview.
By virtueof this development,precisionand perspectivebecame prized;
Brunelleschi,for example, also made major contributionsto optics and
But of greatestsignificance
is the factthatthiswas precisionand
cartography.
perspectivefroma particularpointof view: a singlepointofview,the pointof
fromwhichall othersubjectivities
were differentiviewof a singlesubjectivity,
were plottedin diminishing
size
ated and againstwhichall othersubjectivities
and depthtowardthevanishingpoint.
If thereis one commonelementin thevariousexpressionsof differentiation
thatwe have been discussing,thisnovel perspectivalformsurelyis it. Every
civilizationtendsto have itsownparticularperspective,Edgertonconcludesin
his classicstudy,itsown dominantsymbolicformforconceivingand perceiving
space, and single-point perspective "was the peculiar answer of the
Renaissance."99What was true in the visual artswas equally true in politics:
politicalspace came to be definedas it appearedfroma singlefixedviewpoint.
The conceptof sovereignty,
then,was merelythe doctrinalcounterpartof the
applicationof single-pointperspectivalformsto the spatial organizationof
politics.'00
in thespatialorganizationofpoliticswas so profoundThis transformation
literallymind-boggling-thatcontemporarieshad great difficulty
graspingits
forexample,recountsthe
fullimplicationsformanyyearsto come. Mattingly,
(New York: Basic
ofLinearPerspective
96. Samuel Y. Edgerton,Jr.,TheRenaissanceRediscovery
Books, 1975),p. 9.
ofPictorialSpace (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1987),p. 103.
97. JohnWhite,TheBirthand Rebirth
98. Harold Osborne,OxfordCompaniontoArt(New York: OxfordUniversityPress, 1970), p.
840,emphasisadded.
ofLinearPerspective,
p. 158.
99. Edgerton,TheRenaissanceRediscovery
100. Marshall McLuhan made several offhandremarksin The GutenbergGalaxy (Toronto:
of TorontoPress, 1962) about an alleged parallelbetweensingle-point
perspectiveand
University
however.
Moreover,he
byseveralcenturies,
nationalism.
He thereby
misdatedtheadventofnationalism
impactof
itscause to thecognitive
was lessconcernedwithdeveloping
theparallelthanwithattributing
the medium of movable print. Nevertheless,I have found McLuhan's thinkingenormously
suggestive.The relationshipbetweenchangingperspectivalformsand the organizationof cities
in the literature;see, amongotherworks,Martines,Powerand
and townsis exploredextensively
Imagination;and Giulio C. Argan,TheRenaissanceCity(New York: George Braziller,1969).
160 InternationalOrganization
efforts
of FrancisI as late as 1547 to reformthe apparatusof the Frenchstate
d'Etat at four.Ratherthanseparatingtheir
byfixingthe numberofsecretaires
duties accordingto the logical distinction,by modern standards,between
domesticand foreignrelations,each of the fourwas assignedone quadrantof
Franceand therelationswithall contiguousand outlyingstates.10'
To conclude,materialchangesmayhave awakenedbotha need and a desire
in theprevailingsocial episteme,whichproduced
forthisbroad transformation
rulerscould and did try
new spatialforms.And entrepreneurial
fundamentally
to exploitthosenew imagesand ideas to advance theirinterests.Nevertheless,
the breadthand depthof these changesargue,at the veryleast, in favorof a
Walzer has put itwell:
relativeautonomyforthe realmof social epistemology.
does notbyitselfcreateunity(thatis thefunctionofpolitical
"If symbolization
it does createunits-unitsof discourse
practiceas well as of symbolicactivity),
and doing,unitsoffeelingaroundwhich
whichare fundamentalto all thinking
emotionsofloyaltyand assurancecan cluster."'102
I turnnextto the domain of social practice,whereinthe new
Accordingly,
unitywas achieved. I highlighttwo aspects of it in particular:the process of
rule;and
whichfacilitatedtheconsolidationofterritorial
social empowerment,
whichmade it possible forthe new
the processof "unbundling"territoriality,
territorialstates,who viewed their individualsubjectivityas constitutinga
moraland politicalfield,to forma societyofstates.
self-sufficient
Social empowerment
The disarticulationof the medieval systemof rule meant that parametric
conditionswould have to be fixedat threelevels in the newlyformedsocial
the territorial
formation,
aggregationsof power:the domesticsocial structure,
of territorial
units.In each case, the relativesuccess of the
and the collectivity
contendingpartieswas shaped notsimplybythematerialpowertheypossessed
that
or the intereststheypursuedbut also bya processof social empowerment
of social epistemes.I focusbelow on the
reflectedthe ongoingtransformation
stateand itscollectivity.103
territorial
101. Mattingly,
RenaissanceDiplomacy,p. 195.
102. Walzer,"On theRole of Symbolismin PoliticalThought,"pp. 194-95,emphasisoriginal.
103. For a richand provocativediscussionof the processof social empowermentdomestically,
see Albert0. Hirschman,ThePassionsand theInterests:
PoliticalArguments
forCapitalismBeforeIts
Triumph(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversity
Press,1977). As Hirschmanputsit: "Weber claims
that capitalistbehaviorand activitieswere the indirect(and originallyunintended)resultof a
desperatesearchforindividualsalvation.My claim is that the diffusionof capitalistformsowed
muchto an equallydesperatesearchfora wayofavoidingsociety'sruin,permanently
threatening
at
the timebecause of precariousarrangements
forinternaland externalorder" (p. 130, emphasis
original).Thus, accordingto Hirschman,the ultimatesocial power of the bourgeoisiebenefited
froma shiftin social values wherebycommercebecame socially more highlyregarded-not
because of any perceivedintrinsicmeritor interestin commercebut forthe disciplineand the
restraintit was thoughtto impose on social behaviorin a period of severe turbulenceand grave
Ethicand theSpirit
trans.TalcottParsons(New
Cf.MaxWeber,TheProtestant
uncertainty.
ofCapitalism,
Territoriality161
At thelevelofterritorial
stateformations,
thekeyparametricconditionto be
fixedwas preciselywherein society(i.e., aroundwhichpoweraggregation)the
rightto rule would crystallize.Let us returnfor a momentto the western
European monarchiesaroundthemiddleof thefifteenth
century.Theirfuture
looked bleak. In Castile,whose kingsometimesclaimedthe titleEmperor,the
crownwas amongthe weakestin all of Europe; the townswere dominant.In
Aragon, the towns were weak and the nobilitywas in control,pledging
allegianceto theirkingwiththisunimpressiveoath: "We, who are as good as
you,swear to you,who are no betterthanwe, to accept you as our kingand
sovereignlord, providedyou observe all our libertiesand laws: but if not,
In France,themonarchyhad to be saved in 1429bya farmer'sdaughter
not."'104
who was guided in her quest byvisionsand voices from"higher"sources;but
not even thatintervention
helped, and when the Hundred Years' War finally
groundto a haltmorethantwodecades later,thecountrylayin ruins.England,
alreadyweak and divided,became furthertorn by the deadly Wars of the
Roses. And so itwent.
