Ruggie - Territoriality

Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations
Author(s): John Gerard Ruggie

Reviewed work(s):
Source: International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Winter, 1993), pp. 139-174
Published by: The MIT Press
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and beyond:
Territoriality
problematizing modernityin
internationalrelations
JohnGerardRuggie
Weshallnotceasefromexploration
And theend ofall ourexploring
Willbe toarrivewherewestarted
And knowtheplace forthefirsttime.
-T. S. Eliot,LittleGidding
The year 1989 has alreadybecome a convenienthistoricalmarker:it has been
invokedby commentatorsto indicate the end of the postwarera. An era is
characterizedbythe passage not merelyof timebut also of the distinguishing
attributesof a time,attributesthat structureexpectationsand imbue daily
eventswithmeaningforthe membersof any givensocial collectivity. In that
sense,what thejournalistTheordoreH. Whiteobservedin 1945 is trueonce
again: theworld,he wrote,is "fluidand about to be remade."1Argumentswill
continueformanyyearsto come about the determinants of thecollapse of the
old postwarorder and the contoursof the new post-postwarorder.But even
amongdiversetheoreticaltraditionsthereexistsa sharedvocabularydescribing
"the world" that has become fluid and is being remade: in its simplest,
irreducibleterms,it is theworldof strategicbipolarity.
The same cannotbe said ofanother"world"thatalso maybe fluidand in the
processof being remade: the modernsystemof states.This worldexistson a
deeper and more extendedtemporalplane, and its remakinginvolvesa shift
not in the play of power politics but of the stage on which that play is
An earlier draftof this articlewas presentedat the BritishSocial Science Research Council
Conferenceon Nation-Statesand the InternationalOrder, Emmanuel College, Cambridge,4-6
September1991. I am gratefulto BarryBuzan, Caroline Bynum,ErnstHaas, Andreas Huyssen,
StephenKrasner,HendrikSpruyt,TracyStrong,and AlexanderWendtfortheircommentsand to
David Auerswaldforresearchassistance.
1. Theodore H. White,In Seach of History:A PersonalAdventure(New York: Harper & Row,
1978),p. 224.
47, 1, Winter1993
Organization
International
? 1993bytheWorldPeace Foundationand the MassachusettsInstituteof Technology
140 InternationalOrganization
performed.2Here, no shared vocabularyexists in the literatureto depict

changeand continuity. Indeed, littlevocabularyforitexistsat all.
Take efforts to expressthe emergingarchitecture of the European Commu-
nity(EC) as a case in point."It is a negativecharacteristic whichfirstimposes
itself,"the MarxisttheoristEtienne Balibar concedes. "The state today in
Europe is neithernational nor supranational,and this ambiguitydoes not
slackenbut onlygrowsdeeper overtime."3Fromtheotherside of thepolitical
spectrum,The Economistagrees and gropes formetaphor:in place of older
federativevisions,it sees "a Europe of manyspires,"a European "Mont Saint
Michel."4For theirpart,Eurocratsspeak of overlappinglayersof European
economicand political"spaces," tiedtogether,in thewordsofEC Commission
PresidentJacquesDelors, bythe community's "spiderlikestrategyto organize
the architectureof a GreaterEurope."5
These formulationsare not terriblyprecise or definitive.Still, they are
improvements over the treatmentEurope typicallyreceivesin the standard
academic literatures.In Kenneth Waltz's classic neorealisttreatise,the EC
earned only a few fleetingreferences,and then onlyto argue that it would
neveramountto much in the "internationalstructure"unless it took on the
formof a unifiedstate.6In the instrumental rationalityof game theoryand
transactionscost analysis,macrostructures are either taken for grantedor
treatedas relativelyunproblematicconsequencesof the interplayofmicromo-
tives,and hence generate littleinterestas independentsocial facts.7And,
regionalintegration theorylongago acknowledgeditsown obsolescencein the
face of the new European reality.8 In none of these theoreticalperspectivesis
thereso muchas a hintthatthe institutional, juridical,and spatial complexes
associatedwiththecommunity mayconstitutenothingless thantheemergence
of thefirsttrulypostmoderninternational politicalform.
2. For a specificationof the ontologicaland epistemologicaldifferencesamong incremental,

