Abstract
The modern international system is commonly argued to have originated within Western Europe and spread globally during centuries of colonialism. This article argues, instead, that the character of the modern system of territorially sovereign states resulted from a complex interaction between European colonizing polities and events, actors, and spaces in other parts of the globe. In particular, through a process of colonial reflection, many of the foundational ideas and practices of modern statehood were formed in the interactions of Europeans with the unknown, supposedly empty, spaces of the New World in the 16th and 17th centuries. These novel practices were applied only later to politics among states in Europe. Most important among these developments is the ideal of territorial exclusivity as the sole basis for state sovereignty. This analysis also has implications for the study of contemporary international systemic change.
Introduction
Conventional political science and sociology studies of the modern state system see the origins of these institutions as internal to Europe, with statehood subsequently spreading throughout the world by colonial expansion and post-colonial independence. This narrative, however, misses an important feature of the initial development of the territorial state in Europe: the impact of the early modern period of colonial expansion. In an effort to fill this gap, I suggest a process of colonial reflection, arguing that certain fundamental features of modern states and international politics originated in the actions of European polities and rulers outside of Europe rather than within it. The novel requirements of making political claims in the Americas demanded new authoritative practices from colonial powers, evident in political claims based on linear territorial divisions between spatial expanses. These New World practices were only later applied within Europe, after a contested and long-term process of interaction with existing forms of rule. Nonetheless, by the early 19th century, the transformation of political organization culminated in the territorial statehood and sovereign equality of the modern international system — a transformation fundamentally shaped by early modern colonial practices.
In order to demonstrate this important but overlooked role played by colonial expansion in the formation of territorial states, this article proceeds as follows. The first section reiterates the conventional narrative of the expansion of the European state system, discusses key critiques of this account, and explains how my alternative argument builds on existing theorizations of the interaction between colonies and metropoles. The second section outlines the fundamental importance of ideas and practices of political authority to the character of political structures — specifically, the foundation of modern statehood in a particular form of exclusive, linearly defined territoriality. Then the bulk of the article describes how European colonial powers implemented some of the key practices of modern territoriality in the New World first, and only later applied them within Europe — a trajectory particularly evident in the language of peace treaties. Finally, the conclusion suggests implications for how we might study fundamental change in today’s globalized international system, arguing that peripheral regions may be among the most likely sources of institutional innovation.
Dominant narratives of the expansion of European statehood
Most discussions of the origins of the now global system of states see sovereign statehood and the practices of international relations as a collection of ideas, norms, and practices that developed within Europe and subsequently were imposed on, or adopted by, other parts of the globe during and after the period of European colonialism. These arguments build upon numerous theories from historical sociology concerning the origins of European statehood, theories that vary widely, both in terms of the exact outcome being explained (centralization, territoriality, or international systemic practices) and in terms of which causal drivers are emphasized (military technology and competition, capitalist economic development, or religious reformation). Yet almost all analyses find the origins of the European state system to be exclusively internal to that continent. For example, Tilly (1992) focuses on military pressure driving increased centralization and fiscal-military extraction in European polities. Spruyt (1994) argues that competition among different forms of rule within Europe ended in the victory of the sovereign state over other types of organization. Other arguments include more ideational elements but still posit that key changes originated within Renaissance Europe and restructured political forms there first (e.g. Ruggie, 1993). Many other theorists have approached the origin of modern states from a variety of angles, 1 yet few place causal emphasis on the extra-European expansion of colonial powers, even though they often note the historical coincidence of colonial expansion and European state formation.
The organizational form of the state and the practices of the state system, then, are argued to have spread to the rest of the world through direct colonial imposition and post-colonial institutional mimicry. While this does describe some aspects of the worldwide spread of sovereign statehood, it ignores the constitutive importance of ideas and practices developed during, and as a part of, European expansion. The edited volume by Bull and Watson (1984) on The Expansion of International Society offers a useful example of the English School approach to this question, and it is one of the very few attempts to deal directly with systemic expansion. The authors in this collection see the practices of statehood spreading outward through colonialism and adopted by new states as they are ‘allowed’ into the system in the 20th century. Although they note that ‘[t]he evolution of the European system of interstate relations and the expansion of Europe across the globe were simultaneous processes, which influenced and affected each other’ (Bull and Watson, 1984: 6–7), the analysis finds little influence on state formation from colonial expansion, instead focusing on the expansion of the system to include new actors. This emphasizes diplomatic practices and thus leads to a focus on the inclusion of new actors in events such as multilateral conferences: ‘One way of charting the evolution of a universal international society is to trace the widening representation of non-European states at these conferences’ (Bull and Watson, 1984: 121). By focusing exclusively on the formal relations among political units, this approach ignores the possibility that those units may change in fundamental character, rather than merely in number or identity. Thus, many studies only recognize the interaction between extra-European expansion and systemic change at the level of inclusion or exclusion of actors or units assumed to exist prior to this process.
I argue, instead, that certain practices and ideas fundamental to modern states and international relations appeared first in the colonial world, albeit in the interactions of European polities operating there, and were only later applied to intra-European political structures. This process I label colonial reflection, as it involves the reflection of practices used first in colonial areas onto European internal political arrangements. 2 Many of these practices and ideas were implemented as a conscious response to the perceived novelty of extra-European expansion. Therefore, the historically contingent process of European colonialism — particularly in the New World of the Americas — was a key factor shaping the development of European states and the international system, although it was not the only causal dynamic at work.
