Changes in the Westphalian Order: Territory, Public Authority, and Sovereignty

TLDR: The notion of "sovereignty" has been used to define a hierarchy of 4 Changes in the Westphalian Order 5 norms and power (see as mentioned in this paper for a discussion).

Abstract: nature of the concepts. All concepts are abstract. Indeed, the root of the word means to draw out or away from what Harry Eckstein called "the relentless particularity of experience." Concepts attempt to draw together elements of concrete experience that can be grouped in a fruitful way, so as to improve our understanding. Thus, the point is not to avoid abstraction, but to build fruitful concepts. Again, no one will disagree with so anodyne a statement. The challenge is to pitch concepts at the right level so as to connect both upward (towards general theory) and downward (towards the empirical data). The mix of concepts associated with the Westphalian order (sovereignty, authority, autonomy, control, territoriality) have fallen down on the latter criterion, that is, on the connection between abstract concepts and empirical observations. Dichotomous nature of concepts. Concepts such as sovereignty and territoriality have been treated as if they could take on two possible values-present or absent, sovereign or not sovereign, territorial or nonterritorial organization. While some concepts are inherently dichotomous, many so treated are at bottom continuous. Even types of political systems, such as presidential and parliamentary, can be conceptualized as having more or less of these properties measured on some underlying continuum (Shugart and Carey 1992:2-3). Defining our concepts in either/or terms has caused us to labor needlessly about whether certain states are sovereign or not, whether emerging international unions such as the European Union (EU) possess sovereignty or not, and if they do, whether such sovereignty is shared with the constituent nation states. Dichotomous conceptions of sovereignty have also prevented us from conceptualizing "sovereignty bargains" (Litfin 1997). Disputes over sovereignty and who possesses it are bound up with the notion that sovereignty is the ultimate right to decide. Sovereignty in this sense implies a hierarchy of both 4 Changes in the Westphalian Order 5 norms and power. Many institutions within (and outside) society may possess both competencies and normative support, but when they are in conflict with one another-when "the chips are down" as the saying goes-the important question is who has final authority? Since the ideas of normative conflict and hierarchy of norms are central to much legal reasoning, lawyers tend to adopt this view of sovereignty as located in final authority. Since the law is about adjudication among competing norms, lawyers are supremely well placed to shed light on sovereignty so defined. Yet the idea of sovereignty as the ultimate right to decide has seriously retarded progress. Dichotomous conceptions of sovereignty do not allow much observable variation, cannot be untangled from other important concepts, and are not easily assimilated into the language of political exchange (compromising sovereignty, sovereignty bargains) and sovereignty practices. Almost all of the concepts related to the Westphalian model-territory, control over borders, authority, autonomy, legitimacy, and sovereignty-can be thought of in continuous terms. While phrases such as "more or less sovereign" may sound odd, I suggest they do so because of the ingrained notion that sovereignty is the ultimate right to decide. While this point is straightforward, it is not uncontroversial, and finding areas of agreement with respect to definitions is an important first step. The aggregation of concepts. Concepts such as territoriality, sovereignty, and authority obviously exist at a very high level of aggregation. To some extent, this is unavoidable. We are dealing with macroconcepts that often cannot be factored down into more specific, microlevel representations. Anarchy is a structural characteristic of the international system, not a characteristic of states. States are not anarchic, yet placed in relation to one another they form an anarchy. And individual states are not bipolar or multipolar but the system as a whole may be. Information about components is used to construct systemic properties (how could it be otherwise?), but once assembled in relation to one another, the system takes on meanings of its own. Composition counts. The placement of elements makes a difference. Waltz (1979) has gone to great pains to establish the independence of thirdimage (systemic) theory. If Waltz is correct-and I think he is on this pointsystemic theory cannot be reduced to its components. A theory of the market is different from, and not reducible to, a theory of firms, just as a theory of international relations is separate from a theory of foreign policy.4 Lest I sound as if I am defending what I want to criticize, I note that the aggregation issue takes two forms. The first, discussed briefly above, concerns 4This is a separate question from whether systemic theory by itself is underdetermined and therefore requires a theory of foreign policy as a complement.