conjunctural,and secular or epochal time frames,see JohnGerard Ruggie, "Social Time and
InternationalPolicy,"in MargaretP. Karns, ed., Persistent Patternsand EmergentStructuresin a
WaningCentury (New York: Praeger,1986),pp. 211-36. Withinthattypology, the"normalpolitics"
studiedbymuchoftheinternational relationsfieldfallsintotheincrementalcategory,thecold war
exemplifies theconjunctural,and themodernsystemof statestheepochal timeframes.
3. EtienneBalibar,"Es GibtKeinenStaatinEuropa: Racism and Politicsin Europe Today,"New
LeftReview186 (March/April1991),p. 16,emphasisoriginal.
4. "Many-spiredEurope," The Economist,18 May 1991, p. 16. Some twentyyears ago, I
suggestedthatintegrationtheorymove fromthe model of a "tree" (in graph-theoretic terms)to
depicttheinstitutionalend-pointof theintegration processto one of a semi-lattice-thedefinition
ofwhichsoundsverymuchlike a formalrepresentation of TheEconomist'sEuropean Mont Saint
Michel. See John Gerard Ruggie, "The Structureof InternationalOrganization:Contingency,
Complexity, and PostmodernForm,"Peace Research Society(International)Papers,no. 18, 1972.
5. "Inner Space," The Economist,18 May 1991. Delors is cited in Alan Riding,"Europeans in
Accordto Create VastlyExtendedTradingBloc," New YorkTimes,23 October1991,p. Al.
6. See KennethWaltz,TheoryofInternational Politics(Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1979).
7. See, for example, GeoffreyGarrett,"InternationalCooperation and InstitutionalChoice:
The European Community'sInternal Market," InternationalOrganization46 (Spring 1992),
pp. 531-60.
8. See ErnstB. Haas, The ObsolescenceofRegionalIntegration Theory,Research Mongraphno.
25 (Berkeley:Instituteof InternationalStudies,University of California,1976).
Territoriality141
Prevailingperspectivesmay have difficulty describingand explainingthe

processof European transformation, butnone suggeststhatit is notoccurring.
At theleveloftheglobaleconomy,in contrast,thephenomenonoftransforma-
tion not onlystrainsthe available vocabularybut on some accounts,its very
occurrenceremainsin doubt.
There has been a remarkablegrowthin transnationalmicroeconomiclinks
over the past thirtyyearsor so, comprisingmarketsand productionfacilities
thatare designatedbytheawkwardterm"offshore"-as thoughtheyexistedin
some etherealspace waitingto be reconceivedby an economicequivalentof
theory.In thisoffshorearea, sourcing,production,and marketing
relativity are
organizedwithin"global factories,"9 and
in some instances"global offices,"10
most recentlythe "global lab""1-real-time transnationalinformationflows
beingtherawmaterialof all three.Financialtransactionstake place in various
"Euro" facilities,whichmaybe housed in Tokyo,New York, and European
financialcentersbut whichare consideredto existin an extranationalrealm.12
Cross-investment amongthe leadingfirmsor othermeans of forgingtransna-
tionalizedintercorporate alliances increasingly Trade is made
are the norm.13
up disproportionatelyof intrafirmtransactionsas opposed to the conventional
arms-length exchangethatis the stapleof economicmodels and policy.14 And,
thefinancialsector,whichhistorically (and in theory)is assumedto followand
servicethe"real" sector,now dwarfsit completely.15
Furthermore,the largestshare of the "goods" that are "traded" in this
offshoreworldactuallyare "services."16 TheEconomistmagazine,withtonigue
9. For a descriptionof global factories,see JosephGrunwaldand KennethFlamm,The Global