The turn came suddenly.By the end of the century,strongcentralized
administration
had "almostcompletelytransformed
thepoliticallifeofwestern
and west-centralEurope," in Johnsonand Percy'swords.105
The new political
unitshad become a palpable reality,no longersimplyan aspiration,a trend,or
a struggle.In France,moreover,a weak centralmonarchyended up absorbinga
strongerduchyof Burgundyin theprocess.
How can this shiftbe explained? One way to put it is that centralrulers
became morepowerfulbecauseof theirstate-building
mission.A fundamental
shiftwas occurringin thepurposesforwhichpowercould be deployedbyrulers
and be regardedas sociallylegitimateby theirsubjects.Internally,legitimate
its
powerbecame fusedwiththeprovisionofpublicorder,steadilydiscrediting
deploymentforprimitiveextractionand accumulation.Externally,legitimate
power became fused withstatecraft,steadilydiscreditingits deploymentfor
primitive
expansionand aggrandizement.106
This process of empowermentalso helps to account for the geographical
efforts
notedabove.The monarchsin thewest
patternofsuccessfulcentralizing
tended to hitchtheirfate to those new objectives,and large-scaleexclusive
stateformationsemerged.West-centralEurope and Italy,on the otherhand,
stillhad to cope withthose meddlesomeremnantsof heteronomy,
the Holy
Roman Empireand thePapacy.Whiletheylackedthepowerto prevail,so long
1958).AdditionalsupportforHirschman'sargumentmaybe foundin Pocock,The
York:Scribners,
MachiavellianMoment:"It looks, then,as if Machiavelliwas in search of social means whereby
men's natures mightbe transformedto the point where theybecame capable of citizenship"
(p. 193).
Century
(Ithaca, N.Y.:
104. JerahJohnsonand WilliamPercy,TheAgeofRecovery:TheFifteenth
Press,1970),p. 56.
CornellUniversity
105. Ibid.,p. 73.
106. See Pocock, The MachiavellianMoment;and BernardGuenee, Statesand Rulersin Later
MedievalEurope,trans.JulietVale (New York: Basil Blackwell,1985).
162 InternationalOrganization
to formulate
itremaineddifficult
as theyretainedsome degreeofsocial efficacy
clearly the concept, let alone create the institution,of an exclusivestate
formation.Here city-statesand principalitiesbecame the expression of
In the east,thesesocial changesnevertookhold in
homonomousterritoriality.
thefirstplace. One shouldnot exaggeratethe ease withwhichtheseprocesses
took hold even in the westernkingdoms.As Charles Tilly points out, the
and even ordinarypeople "foughtthe claims of
leaders of priorinstitutions
Over time,
centralstatesforcenturies,"rightintothe seventeenthcentury.107
became the termsof centralrule,not
however,the issue at stake increasingly
thefactof it.
At the level of the collectivityof states, the critical parameter to fix
unitof the new collectivepolitical
concernedthe rightto act as a constitutive
order.The issue here was not who had how much power,but who could be
is a collectiveact. It
Such a designationinherently
designatedas a power.108
involvedthe mutual recognitionof the new constitutiveprincipleof sovereignty.MartinWightpointsout that"itwouldbe impossibleto have a societyof
sovereign states unless each state, while claiming sovereigntyfor itself,
recognizedthat everyother state had the rightto claim and enjoy its own
thusbecame thebasis ofthenew
Reciprocalsovereignty
as well."'109
sovereignty
order.
international
To be sure, the new organizingprincipleof reciprocal sovereigntywas
challenged in and hammeredhome by wars; but even in the evolutionof
European wars we can see signs of that new principle of international
legitimacytakinghold. As alreadynoted,privatewars ceased to be tolerated,
and war making came to be universallyrecognized as an attributeof
sovereignty.Even more interesting,European warfarethereafterseems to
exhibita progressionin the dominantformsofwar.1"0
war.Here theveryontologyofthe
The firstformwe mightcall "constitutive"
units-that is to say,whatkindof unitstheywould be-was stillat issue. The
Wars of Religion are the prime instance. As characterizedby Reinhart
Koselleck,the Peace of Augsburg(1555) "meant thatthe frontsof religious
civilwar were to be shut down,frozenin situ.""' It also produced a moral
compromise.As describedbyKoselleck: "The compromise,bornof necessity,
concealed withinitselfa newprinciple,thatof 'politics,'whichwas to set itself
p. 22.
107. Tilly,"Reflectionson theHistoryofEuropean State-making,"
Organization38 (Spring
108. Richard K. Ashley,"The Povertyof Neorealism,"International
1984),especiallypp. 259 and 272-73.
ofStates,p. 135.
109. Wight,Systems
110. Kaiser pointsout that all wars throughoutthe period I am here discussinghad specific
politicaland economicobjectives,but thatpriorto the eighteenthcenturytheyalso exhibitedvery
complexoverlaysofotherdimensionsthathave notbeen seen since.See David Kaiser,Politicsand
Press,1990),
PhilipII toHitler(Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity
War:EuropeanConflictfrom
to captureand giveexpressionto theseotherdimensions.
chap. 1. I am here attempting
111. Kosellek,FuturesPast,p. 8.
Territoriality163
Still,an internationalpoliticsmorally
in motionin the followingcentury.""12
establisheduntil
autonomousfromthe realmof religiondid notbecome firmly
thePeace of Westphalia(1648), endingtheThirtyYears' War.