The dominant narrative of the formation of modern states has also been challenged in a number of other ways. For example, the conventional focus on military and political competition has been critiqued by studies emphasizing ideational change (Gorski, 2003), property relations (Rosenberg, 1994), or the development of capitalism (Teschke, 2003). Others, rather than focusing exclusively on developments internal to Europe, have noted the importance of including extra-European dynamics. One such approach convincingly demonstrates the difficulty of applying the European experience of state-building to other parts of the world (Centeno, 2002; Herbst, 2000). Additionally, recent work has emphasized that, in order to understand international systems in general and the modern state system in particular, we need to expand our inquiry to encompass political arrangements from all regions and historical periods (Buzan and Little, 2000; Ferguson and Mansbach, 1996; Watson, 1992). Others have explicitly pointed out the interaction between European and global developments (Keene, 2002) and the potentially extra-European origins of key ideas, technologies, and practices underlying European political modernity (Hobson, 2004, 2009). These arguments, and others like them, have usefully widened our focus beyond the traditional focus on internal European developments — and have pointed out, in fact, the fallacy of conceptualizing Europe as a distinct and bounded unit of historical political analysis.
This article’s contribution builds on these insights, arguing that our understanding of the development of European states continues to be incomplete because important aspects of what I have termed colonial reflection have been overlooked. Key elements of the current international system’s foundational norms — namely, exclusive territoriality and linear divisions — first appeared in 16th-century European colonial claims to the New World and were only consolidated in intra-European practices in the 19th century. By focusing narrowly on the changing nature of claims to political rule (over territories and persons), my argument provides new traction on the ongoing inquiry into the importance of extra-European events to political modernity.
The importance of colonial practices to later European political developments has been noted by other studies, none of which, however, focuses on explaining the shift to exclusive territoriality as a foundation for modern statehood. For example, Arendt (1966) sees the origins of 20th-century totalitarianism in the racism and expansionism inherent in 19th-century imperialism. Colonial practices eventually made their appearance within Europe in a ‘boomerang effect,’ to the shock of a society of states accustomed to more ‘civilized’ forms of conflict among themselves. Keene (2002) notes a similar process of importing colonial ideas, particularly regarding the justification for war as a means of defending or spreading ‘civilization.’ Benedict Anderson’s argument about the construction of nations as ‘imagined communities’ rests on a similar logic. He contends that modern nationalism appeared first in America, not in Europe:
Out of the American welter came these imagined realities: nation-states, republican institutions, common citizenships, popular sovereignty, national flags and anthems, etc.… In effect, by the second decade of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, a ‘model’ of ‘the’ independent national state was available for pirating. (Anderson, 1991: 81)
The fact that this aspect of Anderson’s argument is often overlooked reveals how deeply ingrained our notions of the European origins of modernity are. The integral part played by extra-European events, actors, or practices needs to be incorporated into our understanding of modern state formation.
While such explanations focus predominantly on 19th-century developments, a process of colonial reflection also occurred in the first colonial age of the 16th and 17th centuries, fundamentally shaping the origins of territorial states. For example, O’Gorman (1961) notes that the initial Columbian encounter and the subsequent ‘invention’ of America as a New World by Europeans not only altered their understanding of the heretofore unknown parts of the world, but also reconstructed their conception of the world as a whole and the place of Europe within it. Schmitt echoes this point, arguing explicitly that the encounter with America ‘initiated an internal European struggle for this new world that, in turn, led to a new spatial order of the earth with new divisions’ (Schmitt, 2003 [1974]: 87). Anghie (2004), Muldoon (1999), and Bhambra (2007) have also noted the importance of the first wave of European colonial expansion to the formation of political modernity and international law.
In particular, the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Amerindian civilizations — which were difficult to fit into the conventional categorization of peoples as Christians or as known enemies of Christendom — brought up questions with implications not only for the position of New World possessions, but also for the fundamental basis of political life within Europe as well (Fernández-Santamaria, 1977; Jahn, 1999, 2000; Pagden, 1995). In debates following the Spanish conquest — including one called by Charles V at Valladolid specifically to discuss the legitimacy of his New World possessions — those participants involved understood the potential repercussions of their arguments: ‘The jurists and theologians were acutely aware that any political theory used to legitimize in this way the conquest of the territories of non-Christian rulers could just as easily be used by Christian rulers against each other’ (Pagden, 1995: 47–48; see also Fernández-Santamaria, 1977: 58). The justifications used were fundamental to the later development of modern political theory, as well as to practices of political rule and the discipline of international relations (Jahn, 1999, 2000).
As will be clear in the pages that follow, my argument builds on the insights provided by these wide-ranging studies, as I adopt a similar approach but focus on a different aspect of political modernity. The ideas and practices of territorial statehood examined in this article are part of the larger universe of ways in which colonial ideas and practices restructured European politics. Specifically, in a transformation that occurred in conjunction with other dynamics (both internal and external to Europe), the target of political claims shifted from persons and places to territorial spaces. This form of exclusive territoriality — part of the fundamental structure of sovereign statehood and modern international politics — appeared first in European expansion into, and political competition over, the New World. These norms and practices were later applied to European interactions, creating by the 19th century the hegemonic norm of political organization represented by the territorial state. This aspect of colonial reflection, which has been overlooked in existing studies, forms the subject of this article. 3
Sovereignty, territoriality, and the modern state
In short, the territorial statehood and linear boundaries that have defined international politics since the 19th century first appeared in European colonial practices. This section provides theoretical and empirical background for this argument, first, by summarizing the importance of territoriality and authority to the constitution of the international system and, second, by outlining the transformation of authority in the development of modern states.