Factory:ForeignAssemblyin InternationalTrade (Washington,D.C.: The BrookingsInstitution,
1985).
10. Steve Lohr, "The Growthof the 'Global Office',"New YorkTimes,18 October 1988. For
example, Citibank does some of its financialdata processingin Jamaica; American Airlines
processes ticketstubs in Barbados and the Dominican Republic; and New York Life processes
claimsand McGraw-Hill,magazinesubscription renewals,in Ireland.
11. The termis drawnfromPollack: "Justas theyonce movedmanufacturing plantsoverseas,
American companies are now spreadingtheir research and product developmentaround the
world,helpingto turnthecreationoftechnologyintoan activity thattranscendsnationalborders."
See AndrewPollack, "TechnologyWithoutBorders Raises Big Questions forU.S.," New York
Times,1 January1992,p. Al.
12. JoanE. Spero,"GuidingGlobal Finance,"ForeignPolicy73 (Winter1988-89),pp. 114-34.
13. See RobertB. Reich, The WorkofNations(New York: Knopf,1991).
14. Some 40 percentof U.S. trade is of the intrafirm variety,a ratiothatincreasesto close to
two-thirds ifmore relaxed definitions of "related party"are used. Moreover,intrafirm trade has
been growingmorerapidlythanthe standardstuff, and it is less sensitiveto such macroeconomic
factorsas exchangerates.For evidence,see JaneSneddon Little,"Intra-firm Trade: An Update,"
NewEnglandEconomicReview(May/June1987),pp. 46-51; and theearlierbutstillusefulstudyby
Gerald C. Helleiner,Intra-firm Tradeand theDevelopingCountries(London: Macmillan,1981).
15. Internationaltrade amounts to some $2.5 to $3 trillionper year; internationalcapital
marketsturn over at least $75 trillion,and foreignexchange transactionsnow amount to
approximately $1 trillionper day.
16. Definitionsare so bad thatthebalance ofworldservicesimportsand exportsroutinely is off
byas muchas $100 billionper annum-a marginof errorequivalentto fullyone-fifth of all traded
services;see Ronald K. Shelp, "Trade in Services,"ForeignPolicy65 (Winter1986-87). Bhagwati
suggestsseveralcreativedefinitional distinctionsbut ends up recommending thatthe term"trade
in services"be abandoned in favorof "internationalservicetransactions";see JagdishBhagwati,
only half-in-cheek, has proposed definingservicesas "thingswhich can be

boughtand sold butwhichyoucannotdropon yourfoot,"-acknowledgingthe
of devisinga morerigorousdefinition.17
difficulty Nor is it entirelyclearwhatit
means to say that services are traded. In merchandisetrade, factorsof
productionstand still and goods move across borders; in traded services,
typicallythe factorsof productiondo the movingwhile the good (service)
standsstill:it is producedforthe consumeron the spot. What is called trade,
therefore,is really "investment,"or at the least "rightof establishment,"
bafflingtradetheoristsand negotiatorsalike.18
The orthodoxliberalpositionthatthese developmentssomehowimplythe
growingirrelevanceof states is, as Janice Thomson and Stephen Krasner
suggest,"fundamentally misplaced."19Indeed, states are anythingbut irrele-
vant even in the ever more integratedEC. Nevertheless,the standardrealist
groundforrejectingthe transformational potentialof these developmentsis
equally misplaced. A leading realist journal of opinion recentlyoffereda
particularlyegregious illustrationin response to Robert Reich's probing
questionabout thenewworldoftransnationalized productionnetworks, "Who
is 'Us'?"20 Reich sought to voice the conceptual complexitiesentailed in
determiningwhether somethingis an American product any longer and
whetherthe legal designation,"an Americancorporation,"stilldescribesthe
same economicentity,withthe same consequencesfordomesticemployment
and economicgrowth, thatitdid in the 1950sand 1960s.The responseto Reich
was a baffling and bizarre-but not atypical-stringof non sequiturs,for
example: "Only the state can defend corporate interestsin international
negotiationsovertrade,investment, and marketaccess.... If the existenceof
thestateis in doubt,just ask thedepositorsofBCCI in somefifty countrieswho
"Trade in Servicesand the MultilateralTrade Negotiations,"The WorldBank EconomicReview,

vol. 1,no. 1, 1987.See also DorothyI. Riddle,Service-LedGrowth(New York: Praeger,1986); Orio
Giarini,ed., TheEmergingServiceEconomy(London: PergamonPress, 1987); TerrenceG. Berg,
"Trade in Services,"HarvardInternational Law Journal28 (Winter1987); and Mario A. Kakabadse,
International Tradein Services(London: Croom Helm forthe AtlanticInstituteforInternational
Affairs,1987).
17. "A GattforServices,"TheEconomist,12 October 1985,p. 20. See also "NettingtheFuture:
A SurveyofTelecommunications," TheEconomist,19 March 1990;and "A Questionof Definition:
A Surveyof InternationalBanking,"TheEconomist,7 April1990.
18. At the time of thiswriting,indicationsare that the UruguayRound will bringinto the
GeneralAgreementon Tariffsand Trade (GATT) framework thatportionofinternationalservices
whichfitstheconventionalunderstanding ofinternationaltrade.However,thatportionis relatively
small compared with the whole, and numerous highlydisputatiousissues lurk beyond the
conventionalframework. See "GATT Brief:Centre Stage forServices?" The Economist,5 May
1990,pp. 88-89; and "GATT and Services:Second Best," TheEconomist,3 August1991.
19. JaniceE. Thomsonand StephenD. Krasner,"Global Transactionsand theConsolidationof
Sovereignty," in Ernst-OttoCzempieland JamesN. Rosenau, eds., Global Changesand Theoretical
Challenges(Lexington,Mass.: LexingtonBooks, 1989), p. 198. See also Stephen D. Krasner,
"Global Communicationsand National Power: Life on the Pareto Frontier,"WorldPolitics43
(April 1991),pp. 336-66.
20. See Ethan B. Kapstein,"We are US: The Mythof the Multinational,"TheNationalInterest
26 (Winter1991/92),pp. 55-62. The fullexpositionof Reich's argumentis in The WorkofNations,
thefinalchapterofwhichis entitled"Who is 'US'?"
Territoriality143
woke up one morningin Julyto findtheiraccountsfrozen.... If the United