This firstphase was followedbywarfarein whichthe natureof theunitswas
remainedcontested.We mightcall
configuration
acceptedbut theirterritorial
wars. The Wars of Succession of the early eighteenth
these "configurative"
century-Spanish,Polish,and Austrian-and the Seven Years' War (1756-63)
illustratethisform.Amongotherfactors,these conflictsrevolvedaround the
dynasticclaimsas the
contiguity
versustransterritorial
principlesof territorial
won out,at
contiguity
basis fora viablebalance ofpower.In theend,territorial
least in the European core.113
The thirdphase in the evolvingformof warfareconsistsof the familiar
strategicand tacticalwars ever since,wars thatwe mightcall "positional"byperiodicquests foruniversalempire,whichhave been successinterrupted
fullyrepulsedon each occasion.1"4
Finally,when the concept of state sovereigntyexpanded to become the
theuse ofmercenariesinwarfaredeclinedand
conceptofnationalsovereignty,
ultimatelywas eliminatedaltogether.Armed forcessubsequentlybecame an
expressionofthenation.1"5
to
The criticalthresholdin thistransitionwas the passage fromconstitutive
configurativewars, for it firstacknowledged the principle of reciprocal
When all was said and done, Europe ended up witha greatmany
sovereignty.
states,includingthe nearlytwo hundredGerman principalinot-so-powerful
ties,whichcould not possiblyhave vindicatedtheirrightto existby means of
of states
materialpower,butwhichwere sociallyempoweredbythecollectivity
units.1"6
to act as itsconstitutive
was partofthemeansbywhichthe
Thus,theprocessofsocial empowerment
new unitsof politicaldiscoursewere inscribedin social life to produce new
unitsofpoliticalorder.
112. Ibid.
1713-1783;and Kaiser,Politicsand War.
Century,
113. See Anderson,Europein theEighteenth
114. Ludwig Dehio, The PrecariousBalance (New York: Knopf,1962). What Gilpin calls the
cycleof hegemonicwars does not contradictmypoint.As definedby Gilpin,a "hegemonicwar"
concernswhichpowerwillbe able to extractgreaterresourcesfromand exercisegreatercontrol
over the systemof states; neitherthe natureof the unitsnor the natureof the system,forthat
matter,is at issue. In fact,Gilpin'sdescriptionof the calculusofwould-behegemonssuggeststhat
hegemonicwars fitwell intomygenericcategoryof positionalwars. See Robert Gilpin,Warand
Press,1981).
Changein WorldPolitics(New York: CambridgeUniversity
115. For a good discussionof this development,see Janice E. Thomson, "State Practices,
34 (March
StudiesQuarterly
InternationalNorms,and the Decline of Mercenarism,"International
see Benedict Arnold,Imagined
1990), pp. 23-47. On the emergenceof national sovereignty,
on theOriginsand SpreadofNationalism(London: Verso, 1983).
Communities:
Reflections
forthe entirehistoryof
116. Stranghas demonstratedthe impact of reciprocalsovereignty
European expansioninto non-Europeanterritoriessince 1415. He findsthat politiesthatwere
recognizedas sovereignhave fared much betterthan those that were not. See David Strang,
"Anomaly and Commonplace in European Political Expansion: Realist and Institutionalist
45 (Spring1991),pp. 143-62.
Organization
Accounts,"International
164 International
Organization
The paradox of absolute individuation
fixedstate
Our storyends in a paradox.Havingestablishedterritorially
domainsweredisjointand
formations,
havinginsistedthattheseterritorial
as theconstitutive
mutually
exclusive,
and havingacceptedtheseconditions
basesofinternational
whatmeanswerelefttothenewterritorial
rulers
society,
thatcouldnotbe reducedtoterritorial
fordealingwithproblems
ofthatsociety
solution?
withcommonspaces,suchas contiguous
and
Thisissuearoseinconnection
as wellas theoceans:howdoesone possesssomething
transborder
waterways
howdoes one excludeothers
one does notown?And,stillmoreproblematic,
were,
fromit?Inlandwaterways
couldbe splitdownthemiddleand typically
thoughoftennotuntilotherand moreviolentmeanshad been exhausted.
Ocean space beyonddefendablecoastal areas posed a more substantial
Spainclaimeda
problem.Spainand Portugaltrieda bilateraldeal whereby
of westernocean traderoutesto the Far East and Portugalthe
monopoly
eastern,buttheyfailedto maketheirdeal stick.At therequestoftheDutch
bythenameofHugoGrotiuslauncheda
East IndiaCompany,
a younglawyer
the
distinguished
careerby penninga pamphletentitled,and proclaiming
whichdidstick.117
contrary
doctrine
of,MareLiberum,
butrightin
however,
The reallyseriousproblemarosenotinthecommons,
no spacewas
theheartofthemutually
exclusive
territorial
stateformations:
leftwithin
whichto anchorevenso basica taskas theconductofdiplomatic
interference,
disturbance,
arbitrary
representation
without
fearof relentless
andseveredlinesofcommunication.
In medievalEurope,the rightof embassywas a methodof formaland
or denieddepending
thatcouldbe admitted
communication
upon
privileged
andthebusinessat hand.118
thesocialstatusand rolesofthepartiesinvolved
forwhichtheyenjoyedspecific
immunities.
Ambassadors
hadspecific
missions,
ambassadors
weretriedand
of misdeedsand crimes,however,
For a variety
as thoughtheywerea
sentenced
bytheprincetowhomtheywereaccredited,
117. Grotius'simmediateaim was to establishthe principleof freedomto conducttradeon the
seas, but in orderto establishthatprinciplehe had firstto formulatesome doctrineregardingthe
medium throughwhichships passed as theyengaged in long-distancetrade. The principlehe
sea
enunciated,and whichstatescame to adopt,definedan oceans regimein twoparts:a territorial
under exclusivestate control,which custom set at three miles because that was the range of
land-basedcannonsat thetime,and theopen seas beyond,availableforcommonuse butownedby
Law: The GrotianHeritage(The Hague: Aster Institute,
none. See Aster Institute,International
1985).
118. The followingdiscussionis based on Mattingly,
RenaissanceDiplomacy.Note Mattingly's
summaryof medievalpractice,and contrastit withwhatwe knowto be the case forthe modern
world:"Kings made treatieswiththeirown vassals and withthe vassals of theirneighbors.They
receivedembassiesfromtheirown subjectsand fromthe subjectsof otherprinces,and sometimes
sent agentswho were in factambassadorsin return.Subject cities negotiatedwithone another
withoutreferenceto theirrespectivesovereigns.Such behaviormightarouse specificobjection,but
neveron generalgrounds"(p. 23).
Territoriality165
subjectofthatprince.This solutionceased to be acceptable,however,once the
rightof embassybecame a signof sovereignrecognitionand ambassadorswere
in place permanently.