The important characteristics of the international system include more than diplomatic practices (which the English School emphasizes) or the anarchy–hierarchy distinction (of neorealism). The characteristics of the actors themselves must be considered as well (Ruggie, 1993; Spruyt, 1998), and these characteristics are fundamentally structured by ideas and practices of sovereign authority. Parallel to the realist assumption that anarchy is the immutable organizing principle of international politics, many theories implicitly assume that polities have been constituted only by a single form of sovereign authority: the exclusive reliance on territorial authority of the modern state system. Yet if we wish to understand how international systems change over time, we need to conceptualize authority as a variable characteristic of polities. The foundation of sovereign authority — or its constitutive dimension 4 — is determined by the types of authority held to be legitimate bases for political organization. Both internal and external aspects of sovereignty are defined by the authority that an actor claims or holds — internally vis-a-vis subject persons, jurisdictions, or territory, and externally in terms of the divisions between units and the criteria for recognition as a legitimate polity. 5
In this key dimension of state and system structure — the form of legitimate authority — the modern state system differs fundamentally from other historical international systems, both the medieval political structure that preceded it in Europe and the non-Western political systems from various eras. 6 In the modern state system, the primary political entities (i.e. states) are defined solely in terms of exclusive, homogeneous territorial authority, which is circumscribed by linear geographic boundaries. This particular form of territoriality is so strongly ingrained in the modern conception of politics that it is often mistakenly seen as a recurring pattern throughout history, rather than as the innovation of modernity that it actually is. Thus, the following paragraphs briefly outline the divergence between modern statehood and other, earlier forms of political authority and organization, highlighting the unique character of the modern state.
The European medieval political world, for example, was structured by a mix of territorial and jurisdictional or personal forms of authority. Political units were constituted based both on personal feudal bonds between actors and on territorial notions of control. Yet the form of territoriality in this system was very different from the exclusive, linearly bounded territorial authority of the modern world. Instead, territory was understood as a series of places, with authority radiating outward from centers rather than inward from linear boundaries. Furthermore, authorities in medieval Europe were often non-exclusive, decentralized, and overlapping, such as in the case of vassals simultaneously owing homage to various — often competing — lords (Bloch, 1961; Finer, 1997; Ganshof, 1970; Revel, 1991; Ruggie, 1993).
Outside of Western Europe, political systems were often based on similar, non-modern forms of territorial authority or personal quasi-kinship bonds. Many pre-colonial African polities, for example, were understood in terms of authority radiating outward from a center of strong control to fading peripheries (Bassett, 1998; Herbst, 2000; Klinghoffer, 2006). Imperial suzerain systems also lacked the exclusively and homogeneously territorial character of modern sovereign authority: empires such as Rome or China were conceived of as holding authority over the entire world, but with control simply diminishing from the center into tributary areas (Kratochwil, 1986).
The modern state system, on the other hand, has been structured since the early 19th century by exclusive territorial authority, with no other form of authority considered legitimate. Although some theories of international politics assume all systems to have been structured by similar notions of territorial exclusivity, in fact this is a unique and fundamental characteristic of modern states and international relations, and it is the result of a set of contingent causal processes. In the modern system, the only internationally legitimate form of authority is territorial, defined by linear cartographic boundaries and homogeneity within those lines (illustrated by the modern political map of the world, with color-coded and linearly bounded states). This form of territorial authority is non-overlapping, making situations of mixed or shared rule exceptions requiring extraordinary justification. Finally, authority is highly centralized, particularly at the level of international relations and state-to-state interaction. Even today’s most loosely federated states are far more centralized than the composite polities of medieval Europe or imperial suzerainties.
In order to understand this transformation of sovereign authority in Europe and the constitution of an entirely novel international system built exclusively around territorial authority, we must widen our focus to include the important effects of the colonial expansion of European actors and their attempts to deal with the spaces of the supposedly ‘New World’ of the Americas. The transformation of political authority among European actors — which by the 19th century had consolidated as modern territorial states — is evident far earlier in the colonial expansion into the New World. The Columbian encounter and the subsequent attempt to make claims to political authority demanded a new form of territorial rule, structured around linear divisions and homogeneous expanses of space. Although a number of other sources of political transformation also operated during this same period, the transformative impact of colonial expansion provided a key element in the shift from medieval forms of authoritative claims to modern territorial exclusivity.
The following section explores, first, the immediate implementation of new linearly territorial notions of authority in the period following Columbus and the continuing use of territorial exclusivity in the New World thereafter; second, the concurrent persistence of non-territorial authorities within Europe; and, third, the later application of colonial ideas and practices within Europe in the process of colonial reflection.
New World territoriality and European reflection
New World territoriality
The ‘discovery’ of America in the 1490s was not easily incorporated into European geographic and cosmological thinking. In particular, there was confusion among European intellectuals and rulers as to whether what had been encountered was part of Asia (as Columbus believed) or an entirely new land unconnected to the known continents. It was not until 15 years after Columbus’s first voyage that the first clear and widely influential statements of the ‘New World’ character of the discoveries were made (O’Gorman, 1961).