States wanted to preventthe gatheringor transmissionof informationby
satellite,it could easilydo so by shootingthe satellitedown."21And thusthe
conclusion,in thetitleof theessay,that"We are US."
There is an extraordinarily impoverishedmind-setat workhere,one thatis
able to visualize long-termchallengesto the systemof statesonlyin termsof
entitiesthatare institutionally forthe state.Since global markets
substitutable
and transnationalizedcorporatestructures(not to mentioncommunications
satellites)are notin thebusinessof replacingstates,theyare assumedto entail
no potentialforfundamentalinternationalchange,Q.E.D. The theoreticalor
historicalwarrantforthatpremisehas neverbeen mooted,let alone defended.
Illustrations of analyticalproblemsof thissortcan be multipliedmanytimes
over in other issue-areas.The global ecological implosioninherentlyinvites
epochal thinking,yet analyticallyinformedempirical studies of "ozone
diplomacy"or of attemptsto save the Mediterraneaninvariablyfocus on
negotiationprocessesand the dynamicsof regimeconstruction, as opposed to
exploringthe possibilityof fundamentalinstitutionaldiscontinuityin the
systemof states.22 Theydo so because, amongotherreasons,prevailingmodes
of analyticaldiscoursesimplylack therequisitevocabulary.
The worst offenderby far is the American field of securitystudies.
Notwithstanding its alleged renaissance,no epochal thoughthas been ex-
pressed by any serious specialist in that field since 1957, when John Herz
published his essay, "Rise and Demise of the TerritorialState"-and this
despitethefactthatchangesin military technologyand in therelationsofforce
are widelyacknowledgedto have been drivingfactorsof politicaltransforma-
tionthroughout humanhistory.23
The longand the shortof it is,then,thatwe are notverygood as a discipline
at studyingthe possibilityof fundamentaldiscontinuity in the international
21. Kapstein,"We are US," pp. 56 and 61.

22. See Richard Elliot Benedick, Ozone Diplomacy (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1991); LyntonKeith Caldwell, International Environmental Policy (Durham, N.C.: Duke
UniversityPress, 1984); Oran R. Young, International Cooperation:BuildingRegimesforNatural
Resourcesand theEnvironment (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1989); and Peter Haas,
SavingtheMediterranean (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press,1990).
23. On the field'salleged "renaissance,"see Stephen M. Walt, "The Renaissance of Security
Studies,"International StudiesQuarterly 35 (June 1991), pp. 211-39. For JohnHerz's view,see his
articles"Rise and Demise of the TerritorialStates," WorldPolitics9 (July1957), pp. 473-93, and
"The TerritorialState Revisited-Reflectionson the Futureof the Nation-State,"Polity1 (Fall
1968),pp. 11-34,inwhichhe elaboratedand modifiedsome ofhisearlierideas. The recentinterest
in the "obsolescence" of war among democracieswas not initiatedby internationalsecurity
specialists-see, forexample,JohnMueller,RetreatfromDoomsday: The Obsolescenceof Major
War(New York: Basic Books, 1989)-though ithas nowattractedseriousattentionfromsome. For
examplessee Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Robert W. Jackman,and Randolph M. Siverson,eds.,
Democracyand ForeignPolicy: Communityand Constraint,special issue, Journalof Conflict
Resolution35 (June 1991). A partial exceptionto my characterizationof the securitystudies
literatureis RobertJarvis,TheMeaningoftheNuclearRevolution(Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity
Press,1989). On the historicalrelationbetweenmilitary changesand politicaltransformation,see
WilliamH. McNeill,ThePursuit ofPower(Chicago:University ofChicagoPress,1982);and CharlesTilly,
Coercion,Capital,andEuropeanStatesAD990-1990(Cambridge, 1990).
Mass.:BasilBlackwell,
system;that is, at addressingthe question of whetherthe modernsystemof