The short-term
responsewas to grantmore and more
specificimmunities
to residentambassadorsas thesituationdemanded.During
the centuryor so of religiousstrife,however,that option too came to be
underminedby,amongotherfactors,theso-calledembassychapel question.
As the term implies,this had to do with the services celebrated in an
ambassador'schapel, at whichcompatriotswere welcome,when the religions
ofthehomeand hostsovereignsdiffered.
For example,EdwardVI insistedthat
the new Englishprayerbook be used in all his embassies; Charles V would
tolerate no such heresyat his court. It was not uncommonfor diplomatic
relationsto be brokenovertheissue in theshortrun.In thelongrun,however,
that proved too costly a solution; the need for continuous and reliable
communicationamong rulerswas too great.A doctrinalsolutionwas found
instead. Rather than contemplatethe heresyof a Protestantservice at a
Catholiccourtand vice versa,it provedeasier to pretendthatthe servicewas
nottakingplace in thehostcountryat all buton thesoil ofthehomelandof the
ambassador.And so itgraduallybecame withotherdimensionsof theactivities
and precinctsof embassy.A fictitiousspace, designated"extraterritoriality,"
was invented.Mattingly
has puttheparadoxwell: "By arrogating
to themselves
supremepowerovermen's consciences,the new stateshad achievedabsolute
sovereignty.
Havingdone so, theyfoundtheycould onlycommunicatewithone
anotherby toleratingwithinthemselveslittleislandsof alien sovereignty."119
These islandsof alien sovereignty
wereseen,Adda Bozeman adds, "not onlyas
the foreignarm of each separate government,
but also as the nucleus of the
collective systemof ... states ... outside of which no sovereigncould
survive."'20
Whatwe mightcall an "unbundling"of territoriality
(of whichthe doctrine
of extraterritoriality
was the firstand mostenduringinstantiation)over time
has become a genericcontrivanceused by statesto attenuatethe paradox of
absolute individuation.2lVarious typesof functionalregimes,commonmarkets,politicalcommunities,and the like constituteadditionalformswhereby
has become unbundled.Thus, in the moderninternationalpolity
territoriality
an institutionalnegationof exclusive territoriality
serves as the means of
situatingand dealing with those dimensions of collective existence that
territorialrulers recognize to be irreduciblytransterritorial
in character.
Nonterritorial
functionalspace is the place whereininternationalsocietyis
anchored.
119. Ibid, p. 244. See also Adda B. Bozeman, Politicsand Culturein International
History
(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversity
Press,1960),pp. 479-80.
120. Bozeman,Politicsand Culturein Intemational
History,
pp. 482-83.
121. I adapt thisnotionfromthe discussionof unbundlingsovereignrightsin Kratochwil,"Of
Systems,Boundariesand Territoriality."
166 InternationalOrganization
Patternsof change
in his magisterialstudy,acknowledgesthat"the taprootsof the
Mattingly,
state
maybe followedas farback as one likesin Westernhistory[even]
modern
of
to the cities antiquitywhereofthe hazy imagescontinuedto providesome
statesmenin everymedieval centurywith an ideal model of authorityand
order."'122
But, he shows persuasively,the modernstate did not evolvefrom
bythe earlymodernEuropethese earlierexperiences;rather,itwas invented
ans. Indeed, it was inventedby themtwice,once in the leading cities of the
Italian Renaissance and once again in the kingdomsnorth of the Alps
This suggestsa finalissue forconsideration:thepatterns
sometimethereafter.
exhibitedby epochal change.Three are indicatedby the medieval-to-modern
transformation.
First,unanticipatedconsequences played a major role in determiningthe
ultimateoutcomesof long-termchanges.The Crusades were not designedto
rulers,but theyended up
suggestnew modes of raisingrevenuesforterritorial
doingso.123The modernstatewas notlogicallyentailedin themedievalpapacy;
administration
it set,"the
yet,accordingto Strayer,bytheexampleof effective
Gregorian concept of the Church almost demanded the inventionof the
Societydid not vote forcapitalismwhen it endorsed
conceptof the State."'124
the civilizingimpulsesof commerce;but the bourgeoisie,the social carriersof
commerce,embodied it. Later, monarchsdid not set out to weaken their
constitutional
powersby sellingofficesor conveningassembliesto raise taxes;
In short,the reasons forwhich
theysoughtonlyto increasetheirrevenues.125
thingswere done oftenhad verylittleto do withwhatactuallyended up being
done or whatwas made possiblebythosedeeds.126
sources,
may have had long-standing
Second, fundamentaltransformation
but when it came, it came quicklyby historicalstandards.Moreover,it came
ofthepreviousorder-amid a generalizedloss of
amidcrisisand disintegration
and understandingof, in Tracy Strong'swords, "what might
predictability
122. Mattingly,
RenaissanceDiplomacy,pp. 105-6.
123. Ronald C. Finucane,SoldiersoftheFaith (New York: St. Martin's,1983).
124. Strayer,On theMedievalOriginsoftheModem State,p. 22.
and empirically,
in thecase
125. Northand Weingastdemonstratethisverynicely,bothformally
of seventeenth-century
England-except forthe overalllogic theyattributeto the process,which
"interpretsthe institutional
changes on the basis of the goals of the winners."See Douglass C.
North and BarryR. Weingast,"Constitutionsand Commitment:The Evolutionof Institutions
England," Journalof Economic History49
GoverningPublic Choice in Seventeenth-century
is thatthegoals
(December 1989), p. 803, emphasisadded. The problemwiththeirinterpretation
ofthelosers-the insatiablequest forrevenueson thepartofrulers-not ofthewinners,drovethe
process that ultimatelymade possible the impositionof constitutionalconstraintson the
ofmonarchs.
prerogatives
126. Discussing a biological parallel, Stephen JayGould contendsthat avian limbs became
useful for flyingonce theywere fullydeveloped into wings,but theyprobablyevolved for so
commonplacea purpose as keepingbirds warm.See Gould, "Not NecessarilyWings,"Natural
History10/85.