Even before this view was solidified, however, political actors wished to claim authority over the newly encountered lands. Although the nature of these territories was unclear, the Spanish monarchs wanted to secure their claims no matter what the geographic facts turned out to be:
The Crown’s reaction is governed by one primary interest: to ensure possession and juridical rights on whatever it was that Columbus had found.… With equal haste, the Crown started negotiations to obtain a legal title from the Holy See. Here, also, the question of what the lands might be was not uppermost: the urgent thing was to insure juridical lordship over them. (O’Gorman, 1961: 81)
Columbus’s traditional means of asserting authority on the spot — in his own words, ‘by proclamation made and with the royal standard unfurled’ (Greenblatt, 1991: 51) — was insufficient for claiming a poorly understood territory. These new claims had to be made over territories for which rulers had little or no knowledge, in the traditional sense of naming jurisdictional rights over towns or cities — they were, in effect, ‘spaces without places.’ 7 A more effective means for making a claim over the unknown was, instead, linearly defined territorial authority.
Europeans found particularly useful the ideas built on techniques of mapping newly rediscovered from the classical Greek author Ptolemy, whose work contained instructions for mapping according to the now-familiar celestial coordinate system of latitude and longitude (Thrower, 1999; Woodward, 2007). Previous European mapping traditions lacked the global, 360-degree foundation required to make claims over unknown territories. The Ptolemaic cartographic grid made possible the linear division of the world according to abstract lines, a technique demanded by European rulers’ desire to make political claims over the (to them) unknown spaces of this New World. 8
These technologies inspired and made possible new practices of ‘global linear thinking’ among European political actors (Schmitt, 2003 [1974]: 87–88). The first examples were the Papal Bulls of 1493 and the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal. In these agreements, Spain was allotted all newly discovered territories west of a line drawn in the Atlantic Ocean, and Portugal was apportioned those to the east. The importance of these treaties was not in the details of the line (the exact measurement of which was technologically unobtainable), but instead in the very idea of using a linear division to assign political authority: ‘For the first time in history an abstract geometric system had been used to define a vast — global — area of control’ (Sack, 1986: 132).
In the first half of the 16th century, however, Spanish explorers discovered that the abstract spaces claimed in the 1493–4 agreements were, of course, inhabited by indigenous peoples. Subsequently, debates arose in Spain about the legitimacy of the conquest and enslavement of these groups. Similar to the geographical novelty of the New World requiring a new form of spatial claim, existing ‘legal constructions at the disposal of the Spaniards … became irrelevant’ (Jahn, 2000: 49) because ‘the Amerindians were neither Christians nor could they be accused of being enemies of Christianity — enemies in the sense of having known the true religion and resisting it’ (Jahn, 2000: 45). The conquest was instead justified by an innovative application of natural law principles (Fernández-Santamaria, 1977: 84–85; Jahn, 1999: 417). Yet this did not invalidate or undermine the primacy of the linear territorial claims of the 1490s. These early agreements remained central to Spanish claims and were often brought up — if only to be rejected — by French and English counterclaims (Pagden, 1995: 48). Thus linear territorial claims were used in conjunction with other innovations in order to delineate and justify New World possessions. The Spanish conquest involved brute force, theological disputes, and, on occasion, complex negotiated settlements. Yet the claims made vis-a-vis other European rulers in the New World — which later redefined interactions within Europe — came to rest predominantly on notions of control over spaces, not peoples.
This tendency becomes increasingly clear in the second century of European colonialism, as other European states made their own claims in the New World. For example, the use of abstract, cartographic territoriality to assert control is unmistakable in the 17th-century English charters to North American colonies. Even when English claims to New World territory involved the written ‘“legal cartographies” of charters and grants’ rather than maps per se (Baldwin, 2007: 1765), such documents typically based their authority claims on the ideas of geometric cartography: lines of latitude or longitude. For example, the 1606 charter of Virginia delineated the colony as being all land on the Atlantic coast ‘between four and thirty Degrees of Northerly Latitude from the Equinoctial Line, and five and forty Degrees of the same Latitude.’ 9 Charters for other colonies followed similar patterns (Sack, 1986: 134). These types of claims — used by both the English and the French — were based on the notion that American land was res nullius, or land belonging to no one (Pagden, 1995: 76).
The cartographic basis for these large territorial claims in colonial charters was then followed by the imposition of survey-based property mapping as a key element in delineating and assigning colonial lands to settlers, often along equally geometric lines (Kain and Baigent, 1992: ch. 8). In these property allotments of supposedly ‘empty’ areas, land grants resembled the titles used in medieval Europe for reclaimed lands rather than the standard feudally encumbered grants (Keene, 2002: 63). Once again, the expansion to the New World yielded novel practices and changes in how existing institutions were operationalized.
The territorial homogenization of North American political space culminated in the creation of the US as an independent entity, defined geographically and territorially by cartographic lines and homogeneously federal subdivisions (Sack, 1986: 149). Although these colonies were European creations, this geometric territoriality was implemented in the New World at a time when political space within Europe was still organized in a mix of old and new forms, as will be discussed later.