statesmaybe yieldingin some instancesto postmodernformsof configuring
politicalspace.24We lack even an adequate vocabulary;and whatwe cannot
describe,we cannotexplain.It is thepurposeofthisarticle,in Clifford Geertz's
apt phrase,to help us "findour feet"in thisterrain,whichis thenecessaryfirst
stepof anyscientific endeavor,no matterhowhardor softthescience.25
In the next section,I summarizebrieflythe major featuresof the lively
debate about postmodernism thathas been takingplace in thehumanities.It is
suggestivein manyrespects,but it does not solveour problementirelybecause
themodernstateand systemof statesbarelyfigurein it.The bulkofthisarticle
therefore is devotedto a relativelymodestand pretheoretical task:to searchfor
a vocabularyand forthedimensionsofa researchagenda bymeansofwhichwe
can start to ask systematicquestions about the possibilityof fundamental
internationaltransformation today. The central attributeof modernityin
international politicshas been a peculiarand historicallyunique configuration
of territorialspace. Hence, I shallproceedbyre-examining thetransformation
wherebythisconfiguration ofterritorialspace firstcame to be.
The ends ofmodernity

The concept of postmodernity suggestsa periodizinghypothesis,an epochal
threshold,the end of "an historicalproject."26 That muchis clear. But,whatis
the universeof discourseand practicesto whichit pertains?To thatquestion
numerouspossible answersexist,not all of which are of equal interestfor
presentpurposes.
Whentheterm"postmodernity" in the 1970sand 1980s,
firstgainedcurrency
itreferredlargelyto recentdevelopmentsin therealmofaestheticsor style:the
nostalgiceclecticismin architecturalforms,the prevalenceof pastiche and
abrupt juxtapositionsof imageryin art, the deconstructivist impulse in
literature.Simultaneityand superimpositionreplaced sequence; the subject
was decentered,dismembered,and dispersed;and languagewas made to turn
in on itselfto createa void of infinite wherethequest formeaning
signification
had previouslyunfolded.27In the field of internationalrelations, these
expressionsof postmodernity have been symptomaticat best; as Pauline
Rosenau has shown,theyare preoccupiedwithstyleand methodand offeronly
limitedsubstantiveinsight.28
24. One recent attemptto correctthis shortcoming, to which I returnbelow, is James N.

Rosenau, Turbulence in WorldPolitics(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress,1990).
25. CliffordGeertz,TheInterpretation ofCultures(New York: Basic Books, 1973),p. 13.
26. The termis due to AlbrechtWellmer,"On theDialecticofModernismand Postmodernism,"
PraxisInternational4 (January1985),p. 337.
27. Ihab Hassan, The PostmodernTurn (Columbus: Ohio State UniversityPress, 1987),
especiallychap. 4, whichpresentsa widelyused schemadifferentiating modernfrompostmodern
aestheticpractices.
28. Attemptsto relatethepostmodernreadingoftextsto issuesin international relationsmaybe
found in James Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro, eds., International/Intertextual Relations
145
Territoriality
It was notlong,however, beforepostmodernity cameto be associatednot

merelywithmattersof stylebut witha historicalcondition,indicating,
according to AndreasHuyssen, a "slowlyemerging culturaltransformationin
Westernsocieties."29 This transformation concernsthe fateof whatJurgen
Habermascallsthe"project"ofmodernity, first
formulatedbytheeighteenth-
century philosophers oftheEuropeanEnlightenment; i.e.,systematicefforts
"todevelopobjective science,universal moralityandlaw,andautonomous art,
accordingto theirinnerlogic."30 The Enlightenment was animatedby the
desireto demystify and secularize,to subjectnaturalforcesto rational
explanation and control,as well as bythe expectation thatdoingso would
promote socialwelfare,moralprogress, and humanhappiness. The optimism,
certitude,and categorical fixity
ofthisprojectwereshattered-by Nietzsche,
Freud,Wittgenstein;Darwin,Einstein, Heisenberg;Braque,Picasso,Duchamp;
Joyce,Proust,Becket;Schoenberg, Berg,Bartok;twoworldwars,a Great
Depression,Nazi deathcamps,Stalin'sGulags,Hiroshima, and Nagasaki-
longbeforeLyotard,Foucault,and Derridapronounced and celebratedits
demise.
Although theterrainis highculture,thesubsequent battlebetween"Frank-
furtersand Frenchfries,"as RainerNagelehas describedit irreverently, has
beenfought largely
on politicalgrounds. Habermashasendeavored toholdon
to the intentionsof the Enlightenment in orderto completeits project.31
According toHuyssen, Habermas"triestosalvagetheemancipatory potential
ofenlightened reasonwhichto himis thesinequa non ofpoliticaldemocracy.
Habermasdefendsa substantive notionof communicative rationality,
espe-
ciallyagainstthosewhowillcollapsereasonwithdomination, believingthatby
abandoning reasontheyfreethemselves fromdomination."32 Lyotard ishostile
totheverythought: "We havepaida highenoughpriceforthenostalgia ofthe
wholeand the one," he shouts."Let us wage a war on totality; let us be
witnessesto the unpresentable; let us activatethe differences."33 Even
Habermas's admirers express doubtsabouttheviabilityofhisquest.34Neverthe-
less,the Paul de Man saga,especiallythe shamefuldefenseof de Man by
severalleadingdeconstructivists,showspoignantly howdeleterious thepoliti-
(Lexington,Mass.: Lexington/Heath, 1989). For a sympathetic

