Revisiting the expansion thesis: international society and the role of the Dutch East India company as a merchant empire

Abstract

This paper breaks new ground by looking at the role played by merchant empires, such as the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in shaping European interactions with the non-Western world. It offers a critique of the English School’s state-centric narrative of the expansion of international society by looking to how the VOC and its expansion in Asia influenced developments within Europe. As a non-state actor, the VOC developed networks of trade and power, which were intertwined with the Dutch struggle against Iberian hegemony. As this paper shows, the development of international law, sovereign equality and European international society needs to be understood as being constituted through these colonial encounters. Looking to the VOC as a merchant empire presents a more nuanced approach to the expansion narrative that recognises that states, empires and early modern companies developed in a co-evolutionary manner. This critical approach calls for the recognition of international society as an ongoing process formed by the contestation of hybrid cultures.

Keywords

International society European expansion English School Grotius empire

Introduction

The expansion of international society is the ‘flagship idea’ of the English School (Buzan 2004a,b: 1). As one of the most prominent traditions within International Relations (IR), the English School has developed with a particular focus on the norms, rules and institutions of international society. The narrative of an expanding international society portrays a story of how Europeans spread these norms and institutions externally across the globe, resulting in today’s ‘world society’ (Buzan, 2004a,b). This story of European expansion has largely been told as originating within Europe before overruling and incorporating the non-European world. It is portrayed as a unidirectional movement expanding from Europe outwards in a civilising process. Critiques of this Eurocentric narrative are already well established within the discipline (Callahan, 2004; Hobson, 2012: 222–233; Keene, 2002; Seth, 2011; Suzuki, 2005; Zhang, 2011). But, the English School has failed to adequately explore the implications of these criticisms. This is because the school is still deeply entrenched with a whiggish 19th century historiography (Keene, 2008), which is state centric and Eurocentric. While some English School scholars, such as Richard Little (2004), have been prominent in calling for a deeper engagement with world history, there is still a significant need to revisit and revise the expansion narrative. The idea of an international society has been reified as a concept within IR (Kaczmarska, 2018). It is treated as an unproblematic assumption that disguises the role of imperial history in shaping European and global political order. This paper therefore breaks new ground by looking at the role played by merchant empires, such as the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in shaping European interactions with the non-Western world.

The significance of the Dutch VOC was recognised by Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (1984: 20), and in Watson’s later individual work (1992: 192), but crucially its role as a non-state actor and its relationship in conducting diplomacy, wars and trade outside of Europe has been under-theorised. This is because the English School has often overlooked the role of non-state actors in the formation of the norms, values and institutions of international society (Colás, 2016). This paper therefore looks to the example of early modern European trading companies, as merchant empires, and examines their interactions with non-European people and political systems. By focusing on the drive for trade and colonial possessions, this paper argues we need a more nuanced view of European expansion. One in which the agency of non-Europeans is recognised and the order of European international society is seen as being in a co-constitutive relationship with the external drive for imperial possessions and trade. The expansion of European international society was primarily led by non-state actors, such as the English and Dutch East India companies. These hybrid actors blur the distinctions between public and private force. As international actors, these merchant empires did not enter into a political void. European merchant powers interacted and co-existed with already developed significant polities. Andrew Philips (2017: 39) argues that these company powers can be understood as ‘the true vanguard of the spread of a European-dominated global colonial order’. But in engaging with non-Europeans through trade and colonisation, European politics was in itself shaped and constituted by the expansion of these merchant empires.

This paper builds upon the work of Edward Keene’s (2002) Beyond the Anarchical Society, through looking at the relationship of European imperialism and the expansion of European powers. Keene (2002: 146) argues that the conventional idea of an anarchical society of independent sovereign states overlooks the way Europeans discriminated between ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized peoples’. Keene therefore correctly shows the problems of the 19th century view of international society, but the English School has often under-theorised imperial relations prior to the 19th century. Like Keene, this paper looks to the work of the Dutch theorist Hugo Grotius, but it places a distinct focus on the historical practice of the Dutch East India company and its status as a polity in its own right. The significance of the VOC is that it operated ‘simultaneously within both territorial nexuses’ (Wilson, 2016: 44). This opens new avenues of investigation for the English school by linking non-state actors to the expansion narrative. In doing so, it shows how international society developed by regulating the dealings between states, empires and companies in a co-evolutionary manner. Bull and Watson’s (1984: 6) seminal study recognised that European interstate relations and the expansion of Europeans across the globe was a ‘simultaneous process, which influenced and affected each other’. But this nuance in their argument has often been overlooked by later English School accounts (Clapton, 2017: 350; Dunne and Reus-Smit, 2017: 4). The following seeks to revive a more global approach to the expansion narrative by considering how European international society evolved simultaneously with European expansion. To develop this argument, the first part of this paper begins by examining the English Schools’ 19th century historiography. After showing the limits of this historical narrative, the second section argues for greater recognition of the role merchant empires played in the development of international politics. The VOC can be used to show how external imperialism outside of Europe was crucial to the formation of independent sovereign states and international law within Europe. The third section then uses the example of the VOC as a diplomatic actor to show how European expansion, led by merchant powers, was not a one-way process projecting solely outwards from a European centre. The final conclusion to this paper calls for further research in the role of merchant actors in European expansion and their relations with non-Western powers. The paper also concludes by calling for a reconsideration of the monoculture approach to international society. Recognising the hybridity and plurality of international society can be a way towards recognising the multi-civilisational roots of international order.

The English School’s eurocentrism

The English School and the British committee on the theory of international politics have traditionally been some of the most prominent scholars in linking IR to the study of history. It is a school of thought that professes a deep interest in the ‘social structures of international orders’. The English School also views itself as having close links to constitutional and diplomatic approaches to history (Buzan, 2014a,b: 43). But as the following explores, the English School is deeply mired in a problematic historiography, which privileges a view of European exceptionalism.