In short, the conquest of the Americas created a break with previous practices of political expansion:
Old World conquest before the Age of Exploration involved subduing and establishing suzerainty over older and resident agricultural populations. It did not involve displacing them entirely, even when these populations were thought by their conquerors to be inferior. (Sack, 1986: 87–88)
In the Old World, filled with recognized authority structures and legal titles, an invader could conquer a people and claim the same authority that the previous ruler had held. In the New World, the absence of recognized authorities demanded a new means of claiming authority vis-a-vis other European powers: linearly defined territoriality, expressed abstractly in maps or cartographic language. Thus it was the very need to divide, claim, and assign the unknown spaces of the New World that drove the first use of the newly available abstract mathematical and geometric methods for understanding and claiming space. 10 Although these new forms of rule were sometimes combined with existing ideas and practices, the fundamentally novel character of New World political claims is highlighted when they are compared with contemporary practices within Europe.
Early modern European territoriality
Contemporary with the implementation of territorial exclusivity in the political claims and counterclaims of colonial powers in the New World, authority relations within Europe remained relatively unchanged for several centuries. Rulers continued to make political authority claims based on personal or jurisdictional notions, as well as territorial claims built on the medieval idea of territory as a series of places rather than a geometrically delineated space. This is evident in the language used in major European peace treaties, which provide one means of gauging the ideas held by leading political actors in the early modern period. Whether or not a ruler plans on abiding by an agreement, the negotiating and signing of that agreement exposes fundamental ideas about what is being negotiating over (see Krasner, 2001: 34). 11 In particular, the way in which political authority is exchanged, transferred, or claimed reveals foundational understandings, even if the specifics are in dispute. Most pertinent to this article’s focus on the origins of the exclusive territoriality of modern statehood, texts can be examined in terms of the form taken by claims, conquests, and cessions: are they made in terms of groups of people, listed places, or delineated spaces?
Nearly contemporary with Columbus and the Treaty of Tordesillas, late medieval treaty settlements were built on notions of political authority very different from those evident in New World claims. Within Europe, agreements focused on issues of feudal homage and territorial control, with the latter defined in terms of a series of individual places such as forts or towns rather than linear boundaries. For example, the 1435 Congress of Arras brought together the major actors in the Hundred Years’ War: the English King, the French King, and the Duke of Burgundy. The unsuccessful negotiations between England and France involved demands for control over towns, listed as a series of places and not defined as a homogeneous territory (Dickinson, 1955: 148). In the agreement reached between Burgundy and France, ‘expressmention is made of the cession of Mâcon, Auxerre, Péronne, Montdidier, Roye, and Bar’ as a series of towns, not as a delineated spatial area (Dickinson, 1955: 166). In short, the negotiations and treaty clearly demonstrate the medieval notion of spatial authority and its complete dissociation from linear boundaries or cartographic divisions. Furthermore, personal feudal forms of authority remained important, illustrated by the French king’s demand for homage from the English monarch (Dickinson, 1955: 150, 167).
Over a century later, in 1558–9, France, Spain, and England met to negotiate an end to the Italian Wars, yielding the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. In the several treaties that resulted from these meetings, territorial trades and cessions were once again made in the form of lists of towns. For example, Article 11 of the French–Spanish treaty stated, ‘The King of Spain shall restore to the King of France S. Quentin, Le Catelet and Ham, with their dependencies’ (Russell, 1986: 243), while another agreement mandated an equal division of revenues from a newly created diocese. These examples reveal the continuing importance of overlapping jurisdictional divisions that do not line up with territorial boundaries, as well as the persistence of the non-linear view of territorial political authority into the 16th century, even in the agreements at the highest levels among the most powerful — and culturally central — polities of Europe.
Contrary to the conventional narrative in international relations theory about the innovative and transformative nature of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the treaties signed at Münster and Osnabrück demonstrated that territorial authority continued to be understood in the medieval fashion, as a series of differentiated places, and non-territorial authorities also continued to be important. 12
For example, in section LXXVI of the Treaty of Münster, after listing a series of Alsatian towns to be under the control of the French crown, the following text appeared:
Item, All the Vassals, Subjects, People, Towns, Boroughs, Castles, Houses, Fortresses, Woods, Coppices, Gold or Silver Mines, Minerals, Rivers, Brooks, Pastures; and in a word, all the Rights, Regales and Appurtenances, without any reserve, shall belong to the most Christian King, and shall be for ever incorporated with the Kingdom of France. (Israel, 1967: 31–32, emphasis in original)
Or, for another example, the list of possessions to be returned to Austria included the following passage:
Item, The County of Hawenstein, the Black Forest, the Upper and Lower Brisgaw, and the Towns situate therein, appertaining of Antient Right to the House of Austria, viz. Neuburg, Friburg, Edingen, Kenzingen, Waldkirch, Willingen, Bruenlingen, with all their Territorys; as also, the Monasterys, Abbys, Prelacys, Deaconrys, Knight-Fees, Commanderships, with all their Bayliwicks, Baronys, Castles, Fortresses, Countys, Barons, Nobles, Vassals, Men, Subjects, Rivers, Brooks, Forests, Woods, and all the Regales, Rights, Jurisdictions, Fiefs and Patronages, and all other things belonging to the Sovereign Right of Territory, and to the Patrimony of the House of Austria, in all that Country. (Article LXXXVIII, in Israel, 1967: 35, emphasis in original)
Although the authority was mentioned as a list of places ‘with all their Territorys,’ this had to be followed by a careful listing of all the personal and jurisdictional authorities associated — otherwise these would not have been considered included. While this yielded the end result of giving control over basically the entirety of the territory in question to the receiving party — hence sounding similar to the modern notion of exclusive and complete sovereignty over territory — in fact it demonstrates the persistent strength of the medieval notion of territorial authority. Every single aspect of the towns concerned — sub-jurisdictions, economic resources, and so on — had to be explicitly named; it was not yet sufficient simply to delineate a certain spatial area and thus claim authority over it and all that exists within it. These examples are representative of the other territorial exchanges in the treaties.
