Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T04:48:21.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Of Systems, Boundaries, and Territoriality: An Inquiry into the Formation of the State System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Friedrich Kratochwil
Get access

Abstract

The author explores the changing functions of boundaries in territorially and nonterritorially based social organizations. By focusing on the exchanges that boundaries mediate, a fuller account can be given of the systems characteristics in which the units interact than is afforded by traditional systems theory. Two case studies demonstrate that imperial boundaries differ significantly from those in the state system. Boundaries are shown to be the major means for conflict management in the international system. The author also investigates shifts in the location of the boundary, characteristics of balance-of-power systems, and the restriction and expansion of the exchanges that boundaries allow through the bundling or unbundling of territorial rights. Most of the latter devices that gave rise to spheres of influence, buffer states, suzerainties, and so forth have been overtaken by events, but functional regimes and spheres of influence based upon tacit rather than explicit rules remain important.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , October 1986 , pp. 27 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, for example, the debate in the late sixties focusing on the probable consequences of various integration efforts in Europe and Latin America. For a critical appraisal, see Hoffmann, Stanley, “Obstinate or Obsolete, The Fate of the Nation State and the Case of Western Europe,” in Nye, Joseph, ed., International Regionalism (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), 177–230Google Scholar.

2 On kinship or “primitive” societies see, e.g., Maine, Henry Sumner, Ancient Law (London: John Murray, 1866)Google Scholar; Morgan, Lewis Henry, Ancient Society, or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization (New York: Holt, 1877)Google Scholar. For a critique of this dichotomy, see Lowie, Robert, Primitive Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949)Google Scholar.

3 Murty, T. S., Frontiers, a Changing Concept (New Delhi: Palit & Palit, 1978), 50Google Scholar.

4 See, e.g., the extensive discussion of “nomadism” in Lattimore, Owen, Inner Asian Fron-tiers of China (Boston: Beacon Press, 1951), chap. 4; quote at 66Google Scholar.

5 Lattimore, Owen, The Mongols of Manchuria (New York: John Day, 1934)Google Scholar.

6 For a further discussion of Lamaism and its impact on Mongol affairs, see Lattimore (fn. 4), 86–97. F°r an account of the wars among the northern and western Mongols, see Hambly, Gavin, ed., Central Asia (New York: Delacorte Press, 1969)Google Scholar, chaps. 7, 9, 11, and esp. 17.

7 For a fascinating account of the freewheeling rule of the local warlord Yakub Beg who attempted to fend off Russian, English, and Chinese influence until he was defeated by the Chinese general Tso Tsung-tang in 1878, see Chen, Jack, The Sinkiang Story (New York: Macmillan, 1977), chap. 6Google Scholar.

8 For a general discussion, see Sharma, Surya, International Boundary Disputes and International Law (Bombay: Tripathi, 1976), 194 ffGoogle Scholar, and Wheeler, Geoffrey, “Sinkiang and the Soviet Union,” The China Quarterly (November-December 1963), 57 ffGoogle Scholar.

9 See Chen (fn. 7), chaps. 8–10, for an extensive discussion of the fluid and often shifting political situation under the rule of Sheng Shih-tsai who transferred his sympathies from the Nationalist Chinese government to Stalin, but in 1941 began to persecute Communists with Russian leanings (betting on a defeat of Stalin), only to seek a rapprochement in 1944.

10 See Karan, P. P., “The Sino-Soviet Border Dispute,” Journal of Geography, 63 (1964), 220–42, at 221CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Luhmann, Niklas, “Territorial Borders as System Boundaries,” in Strassoldo, Raimondo and Zoti, Giovanni delli, eds., Cooperation and Conflict in Border Areas (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1982), 235–45, at 236Google Scholar.

12 Ward, Kingdon, “Explorations on the Burma-Tibet Frontier,” Geographical Journal 80 (1932), 465–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as quoted in Prescott, J.R.V., Boundaries and Frontiers (London: Croom Helm, 1978), 106Google Scholar.

13 Luhmann (fn. 11), 238.

14 I use the term “negative community” for denoting a situation in which there is an agreement on common practices and rights, but not on common purpose. For further discussion, see Nardin, Terry, Law, Morality and the Relations of States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

15 For the argument that the European state system depended upon a variety of conventions and institutional rules, see Keens-Soper, Maurice, “The Practice of a State System,” in Donelan, Michael, ed., The Reason of States (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1978), 25–45Google Scholar.

16 Sharma (fn. 8), 14.

17 For further discussion of this point, see Poggi, Gianfranco, The Development of the Modern State (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1978)Google Scholar, and Strayer, Joseph, On the Medieval Origins of the Modem State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

18 Wedgwood, C. V., The Thirty Years' War, paperback ed. (London: Methuen, 1981), 34ffGoogle Scholar.

19 The preservation of these freedoms was originally the task of parliaments, which were largely complaint and adjudicative institutions, not bodies for legislation.