The concept of international society is used within IR theory to explain the peaceful relations between nation states in an anarchic system. It aims to present a Grotian third way between Machiavellian realism and Kantian liberalism (Bull [1977] 1995: 23). In building upon a Westphalian framework, the primary goal of international society is explained as the preservation of independence and the external sovereignty of its constituent members (Linklater, 2005: 84). The theory of international society shows how order can be created within a system of states by focusing on the role of international law and norms of morality and diplomacy. The peace of Westphalia is seen as a key benchmark date in the evolution of a state’s system and the origins of an international society are therefore traced to Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries (Keene, 2014). This follows a typical ‘master narrative’ of modern diplomacy arising in Renaissance Italy before spreading across Europe and, later, the globe. This view of diplomacy is deeply contested and viewed as outdated by many historians (Krischer and Von Thiessen, 2019: 1100).¹ But the English School’s adherence to this interpretation reflects a wider problem within IR of being aloof from the wider debates in the scholarship of history. IR is often guilty of being a ‘consumer of pre-packaged historical interpretations’ resting on Eurocentric foundations with little further investigation (Ashworth, 2009: 23). As critical theorists have argued, the concepts of the state, and state system are largely derived from a narrow reading of European history, which privileges the West as being distinctly modern (Pourmokhtari, 2013). The limited orientation of focusing solely on a European state system therefore creates an absence of empire, hierarchy and relational dynamics beyond Europe (Barkawi, 2010).

The states within anarchy framework is also problematic for building upon a foundational myth of 1648, in which political order is the product solely of intra-European dynamics (Hobson, 2009). This privileging of European history is particularly controversial for the English School. Europe is celebrated as the ‘cultural heartland’ and originator of international society (Buzan and Little, 2014: 60; Linklater, 2010). The origins of the modern state are then restricted to being a ‘quintessentially European phenomenon’ (Buzan and Little, 2000: 246). In making an argument privileging European experience divorced from external processes, Europe becomes seen as a source of order, while the non-European world is equated to a world of disorder and intolerance (Kayaoglu, 2010: 206). When the English School has considered the non-European sphere, it has traditionally been through focusing on separate ‘civilizational systems’ (Keene, 2002: 23). The members of the British Committee, for example, looked to the Greek city-state system, the Chinese ‘warring states’ and even a separate Islamic system in world history. All of these examples are portrayed as consisting of ‘self-contained and culturally unified regional international systems’ (Dunne and Reus-Smit, 2017: 43). There is therefore little consideration of connections between these disparate civilisations. Bull and Watson’s concept of international society, for example, acknowledged the existence of multiple ‘worlds’, but this has been interpreted by later scholars as only further emphasising the ‘uniqueness of European developments’ (Dunne and Reus-Smit, 2017: 8). The original argument of Bull and Watson (1984: 6) to focus on a ‘simultaneous process’ between interactions in the European sphere and European expansion has therefore often been overlooked and remains underdeveloped. A more subtle account needs to consider that there was an interactive process between developments within Europe itself and Europe’s relations with actors outside of the European sphere. The later 19th century European Standard of Civilization, for example, evolved in relation to deepening interactions with China’s own historic standard of civilisation, a clash in which each version of the standard of civilisation developed in a ‘dynamic’ and co-constitutive process (Gong, 1984: 172). Greater recognition of the co-constitutive nature of European expansion and the evolution of international society can allow the English School to avoid the narrow inquiry of focusing on separate and disparate ‘worlds’.

In taking international society to consist of several separate civilisational or regional systems, the English School largely treats European order and non-European order as distinct and unrelated. This suggests colonised people have little agency until they are admitted into international society (Dunne and Reus-Smit, 2017: 36). Barry Buzan (2014a,b: 63 & 73) notes the prior existence of regional societies, but argues that ‘European expansion overrode’ or ‘overlaid’ these existing systems. As critics have noted, the expansion narrative is often portrayed as a ‘sanitized’ version of events (Seth, 2011: 171). But the notion of overriding existing regional systems also implies a unidirectional process of ‘incorporation’, from Europe onto the rest of the world (Dunne and Reus-Smit, 2017: 6). This downplays the co-constitutive nature of European imperialism and its connection to the formation of nation states and the state system. Edward Keene has done the most within the English School to show the relationship between a Westphalian society and European imperialism. His account on the work of Hugo Grotius shows that while European international society developed a political order of ‘toleration’ based on sovereign equality, externally, Europeans developed an imperial order based on ‘promoting civilization’ (Keene, 2002: 7). Keene further notes the failure of the English School to consider the role of European behaviour beyond its own borders. He shows how international order was therefore shaped in a different manner outside of the European states system (Keene, 2002: 145). However, while Keene sheds light on the ‘extra-European political order’, his account could be construed as representing international order in consisting of two distinct and separate systems: a European Westphalian system and a separate non-European order dominated by imperialism (Kayaoglu, 2010: 206). The division of international society into a civilised European core and a non-European sphere risks minimising the role of empires to a purely transitionary phase on the way to the universalisation of state sovereignty. The separation of a European core and a colonised other, outside of international society, may reflect the dominance of European powers in the 19th century but it fails to explain the expansion of European powers in early modern history. There is therefore a need within IR to consider a more layered approach to viewing the territorial sovereign state and empire as a co-constituted development (Benton, 2009).

The following parts to this paper connect the development of European powers with the interactions of merchant actors in the non-Western world. It does so by looking to the role of the VOC. As Sanjay Seth (2011: 173) has argued, the formation of an international society with the Peace of Ausberg and the Treaty of Westphalia roughly coincides with the rise of the slave trade and the founding of the English and Dutch East India companies, but these developments are not theorised in a conjoined manner by the English School.

The VOC as a merchant empire

The English School has always defined itself apart from the behavioural-positivist strands of social science. It has done this by repeatedly emphasising the role of diplomacy, international law, history and philosophy in shaping international politics. But there has also been an apparent ‘disinterest’ in the economic sphere (Buzan, 2004a,b: 20). This means that the English School has overlooked the role played by the merchant companies of European powers. The relevance of the VOC to the English School is apparent with the adoption of Grotius as a figure who represents the institutionalisation of shared interests and identity amongst states (Buzan, 2001: 475). As the following argues, the narrative of European expansion needs to consider in more detail how international society developed through the rise of merchant powers and their colonial encounters. Concepts such as the equal recognition of sovereignty and the freedom of the seas are seen as crucial to modern international society, but are also deeply intertwined with the rise of Europe’s merchant empires.