What is also notable in 1648 is the continuing absence of cartographic or geographic language of the kind being used in the New World. There was no discussion of delineating territorial claims or exchanges by the use of linear divisions, mapped features, or even ‘natural frontier’ divisions. The complexity of the passage quoted above demonstrates that it was not yet acceptable simply to describe the geographic limits of a territorial claim and leave it at that — all of the detailed particulars of the places within the territory had to be named for authority to be exchanged.
Furthermore, these treaties contained numerous references to ‘rights’ and ‘privileges’ associated with particular places. These referred to medieval jurisdictional notions of authority, which continued to be asserted in the mid-17th century. In addition, there were many passages that discuss feudal concepts such as fiefs or vassalage. For example, referring to several German princes, ‘these Vassals shall be bound to take an Oath of Fidelity to the Lord Charles Lewis [the Elector Palatine], and to his Successors, as their direct Lords, and to demand of him the renewing of their Fiefs’ (Article XXVII, in Israel, 1967: 16, emphasis in original).
In short, Westphalia marked not the creation, let alone the consolidation, of the modern state system, but instead continued the intra-European practices of exchanging authority along medieval lines. While there is no question that some aspects of international politics had changed in the two centuries leading up to 1648 — such as the new emphasis on the pursuit of rational goals by dynastic rulers — the fundamental constitution of what was being claimed or ceded remained relatively unchanged since the late Middle Ages: places and persons, rather than linearly bounded spaces. 13
Finally, in the negotiations ending the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, most of the discussion — and treaty text — was dedicated to assuring the permanent separation of the crowns of France and Spain (since the war had been initiated to prevent Louis XIV’s attempt at such a union). Nonetheless, there were some territorial cessions made. Similar to earlier treaties, however, these were made by listing a place to be handed over, as well as its attendant rights and properties. For example, such language was used for Spain’s cession of Gibraltar to Britain and with regards to the transfer of the Kingdom of Sicily to Savoy. As with the Treaty of Westphalia, the absence of cartographic territorial language for intra-European settlements is notable.
The divergence between New World and Old World practices
Early modern peace treaties among European powers thus illustrate the disconnect between linear territorial exclusivity in the New World and jurisdictional complexities in the Old. The negotiations and documents concerning the New World dealt in linear divisions, often tied directly to cartographic notions such as lines of latitude or longitude, while the intra-European agreements continued to rely on an understanding of political territory as a series of places, defined by centers rather than boundaries.
For example, compare the place-focused territorial exchanges and jurisdictional complexities of the cessions in the treaties of Westphalia with the cartographic abstraction and linearity of English colonial charters from the same century. While the colonial charters simply outlined the boundaries of territories to be granted, the negotiators at Westphalia felt the need to include a listing of every place, jurisdiction, and right to be granted to one party by the other. The perception that the New World territories were empty (of legal titles and political authorities recognized by Europeans) created a strong impetus toward the use of cartographic territorial exclusivity: spaces could only be claimed in such a manner, because there were no known political authorities that could be — and had to be — included in a treaty.
The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht offers an illustrative example of this divergence between colonial and intra-European ideas about territorial political authority. The territorial transfers within Europe were effected as a listing of places, without linear boundaries or cartographic descriptions. The territorial adjustments to New World possessions, however, took the form of geographic descriptions of spaces. For example, the treaty between Britain and France contains the following, concerning North America:
The said most Christian King [of France] shall restore to the Kingdom and Queen of Great Britain, to be possessed in full Right for ever, the Bay and Straits of Hudson, together with all Lands, Seas, Sea-Coasts, Rivers, and Places situate in the said Bay and Straits, and which belong thereunto, no Tracts of Land or of Sea being excepted, which are at present possessed by the Subjects of France.… But it is agreed on both sides, to determine within a Year, by Commissarys to be forthwith named by each Party, the Limits which are to be fixed between the said Bay of Hudson and the Places appertaining to the French; which Limits both the British and French Subjects shall be wholly forbid to pass over, or thereby to go to each other by Sea or by Land. The same Commissarys shall also have Orders to describe and settle in like manner the Boundarys between the other British and French Colonys in those parts. (Article X, in Israel, 1967: 207–208, emphasis in original)
The emphasis placed on ‘limits,’ or boundaries, stands in stark contrast to the focus on places, or centers, in intra-European territorial claims. Thus, the divergence between territoriality in the New World versus Europe is apparent not only in contemporary events, but even within a single political settlement.
Reflection of linear exclusive territoriality back onto Europe
The discrepancy between New World territorial practices and those used within Europe was slowly narrowed and finally eliminated, beginning in the 18th century, but culminating only after the defeat of Napoleon. While the Treaty of Utrecht continued to demonstrate the presence of medieval notions of territorial authority within Europe — as places were exchanged in a listing, without any cartographic delineation — the later 18th century would evince the gradual transformation of territoriality. Again, interstate agreements demonstrate the trajectory of change. While the 1748 Treaty of Aix La Chapelle restored the status quo from before the War of Austrian Succession by listing places to be handed back (Article VI, in Israel, 1967: 274), a series of late 18th-century treaties between France and her neighbors implemented linear boundaries and eliminated jurisdictional complexities (Black, 1999: 125; Sahlins, 1989).
