Seeing Like a State in a Society of States The social role of science and technology in the northward expansion of the international society Justiina Miina Ilona Dahl Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute Florence, June 2016 European University Institute Department of Political and Social Sciences Seeing Like a State in a Society of States The social role of science and technology in the northward expansion of the international society Justiina Miina Ilona Dahl Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute Examining Board Professor Christian Reus-Smit (Univ. Queensland) (Supervisor) Professor Trevor Pinch, Cornell University (External Supervisor) Professor Iver B. Neumann, London School of Economics Professor Jennifer Welsh, EUI © Justiina Dahl, 2016 No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the author Researcher declaration to accompany the submission of written work Department of Political and Social Sciences - Doctoral Programme I Justiina Miina Ilona Dahl certify that I am the author of the work Seeing Like a State in a Society of States I have presented for examination for the Ph.D. at the European University Institute. I also certify that this is solely my own original work, other than where I have clearly indicated, in this declaration and in the thesis, that it is the work of others. I warrant that I have obtained all the permissions required for using any material from other copyrighted publications. I certify that this work complies with the Code of Ethics in Academic Research issued by the European University Institute (IUE 332/2/10 (CA 297). The copyright of this work rests with its author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This work may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. This authorisation does not, to the best of my knowledge, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that this work consists of 108 408 words. Statement of inclusion of previous work: I confirm that Chapter Six draws upon an earlier article I published in Polar Journal 2015, Vol. 5, No. 1, 35-58, titled “Assessments, models and international politics of the Arctic: why the “New North” narrative includes only bomber, polar bear, oil, and gas deposit models, and no original parts or an assembly manual”. Statement of language correction: This thesis has been corrected for linguistic and stylistic errors. I certify that I have checked and approved all language corrections, and that these have not affected the content of this work. Signature and date: 02.06.2016 Index Preface .................................................................................................................................................................. i 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1 2. The Origins of the Modern Global Order ........................................................................................ 13 3. Seeing Like a State in a Society of States......................................................................................... 39 4. Renaissance as Origin ............................................................................................................................ 69 5. Scientific Revolution and the Configuration of Territoriality ...............................................119 6. The Modern Industrial Society of Civilized Nation-states .....................................................163 7. The Post-Modern Greening of Sovereignty ..................................................................................209 8. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................265 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................275 Preface At the time when I enrolled as a graduate student at the European University Institute in the autumn of 2011, all of the eight member states of the 1996 established Arctic Council had recently published a new official national Arctic policy. These policy documents narrate a specific, prosperous future for the melting northern periphery of the world. In this narration, the eight Arctic states stand among the few winners in what can be described as an anthropomorphic global climate change lottery. This status is due to the expectation that the twenty-first century will witness major changes in the geography of this region. These changes are expected to enable the opening of new global trans- shipment routes on top of the globe, the harvesting of natural resources that have previously been locked and hidden in permafrost, as well as the push of agriculture and increased quality of living for human settlement further northwards. The original plan in this this thesis was to trace and analyze some of the fundamental ideas and values constitutive of the modern international order through these contemporary narrations directed towards the international audience. The final research project ended up as a comparative case study of these types of official policies reaching back half a millennium. The path that led to this change of temporal scale is one that began far from the Arctic where I had spent the five years leading up to my enrollment at the EUI. For the first year of my graduate study I visited the office of my thesis supervisor, Professor Christian Reus-Smit, at the EUI more or less regular intervals of every fortnight. The agenda of these meetings was always the same. They consisted of discussions about the summaries of the histories of the Arctic and the eight Arctic states that I had dug up and sent to Chris beforehand. The reason I was doing this historical review was because Chris did not think my original research idea was all that interesting. After having spent the past three years digging up the official paper-trails of what are, in hindsight, several failed attempts of similar sovereign-supported attempts for appropriation of the Arctic than the contemporary ‘sovereign Arctic dreams’ consist of, I believe it is safe to say that Chris was right: The ebb and flow of these attempts during the past half a millennium does, indeed, make a much more intriguing international phenomenon to explore than the former. i It goes without saying that one does not write a Ph.D. dissertation with the temporal and spatial scale of this one by sitting at the office of one’s supervisor in Florence. Anyone who has ever taken on the type of comparative, international system-level, inductive, work that I present in the following pages also knows that one does not endure the uncertainty associated with this research approach without being able to rely on a host of amazingly generous, kind, and above all, patient people. The list of individuals who enabled me to take on what could be described as the expansion of my original project into the unknown, and to endure with the uncertainty associated with every step this process, is an especially long one. It is also a list that has its origins in years of work, study and every-day life far away from the beautiful Badia Fiesolana where the origins of the intellectual labor for this thesis are. In order not to make this already long thesis an even longer one, I will, however, begin the following, shorter version of the list of acknowledgements from Florence. The first person I extend my gratitude towards in completing this work is Chris. He has seen and commented on not only the good and the bad, but also the really, really bad (that on more than one occasion border-lined with mad), drafts of the work. During my first year, when the analytical framework of the thesis began to include more and more questions related to different sciences and technologies, it was also Chris who directed me towards the second supervisor of this project, Professor Trevor Pinch. During my second year of graduate study, Trevor welcomed me at the Cornell Department of Science and Technology Studies. During my visit there I learned the basics of this multidisciplinary discipline. Was it not for his intellectual guidance and personal encouragement, I would also have ended up taking an exit from the thesis before ever setting foot into an archive. It was also at Cornell where I met my most inspiring peer- support group consisting of Sahar, “Papa” Chris, and Chris-Chris (not to be confused with the first mentioned Super(visor)-Chris). Multiple times during the past four years, when I was not sure I had it in me to finish this work, these three kind souls convinced me that I could (and should) continue with it. At the EUI I have had the good fortune to belong to a social constructivist peer-support group consisting of Andrea, Maja, and Payam. These three know exactly how bad it can get before the silver lining of the argument finally appears. My office mate at the EUI, Simon, also belongs to this gang. I will acknowledge him separately as he was the one ii who asked me all the tough questions that got my argument rolling at the time when I was really stuck. He also diligently sat next to me through the full emotional and intellectual