Territoriality167
count as politics,of whatcountsas evidence and what as fact,and of whatis
contentiousand what mightappear secure.'127Once the systemof modern
stateswas consolidated,however,the process of fundamentaltransformation
ceased: "[states]have all remainedrecognizablyof the same species up to our
own time," Tilly concludes, thoughtheir substantiveformsand individual
over time.'28Paleontologists
trajectoriesof course have differedsubstantially
rupture,new stable strucdescribethispatternof change-stable structures,
tures-as "punctuatedequilibrium."'129
Finally,change has never been complete or all-encompassing.As Spruyt
makesclear,themedievalsystemof rule in thefirstinstancewas succeeded by
several viable formsof territorialgovernance:large-scale territorialstates,
and city-leagues.And the process thatultimatelyselected out the
city-states,
logicthantheprocessthatproducedboth
stateembodieda different
territorial
Moreover,keep in mindthatthe formal
the state and its alternativeforms.130
demise of the Holy Roman Empire (1806)-a relic of medievaldomthat
historiansinsistneverwas holy,nor Roman, nor an empire-actuallyis closer
in timeto the birthof the European Community(EC) than to the Peace of
Westphalia, the usual marker of the inception of modern international
relations.Finally,sociopoliticalcollectivitiesof verylong historicalstanding
states.13'In short,the
remainvitaltodaywithoutbeingcontainedin territorial
historicalformsis not unusual. Designatingdominant
coexistenceof different
historicalforms,therefore,is a matterof balance: ofjudgingascendancyand
Nonetheless,itis thecase thatthe
decline,relevanceand spurioussignification.
modern state has succeeded in drivingout substitutablealternativesmore
thananyotherpriorform.
effectively
127. Strong,"DramaturgicalDiscourse and PoliticalEnactments,"p. 245.
128. Tilly,"Reflectionson the Historyof European State-making"p. 31. For a suggestive
of different
substantivestateforms,see Michael Mann, States,War,and Capitalism(New
typology
York: Basil Blackwell,1988),chap. 1.
129. See Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Mythsof Human Evolution (New York:
thebasic insight
attributed
Press,1982). Eldredge,in a personalconversation,
ColumbiaUniversity
forthe punctuatedequilibriummodel to the historianFrederickTeggart-which is ironicin the
lightof the influencethatthe Darwinianmodel of human evolutionhas had on social thinking,
See FrederickJ. Teggart,Theoryof History(New Haven, Conn.: Yale
includinghistoriography!
Press,1925). Bock has describedlarge-scalesocial changein similarterms:"In place of
University
a continuousprocessof socioculturalchange,the recordsclearlyindicatelong periodsof relative
amongpeoples, punctuatedbyoccasional spurtsof action.Ratherthanslowand gradual
inactivity
and
alterationsin peoples' experienceshave appeared suddenly,movedswiftly,
change,significant
A Responseto Sociobiology
(New
stoppedabruptly";see KennethBock,HumanNatureand History:
York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1980), p. 165. Excellentdiscussionsof punctuatedequilibrium
and pathdependencyin theoriginsofthemodernstatemaybe foundin twoarticlesbyStephenD.
Krasner:"Approachesto the State:AlternativeConceptionsand HistoricalDynamics,"ComparativePolitics 16 (January1984), pp. 223-46; and "Sovereignty:An InstitutionalPerspective,"
PoliticalStudies21 (April 1988),pp. 66-94.
Comparative
130. See Spruyt,"The SovereignState and itsCompetitors."
131. The so-called Arab nation is a case in point; see Albert Hourani,A Historyof theArab
Peoples(Cambridge,Mass.: BelknapPress,1991).
168 InternationalOrganization
Historicizingpostmodernity
century,Europe stood poised to reach out to and
At the close of the fifteenth
then conquer the globe. By the beginningof the twentiethcentury,this
"Columbian epoch," as Sir HalfordMackindercharacterizedit in 1904,was
comingto an end.132In his seminalessay,Mackinderaddressed two distinct
dimensionsof the new "global" epoch. The firsthas attractedthe most
attentionbut is the less importantforpresentconcerns:the strategicconsequences oftheessentialunityoftheworld'soceans,whichgave riseto thegreat
of
debatesthatbecame thestuff
and land-power/sea-power
heartland/rimland
geopolitics,rightdown to the postwartheoryof containment.The second,
whichsubsequentcommentatorshave largelyignored,concernedthe spatial
ofseparateand coexisting
and temporalimplosionoftheglobe: theintegration
a
autonomous
social facticityand
world systems,each enjoying relatively
a
world
its
laws
into
post-Columbian
of historicity,
singular
expressing own
system.133
In thisessay,I have looked fora vocabularyand the dimensionsof analysis
that would allow us to ask sensible questions about possible postmodern
tendencies in the world polity.I have done so by unpackingthe process
in international
politicscame to
wherebythemostdistinctfeatureofmodernity
fixed,and mutuallyexclube: a particularformof territoriality-disjoint,
sive-as the basis for organizingpolitical life. In conclusion,I summarize
of thisendeavorand pointtowardsome methodologibriefly
themainfindings
cal as well as substantiveimplicationsforfutureresearch.
was the keythatallowed us to
To summarize,the conceptof differentiation
of modernterritorispecificand salientcharacteristics
uncoverthe historically
is an anarchy,that
ality.Acceptingthatthe internationalpolity,bydefinition,
is,a segmentedrealm,on whatbasis is itsegmented?On whatbasis are itsunits
individuated?What drovethe peculiarlymodernformof individuation?And
what were its implicationsfor the internationalcollectivity?The mode of
I suggested,is nothingless than the
withinany collectivity,
differentiation
centralfocusoftheepochal studyof rule.
resulted from changes in several
The modern mode of differentiation
domains of social life,whichare irreducibleto one another.These domains
included materialenvironments(ecodemographics,relationsof production,
relationsof force); the matrixof constraintsand opportunitieswithinwhich
social actorsinteracted(the structureof propertyrights,divergencesbetween
132. See H. J.Mackinder,"The GeographicalPivotof History,"Geographical
Joumal23 (April
1904).
133. As Mackinderpredicted,"Everyexplosionofsocial forces,insteadof beingdissipatedin a
circuitof unknownspace and barbaricchaos, willbe sharplyre-echoedfromthe far
surrounding
side of the globe, and weak elementsin the politicaland economicorganismof the worldwillbe
shatteredin consequence." See ibid,p. 421.
Territoriality169
privateand social rates of return,coalitionalpossibilitiesamongmajor social
spatial
actors); and social epistemes(politicaldoctrines,politicalmetaphysics,
constructs).Each was undergoingchange in accordancewithits own endogenous logic. But these changes also interacted,sometimessequentially,somethatis,of
sometimessimplyvia themechanismof diffusion,
timesfunctionally,
conscious and unconsciousborrowing.Whereas individualstrandsof change
can be tracedback almostat will,at a certainpointthe new formscrystallized
fairlyquicklyand shaped all subsequentdevelopments.
