UC San Diego UC San Diego Previously Published Works Title Territory and commitment: The concert of Europe as self-enforcing equilibrium Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/819915bq Journal Security Studies, 14(4) ISSN 0963-6412 Author Slantchev, Branislav L Publication Date 2005-10-01 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California TERRITORY AND COMMITMENT: THE CONCERT OF EUROPE AS SELF-ENFORCING EQUILIBRIUM Branislav L. Slantchev∗ June 3, 2005 Abstract This article explains the origin, function, and demise of the Concert of Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century. It focuses on the incentives generated by the territorial settle- ment designed at the Congress of Vienna. The pattern of cooperative behavior is seen to result from the commitment to uphold the settlement, which hinged on the credibility of enforcement threats and a distribution of benefits commensurate with military capabilities. The equilibrium was self-enforcing because the Powers that could oppose an alteration of the system had incen- tives to do so, and the Powers that could upset it did not have incentives to do it. This behavior is shown to be markedly different from eighteenth century practices and it is further shown that the explanation does not require one to assume a change in state preferences. Keywords: international institutions, enforcement, credibility, Congress of Vienna Approx. word count: 18,972 ∗Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of California – San Diego. Email:
[email protected]. Previous versions of this paper were presented at the 97th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, and at the 42 Annual Meeting of the In- ternational Studies Association.