The VOC was formed in 1602 as a government directed amalgamation of several Dutch trading companies. From its inception, the VOC was a ‘private corporation with sovereign powers’ (Sharman, 2019: 74). It had the ability to conduct trade, sign legal treaties, govern territory and conduct wars against foreign states. The VOC was also the first multinational actor to conduct activities on multiple continents (Rei, 2018: 2). For some, the European merchant powers should be seen merely as the forerunner of modern multinational corporations (Stern, 2009: 1151); for others, they represent a ‘quasi sovereign’ (Clulow, 2009: 72), or ‘hybrid’ form of polity which combines the functions of governance with the profit-seeking motivations of a private corporation (Philips, 2017: 40). While some historians have even argued that these merchant companies should be seen as a distinct form of polity in their own right as a ‘company state’ (Stern, 2008; Weststeijn, 2014). Although the VOC was sometimes backed by the state, it also developed as a separate commercial organisation with civic autonomy, which reflected the competing interests of different business factions. The VOC should therefore not be viewed as a ‘mere appendage’ of the Dutch state (Sharman, 2019a: 178). English School theorists have traditionally privileged the role of the state in the international sphere and there is a reluctance to conflate the state with non-state actors (Buzan, 2004a,b: 91). This state-centric perspective within the English School is problematic however, in trying to define the status and role of the VOC in the international sphere. The VOC was nominally an independent actor, but also played a crucial role in the formation of the Dutch Republic itself. The Dutch desire to avoid the universalism of Spanish hegemony meant that the VOC became a ‘weapon’ in the struggle for republican liberty during the 80-year war for independence (Schnurmann, 2003: 479). For the Dutch, the language of glory and ‘grandezza’ became transformed from its meaning of valour on the battlefield as the medieval world understood it (Fitzmaurice, 2004), to a new meaning that sought to expand trade and ‘commercial benefits as the essence of public welfare’ (Weststeijn, 2012: 507). The very nature of the VOC therefore blurred the lines between public and private violence.

The development of the Dutch Republic and its formal recognition as an independent state was deeply intertwined with the VOC’s quest for trade and resources in Southeast Asia. In expanding commercial opportunities, the Dutch VOC developed colonies in the New World as well as an ‘informal’ empire across the Indian Ocean from Cape Town in South Africa to Dejima in Japan (Van Welie, 2008: 70). The decentralised structure of the Dutch Republic ‘guaranteed a prominent place for economic interests on the political agenda’ and ensured that the Dutch state followed a strategy of economic-based reason of state (Rommelse, 2011: 140). The development of Dutch financial innovations are well known (Acemoglu et al., 2005; Israel, 1998), but the widespread selling of government bonds to Dutch households meant that even ‘artisans and shopkeepers’ had an invested interest in seeking both an independent republican form of government and the success of commercial expansion abroad (Hart, 2000: 223). The Dutch Republic had received indirect and informal recognition of their de facto independence during the 12 years truce with Spain (Schnurmann, 2003: 479). Yet, recognition alone did not end the conflict. Spain offered a permanent peace if the Dutch withdrew completely from the Indies (Israel, 1977; Parker, 1976), but the desire to continue the war until 1648 was largely driven by the commercial interests of the VOC. The drive for profits relied on the use of military power and was an ‘extension’ of the fight for independence against Habsburg dominance (Klooster, 2016: 3). According to David Abernethy (2000: 218), the Dutch Republic is the perfect illustration of the ‘symbiotic relationship’ between the quest for private profit and the use of external power to support European expansion. This is evidenced by the use of privateering as a way for the Dutch to challenge Iberian hegemony both within Europe and across Southeast Asia.

The development of sovereign independence and state equality within modern international society grew, in part, out of Dutch attempts to challenge Spanish claims to universal rule. In the early modern period, the Spanish had sought to proclaim concepts of universal sovereignty over both land and water. Pope Alexander VI’s three Papal Bulls of 1493 along with the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 gave the Iberian powers control over all American lands and waters west of the Azores and control over trade routes to Southeast Asia (Branch, 2010; Schnurmann, 2003). The Pope’s authority to settle such claims rested on the medieval model of a universal monarchy and the past precedent of partitioning re-conquered Iberian lands from the Moors. Protestant maritime republics who sought to circumvent Spanish claims based their right to international trade through rejecting Papal jurisdiction over both European Christendom and ‘the realms beyond’ (Miller, 2015: 88; Pimentel, 2000). The impetus to expand Dutch trade in Asia arose from the Dutch revolt and in fighting against these claims to universalism. Philip II of Spain had imposed an embargo on Dutch entry to ports on the Iberian peninsula as a response to the Dutch revolt. The reaction of the Dutch Republic was to send 65 ships in 15 fleets to Asia between 1595 and 1602 in order to prise open the Iberian hegemony over the spice trade (Blussé, 2015: 231). The narrative of the Dutch Republic’s revolt for sovereign equality can therefore not be told without including the use of private force and VOC expansion in Southeast Asia. After using trade as a weapon against Iberian powers, the Dutch eventually received legal recognition of their status as an independent power with the Treaty of Munster in 1648. This treaty established the United Provinces as a sovereign state and challenged the pre-modern tradition of dynastic claims (Baena, 2007). Within IR, the Dutch Republic is often seen as a forerunner of state modernity. However, by 1648, the Dutch Republic was already an established empire that was intertwined with the hybrid polity of the VOC (Barreto, 2017). The very foundations of IR’s understanding of independent sovereign states therefore needs to recognise that the state and merchant empires evolved in a co-evolutionary manner.

The rise of the VOC and the growth of its colonial involvement is interwoven with the development of European norms and legal rights over sovereign equality. This can be seen with the development of the freedom of the seas as a norm of modern international society. For IR, the freedom of the seas is viewed as a crucial aspect of recognising a common norm among sovereign equals. Watson (1992: 192) interpreted the freedom of the seas as a Dutch concept originating solely to regulate intra-European relations. This completely negates the connection to both the use of private force and the role of European colonialism. The ability of the VOC to be an independent actor and its legal justification to attack the Iberian powers was deeply intertwined with the work of Hugo Grotius. His legal arguments in favour of the freedom of the seas was ‘a radical concept’ at the time (Brown, 2011: 252). The idea of freedom to trade and the freedom of the seas arose from Grotius’s defence of Dutch privateering in Southeast Asia. He defended the 1603 Dutch seizure of the Portuguese ship the Santa Catarina in Asian waters by claiming the real pirates ‘were those attempting to interfere with this natural right of travel and trade’ (Brown, 2011: 253). For Grotius, the monarchical universalism of the Spanish and Portuguese empires meant that they were ‘blockaders of the sea’ and in attacking this absolutism, the defence of commerce was vital to securing liberty (Porras, 2005: 757). This was an attack against Iberian claims to sovereignty over the sea routes and trade in Asia. The very foundations of the concept of the freedom of the seas, as a relationship between sovereign equals, is therefore deeply intertwined with Grotius’s defence of privateering and the expansion of the VOC (Ittersum, 2010; Leira, 2015: 36). To justify the freedom to trade, Grotius also made a significant step in recognising local South Asian rulers, such as the King of Johor, as sovereign powers in their own right. In doing so, Grotius challenged the Papal right to cede territories, islands or oceans, and provided a legal basis of sovereign equality that challenged the political universalism of the Iberian powers (Borschberg, 1999). Treaties signed in Southeast Asia could therefore also often play a purpose in resolving disputes on the ‘negotiating tables back in Europe’ (Van Ittersum, 2016: 492).