20 On the function of the Reichskammergericht, see Smend, Rudolf, Das Reichskammergericht: Geschichte und Verfassung (Aalen, Germany: Scientia, 1965)Google Scholar.

20 Wedgwood (fn. 18), 36.

22 Lattimore (fn. 4), 434.

23 This thesis has been put forward most eloquently by Lapradelle, Paul de, La Frontière (Paris: Les Editions Internationales, 1928)Google Scholar. For some important modifications of Lapradelle's thesis, see Studien zu den Militärgrenzen Roms, Vorträge des 6. Internationalen Limes Kongresses in Süddeutschland (Cologne-Graz: Böhlau Verlag, 1967)Google Scholar.

24 See, e.g., the extensive discussion of Roman boundary arrangements in Franz Altheim, Niedergang der Alien Welt, 2 vols. (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klosterman, no date), II, chaps. 2 and 3.

25 Ibid., chap. 4.

26 Caesar, Julius, De bello gallico (Commentaries), trans, by John Warrington (New York: Dutton, 1953)Google Scholar.

27 Plutarch, , Vitae Caesarum (New York: Heritage Press, 1941), chap. 58, sec. 6Google Scholar.

28 This was the formula in the preamble to the Treaty of Utrecht, which ended the War of Spanish Succession (1713).

29 See, e.g., the various compensation schemes of the Congress of Vienna, in Gulick, Edward, Europe's Classical Balance of Power (New York: Norton, 1967), chap. 9Google Scholar.

30 For further discussion, see Hall, H. Duncan, Mandates, Dependencies, and Trusteeships (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1948), chap. 1Google Scholar, “The Inter-national Frontier.”

31 See Prescott, J.R.V., Collier, H. J. and Prescott, D. F., Frontiers of Asia and Southeast Asia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1977), chap. 18Google Scholar.

32 Art. IV, as quoted in McEwen, K. C., International Boundaries of East Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 178 ffGoogle Scholar. An example is the shift of the boundary from the shore to the middle of Lake Jipe on the recommendation of a boundary commission working in 1904–1906, which modified the original agreement between Germany and Britain ( 1893); this line has become the modern Kenya-Tanzania boundary.

33 Curzon, Lord, Frontiers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), 42Google Scholar.

34 Ibid.; see also Curzon, G. N., Russia in Central Asia in 1889 and the Anglo -Russian Question (London: Frank Cass, 1967), 326 ffGoogle Scholar.

35 Although the principle of contiguity was virtually discounted in establishing a valid title in the Island of Palmas decision, Lauterpacht has shown that there is a sound core to this doctrine. For the Palmas decision, see Henkin, Louis and others, eds., International Law, Cases and Materials (Minneapolis: West, 1980), 256–62Google Scholar. On contiguity, see Lauterpacht, Hersh, “Sovereignty over Submarine Areas,” British Yearbook of International Law 27 (1950), 376–433Google Scholar.

36 This was the reason for the Latin American doctrine of uti possidetis, which foreclosed attempts of other countries to establish title to sparsely administered or even unknown parts of their respective territories. For further discussion, see Kratochwil, Friedrich, Rohrlich, Paul, and Mahajan, Harpreet, Peace and Disputed Sovereignty (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985)Google Scholar, case studies on the Beagle Channel and Peru-Ecuador.

37 Keal, Paul, Unspoken Rules and Superpower Dominance (London: Macmillan, 1984), 31Google Scholar.

38 Hall (fn. 30), 44.

39 See Amin, S. H., International and Legal Problems in the Gulf (London: Middle East and North African Studies Press, 1981), 124Google Scholar.

40 For a discussion of the problems involved, see Black, Cyril E. and others, Neutralization and World Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

41 For a discussion of British policy, see Coatman, I., “The Northwest Frontier Province and Trans-Border Country under the New Constitution,” Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 18 (July 1931), 335–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Bruce, C. E., “The Sandeman Policy as Applied to the Tribal Problems of Today,” Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 19 (January 1932), 45–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 See, e.g., United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1803 (XVII), 1962, U.N. Doc. A/5217 (1963).

43 On this point, see Arechaga, Eduardo Jimenez de, “State Responsibility for the Nationalization of Foreign-Owned Property,” New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 11 (Fall 1978), 179–95Google Scholar; reprinted in Falk, Richard, Kratochwil, Friedrich, and Mendlovitz, Saul, eds., International Law: A Contemporary Perspective (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985)Google Scholar.

44 Krasner, Stephen, “The United Nations and Political Conflict between North and South,” in Gati, Toby Trister, ed., The U.S., the U.N., and the Management of Global Change (New York: New York University Press, 1983), 210–26, at 211–14Google Scholar.

