Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
The broad question posed here is how authority is distributed in the world and what shifts may be occurring in its pattern of distribution. Mainly, of course, authority is today allocated according to the Western State System, characterized in its legal mechanics by territorial rule among equals and in its political philosophy by consent of the governed. Conveniently dated from the Treaty of Westphalia and the French Revolution, the system is now more widespread than ever before.