Prior to the development of a societal norm represented by the freedom of the sea, European actors had frequently sought to claim ownership over bodies of water (Mancke, 1999). The Papal Bulls of 1493 gave the Iberian powers claims to the ‘oceanic routes’, but this was a long-standing practice in European politics (Miller, 2015: 88). The Genoan Republic made claims to the sovereignty of the Ligurian sea (Kirk, 2005), while the Venetians professed dominion over the Adriatic by claiming to hold the sea for the benefit of all Christendom (Vivo, 2003: 161–162). Grotius’s arguments in favour of free seas and trade could easily have been forgotten or neglected by European powers keen to claim ownership over bodies of water (Borschberg, 2006: 34). Over time, the idea of a freedom to trade and the freedom of the seas has become accepted within international society. But its origins are firmly rooted in VOC privateering in Asia. It should therefore not be viewed as a development endogenous to Europe. As the historian David Armitage (2004: xi) has argued, the arena of dispute in Mare Liberum was ‘local’ but the implications of its arguments were ‘global’.

The connection between European international society and the external sphere has been under-theorised because developments in Europe are often seen as unconnected to the wider world. Watson (1992: 222) saw Dutch involvement in the Indian Ocean as primarily due to local circumstances and not ‘from any imperial design in the Netherlands’. Hedley Bull’s interpretation of Grotius also suggested a view in which political developments were the product solely of a European Westphalian society. For Bull, Grotius was a figure who represented a society of states restrained by law, acting to uphold the common good as codified by the peace of Westphalia (Boucher, 1998: 219). Grotius’s ideas on just war, sovereignty, freedom of the seas, the right trade and navigation are seen as fundamental to the workings of international society within the English School. Yet, they were all ‘elaborated and mobilized’ in order to further the imperial interests of the VOC (Barreto, 2017: 156). Hedley Bull (1992: 92) had ‘doubt’ that Grotius’s employ in the Dutch VOC had any real influence on his theorising of international politics. Modern historians have challenged this view to show Grotius as an ‘idealogue’ in defence of Dutch commercial imperialism (Van Ittersum, 2010: 387). Grotius believed Dutch independence and liberty flourished in connection with the success of the VOC. The legal arguments of Grotius therefore reflected the colonial ambitions of the Dutch merchant empire. Eric Wilson (2009: 253) argues that the idea of a Grotian heritage as ‘inherently liberal or pacifistic constitutes an egregious example of ideological mystification’. As an employee of the VOC, Grotius’s work on contract theories evolved to justify Dutch privateering, the seizure of foreign territory, and imperialism. Grotius’s Mare Liberum, which argued for sovereign equality and the freedom of the seas, can therefore also be viewed as the ‘foundational text of Dutch colonialism’ (Weststeijn, 2014: 13).

The expansion narrative of the English School rests on the idea of capitalism, modernity and the form of the modern state originating in Europe before spreading externally to areas lacking in these characteristics (Seth, 2011: 172). But as this section has shown, the development of norms of sovereign equality, as represented by the freedom of the seas, was tied to the expansion of the colonial interests of the VOC. Critical theorists have developed a significant body of work showing how international law developed hand in hand with European colonialism (Benton, 2009, 2018; Tuck, 2001). IR scholars have also shown the development of modernity and capitalism was not just endogenous to Europe (Anievas and Nisancioglu, 2015). A more global approach to international history also highlights how ‘domestic’ stories such as the consumer revolution, the development of finance and the evolution of modern economic thought would not have been possible without the imperialism of merchant companies (Stern, 2009: 1152). The English School, however, needs to deepen its awareness of the co-constitutive relations between the rise of a European international society and imperial developments in the wider world. Much of the English School’s interpretation of international law rests on a Eurocentric view of inter-state relations in which the non-European world is absent (Koskenniemi, 2011). But as this section shows, European legal institutions and ideas about political order were also influenced by events far outside of Europe (Benton, 2005). The following section uses the example of VOC diplomacy to further show that norms of international society cannot be viewed as the sole privilege of a European inheritance. It would be historically inaccurate to continue the aristocratic myth of diplomacy in which Europeans and Asians always had an ‘incommensurability’ of diplomatic cultures (Meersbergen, 2019).

The diplomacy of the VOC and eurocentrism

The English School has traditionally always focused on the ‘high politics’ of diplomacy and the creation and maintenance of shared norms, rules and institutions (Buzan, 2004a,b; Sharp, 2003). But in relying on a Eurocentric perspective, the English School primarily focuses on an idealised aristocratic image of diplomacy between great powers (Sharp, 2003) as represented by the ‘dialogue between states’ (Watson, 1982). This overlooks the role played by non-state actors and merchant empires in the expansion of European relations. As the following section shows, this was not always a top-down process from Europeans to a subordinate non-Western ‘other’. European powers were often ‘minor players’ in larger regional struggles within pre-existing systems of political order (Sharman, 2019b: 35). The experience of the VOC as an international actor shows that diplomatic norms and practice often involved the Europeans learning of local norms and engaging in cooperation with non-European powers. The VOC was prolific in conducting diplomacy through signing as many as six treaties a year in the third quarter of the 17th century (Blussé, 2015: 242). Looking to the private diplomacy of the VOC can illustrate the role of non-Western actors and help to break away from the traditional expansion narrative of diplomatic practice being the sole reserve of state to state relations between European powers.

The VOC entered into the international system of the Indian Ocean in which a vast array of different actors conducted international diplomacy, thereby forming a diverse international order (Philips and Sharman, 2015a). The English School has developed a sophisticated body of work examining the political orders of the non-Western world before the arrival of European powers (Pella, 2014; Zhang et al., 2016). Recognising the pre-existing political orders and their rivalries shows how colonial powers such as the VOC were able to insert themselves into these relationships. However, the expansion of European powers should not always be treated as ‘synonymous’ with conquest (Sharman, 2019b: ix). As Keene (2002: 79) argues, it is ‘misleading’ to simplify European relations to non-Europeans as merely being one of complete dominance. European powers had to sometimes accept positions of inferiority. Philips and Sharman (2015b: 439) have shown how Europeans merged into indigenous hierarchies by ‘alternating as vassals, partners, or suzerains, depending on local contexts’. IR is often guilty of reading the 19th century dominance of western powers back onto earlier periods in time. The preceding centuries are then viewed as the precursor to the ‘inevitable western triumph’ (Sharman, 2019b: 101). Considering the diplomacy of the VOC can show a more nuanced account of expanding European relations and the non-western world, one in which the rise of the modern state, international society and imperial practices is seen as a simultaneous narrative.

