Session #3 sovereignty and the nation-state Flashcards
people and institutions before the nation-state
- many different political institutions (e.g. Kings, aristocrats, church)
- different communities (christians, ottomans, etc., bourgeoisie)
e.g. Kings only a part of the power
medieval institutions were a mess
religion structured the sense of belonging, not what language you spoke or where you were from
transnational professions played a big role (artists, novelty (kings an queens etc.))
why did states appear?
- Charles Tilly
State formation to extract resources for war (assumes that people want more power, larger territory)
take money (taxes) from peasants and bourgeoisie to gain territory
to collect taxes it is necessary how much money people have, where it is and how much people can ask -> need for bureaucracy to collect money in order to go to war
Charles Tilly:
- book: coercion, capital, and European states (state (formation): 990-1992)
- incredible historian and sociologist in the state
why did territorial states appear?
- Hendrik Spruit
Europe 1700: territorial states, but also empires and city states
agreed that war is one of the main explanatory factor for the emergence of states
- city states are good at producing wealth capital and trade, but they aren’t good at war and armies (have to hire externally to the city state, because traders aren’t soldiers)
- empires advantages: aristocratic class, peasants that can become soldiers, they are, however, bad at bussiness
- territorial states, benefit (especially for medium size): mediocre with business and war, they aren’t bad at both -> advantage
We have territorial states because they have the best skills (own wording)
Hendrik Spruit: the sovereign state and its competitors
steps in the slow emergence of the nation state
- Westphalia 1648
- transnational processes 17-19th centuries
- territorialisation of modern nations 19th century
Main points
- transnational flows pre-exist the nation-state and have shaped it (transnational flows are more natural than nation-states)
- the nation-state is often a violent project aimed at reducing the world into the ‘‘national’’ and the ‘‘international’’ (intimate relation between state formation and political violence)
- nation-state formation is also a project aimed at forgetting the transnational nature of world politics (forgetting violence + transnational nature before it)
definition of the state
Michael Mann 1984
- a set of institutions and their related personnel (states as social constructs maintained by people)
- a degree of centrality, with political decisions emanating from this centre point
- a defined boundary that demarcates the territorial limits of the state
- a monopoly of coercive power and law-making ability (monopoly can become contested)
definition of the nation
Anthony Smith 1991 (important nationalism scholar)
nation = named human population sharing:
- historic territory
- common myths
- historical memories
- a mass, public culture
- a common economy
- common legal rights and duties for all members
how to handle definitions?
definitions are useful, they aren’t an absolute truth
if something doesn’t qualify with a definition, it doesn’t immediately mean that it doesn’t belong to that concept
The myth of Westphalia (1648)
Westphalia 1648 -> principle of sovereignty
- IR discipline has chosen this as a starting point
- it has some good things as starting point (e.g. emergence non-interference principle) for the rest it is contested as starting point
many scholars argue that there is a better starting point :
Augsburg 1555 -> whose realm, his religion (cuius regio eius religio)
definition of sovereignty
- Stephen Krasner 2001
Domestic sovereignty = actual control over a state exercised by an authority organized within this state
Interdependence sovereignty = actual control of movement across state’s borders, assuming the borders exist
International legal sovereignty = formal recognition by other sovereign states
Westphalian sovereignty = lack of other authority over state other than the domestic authority (examples of such authorities could be a non-domestic church, a non-domestic political organization, or any other external agent)
*following this definition, Westphalia is not the moment of modern sovereignty
domestic sovereignty
actual control over a state exercised by an authority organized within this state
interdependence sovereignty
actual control of movement across state’s borders, assuming the borders exist
international legal sovereignty
formal recognition by other sovereign states
Westphalian sovereignty
lack of other authority over state other than the domestic authority (examples of such authorities could be a non-domestic church, a non-domestic political organization, or any other external agent)
The permancence of transnational processes
- 17th-19th century
European transnational elites:
monarchies are transnational, they don’t care about nation-states (they often didn’t even spoke the language of the country they were ruling)
the European colonial domination (shows that 1648 is not the starting point of the international system)
the circulation of people (nations aren’t really in the states where they are supposed to be