The domain of social epistemes,the mentalequipmentby means of which
people reimaginedtheir collective existence,played a criticalrole.134The
is closely linked to the specificityof
specificityof modern territoriality
single-pointperspective.Social epistemes did not, however,act as some
ethereal Zeitgeistbut throughspecificsocial carriersand practices. Social
epistemesaffectedoutcomesvia the mechanismsof social empowermentand
as extraterritorialsuchdoctrinalcontrivances
and byinforming
delegitimation
came to rest.
stateformations
ity,on whichthesocietyofterritorial
Our case offerssome methodologicalimplicationsforthe studyof transformation today. One methodologicalpoint followsdirectlyfromthe relative
autonomyof the diverse domains wherein past change occurred. Clearly,
differentbodies of contemporaryinternationalrelations theoryare better
changeand continudomainsof contemporary
equipped to elucidatedifferent
ity.Neorealismis verygood on the endogenouslogicsof the relationsof force,
thanmostmodernMarxismswhenit comes to
but it is even morereductionist
appreciatingthe role of social epistemology.The microeconomicsof institutionsprovidesgreatinsightintostrategicbehavior,butitis silenton theorigins
ofthesocial preferencesthatgiveitsubstantivemeaning.Culturaltheoriesare
virtuallyalone in addressingthe role of spatial imageries,but typicallythey
and so on. Each, therefore,can become a
neglectthe effectof micromotives,
ofthose
"grandtheory"onlybydiscountingor ignoringaltogetherthe integrity
domainsof social lifethatitspremisesdo not encompass.Nor are thevarious
bodies of extanttheoryin anysense additive,so thatwe could arriveat a grand
theoryby steps. In short,while there maybe law-likegeneralizationsin the
underthereare none of it. Accordingly,
medieval-to-modern
transformation,
standingthattransformation-andpresumablyanyanalogousshiftthatmaybe
takingplace today-requires an epistemologicalposturethatis quite different
fromthe imperiousclaims of most currentbodies of internationalrelations
theory.It requires, as Quentin Skinnercharacterizesit, "a willingnessto
emphasize the local and the contingent,a desire to underlinethe extentto
whichour ownconceptsand attitudehave been shaped byparticularhistorical
sociale,whichI draw
134. There is no adequate EnglishtranslationofDuby's notionl'imaginaire
on here;histranslatorrendersitas "collectiveimaginings."See Duby, The ThreeOrders,p. vii.
170 InternationalOrganization
strongdislike ... of all overarching
circumstances,and a correspondingly
theoriesand singularschemesof explanation."'135
fromthefirst.If itis truethat
A secondmethodologicalpointfollowsdirectly
the intellectualapparatus by which we studyfundamentalchange is itself
implicatedin a world that may be changing,how valid and viable is that
intellectualquest to begin with? This is particularlyvexingin attemptsto
insofaras prevailingscientific
understandthe prospectsof postmodernity,
ofmodernity.136
Not being
approachesare partand parceloftheverydefinition
a philosopherof science,myanswerperforceremainssomewhatunschooled.
Nevertheless,I find fault with the postmodernistepistemologuesand the
alike.
dominantpositivists
methodrepresentseitherforceor
For thepostmodernists,
modernscientific
parent(he[re]tical)obscufarce. In its stead, theyretreatinto a fettishistic
method.137
But
rantismthat theyimpute to poststructuralist/postmodernist
their"move"-to borrowone oftheir"privileged"terms-is deeplymisguided,
as a simple example will show. In discussionsof culturaltransformations
than
towardpostmodernforms,fewinsightsare accordedgreatersignificance
This is because relativity
shatteredone of the
Einstein'stheoriesof relativity.
human
fixedand even absolutepillarsof modernistthoughtbyrevolutionizing
of space and time.Yet Einstein'stheorieswere soon confirmed:
understanding
and thegeneraltheoryduringthe
thespecial theorybylaboratoryexperiments
scientific
methods.
eclipseof 1919,all in accordancewithfairlystraightforward
of
ontology
What Einsteindid was to formulatean entirelynew and different
the physicalworld. Indeed, he never even accepted the implicationsfor
epistemology
thatothersdrew fromhis work,as illustratedby his often-cited
rejoinderto the uncertainty
principle,that God does not play dice withthe
universe.Hence, it is entirelypossible to say thingsof importanceabout
and even to have contributedto the historicalconditionof
postmodernity,
without degeneratinginto what passes for postmodernist
postmodernity,
method.
As for the dominantpositivistposture in our field,it is reposed in deep
is oftenconfusedwith
Newtonianslumberwhereinmethodrules,epistemology
method, and the term "ontology" typicallydraws either blank stares or
bemused smiles.I choose the Newtoniananalogydeliberatelyand withcare.
Gerald Feinberg's depiction helps to show why it is useful: "Newtonian
mechanicsbyitselfdid notattemptto explainwhatforcesmightexistin nature,
but rather described how motion occurred when theforce was known."138
135. Quentin Skinner, The Returnof Grand Theoryin the Human Sciences (New York:
CambridgeUniversity
Press,1985),p. 12.
136. For a superbdiscussionof these issues,see Seyla Benhabib,"Epistemologiesof Postmodernism:A Rejoinderto Jean-FrancoisLyotard,"New GermanCritique33 (Fall 1984),pp. 103-26.
in Pauline Rosenau, "Once Again intothe
137. For examples,consulttheextensivebibliography
Fray."
138. Gerald Feinberg,Whatis theWorldMade Of
pAtoms, Leptons,Quarks,and OtherTantalizing
Particles(Garden City,N.Y.: AnchorBooks, 1978),p. 9, emphasisadded.