In seeking access to trade in 17th century Siam, the VOC had to conform to local expectations and norms in order to gain recognition and permission to trade. The VOC was interested in trading with Siam as part of a complex network of extra-regional commerce. Siam was able to supply sandalwood and deer hides, which the VOC exchanged for Japanese bullion in order to purchase textiles from China and India. But in order to gain this access it was expected that company agents would have to participate in the rituals of the Siamese court of Ayutthaya. Far from extending European aristocratic norms of diplomacy to Siam, company figures complained that participating in court rituals was time consuming and obstructed their business (Ruangslip, 2007: 83). Participation in court rituals, however, was vital to retaining favour when trade and ritual was ‘inextricably mixed’ at the Siamese court (Ruanglsip, 2007: 56). The agency of non-Europeans is often overlooked in the expansion narrative, but the VOC were reliant on local actors to further European access to trade. The Siamese court even sent an embassy to the Netherlands between 1608 and 1611 and offered the VOC to act as intermediaries in expanding Dutch trade in China (Borschberg, 2019).

The need to conform to local expectations and norms of behaviour reflects the reality that Dutch colonial expansion ‘lacked a clear and unambiguous formula’. The making of international treaties between the Dutch and regional actors was often the result of local improvisation (Ittersum, 2016: 492). This can be evidenced in Dutch relations with the politics of the Malay peninsula and Tokugawa Japan. VOC officials would change the translations of official and semi-official documents to match specific target audiences. In dealing with the foreign courts, Dutch officials would refer to the ‘King of Holland’ despite being representatives of a republican polity (Clulow, 2013: 28). In making use of this title, Dutch officials made a conscious decision to avoid offending the foreign rulers who would see an admission of lacking a ‘King’ as being a sign of living in a state of chaos, lacking customary law, or justice (Borschberg, 2017: 293). However, the absence of a monarch in the Dutch Republic proved useful in negotiations with other Asian powers. The diplomats of the VOC were commissioned by the company and not by the Dutch States General (Meersbergen, 2019). VOC emissaries therefore did not have to be concerned with representing the honour of a faraway monarch. Instead, they could submit to the protection of Mughal emperors and accept the status of being a vassal subject in order to have access to trade (Meersbergen, 2017). The merchant-diplomats of the VOC would submit gifts to Mughal emperors to show their acknowledgment of claims to Mughal sovereignty (Birkenholz, 2017). This was a conscious acceptance of submitting to local customs as trade with the Mughal court relied on requiring the backing of influential Mughal courtiers and showing ceremonial submission to imperial authority. Access to trading privileges depended on the VOC petitioning Mughal emperors and viceroys in much the same way as Indian subjects had to do (Meersbergen, 2019). Submission to the Mughal court was also beneficial to the emperor’s authority. The Mughal rulers could reaffirm the cosmopolitan reach of their power by showing their authority over distant vassals (Philips and Sharman, 2015: 444). Watson’s (1992: 224) account of the expansion narrative recognised that Europeans sometimes played a subordinate role, but this is left under-theorised and neglected by Eurocentric accounts of expansion.

The expansion thesis of international society downplays non-Western agency and negates how Europeans entered into an Asian system in a position of weakness (Sharman, 2019b). The VOC often had to adapt to local conditions and were ‘folded in to pre-existing rivalries’ (Clulow and Mostert, 2018: 29). Despite superior naval technology and the use of gunboat diplomacy, the VOC was also unable to achieve superiority in their dealings with rulers such as the Shah of Persia (Matthee, 2004) or the Tokugawa in Japan (Clulow, 2009). The Dutch VOC were even used as allies by the Tokugawa regime to suppress a Christian revolt at Shimabara in 1637–38 (Benton and Clulow, 2017: 90). It would be simplistic to see the VOC as an unopposed conqueror or bringer of civilisation to the Asian world. In seeking trade within a pre-existing international system, the VOC often became agents or tools of larger regional powers. The VOC sought to gain control of the clove producing region of the Moluccas by becoming allies with the Sultan of Ternate in 1607 as part of his rivalry against the Kingdom of Tidore (Mostert, 2018: 29). This created unintended consequences of drawing the VOC into pre-existing regional antagonisms with the Gowa-Tallo state (Mostert, 2018). The VOC’s naval advantage was often seen as a tool to be co-opted by local powers. Their naval advantage was also limited, however, in its ability to coerce land-based powers. In confrontation with the Mughal empire, European merchant companies suffered from a ‘basic imbalance of power’ (Sharman, 2019b: 68). The European merchants would be used by Mughal emperors to strengthen their positions within their own regional rivalries. The Dutch could also use their naval power advantage for their own ends as long as they were not confronted by any concerted effort led by a state power. The Dutch colony in modern Taiwan, for example, lasted only as long as it was not contested by any concentrated Chinese effort. But the Dutch position on Formosa was eventually displaced by Zheng Chenggong in 1662 (Andrade, 2005: 2006).

The diplomacy of the VOC worked to increase the power of the Dutch Republic within Europe by showing the might and reach of its trading and political prowess (Swan, 2017: 197). The VOC practice of giving gifts to Asian rulers also developed local alliances (Meuwese, 2013), and conveyed messages to both giver, receiver and observers of the exchange, on the political status and relationship of those involved (Birkenholz, 2017: 220). The exchange of gifts with non-Europeans was therefore not dissimilar to the Dutch presentation of gifts to European Princes and Monarchs as a way to enhance the Republic’s prestige (Broekman and Helmers, 2007). The giving of tapestries and paintings, in particular, was built upon a ‘common iconography’ and ‘shared visual language’ of European expansion (Anderson, 2019: 57). These forms of diplomacy based on prestige and trade are often overlooked by a progressive narrative in which personal diplomacy is replaced by the ‘high’ politics of a professional and bureaucratic diplomatic service (Meersbergen, 2017). The Eurocentrism of the English School follows this progressive view of diplomacy that rests on the privileging of state to state relations and negates the importance of economics and trade. Bull and Watson (1984: 118) were dismissive of Europeans and non-Europeans sharing ‘common interests’, but this risks overlooking the constant and low-level diplomacy of small practices by local actors, particularly the European trading companies and their dealings with intermediaries, local Princes and foreign courts. Bull and Watson’s position is also based on a cliché of early diplomacy as being based primarily on cultural misunderstanding (Meersergen, 2017: 149), therefore falling into a whiggish narrative of diplomacy as inherently peaceful and a ‘uniquely’ European phenomenon (Neumann, 2013: 38).

