The Making of the Westphalian State-System: Social Property Relations, Geopolitics and the Myth of 1648 Benno Gerhard Teschke London School of Economics and Political Science Submitted for the PhD Degree in International Relations 20th September 1999 1 UMI Number: U126793 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U126793 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 I H £ S £ S 7725 Abstract The dissertation presents a theoretically controlled and historically informed inquiry into the formation and dynamics of the European system of states between the 8th and the 18th Centuries. It combines two methods of research and exposition. First, it pursues a comparative-chronological approach by elaborating and contrasting historically diverse logics of territorial and international order - exemplified with reference to the medieval, the early modem, and, partially, the modem geopolitical systems. Second, it adopts a developmental perspective by supplementing the systematic-comparative but static account of geopolitical orders with a more narrative, yet theoretically hedged, exposition of their incommensurable conflictual dynamics and expansionist drives. This processual perspective allows us to address the crucial question of the causes behind the passage from one geopolitical order to another. Contrary to conventional assumptions in the theory of international relations, the thesis is that the diversity of geopolitical systems and the reasons behind their transformations are bound up with different and changing social property relations in the domestic sphere. These social property relations govern the very identity of the constitutive actors of any geopolitical system and inform their modes of territorial order and foreign policy behaviour. Such a thesis has direct implications for a fundamental re-interpretation and re-periodisation of the origins of modem international relations, commonly associated with the Westphalian Peace settlements of 1648. By embedding the demystification of 1648’s essential modernity in the wider continuum of European history, the dissertation shows to which degree early modem geopolitics remained tied to its medieval roots. The old pre-modem logic of geopolitical relations is only challenged with the advent of a new social property regime and the articulation of a new state/society complex in late 17th Century England, which starts in the 18th Century to transform the state system of the Old Regime into a modem system of sovereign states. 2 Table of Contents Chapter One The Myth of 1648: The Conventional Interpretation of the Westphalian System of States Introduction Research Problem Research Context The Core Theoretical Argument Composition and Distribution of the Argument The Myth of 1648: The Conventional Interpretation of the Westphalian System of States Paradigmatic IR Perspectives Neorealist and Realist Perspectives: 1648 as the Majestic Portal to International Modernity The ‘English School’: Antedating Westphalia Constructivist Perspectives: 1648 as the ‘Usual Marker’ Giovanni Arrighi: Westphalia under Dutch Hegemony Stephen Krasner’s Dissolution of Westphalia into Historical Contingency Conclusion: Towards a Historical Sociology of the Making of the Westphalian System of States Chapter Two Geopolitical Relations in the European Middle Ages: Theory and History Introduction The IR Debate: The Middle Ages between Neorealism, “Critical Theory”, and Constructivism 3 Theoretical Foundations: The Relation between the Economic and the Political in Feudal Society Max Weber versus Karl Marx: Type of Domination versus Extra-Economic Compulsion From the Logic of Production to the Logic of Exploitation The Structure-Agent Problem in Feudal Terms: Lordship and Contradictory Strategies of Reproduction Lordship as Conditional Property (Structure) Contradictory Strategies of Reproduction (Agency) A ‘Culture of War’ based upon Political Accumulation A Phenomenology of Medieval ‘International’ Institutions The ‘Medieval State’: Tensions between Localised Appropriation and Centralised Authority The Political Economy of Medieval Territory and Frontiers War and Peace: Medieval Feuding as Legal Redress War as Feud The Many Peaces Feudal ‘International Systems”: Beyond Anarchy and Hierarchy Banal, Domestic, and Landlordship Conditional Hierarchy, Personalised Anarchy, Territorial Anarchy Conclusion: Geopolitical Systems as Social Systems Chapter Three From Hierarchy to Anarchy: The History of the Social Relations of