Territoriality171
Merely by substituting"structures"or "preferences"for "forces" in that
sentence,one obtains an apt renderingof prevailinginternationalrelations
theoriestoday.139
Theydescribehow"motion"occurs-givena setofstructures
or preferences.Accordingly,
these theoriescannot,ontologically,apprehend
fundamentaltransformation,
for the issue of "what forces [structures/
preferences]mightexistin nature" is preciselywhatthe studyof transformationis all about.140
also has
Our examination of the emergence of modern territoriality
in the
substantiveimplicationsfor the study of potential transformation
internationalsystemtoday. A full application of the historicallygrounded
conceptual frameworksketchedout here is well beyond the scope of this
article.Nevertheless,I close withan overall analyticallead, as well as some
cases withwhichI began.
workinghypothesesabout each oftheillustrative
is a
The precedinganalysissuggeststhat the unbundlingof territoriality
international
transformaproductivevenuefortheexplorationofcontemporary
meansthroughwhich
tion.Historically,
as we have seen,thisis theinstitutional
the collectivity
of sovereignshas soughtto compensateforthe "social defects"
This negationof the
that inhere in the modernconstructof territoriality.14'
exclusiveterritorialformhas been the locale in whichinternationalsociality
throughoutthe modernera has been embedded. The terrainof unbundled
territoriality,
therefore,is the place whereina rearticulationof international
politicalspace wouldbe occurringtoday.
has gone
Take firstthe EC, in whichthe processof unbundlingterritoriality
furtherthan anywhereelse. Neorealism ascribes its origins to strategic
examineshowthenationalinterests
bipolarity;microeconomicinstitutionalism
and policypreferencesofthemajorEuropean statesare reflectedinpatternsof
EC collaboration; and neofunctionalismanticipated the emergence of a
supranationalstatism.Each containsa partialtruth.From thevantageof the
mostlyin
mainstreaminternationalrelationstheorytraffics
139. Using Kratochwil'stypology,
"the worldof brutefacts,"or the palpable here and now; it discounts"the worldof intentionand
meaning"; and it largelyignores altogether"the world of institutionalfacts." See Friedrich
Press,1989),chap. 1.
Rules,Norms,and Decisions(New York: CambridgeUniversity
Kratochwil,
theoryis one recent attemptto formulatean ontologyof international
140. Structurationist
and preferences,if
relationsthatis predicatedon the need to endogenizethe originsof structures
Problem in
transformation
is to be understood.See Alexander Wendt, "The Agent-Structure
41 (Summer1987), pp. 335-70; David
Organization
InternationalRelationsTheory,"International
Organization
43 (Summer
Debate?" International
Dessler, "What's at Stake in theAgent-Structure
Transformation:
1989),pp. 441-73;JohnGerardRuggie,"InternationalStructureand International
Challenges,
Space, Time,and Method,"in Czempiel and Rosenau, Global Changesand Theoretical
pp. 21-35; Alexander Wendt and RaymondDuvall, "Institutionsand InternationalOrder," in
ibid., pp. 51-73; and Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social
46 (Spring1992),pp. 391-425.
Organization
Construction
ofPowerPolitics,"International
namelythose"Inconvenienceswhich
141. Once again,I have inminda Lockean understanding,
disorderMens propertiesin thestateofNature,"the avoidanceofwhichis said to drive"Men [to]
sec. 2.136. These "social defects"
uniteintoSocieties." See Locke, Two Treatisesof Government,
"collectiveactionproblems,"ofwhich
thusmaybe thoughtof as thegenericformof international
publicgoods, and dilemmasof strategicinteractionare but specific
varioustypesof externalities,
manifestations.
172 InternationalOrganization
presentanalysis,however,a verydifferent
attributeof theEC comes intoview:
itmayconstitutethefirst"multiperspectival
polity"to emergesincethe advent
of the modernera. That is to say, it is increasinglydifficult
to visualize the
conduct of internationalpolitics among communitymembers, and to a
considerablemeasure even domesticpolitics,as thoughit took place froma
startingpointof twelveseparate,single,fixedviewpoints.Nor can models of
strategicinteractiondo justice to thisparticularfeatureof the EC, since the
of membersas a singularity,
in additionto the centralinstitutional
collectivity
apparatusof the EC, has become partyto the strategicinteractiongame. To
theconstitutive
put it differently,
processeswherebyeach of thetwelvedefines
itsownidentity-andidentitiesare logicallypriorto preferences-increasingly
endogenizetheexistenceoftheothereleven.Withinthisframework,
European
leaders may be thoughtof as entrepreneursof alternativepolitical identities-EC CommissionPresidentDelors, forexample,is at thisverymoment
exploitingthe tensionbetweencommunity
wideningand community
deepeningso as to catalyzethefurther
ofEuropean collectiveexistence.142
reimagining
There is no indication,however,thatthisreimagining
will resultin a federal
state of Europe-which would merelyreplicateon a largerscale the typical
modernpoliticalform.
The concept of multiperspectival
institutionalformsoffersa lens through
whichto view otherpossible instancesof internationaltransformation
today.
Considerthe global systemof transnationalized
microeconomiclinks.Perhaps
thebestwayto describeit,whenseen fromourvantagepoint,is thattheselinks
havecreateda nonterritorial
"region"in theworldeconomy-a decenteredyet
integratedspace-of-flows,
operatingin real time,which existsalongside the
thatwe call nationaleconomies.These conventionalspaces-ofspaces-of-places
places continueto engage in externaleconomic relationswithone another,
whichwe continueto call trade,foreigninvestment,
and thelike,and whichare
more or less effectively
mediated by the state. In the nonterritorial
global
economicregion,however,the conventionaldistinctions
betweeninternaland
externalonce again are exceedinglyproblematic,and anygivenstateis butone
constraintin corporateglobal strategiccalculations.This is theworldin which
IBM is Japan'slargestcomputerexporter,and Sony is the largestexporterof
televisionsets fromthe United States. It is the world in which Brothers
Industries,a Japanese concernassemblingtypewriters
in Bartlett,Tennessee,
bringsan antidumpingcase beforethe U.S. InternationalTrade Commission
against Smith Corona, an American firmthat importstypewriters
into the
United States fromits offshorefacilitiesin Singaporeand Indonesia. It is the
world in whicheven the U.S. Pentagon is baffledby the problemof how to
maintainthenationalidentity
of "its" defense-industrial
base.143This nonterri142. This processis byno meansfreeofcontroversy
or resistance,as a recentLondon front-page
headline("Delors Plan to Rule Europe,") makesclear-but historicalchangeneverhas been. See
3 May 1992,p. 1.
SundayTelegraph,
143. At thetimeofwriting,
thePentagonis considering,
amongotheroptions,a "reconstitution"
model forthe U.S. defense-industrial
base, now thatlarge and long-termprocurementrunsare
Territoriality173
torialglobal economic regionis a world,in short,that is premisedon what
Lattimoredescribedas the "sovereignimportanceof movement,"notofplace.
