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Negotiating Territorial Sovereignty: Pufendorf to Vattel Negotiating Territorial Sovereignty: Pufendorf to Vattel Benjamin Mueser Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2021 © 2020 Benjamin Mueser All Rights Reserved Abstract Negotiating Territorial Sovereignty: Pufendorf to Vattel Benjamin Mueser It is now taken for granted that the globe is divided into mutually exclusive territories, each of which belong to a particular community. To be a political community, it is thought, means to have sole possession of a piece of the Earth’s surface and to have complete authority over that land. Yet the history of political thought has little to tell us about when and how this conception arose. I argue that the first complete statement of this doctrine of the territorial state emerged with Emer de Vattel’s The Law of Nations in 1758. Vattel’s doctrine synthesized three ideas which had been developing in the genres of natural law and the law of nations since the Peace of Westphalia: the state was supreme over its territory; it possessed independent moral personality; and it was tied to a permanent human community. This dissertation recovers the ideological resources of territorial state formation by tracing the philosophical roots of these ideas in Samuel von Pufendorf, John Locke, and Christian Wolff. I argue that although Vattel’s doctrine would appear as an ideal type, it was in fact provincially rooted in the narrow context of former dynastic fiefdoms in the Holy Roman Empire. I reach this conclusion through a spatial contextualist method of reading canonical texts in the natural law and law of nations traditions. I find that the shared linguistic practices that emerged to conceptualize and defend territorial states often relied upon assuming preexisting communities who laid claim to the land as their ‘native country.’ Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................... ii 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 1 2. The Territorial State in the Holy Roman Empire ................................................................................... 35 3. Territory and Ownership in the Patrimonial Kingdom ......................................................................... 96 4. Pufendorf: Moral Entities and Territorial Sovereignty ......................................................................... 135 5. Locke on Labor, Property, and Land ...................................................................................................... 170 6. Locke on Conquest and Native Rights ................................................................................................... 194 7. Wolff: Perfection, Solipsism, and the End of Christian Universalism ............................................... 224 8. Vattel’s Doctrine of the Territorial State ................................................................................................ 267 9. Conclusion: The Natural and the Native ................................................................................................ 296 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................... 303 Appendix A: Outline of Arguments in “Of Conquest” ........................................................................... 327 Appendix B: On Dating the Composition of “Of Conquest” ................................................................ 328 i Acknowledgments This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of many advisors, colleagues, and friends. I am profoundly grateful to Nadia Urbinati, whose encouragement and advice has supported me throughout my time at Columbia. Nadia constantly pushed me to think creatively, make new connections, and to keep writing. I never left a meeting with Nadia without feeling energized, excited, and grateful that I get to spend time working on this. David Johnston has supported me through this project since the beginning, and has always been a source of guidance. He was the first professor I had in graduate school, and he taught me what it means to do political theory. When I would fantasize about additional chapters I wanted to write or rabbit holes I would happily get lost in, David kept me on track. Ira Katznelson’s work inspired me even before I came to Columbia, and he has always offered insightful suggestions. Lea Ypi, though not on my committee, has been a constant inspiration. She welcomed me as a temporary advisee at the LSE, and pushed me to write more and faster than I ever had before. She was generous with her time and attention, and our conversations greatly enhanced the project. I also benefitted over the years from helpful conversations with Josh Simon, Jon Elster, and Turku Isiksel. Thank you to the discussants and participants of the Columbia political theory works-inprogress workshop, the LSE Political Theory Workshop, the Cambridge Graduate Workshop for Political Theory and Intellectual History, the Cambridge Graduate Conference on Conceptions of Space in the History of Political Thought, and the 2018 Oxford Graduate Political Theory Conference. I am also grateful to the teachers and professors who inspired me to go down this long path. Tim Finn was the first teacher who inspired me to care about the past. Matt Hale taught me that scholarship is an ongoing conversation. Steve DeCaroli introduced me to philosophy, and I emulate his teaching style in my own classes. Nelly Lahoud introduced me to political theory, and Rachel ii Templer set me on my current course by telling me to read Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies. Sandy Ungar believed in me and supported my first large-scale research project. At Columbia, I was incredibly fortunate to find myself amongst a group of supportive and brilliant political theorists. More than anything else, it was spending time with Ash Ahmed, Kate Jackson, Camila Vergara, Nate Mull, Guido Parietti, and David Ragazzoni that taught me how to be a political theorist. A special thank you to Ash, who read drafts of every single chapter and had the patience to discuss the project with me over and again. He once described my relationship to political theory as like a kid in a candy shop, wanting to try everything, and I take it as a compliment. More than anything, Ash taught me that good scholarship is the product of communities, not individuals. I am also grateful to the community of political theorists at the LSE, especially Astrid Hampe- Nathaniel, Hwa Young Kim, and David Axelsen. They made LSE feel like an academic home away home. I also greatly benefited from conversations with Signy Gutnick-Allen, who read several chapters and offered insightful comments. Thanks also to Bryn Davies and Til Wykes. They generously welcomed me into their home while visiting the LSE, and their hospitality supported me while writing several chapters. I am also thoroughly convinced that they know, better than anyone, what it means to live the good life. I could not have survived the grueling experience of graduate school without the camaraderie of the friends I made. Thank you to Alex de la Paz, Jeff Jacobs, Steph Schwartz, Cristy Vo, Gosha Syunyaev, Rick McAlexander, and Tom Leavitt, for many years of group therapy, griping, drinks, and pep talks. And to Joey, Sam, Bob and Max, my friends outside of academia, who always reminded me there’s more to life. Thank you. My family has been a source of unwavering support in this process. My mother, finishing her PhD thirty-five years after starting it, taught me to never quit. My father and my uncle (who never iii stop learning) have both lived through the world of academia, and I’m grateful for their advice and encouragement. This dissertation was completed in the summer of 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, between Maine and New York. I am grateful for the family and friends whose love carried me through this final, unusual, year. And most of all, I am grateful for Molly Enking, whose love and patience supported me all these years. You believed in me and when I did not believe in myself. iv 1. Introduction Max Weber defined the modern state as the “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in a given territory.”1 Aspects of this definition have received varying degrees of attention and have grounded thinking in political theory and international relations for decades. Political theorists have been concerned with how the monopoly of violence can be rendered legitimate, and the Weberian state is taken as axiomatic for international relations. According to the 1933 Montevideo Convention, recognition as a political entity requires a stable population, ability to keep international agreements, and a territory.2 It is assumed that to be a political community means to claim exclusive control over a territory. The territory itself, understood as the spatial extent of jurisdiction, remains a “given,” and its origins are rarely taken as politically relevant. But it was not always seen that way. Political order was not always identified with a ‘state,’ much less a monopolistic and territorial one. The growth of the territorial state was not only an institutional process,
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