yetcriticalreviewofthisliterature,
see Pauline Rosenau, "Once Again into the Fray: InternationalRelations Confrontsthe
Humanities,"Millenium19 (Spring1990),pp. 83-110.
29. AndreasHuyssen,"MappingthePostmodern,"New GermanCritique33 (Fall 1984),p. 8.
30. JurgenHabermas,"Modernityand Postmodernity," New GermanCritique22 (Winter1981),
p.9.
31. These are Habermas's terms;see ibid.
32. Huyssen,"Mapping thePostmodern,"p. 31.
33. Jean-FrancoisLyotard,The PostmodemCondition(Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota
Press,1984),pp. 81-82.
34. See Huyssen,"MappingthePostmodern";and MartinJay,"Habermas and Modernism,"in
Richard J. Berstein,ed., Habermas and Modemity(Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), pp.
125-39.
cal consequences can be that followfromthe moral vacuum-if not moral

vacuity-the Frenchfrieswould have us inhabit.35
The twodistinctively modernprogramsformasteringinternational relations
are deeply implicatedin this projectof modernity:realistbalance-of-power
thinkingand idealistinstitutionalism, both of whichhave theiroriginsin the
eighteenthcentury.On therealistside,theTreatyofUtrecht(1713) enshrined
thenotionofa self-regulating equilibriumas a core featureofEuropean society
togetherwiththeidea thatthedefenseofthatequilibriumshouldbe ofconcern
to one and all.36For realisttheoristsof the day,"the sovereignstatesfollowed
theirorderedpaths in a harmonyof mutualattractionand repulsionlike the
gravitational law thatswingsplanetsin theirorbits."37 On the idealistside,the
eighteenthcenturyopened withtheAbb6 de Saint-Pierre'sinstitutionalist plan
to secure a "PerpetualPeace," and closed withKant's.38Post-WorldWar II
realismand liberal internationalism are but the latest incarnationsof realist
and idealistthought,and neither,as I suggestedabove, has muchto say about
fundamentaltransformation today.39
The conceptof postmodernity also has been projectedbeyondthe cultural
realm, into the political economy, initiallyby Marxist analysts. Frederic
Jamesonled the way.40For Jameson,postmodernism depicts"the thirdgreat
originalexpansionof capitalismaroundtheglobe (afterthe earlierexpansions
of thenationalmarketand theolder imperialistsystem)."The productionand
manipulationof signs,images,and information are the raw materialsof this
new "mode of production"as well as the means by which its expansionis
achieved.Butthisis an expansion,Jamesonsuggests, thatineffect"internalizes":
just as the BonaventureHotel in Los Angeles or the Eaton Centerin Toronto
seeks to internalizeitsexterior,aspiring"to be a totalspace, a completeworld,
a kindof miniaturecity,"so too does globalcapitalismtodayinternalizewithin
its own institutionalformsrelationshipsthat previouslytook place among
distinctnational capitals. This results in a "postmodernhyperspace,"as
35. See David Lehman, Signsof the Times:Deconstruction and theFall of Paul de Man (New
York: Poseidon Press,1991).
36. See M.S. Anderson,EuropeintheEighteenth Century,1713-1783(London: Longmans,1963).
37. MartinWight,"The Balance of Power and InternationalOrder," in Alan James,ed., The
Bases ofIntemationalOrder(London: OxfordUniversity Press,1973),p. 98.
38. F. H. Hinsley,Powerand thePursuitofPeace (London: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1963),
chaps. 2 and 4.
39. In a certainsense, JamesRosenau's recentbook toucheson thisculturalcategoryof the
postmodernistdebate. The major drivingforceof internationaltransformation today,Rosenau
contends,consistsof new sensibilitiesand capacities of individuals:"withtheiranalyticalskills
enlargedand theirorientationstowardauthority moreself-conscious, today'spersons-in-thestreet
are no longeras uninvolved,ignorant,and manipulablewithrespectto worldaffairsas were their
forebears.... [T]he enlargements ofthecapacitiesofcitizensis theprimary prerequisiteforglobal
turbulence."See Rosenau, Turbulence in WorldPolitics,pp. 13 and 15.
40. See FredericJameson,"Postmodernism, or theCulturalLogic ofLate Capitalism,"NewLeft
Review146 (July/August 1984), pp. 53-92; and "Marxismand Postmodernism," New LeftReview
176 (July/August 1989),pp. 31-45.
Territoriality147
Jamesontermsit, a heteronomyof fragmentswhich neverthelessremains