45 This point is made by Raimondo Strassoldo, “Boundaries in Sociological Theory: A Reassessment,” in Strassoldo and Delli Zotti (fn. 11).

46 Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the 16th Century (New York: Academic Press, 1976)Google Scholar.

47 This is the argument in Gallagher, John and Robinson, Ronald, “The Imperialism of Free Trade,” Economic History Review, 2d series, 6 (1953), 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 For a more extensive discussion of the “rules of the game” in the postwar era, see Kratochwil, Fried-rich, International Order and Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1978)Google Scholar. See also Falk, Richard A., “The Interplay of Westphalia and Charter Conceptions of the Inter-national Legal Order,” in Black, Cyril E. and Falk, Richard A., eds., The Future of the Inter-national Legal Order, I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), chap. 2Google Scholar. Falk is one of the few “process-oriented” international lawyers who would be inclined to grant some quasi-authoritative status to “rules of the game.”

49 See Kissinger, Henry A., A World Restored (New York: Gosset & Dunlap, 1964), chap. 15Google Scholar.

50 On this point, see Kratochwil, Friedrich, “On the Notion of Interest in International Relations,” International Organization 36 (Winter 1981–82), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 For a discussion of Roosevelt's plan for a world organization after the war, see Range, Willard, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's World Order (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1959)Google Scholar. For the various incompatible conceptions emerging from the interactions before and during the San Francisco Conference, see Campbell, Thomas, Masquerade Peace (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

52 This point is further elaborated in Franck, Thomas, “Who Killed Article 2.4?” American journal of International Law 71 (April 1977), 224–47Google Scholar.

53 For an extensive treatment of Churchill's proposal, see Feis, Herbert, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 447–51Google Scholar.

54 For a discussion of Stalin's policies in Eastern Europe, see Brzezinski, Zbigniew, The Soviet Bloc (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar.

55 For a discussion of the European Concert, see Rosecrance, Richard, Action and Reaction in World Politics (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963)Google Scholar.

56 For a further development of this theme, see Kratochwil (fn. 48), throughout.

57 Franck, Thomas and Weisband, Edward, Word Politics: Verbal Strategy Among the Super-powers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972)Google Scholar.

58 Keal (fn. 37), part I.

59 Ibid., 50.

60 These thoughts are more fully developed in Friedrich Kratochwil, “Rules, Norms, Values and the Limits of Rationality,” Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie (forthcoming).

61 Hume, David, Treatise on Human Nature, Book III, Of Morals, in Hume's Moral and Political Philosophy, ed. Aiken, Henry (Darien, CT: Hafner, 1970), 59 ffGoogle Scholar.

62 In this context, see Article 31 of the Vienna Convention which establishes that “a treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.” See also Aréchaga, Jimenez de, “International Law in the Past Third of a Century,” 159 Recueil des Cours (1978), 42–48Google Scholar.

63 For a good discussion of this technique, see Claude, Inis, Swords into Ploughshares, 4th ed. (New York: Random House, 1984), chap. 14Google Scholar.

64 For an extensive discussion of détente and the reasons for its failure, see Bell, Coral, The Diplomacy of Detente: The Kissinger Era (London: Martin Robertson, 1977)Google Scholar.

65 Luhmann makes the point that rights are means by which conflicts can be limited and resolved without endangering the overall relationship. See Luhmann, Niklas, Soziologie der Aufklärung, 26 ed. (Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1975) II, 29–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 See Nye, Joseph, Peace in Parts: Integration and Conflict in Regional Organization (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971)Google Scholar.

67 A discussion of the emergence of new “wholes” on the basis of new knowledge is in Haas, Ernst, “Is there a Hole in the Whole?” International Organization 29 (Summer 1975), 327–77Google Scholar.

68 For a text of the UNCLOS III Draft Convention, see International Legal Materials, XXI (November 1982), 1261–1354Google Scholar.

69 An extensive discussion of the Antarctic regime can be found in Auburn, F. M., Antarctic Law and Politics (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1982)Google Scholar.

70 For an assessment of UNCLOS III in terms of the common heritage principle, see Falk and others (fn. 43), chap. 9.

71 Consultative members are those entitled to make rules (on the basis of unanimity) for the Antarctic. They are the original parties to the Antarctica Treaty, plus those admitted later on the basis of significant research in the area. For a further discussion, see Kratochwil and others (fn. 36), case study on the Arctic and Antarctica, 101–14.

72 Parsons, Talcott, The Structure of Social Action (New York: Free Press, 1968)Google Scholar; see also Luhmann, Niklas, Soziale Systeme (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1984)Google Scholar.

73 See, e.g., Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979)Google Scholar.