As this section has shown, diplomacy between international actors is not limited purely to the ‘high’ politics of nation states. The focus on merchant empires show that this is not a simple story of outward European supremacy, but that the VOC often relied on local intermediaries, the acceptance of local norms of diplomacy and relationships, which varied from parity to submission. A Westphalian state-centric perspective overlooks that the VOC was actively involved in diplomacy and in conducting warfare. The final part of this paper therefore seeks to draw upon these examples to explore the wider implications for the English School and IR theory.

Conclusion: deepening our understanding of global history and European expansion

IR theory has increasingly become more focused on ‘global’ perspectives by developing sophisticated critiques against Eurocentrism and in seeking to understand non-Western experiences (Acharya, 2016). Looking to a more global account of early modern history can also allow us to understand how international law, the international state system and international society were all constituted through imperial encounters. There is a general failure to adequately address empire as a theoretical concept within the English School, which is often treated merely as another form of statehood (Stivachtis, 2013). The example of the VOC demonstrates that concepts such as sovereign recognition and Grotius’s legal arguments, which forms the inspiration for the English School’s Groatian tradition, cannot be understood without recognising the VOC’s drive for trade in Asia as a weapon against Iberian hegemony. Far from international society developing within the assumed exclusivity of Europe, many of Grotius’s arguments developed from colonial issues outside of Europe (Barreto, 2017: 154).

International society is often treated as a timeless ‘natural’ concept of international politics (Keene, 2005: 202). This paper has argued that the state, international society and international system are often reified as categories within IR (Walker, 2010: 275). Understandings of international society portray 19th century European supremacy back onto previous eras. But as Jason C. Sharman (2019a: 195) has shown there is a ‘three century gap’ between European expansion and the territorial dominance of European states in the 19th century. The focus on ‘European dominance’ also suggests a form of ‘united front’ between European actors that did not exist (Keene, 2002: 79). The Dutch VOC used trade as a way to fight against other European powers, but concurrently they were drawn into a web of pre-existing regional rivalries. There is therefore much further scope to research the role of European merchant empires more broadly. Comparisons between these companies have fallen out of historical fashion (Stern, 2009: 1150), but a greater recognition of their relations with Asian powers can deepen our understanding of Europe’s intertwined development with non-Western actors.

When the non-Western world is considered, it is often through the lens of Eurocentrism. Although Buzan recognises that there are different routes to a global international society, he argues that they still all ‘end up in the same place’ (Buzan, 2014a,b: 60). The English School has long seen culture as a ‘crucial foundation for normative and institutional consensus in international society’ (O’Hagan, 2017: 186). But the expansion thesis is built upon a long held assumption that international society emerges out of a ‘unitary cultural’ context (Dunne and Reus-Smit, 2017: 37). The turn to non-Western approaches within IR has developed along a range of state based or regional outlooks that seek to differentiate themselves from ‘western’ and Eurocentric theory. This has led to a growing recognition of the plurality of cultures. Theoretical approaches within IR have expanded to include Asian, Chinese, Indian, African and Japanese schools of thought (Ikeda, 2010: 36). These developments pose a new risk in creating the ‘re-nationalization’ of IR as a discipline (Hellmann and Valbjorn, 2017: 281). Looking to the VOC suggests a more nuanced view of IR would be to consider tracing the development of ‘multiple partially overlapping’ networks and structures of power (Mulich, 2018: 701). Revisionist accounts, such as Dunne and Reus-Smit’s edited volume on the Globalization of International Society (2017: 37), have made an important step in arguing for the ‘hybridity’ of international society. Instead of seeing international society as a realm of peaceful settled norms, there needs to be more recognition of how these norms are continually contested. It is a misconception to think the world is made of ‘stable entities’ with ‘stable attributes’ (Go and Lawson, 2017: 3). The reification of international society creates a contextless account of European expansion and engagement with other actors. This paper has begun to sketch out a more critical historical reading of European expansion. In doing so, it shows that we should not see the state or international society as fixed concepts, but historically contingent and part of an ongoing process.

Footnotes

Disclosure

The author(s) report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Kevin Blachford

Note

References

Abernethy

(2000) The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires, 1415–1980. London: Yale University Press.

Acemoglu

Johnson

Robinson

(2005) The rise of Europe: Atlantic trade, institutional change and economic growth. The American Economic Review 95(3): 546–579.

Acharya

(2016) Advancing global IR: challenges, contentions and contributions. International Studies Review 18(1): 4–15.

Anderson

(2019) The old indies at the French court: John Maurit’s gift to Louis XIV. Early Modern Low Countries 3(1): 32–59.

Andrade

(2005) The company’s Chinese Pirates: how the Dutch East India company tried to lead a coalition of pirates to war against China 1621–2. Journal of World History 15(4): 415–444.

Andrade

(2006) The rise and fall of Dutch Taiwan 1624–1662. Journal of World History 17(4): 429–450.

Anievas

Nisancioglu

(2015) How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism. London: Pluto Press.

Armitage

(2004) Hugo Grotius, The Free Sea. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Ashworth

(2009) Interdisciplinary and international relations. European Political Science 8(1): 16–25.

10.

Baena

(2007) Negotiating sovereignty: the peace treaty of Münster 1648. History of Political Thought 28(4): 617–641.

11.

Barkawi

(2010) Empire and order in international relations and security studies. In: Robert

Renée

(eds) The International Studies Encyclopedia, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

12.

Barreto

(2017) Cerberus: rethinking Grotius and the Westphalian System. In: Koskenniemi

Fonseca (eds) International Law and Empire: Historical Explorations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 149–175.

13.

Benton

(2005) Legal spaces of empire: piracy and the origins of ocean revolution. Comparative Studies in Society and History 47(4): 700–724.

14.

Benton

(2009) A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

15.

Benton

(2018) Made in Empire: finding the history of International Law in Imperial Locations. Leiden Journal of International Law 31(3): 473–478.