The long-term
significance
of thisregion,muchlike thatof the medievaltrade
formsand in thenovel
fairs,mayresidein itsnovelbehavioraland institutional
space-timeconstructs
thattheseformsembody,notin anydirectchallengethat
itposes as a potentialsubstitutefortheexistingsystemofrule.
potentialof global ecology.The human
Consider also the transformative
environment
is of centralimportanceforfutureplanetarypoliticsfrommany
perspectives.Centralamongthemis its potentialto comprisea new and very
different
social episteme-a new set of spatial, metaphysical,and doctrinal
constructsthroughwhichthevisualizationof collectiveexistenceon theplanet
and its
in formfrommodernterritoriality
is shaped. This epistemewoulddiffer
accoutrements
insofaras theunderlying
structural
premiseofecologyis holism
is in tapping this social
and mutual dependence of parts. The difficulty
Nonetheless,itmaybe possibleto infer
epistemologicaldimensionempirically.
fromstatebehaviorwhetherand to whatextentitis comingto expressnew and
different
principlesof internationallegitimacy,for example. The concept of
Under
internationalcustodianshipis an obviouscandidateforcloser scrutiny.
it,no otheragencycompeteswithor attemptsto substituteforthestate,butthe
state itselfacts in a mannerthat expressesnot merelyits own interestsand
preferencesbut also its role as the embodimentand enforcerof community
norms-a multiperspectival
role,in short,somewhatin themannerofmedieval
rulersvis-'a-viscosmopolitanbodies of religionand law.'44Anotherpossible
approach is to examine the impact of real or simulated environmental
and on thepopularimaginationat
ofpolicymakers
catastropheson thethinking
large:Chernobyl,theAntarcticozone hole,and globalwarmingscenarioscome
to mind.145
Finally,this analysis also potentiallyenriches the field of international
securitystudies.To cite but one example,despitethe severedislocationsthat
have accompaniedthe collapse of the Soviet Union's East European empire
and then of the Soviet Union itself,no one in any position of authority
anywherein Europe to date has advocated,or is quietlypreparingfor,a return
to a systemofcompetitivebilateralalliances.Thus far,all oftheoptionson the
table concerningthe externalmechanismsfor achievingsecurityin Europe,
however,to decide whetherwhat
unlikelyto persistwidely.It has provedextraordinarily
difficult,
to the
shouldbe available forreconstitution
shouldbe definedbyownership,locale, commitment
economy,nationality
ofresearchers,orwhathaveyou-the divergencebetweenthoseindicatorsof
nationalidentitybeing increasingly
pronounced-and to determinewhether,once defined,such
whenneeded.
unitswillactuallyexistand be availableforreconstitution
144. Allottconsidersseveral provisionsof the maritimeExclusiveEconomic Zone to exhibit
"delegatedpowers,"underwhichcoastal statesact "not onlyin the mysticalcompositepersonage
of the international
the functionof the executivebranchof their
legislatorbut also in performing
ownself-government."
See PhilipAllott,"Power Sharingin the Law ofthe Sea," AmericanJoumal
ofIntemational
Law 77 (January1983),p. 24.
145. On theepistemicimportoftheAntarcticozone hole,see Karen ThereseLitfin,"Power and
Ozone Depletion,"
Knowledgein InternationalEnvironmental
Politics:The Case ofStratospheric
Ph.D. diss.,DepartmentofPoliticalScience,University
of California,Los Angeles,1992.
174 InternationalOrganization
These mechanismsinclude
East and West, have been multilateralin form.146
the
WestEuropean Union on
to
the
EC
via
NATO reachingout institutionally
the
to
the
East
statesvia the newly
European
on
other
side,
one side; and,
created NorthAtlanticCooperation Council, comprisingthe membershipof
adversarialalliances,as well as to the Conferenceon Security
thetwoformerly
and Cooperation in Europe.147This developmentsuggestsa hypothesisfor
furtherexploration.Withinthe industrializedworld,and partiallybeyond,we
ofinternational
securitycommunitiesemergingfragments
maybe witnessing
alongsidethe traditionalwar systemthatcontinueselsewhere.These security
communitiesare not integratedin the sense that the ill-fatedEuropean
institutionwouldhavebeen,buttheyare moreextensively
Defense Community
alized thanthe "pluralisticsecuritycommunities"of integrationstudiesin the
seems appropriate.Within
Once more the term"multiperspectival"
1950s.148
the scope of these securitycommunitiesthe imbalances of advantage that
themodernera now are resolvedbymore
animatedpositionalwarsthroughout
communitarianmechanismsinstead. Such mechanismsdo not imply the
abolitionof the use of force;theydo imply,however,thatthe use of forceis
subjectto greatercollectivelegitimation.
has been so little
It is trulyastonishingthat the concept of territoriality
studiedbystudentsof international
politics;itsneglectis akinto neverlooking
at the groundthat one is walkingon. I have argued that disjoint,mutually
most distinctivelydefines modernityin
exclusive, and fixed territoriality
internationalpoliticsand thatchanges in fewotherfactorscan so powerfully
transform
themoderninternational
polity.What is more,I have triedto show
is a usefulterrainforexploringthe conditionof
thatunbundledterritoriality
in internationalpolitics,and I have suggestedsome ways in
postmodernity
institutional
whichthat mightbe done. The emergenceof multiperspectival
formswas identifiedas a key dimensionin understandingthe possibilityof
postmodernity.
is taken for grantedis not
On reflection,though,the reason territoriality
hardto guess.Samuel Becketputitwell inEndgame:"You're on earth,there's
no cureforthat."Unbundledterritoriality
is notlocated some place else; butit
is becominganotherplace.
146. John Gerard Ruggie, "Multilateralism:The Anatomyof an Institution,"International
Organization46 (Summer 1992), pp. 561-98. Waltz distinguishesbetween internaland external
balancingmechanismsin Theory
ofInternational
Politics.
147. Based on personal interviewsat NATO headquarters,Brussels,May 1992. Japan has
undertakena slowbut systematic
processof itsown to normalizeitssecurityrelationsbymeansof
multilateralization:
throughthe postministeralconferencesof the Association of South East
Nations,forexample,as well as throughthe recentlegistationpermitting
Japan to participatein
United Nations peacekeeping forces(based on personal interviewsat the Ministryof Foreign
Affairs,
Tokyo,May 1992).
148. The classicstudyis Karl W. Deutsch et al., PoliticalCommunity
and theNorthAtlanticArea
(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversity
Press,1957).