Furthermore, the treaties involved in the partition of Poland among Austria, Prussia, and Russia in the 1770s through 1790s began to include cartographic delineation of territory, of the kind seen earlier in the New World and later at Vienna (detailed later). In fact, the third partition (in 1795) included both types of territorial language: the listing of ‘lands, cities, districts and other domains’ to be claimed and the division of territories using linear demarcations (Articles I and II, in Israel, 1967: 422). Like New World colonial charters, these partitions involved the imposition of linear divisions over territories inhabited by people not consulted in the process. Outside of Europe, such practices began with Tordesillas and continued throughout the colonial era, but the Polish partitions represent one of the first such cases within Europe. In fact, the parallel was not entirely lost on the participants: after Austrian officials in Poland encountered difficulties in obtaining the geographic information required for boundary demarcation, Emperor Joseph II wrote, ‘I don’t believe that even among the Iroquois and the Hottentots such ridiculous things occur’ (quoted in Evans, 1992: 492). The imposition of colonial territorial practices in Poland involved the demotion of the Polish people to the status of indigenous subjects of European colonial rule.
As far as the rest of Europe was concerned, it was only after the great upheavals of the revolutionary era and Napoleon’s conquest that it was possible to impose linear territoriality wholesale across the continent. In fact, Napoleon’s conquest and rule represented a ‘vast experiment with colonialism within Europe’ (Schroeder, 1994: 391), and likewise territory inside France was ‘rationalized’ through extensive land surveys and administrative reorganization. With Napoleon’s defeat, the possibility was opened for the imposition of exclusive territoriality throughout the continent, as French expansion had either eliminated (through conquest) or undermined (through co-optation) nearly all of the previously existing legitimate authority structures. The series of negotiations and treaties ending the Napoleonic wars thus reveals a transformation in how European rulers operationalized political authority. In sharp contrast with a century prior, territory was divided linearly, with those lines of division described in careful geographic and cartographic terms. Authority was now defined exclusively by its boundaries, and places within those boundaries were implicitly claimed; no longer did all towns, rights, and jurisdictions have to be explicitly listed. In short, colonial territorial practices were applied within Europe.
In the treaty signed at the Congress of Vienna, for example, the redivision of the Duchy of Warsaw among Austria, Prussia, and Russia was effected in an entirely linear fashion:
That part of the Duchy of Warsaw which His Majesty the King of Prussia shall possess in full sovereignty and property, for himself, his heirs, and successors, under the title of the Grand Duchy of Posen, shall be comprised within the following line: — Proceeding from the frontier of East Prussia to the village of Neuhoff … from thence shall be drawn a line. (Article II, in Israel, 1967: 520)
Two features of this text stand out. First is the clear linear nature of the division. This was understood so geometrically that, later in the description of the line of division, part of the boundary was drawn by ‘a semi-circular territory measured by the distance’ from one town to another (Israel, 1967: 521). Second, the Prussian King was assigned this territory ‘in full sovereignty’ based solely on the delineation of its boundaries — no other description (listing of places, etc.) was necessary.
Even when places were listed in the old style, this listing was no longer sufficient, and the exact territorial delimitation was required. For example, Article VI of the Vienna Treaty declares, ‘The Town of Cracow, with its Territory, is declared to be for ever a Free, Independent, and strictly Neutral City, under the Protection of Austria, Russia, and Prussia’ (Israel, 1967: 522). A century earlier, this simple declaration would have been sufficient — the place has been named, and all the related rights and jurisdictions would be included. In 1815, however, territorial authority was no longer defined from the center outward, and therefore the exact boundaries of this neutral entity had to be delineated. Thus, the next article states, ‘The territory of the Free Town of Cracow shall have for its frontier upon the left bank of the Vistula a line …’ and then proceeds to describe carefully the placement of that line (Israel, 1967: 522). Spatial authority could only be claimed geometrically, defined by boundaries, not as a listing of places; linear definition was both necessary and sufficient for territorial claims.
Finally, remaining non-territorial authorities, such as feudal rights or privileges, were actively removed or waived by the signing parties. For example, regarding the Swiss cantons the Vienna Treaty states that ‘feudal rights and tithes cannot be re-established’ (Israel, 1967: 554). Concerning the boundary of Saxony with Prussia, the Vienna Treaty contains the following exemplary passage:
His Majesty the King of Prussia and His Majesty the King of Saxony … renounce, each on his own part, and reciprocally in favour of one another, all feudal rights or pretensions which they might exercise or might have exercised beyond the frontiers fixed by the present Treaty. (Israel, 1967: 527)
The process is clear: the implementation of linear boundaries required the elimination of non-territorial authorities extending across those lines. In 1814–15, the New World territorial practices of linear boundaries and territorial exclusivity were imposed wholesale on European political space.
This chronology of the linearization of boundaries and homogenization of territorial authority — appearing first in the New World and later applied within Europe — illustrates the process of reflection of colonial ideas and practices. Yet the question remains as to why these novel arrangements would be applied in the European setting, where centuries of custom supported traditional notions of authority and forms of political organization. The answer may lie in the usefulness of the new arrangements to rulers seeking to claim and impose authority on spaces both near and far.