16.

Benton

Clulow

(2017) Empires and protection: making interpolity law in the early modern world. Journal of Global History 12(1): 74–92.

17.

Birkenholz

(2017) Merchant Kings and Lords of the World in Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World 1410-1800. In: Sowerby

Hennings

(eds) Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World c.1410-1800. London: Routledge, 219–236.

18.

Blussé

(2015) Northern European Empire in Asia: the VOC. In: Hamish

(ed.) Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History 1350-1750. Volume 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 227–253.

19.

Borschberg

(1999) Hugo Grotius, East India Trade and the King of Johur. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 30(2): 225–248.

20.

Borschberg

(2006) ‘Hugo Grotius’ Theory of Trans-Oceanic Trade Regulation: Revisiting Mare Liberum (1609), 1–60. IILJ Working Paper.

21.

Borschberg

(2017) Lost in Translation? The Languages of Euro-Southeast Asian Diplomacy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. In: Richter

Meurer (eds) Konstruktionen Europas in der Fruhen Neuzeit. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 287–312.

22.

Borschberg

(2019) Cornelis Matelief, Hugo Grotius, and the King of Siam (1605–1616): agency, initiative and diplomacy. Modern Asian Studies 54(1): 123–156.

23.

Boucher

(1998) Political Theories of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

24.

Branch

(2010) Colonial reflection and territoriality: the peripheral origins of sovereign statehood. European Journal of International Relations 18(2): 277–297.

25.

Broekman

Helmers

(2007) ‘Het hart des Offraers’ - The Dutch Gift as an Act of Self-Representation. Dutch Crossing 31(2): 223–252.

26.

Brown

(2011) 1494: How a Family Feud in Medieval Spain Divided the World in Half. New York: St Martins’ Press.

27.

Bull

([1977]1995) The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.

28.

Bull

(1992) The importance of Grotius in the study of international relations. In: Hedley

Benedict

Adam

(eds) Hugo Grotius and International Relations. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

29.

Bull

Watson

(1984) The Expansion of International Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

30.

Buzan

(2001) The English school: an underexploited resource in IR. Review of International Studies 27(3): 471–488.

31.

Buzan

(2004) From International to World Society? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

32.

Buzan

(2014a) An Introduction to the English School of International Relations. Cambridge: Polity Press.

33.

Buzan

(2014b) The standard of civilization as an English school concept. Millennium Journal of International Studies 42(3): 576–594.

34.

Buzan

Little

(2000) International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

35.

Buzan

Little

(2014) The historical expansion of international society. In: Navari

Green

(eds) Guide to the English School. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 59–76.

36.

Callahan

(2004) Nationalising international theory: race, class and the English school. Global Society 18(4): 305–323.

37.

Clapton

(2017) Pluralism, decolonization and international society. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 30(4): 350–367.

38.

Clulow

(2014) The Company and the Shogan: The Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan. New York: Columbia University Press.

39.

Clulow

Mostert

(eds) (2018) The Dutch and English East India Companies: Diplomacy, Trade and Violence in Early Modern Asia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

40.

Colás

(2016) Barbary Coast in the expansion of international society: piracy, privateering, and corsairing as primary institutions. Review of International Studies 42(5): 840–857.

41.

Dunne

Reus-Smit

(2017) The Globalization of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

42.

Fitzmaurice

(2004) The ideology of early modern colonisation. History Compass 2(1): 1–14.

43.

Frigo

(ed.) and Belton

(trans) (2011) Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy: The Structure of Diplomatic Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

44.

Gong

(1984) China’s entry into international society. In: Bull Watson (eds) The Expansion of International Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

45.

Hart

(2000) Warfare and capitalism: the impact of the economy on state making in northwestern Europe, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Review: A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center 23(2): 209–228.

46.

Hellmann

Valbjorn

(2017) Problematizing global challenges: recalibrating the “inter” in IR-Theory. International Studies Review 19(2): 279–309.

47.

Hobson

(2009) Provincializing Westphalia: the eastern origins of sovereignty. International Politics 46(6): 671–690.

48.

Hobson

(2012) The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory 1760–2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

49.

Ikeda

(2010) The post western turn in international theory and the English school. Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies 9(1): 29–44.

50.

Israel

(1977) A conflict of empires: Spain and the Netherlands, 1618–1648. Past and Present 76(1): 34–74.

51.

Israel

(1998) The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall 1477–1806. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

52.

Kaczmarska

(2018) Reification in IR: the process and consequences of reifying the idea of international society. International Studies Review 21(3): 347–372.

53.

Kayaoglu

(2010) Westphalian eurocentrism in international relations theory. International Studies Review 12(2): 193–217.

54.

Keene

(2002) Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

55.

Keene

(2005) International Political Thought. Cambridge: Polity Press.

56.

Keene

(2008) The English school and British historians. Millennium Journal of International Studies 37(2): 381–393.

57.

Keene

(2014) The standard of ‘civilization’, the expansion thesis and the 19th century international social space. Millennium Journal of International Studies 42(3): 651–673.

58.

Kirk

(2005) Genoa and the Sea: Policy and Power in an Early Modern Maritime Republic, 1559–1684. Maryland: John Hopkins University Press.

59.

Klooster

(2016) The Dutch Moment: War, Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World. New York: Cornell University Press.

60.

Koskenniemi

(2011) Histories of international law: dealing with Eurocentrism. Rechtsgeschichte 19(1): 152–176.

61.

Krischer

Thiessen

(2019) Diplomacy in a global early modernity: the ambiguity of Sovereignty. The International History Review 41(5): 1100–1107.

62.

Lawson

(2017) Global Historical Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

63.

Leira

(2015) Private force and the emergence of the international system. In: Rita

Anna

(eds) Routledge Handbook of Private Security Studies. London: Routledge, 30–38.

64.

Linklater

(2005) The English school. In: Burchill

Devetak

Paterson

R-S

, et al. (eds) Theories of International Relations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

65.

Linklater

(2010) The english school conception of international society: reflections on western and non-western perspectives. Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies 9(1): 1–13.

66.

Little

(2004) The English school and world history. In: Alex

(ed.) International Society and its Critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

67.

Mancke

(1999) Early modern expansion and the politicization of oceanic space. The Geographical Review 89(2): 225–236.

68.

Matthee

(2004) Negotiating across cultures: the Dutch van Leene mission to the Iranian court of shah sulayman 1689-1692. Eurasian Studies 3(1): 35–63.

69.