unifiedbyvirtueofexpressingthelogicoflate capitalism.41
Severalotherworksof thisgenrehave elaboratedon Jameson'snotionsof a
postmoderncapitalist mode of production and its consequences.42They
resonate at a superficiallevel withthe briefdescriptionof global microeco-
nomic changes at the outset of this article,as well as with the images of
spaceship earth,global warming,nuclear winters,and the like, by means of
whichtheecosphereis popularlyvisualized.But,theyremainsilenton theissue
ofthestateand thesystemofstates,whichintheend is notsurprising inlightof
thefactthattheyare cast in a modes-of-production framework.
Nevertheless,theseworksare suggestiveat a deeper level in theiremphasis
on the space-time implosion experienced by advanced capitalist societies.
Harveynotesthat"space and timeare basic categoriesofhumanexistence.Yet
we rarelydebate theirmeanings;we tend to take themforgranted,and give
themcommon-senseor self-evidentattributions."43 Ultimately,he contends,
the currenttransformation in capitalistproductionrelationsis merelyone
specificexpressionof a reconfiguration in social space-timeexperiencesto a
degree not witnessedsince the Renaissance. HarveyconcurswithJameson,
however,that"we do not yetpossess the perceptualequipmentto matchthis
new hyperspace,... in partbecause our perceptualhabitswere formedin that
olderkindofspace I have called thespace of highmodernism."44
And so the postmodernistdebate has shiftedin barelytwo decades from
the domain of aesthetics,to culture more broadly,to political economy.
Correspondingly, the meaningof "modern"in "postmodern"has shiftedfrom
what it is in modernart,the modernnovel,or modernarchitecture, first,to
the so-called age of Enlightenment;next, to the structureof capitalist
productionrelations;and thento the veryepoch in Westernhistorythatwas
initiatedby the Renaissance. It is the last of these space-timeframesthat
concernsme here,because it also marksthe transformation thatproducedthe
modern mode of organizingpolitical space: the systemof territorialstates.
However,since no perceptualequipmentexists,as Jamesonremarks,through
41. The quotations are from Jameson, "Postmodernism,or The Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism,"pp. 80 and 81.
42. The mostcomprehensiveworkis David Harvey,The Conditionof Postmodemity (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell,1989). For a detailedempiricalstudyoftherelationshipbetweenglobalcapitaland
the reconfiguration of urban spaces, see Manuel Castells, The InformationalCity(Oxford:Basil
Blackwell, 1989). Marxisttheoristsof postmodernity encounteran inherentcontradiction,to
borrowtheirterm,by theverynatureof the enterprise.One of the featuresof postmodernity on
whichvirtuallyall otherschoolsof thoughtagree is thatit invalidatesthe possibilityof producing
metanarratives, or metarecits, more fashionably-that"totalizing"and "logocentric"practiceof
modernity on whichLyotardurgesus to wage war.Of course,fewnarrativesare more"meta" than
Marxism.Jameson'ssomewhatfeebleresponse,in "Marxismand Postmodernism," is thata system
thatproducesfragments is stilla system.
43. Harvey,TheConditionofPostmodernity, p. 201.
44. Ibid.
which to grasp what he calls "global hyperspace,"I hope to advance our

understanding of the possiblerearticulation
of internationalpoliticalspace by
lookingforclues to the past to discoverhow the modernpoliticalformitself
was produced.
Modernterritoriality
Historically,the self-conscioususe of the term"modern" to denote "now"

