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Theory of International Politics
01 Jan 1979-
About: The article was published on 1979-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 7932 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Global politics & International relations.
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TL;DR: 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.
182 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed the cooperation under the security dilemma (Cooperation under the Security Dilemma) logic, where states have greater incentives to cooperate with each other, and fewer reasons to fear the consequences of others' defections.
Abstract: International anarchy and the security dilemma make cooperation among sovereign states difficult. Transformations of balance-of-power systems into concerts tend to occur after large antihegemonic wars. Such wars undermine the assumptions supporting a balance-ofpower system and alter the actors' payoffs in ways that encourage cooperation. The logic developed in “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma” holds: largely because of the increased costs that will be incurred if the grand coalition breaks up, states have greater incentives to cooperate with each other, fewer reasons to fear the consequences of others' defections, and fewer reasons to defect themselves. Cooperation is further facilitated by mechanisms that increase each state's ability to see what others are doing, and to gain “timely warning” of the possibility that the others will defect.
181 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the central role of authority in political life and a synthetic understanding of governance that applies equally to its myriad forms is presented. But, as a discipline, we have, as an discipline, relied on a formal-legal conception of authority that is inappropriate to an international setting and has unduly limited enforcement to violence.
Abstract: Global governance is an important and increasingly popular topic of inquiry. Nonetheless, existing research remains too statist, privileging states and limiting other forms of governance to the interstices of state power. Drawing on social contract theory, I offer an alternative approach that begins with the central role of authority in political life and develops a synthetic understanding of governance that applies equally to its myriad forms. I argue that we have, as a discipline, relied on a formal-legal conception of authority that is inappropriate to an international setting and has unduly limited enforcement to violence. I propose that global governance and its many forms can be understood and unified by a concept of relational authority, which treats authority as a social contract in which a governor provides a political order of value to a community in exchange for compliance by the governed with the rules necessary to produce that order. This conception of relational authority is followed by three illustrations of its central logic in (i) state-to-state hierarchy by the United States over Caribbean states, (ii) supranational authority by the World Trade Organization over member states, and (iii) private authority by credit rating agencies over corporations and sovereign borrowers. The conclusion outlines the research agenda that follows from this approach.
181 citations
TL;DR: Landscape theory Predicts how aggregation will lead to alignments among actors (such as nations), whose leaders are myopic in their assessments and incremental in their actions.
Abstract: Aggregation means the organization of elements of a system into patterns that tend to put highly compatible elements together and less compatible elements apart. Landscape theory Predicts how aggregation will lead to alignments among actors (such as nations), whose leaders are myopic in their assessments and incremental in their actions. The predicted configurations are based upon the attempts of actors to minimize their frustration based upon their pairwise Propensities to align with some actors and oppose others. These attempts lead to a local minimum in the energy landscape of the entire system. The theory is supported by the results of two cases: the alignment of seventeen European nations in the Second World War and membership in competing alliances of nine computer companies to set standards for Unix computer operating systems. The theory has potential for application to coalitions of political Parties in parliaments, social networks, social cleavages in democracies and organizational structures.
180 citations
TL;DR: The academic study of sovereignty is undergoing a mini-renaissance as mentioned in this paper, with a focus on the new conceptions of sovereignty that are emerging and discusses the fundamental nature of sovereignty, reviews the classical perspective on sovereignty, surveys new constructivist alternatives to this classical view, examines important new work on the problematic nature of sovereign power, identifies continua of hierarchic relationships that make sense of the various forms of mixed or restricted sovereignty that we observe in world politics, and argues why it is important to study alternative, hierarchic relationship in international relations.
Abstract: The academic study of sovereignty is undergoing a mini-renaissance. Stimulated by criticisms of classical conceptions of sovereignty in systemic theories of politics, scholars returned to sovereignty as a topic of inquiry in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their studies are finally bearing fruit. This essay focuses on the new conceptions of sovereignty that are emerging and (1) discusses the fundamental nature of sovereignty, (2) reviews the classical perspective on sovereignty, (3) surveys new constructivist alternatives to this classical view, (4) examines important new work on the problematic nature of sovereignty, (5) identifies continua of hierarchic relationships that make sense of the various forms of mixed or restricted sovereignty that we observe in world politics, and (6) argues why it is important to study alternative, hierarchic relationships in international relations. The principal themes throughout are that sovereignty is far more problematic than recognized in the classical model, that important elements of hierarchy exist in the global system, and that both our theories and practice of international politics would be improved by explicitly incorporating variations in hierarchy.
180 citations
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5,295 citations
01 Jan 1976
TL;DR: For centuries knowledge meant proven knowledge, proven either by the power of the intellect or by the evidence of the senses as discussed by the authors. But the notion of proven knowledge was questioned by the sceptics more than two thousand years ago; but they were browbeaten into confusion by the glory of Newtonian physics.
Abstract: For centuries knowledge meant proven knowledge — proven either by the power of the intellect or by the evidence of the senses. Wisdom and intellectual integrity demanded that one must desist from unproven utterances and minimize, even in thought, the gap between speculation and established knowledge. The proving power of the intellect or the senses was questioned by the sceptics more than two thousand years ago; but they were browbeaten into confusion by the glory of Newtonian physics. Einstein’s results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be, proven knowledge. But few realize that with this the whole classical structure of intellectual values falls in ruins and has to be replaced: one cannot simply water down the ideal of proven truth - as some logical empiricists do — to the ideal of’probable truth’1 or — as some sociologists of knowledge do — to ‘truth by [changing] consensus’.2
4,969 citations
4,163 citations
17 Feb 1966
TL;DR: This book contains the collected and unified material necessary for the presentation of such branches of modern cybernetics as the theory of electronic digital computers, Theory of discrete automata, theory of discrete self-organizing systems, automation of thought processes, theoryof image recognition, etc.
Abstract: : This book contains the collected and unified material necessary for the presentation of such branches of modern cybernetics as the theory of electronic digital computers, theory of discrete automata, theory of discrete self-organizing systems, automation of thought processes, theory of image recognition, etc. Discussions are given of the fundamentals of the theory of boolean functions, algorithm theory, principles of the design of electronic digital computers and universal algorithmical languages, fundamentals of perceptron theory, some theoretical questions of the theory of self-organizing systems. Many fundamental results in mathematical logic and algorithm theory are presented in summary form, without detailed proofs, and in some cases without any proof. The book is intended for a broad audience of mathematicians and scientists of many specialties who wish to acquaint themselves with the problems of modern cybernetics.
2,922 citations