European rulers quickly found some of their new colonial ideas — and technologies of power — useful enough that efforts were made to apply them within Europe. For example, in the 1570s the Spanish crown distributed a series of detailed questionnaires, known as the relaciones geográficas, to colonial officials. This represented the first successful systematic effort to gather geographical information about the colonies and thus provided detailed knowledge to support the abstract territorial claims of Tordesillas (Cline, 1964; Mundy, 1996). These efforts subsequently influenced how the Spanish crown attempted to gain knowledge of its Iberian territory as well. In the 1580s, ‘Peninsular RG’s [relaciones geográficas] appear actually to derive from procedures developed earlier for the American dominions’ (Cline, 1964: 343–344). A technique for gathering information and asserting authority on New World territories was applied to European space, once its usefulness was proven.
Similarly, the use of maps and linear divisions to delineate political claims had proved to be very useful to colonial powers, including the commissioning of surveys and boundary demarcation in colonial treaties (such as that seen in 1713, discussed earlier). These exact practices were then applied within Europe in the Vienna settlement of 1814–15 and thereafter. Once adopted as part of the repertoire of political rule, linear divisions and cartographic definitions of authority were used to displace more complex forms of rule. The basis for linear territoriality in the visual depiction of the world as a globe spanned by a geometric grid of latitude and longitude strengthens this norm (Pickles, 2004). If lines can easily assign territory in one part of the world, they can just as easily be used in every part of the world — including areas previously filled with complex authorities. This eventually culminated in the redefinition of the territorial basis of rule within and among European states.
Thus, the colonial linearization of rule was built on contemporary developments in European techniques of spatial depiction — specifically mapping — which provided both the foundation for the New World claims and, later, the tools for the implementation of territorial exclusivity within Europe. As the ability of cartographers to depict the world accurately through surveying, position-finding, and mapping improved during the early modern period, rulers were able to put such skills and tools to use in demarcating intra-European space as well. This only occurred, however, after the usefulness and legitimacy of linearly bounded authority claims were made clear by centuries of colonial practice.
Conclusion: Peripheral sources of political change
The importance of colonial reflection to the eventual consolidation of a system of states founded on territorial exclusivity has implications for how we understand systemic change in general. First, the definition of the modern international system exclusively in terms of territorial statehood came about predominantly as an unintended consequence of the actions of European rulers — actions that subsequently constituted structural constraints on even the most powerful polities (Ruggie, 1993: 166). Of course, diplomats and other political actors sometimes aimed consciously to invent or implement new norms, practices, and institutions, particularly in peace settlements such as those considered earlier. 14 Yet there is a difference between, on the one hand, the issues and goals dealt with directly by diplomats and, on the other, the fundamental framework of territorial versus non-territorial rule. It is the transformation of this framework that this article has sought to explain. Ruggie (1993: 162–163) frames this difference by contrasting ‘constitutive,’ ‘configurative,’ and ‘positional’ wars. While negotiators were almost always concerned with configurative issues (such as dynastic disputes) and with positional conflicts (‘the familiar strategic and tactical’ clashes between states), they were rarely aware of how their negotiated settlements manifested a transformation in the fundamental constitution of rule. In fact, constitutive norms of authoritative rule — which shifted only slowly — structured how political actors approached configurative and positional issues.
Thus, since the post-Napoleonic settlement, the constitutive basis of European (and eventually global) statehood has remained relatively fixed, even as the goals pursued by states in war and peace have been transformed. For example, at Vienna rulers used linear territorial demarcations to promote stability among and within conservative regimes across the continent. Following World War I, the same techniques of territorial division were used, but this time in pursuit of new goals, such as the US delegation’s effort to promote Wilsonian self-determination. In neither case was the territorialization of rule the main focus of the participants. Territoriality was rather an ideal that had come to define legitimate political organization, thanks in part to the earlier use of linear claims in the New World. This ideal then structured how political actors pursued their immediate goals, whether of expansion, stability, or justice.
The importance of colonial claims to exclusive territoriality also points toward the role of peripheries as sources of institutional innovation. Thus, in terms of understanding the potential for future changes in major constitutive norms of today’s state system, we should not necessarily focus exclusively on the center, on the actions taken and ideas promoted by the most politically powerful actors. Instead, new ideas from the peripheries of the system may be applied at the center in unexpected or unintended ways. Therefore, although the European Union offers a potential model for a postmodern or post-territorial political order with implications for contemporary international politics, it may be equally useful to look at areas typically considered peripheral. Are today’s major powers pursuing new practices or claims in supposedly marginal regions of the international system that might make their way back to the core? For example, the rush of foreign land purchases in sub-Saharan Africa may lead to a renegotiation of spatial property rights, and the potentially transformative effects of climate change on the Arctic could be producing new types of claims and counterclaims regarding marine resources and transit. 15 Or, even further into the peripheries, could a new regime in orbital and outer space yield new forms of international organization and interaction? 16 These lines of inquiry may point toward new practices for actors seeking to deal with the complex pressures that globalization has put on the sovereign territorial state.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Chris Ansell, Adam Branch, Ron Hassner, Steve Weber, and the participants at the 2009 International Studies Association panel where this work was first presented. I am also particularly grateful to the editors of EJIR and the two anonymous reviewers for their detailed and helpful comments.