Meersbergen

(2017) The merchant diplomat in comparative perspective: embassies to the court of Aurangzeb 1660–66. In: Sowerby

Hennings

(eds) Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World 1410–1800. London: Routledge, 147–165.

70.

Meersbergen

(2019) The diplomatic repertoires of the East India companies in Mughal South Asia 1608–1717. The Historical Journal 62(4): 875–898.

71.

Meuwese

(2013) The states general and the Stadholder: Dutch diplomatic practices in the Atlantic World before the West India Company. Journal of Early American History 3(1): 43–58.

72.

Miller

(ed.) (2015) The Princeton Companion to Atlantic History. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

73.

Mostert

(2018) The Scramble for Spices: Makassar’s role in European and Asian Competition in the Eastern Archipelago up to 1616. In: Clulow Mostert (eds) The Dutch and English East India Companies; Diplomacy, Trade and Violence in Early Modern Asia. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, 25–54.

74.

Mulich

(2018) Transformation at the margins: imperial expansion and systemic change in world politics. Review of International Studies 44(4): 694–716.

75.

Neumann

(2013) Diplomatic Sites: A Critical Enquiry. London: C. Hurst & Co.

76.

O’Hagan

(2017) The role of civilization in the globalization of international society. In: Dunne Reus-Smit (eds) The Globalization of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 185–203.

77.

Parker

(1976) Why did the Dutch revolt last eighty years? Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 26(1): 53–72.

78.

Pella

(2014) Expanding the expansion of international society: a new approach with empirical illustrations from West African and European Interaction, 1400–1883. Journal of International Relations and Development 17(1): 89–111.

79.

Philips

(2017) Company sovereigns, private violence and colonialism. The Routledge Handbook of Private Security Studies, London: Routledge, 39–48.

80.

Philips

Sharman

(2015a) International Order in Diversity: War, Trade and Rule in the Indian Ocean, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

81.

Philips

Sharman

(2015b) Explaining durable diversity in international systems: state, company and Empire in the Indian Ocean. International Studies Quarterly 59(3): 436–448.

82.

Pimentel

(2000) The Iberian vision: science and empire in the framework of a universal Monarchy, 1500–1800. Osiris 15(1): 17–30.

83.

Porras

(2005) Constructing international law in the East Indian Seas: property, sovereignty, commerce and war in Hugo Grotius’ De Jure Praedae- the law of prize and booty, or “how to distinguish merchants from pirates. Brook Journal of International Law 31(3): 741–804.

84.

Pourmokhtari

(2013) A postcolonial critique of state sovereignty in IR: the contradictory legacy of a west-centric discipline. Third World Quarterly 34(10): 1767–1793.

85.

Rei

(2018) Merchant empires. In: Diebolt

Haupert

(eds) Handbook of Cliometrics. Berlin: Springer.

86.

Rommelse

(2011) An early modern naval revolution? The relationship between ‘economic reason of state’ and maritime warfare. Journal for Maritime Research 13(2): 138–150.

87.

Ruanglsip

(2007) Dutch East India Company Merchants at the Court of Ayutthaya. Leiden: Brill.

88.

Schnurmann

(2003) Wherever profit leads us to every sea and shore…the VOC, the WIC, and Dutch methods of globalization in the seventeenth century. Renaissance Studies 17(3): 474–493.

89.

Seth

(2011) Postcolonial theory and the critique of international relations. Millennium Journal of International Studies 40(1): 167–183.

90.

Sharman

(2019a) Power and profit at sea: the rise of the west in the making of the international system. International Security 43(4): 163–196.

91.

Sharman

(2019b) Empires of the Weak. Oxford: Princeton University Press.

92.

Sharp

(2003) Herbert butterfield, the English School and the civilizing virtues of diplomacy. International Affairs 79(4): 855–878.

93.

Sowerby

(2016) Early modern diplomatic history. History Compass 14(9): 441–456.

94.

Stern

(2008) A polities of civil & military power: political thought and the late seventeenth-century foundations of the East India Company State. Journal of British Studies 47(2): 253–283.

95.

Stern

(2009) History and historiography of the English east India company: past, present and future. History Compass 7(4): 1146–1180.

96.

Stivachtis

(2013) The english school and the concept of ‘empire’: theoretical and practical/political implications. Global Discourse 3(1): 129–135.

97.

Suzuki

(2005) Japan’s socialization into Janus-Faced European international society. European Journal of International Relations 11(1): 137–164.

98.

Swan

(2017) Dutch diplomacy and trade in Rariteyten in Global Gifts. In: Bierdermann

Gerritsen

Riello

(eds) The Material Culture of Diplomacy in Early Modern Eurasia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

99.

Tuck

(2001) The Rights of War and Peace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

100.

Van

(2010) The long goodbye: Hugo Grotius’ justification of Dutch expansion overseas 1615–1645. History of European Ideas 36(4): 386–411.

101.

Van

(2016) Debating natural law in the Banda Islands: a case study in Anglo-Dutch imperial competition in the East Indies 1609–1621. History of European Ideas 42(4): 459–501.

102.

Van

(2008) Slave trading and slavery in the Dutch Colonial Empire: a global comparison. New West Indian Guide 82(1–2): 47–96.

103.

Vivo

(2003) Historical justifications of Venetian power in the Adriatic. Journal of the History of Ideas 64(2): 159–176.

104.

Walker

RBJ

(2010) After the Globe, Before the World. London: Routledge.

105.

Watson

(1982) Diplomacy: the Dialogue Between States. London: Routledge.

106.

Watson

(1992) The Evolution of International Society. London: Routledge.

107.

Weststeijn

(2012) Republican Empire: colonialism, commerce and corruption in the Dutch Golden Age. Renaissance Studies 26(4): 491–509.

108.

Weststeijn

(2014) The VOC as a company state: debating seventeenth century Dutch colonial expansion. Itinerario 38(1): 13–34.

109.

Wilson

(2009) Making the world safe for Holland: “de indis” of Hugo Grotius and international law as Geoculture. Review: Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center 32(3): 239–287.

110.

Wilson

(2016) The “alexandrowicz thesis” revisited: Hugo Grotius, divisible sovereignty, and private avengers within the Indian Ocean world system. In: Ooi

Hoang

(eds) Early Modern Southeast Asia, 1350–1800. Oxon: Routledge.

111.

Zhang

(2011) China in the conception of international society. Review of International Studies 37(2): 763–786.

112.

Zhang

Suzuki

Quirk

(2016) International Orders in the Early Modern World: Before the Rise of the West. London: Routledge.