Lordship fc800-cl350) Introduction: Theorising Systemic Change in IR The Transition from Imperial Hierarchy to Royal Anarchy as a Problem for IR Theory Recapitulating the Explanatory Framework Methodological Reorientation: From System to Process 4 The Carolingian Empire The Patrimonial Nature of the Frankish State Frankish Dual Social Property Relations Frankish ‘Political Accumulation’ Explaining the Transition from Hierarchy to Anarchy The Demise of the Carolingian Empire The ‘Feudal Revolution’ of the Year 1000 and the Rise of the Banal Regime A New Mode of Exploitation as Precondition for Feudal Geopolitical Expansion Predatory Lordship and the Rise of Serfdom Military Innovations and the Origins of the Knightly Class Changes in Noble Proprietary Consciousness, the Introduction of Primogeniture, and the Making of Noble Excess Cadets Conquest of Nature - Conquest of People Summarising the Argument Post-Crisis Feudal Expansion as Geopolitical Accumulation Patterns of Expansion: Socially Combined and Geographically Uneven Development The Norman Conquest and Unitary English State Formation The Spanish Reconquista The German Ostsiedlung The Papal Revolution and the Crusades French State-Formation between the 11th and 14th Centuries: From Banal Fragmentation to Royal Consolidation The Capetion ‘Domain State’ Capetian Political Accumulation Changing Class Relations: The End of Serfdom, the End of the Castellan Class, and the Ascent of Feudal Kingship An Imperfect Feudal Kingdom Conclusion: The Medieval Making of a Multi-Actor Europe 5 Chapter Four Transitions and Non-Transitions to Modernity: A Critique of Rival Paradigms Introduction Defining Political Modernity, Defining Capitalism The Commercialisation Model: The Example of Fernand Braudel Le Monde Braudelien: Le Capitalisme Depuis Toujours Implications for IR Capitalism and the Modern State: An Alternative Conception Capitalism as a Relation of Production Capitalism, the Modem State, and the Modem States System The Geopolitical Competition Model The Military Logic of State Formation Universal War - Variations in State Responses: A Critique Chapter Five L ’Etat. c ’est moil: The Personal and Compromised Nature of Absolutist Sovereignty Introduction Modernity, Sovereignty, and IR Chapter Structure Debating Absolutism: Transition or Non-Transition? The Traditional State-Centred Interpretation: The State as Rational Actor The Revisionist ‘Society-Centred’ Critique The Orthodox Marxist Interpretation: The ‘Equilibrist-Transitional Paradigm’ Perry Anderson’s Subterranean Transition to Capitalism Political Marxists and the Critique of the ‘Bourgeois Paradigm’ The Argument: The Involutionary Class Logic of French Absolutism ‘L ’Etat, c’est moiV: Absolutist Sovereignty as Proprietary Kingship The Modernising Limits of Absolutism 6 Office Venality as Alienation of State Property Political Institutions in Early Modem France: Competing Centers of Power Legibus Solutus? Growing Costs of Warfare, the King’s Debts, and Bankruptcies The Structure of the Military Constitution of the Old Regime Conclusion: The Political Logic and Economic Illogic of French Absolutism Chapter Six Demystifying the Westphalian System of States: International Relations from Absolutism to Capitalism Introduction (Neo-)Realism and Constructivism: Explanatory Divergences - Identical Outcomes Critique and Outline of an Alternative Approach Theoretical Foundations: Explaining Variations in International Systems Structure: Pre-Capitalist Social Property Relations, the Absolutist State, and Economic Non-Development Agency: Political and Geopolitical Strategies of Accumulation Implications for IR: lL E tat, c ’est moiV and Inter-Dynasticism Westphalian Geopolitical Relations: Foreign Policy as Dynastic Family Business Monachia Universalis and the Persistence of Dynastic Empire-Building: Parity or Ranking? ‘States’ Marrying ‘States’: Dynastic Unions and Wars of Succession Dynastic Rules of Succession as Public International Law The Case of the ‘Austrian Pragmatic Sanction’ Territoriality: Circulating Territories, Circulating Princes Demystifying the Peace of Westphalia Proprietary Dynasticism vs. Sovereignty Restoration vs. Modernity ^ Dynastic Collective Security System vs. the Balance of Power 7 Principles of Geopolitical Order: Dynastic Equilibrium and the Balance of Power Dynastic Equilibrium qua Territorial Compensations The Case of the ‘Polish Partitions’: Balance of Power or Compensatory Equilibrium ? British Uniqueness: Capitalism,