dates fromthe sixteenthcentury.45 The epochal sense of modernto denote
"modernity"dates fromtheeighteenthcentury, whenthethresholddemarcat-
ingitsbeginningwas put at roughly1500.46Writingin the eighteenthcentury,
Lord Bolinbrokedefinedan epoch bythechainofeventsbeingso broken"as to
have littleor no real or visibleconnexionwiththatwhichwe see continue....
[T]he end ofthefifteenth centuryseemsto be just sucha periodas I havebeen
describing,forthosewho live in the eighteenth,and who inhabitthe western
partsofEurope."47
One of the chainsin whichvisibleconnectionto the past was rupturedwas
the organizationof political space. The fact of that ruptureis well enough
known.But,what,if any,categoriesand modes of analysisdoes it suggestfor
the studyof internationaltransformation more generally?To that,the main
taskofthisarticle,I nowturn.
Differentiation
Let us begin at the very beginning:politics is about rule. Adapting a
formulation byAnthonyGiddens,we can definethe mostgenericattributeof
anysystem ruleas comprising
of legitimatedominionovera spatialextension.48
I use the term"spatial extension"advisedly,to drivehome the point that it
need notassumetheformofterritorial states.The social facticity
of anyspatial
extensionin turnimplies some mode of differentiating human collectivities
fromone another.By thisI do not mean the progressivestructural differentia-
tion thatwas long a staple of macrosociologicaltheorizingand whichis now
thoroughlydiscredited.49 Instead, I mean the notion of differentiation that
JohnLocke had in mind when he asked "how men mightcome to have a
45. RaymondWilliams,"When was Modernism?"New LeftReview175 (May/June1989), pp.

48-52.
46. ReinhartKoselleck,FuturesPast: On the Semanticsof HistoricalTime,trans.Keith Tribe
(Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press,1985),p. 243.
47. Cited in MartinWight,Systemsof States (Leicester, England: Leicester UniversityPress,
1977),p. 111.
48. AnthonyGiddens, A Contemporary Critiqueof HistoricalMaterialism,vol. 1 (Berkeley:
Universityof CaliforniaPress,1981),p. 45.
49. See, for instance,Charles Tilly,Big Structures,
Large Processes,Huge Comparisons(New
York: Russell Sage, 1985).
Territoriality149
propertyin severalparts of thatwhichGod gave to mankindin common."50

There are at least threeways in whichprior or other systemsof rule have
differed in thisregardfromthemodernterritorial state.
First,systemsof ruleneed notbe territorial at all. That is to say,thebasis on
whichthe humanspecies is sociallyindividuatedand individuals,in turn,are
bound togetherinto collectivitiescan take (and historically has taken) forms
otherthanterritoriality. For example,anthropologists quaintlyused to charac-
terize as "primitivegovernment"those systemsof rule whereinthe spatial
extensionwas demarcatedon the basis of kinship.Moreover,theyheld thata
criticalstagein societalevolutionwas preciselythe shiftfromconsanguinity to
contiguity as therelevantspatialparameter.51 To be sure,territory was occupied
in kin-basedsystems, but itdid notdefinethem.
Second, systemsof rule need not be territorially fixed.Owen Lattimore's
work on nomadic propertyrightsis of relevance here.52Writingof Mongol
tribes,Lattimorepointedout thatno singlepasturewouldhave had muchvalue
forthembecause itsoon would havebecome exhausted.Hence, drivenbywhat
Lattimorecalled the "the sovereignimportanceof movement,"the tribes
wandered, herdingtheir livestock.But, they did not wander haphazardly:
"They laid claimto definitepasturesand to the controlof routesof migration
betweenthese pastures."53Accordingly, "the rightto move prevailedoverthe
rightto camp. Ownershipmeant,in effect,the titleto a cycleof migration."54
The cyclewas triballyowned and administeredbytheprince.
Third,evenwheresystemsof rule are territorial, and evenwhereterritorial-
ityis relativelyfixed,theprevailingconceptof territory need not entailmutual
exclusion.The archetypeofnonexclusiveterritorial rule,ofcourse,is medieval
Europe, with its "patchwork of overlapping and incomplete rights of
government,"55 whichwere "inextricably superimposedand tangled,"and in
which"different juridicalinstances
were geographically interwoven and strati-
fied,and pluralallegiances,asymmetrical suzerainties and anomalous enclaves
50. JohnLocke, "On Property,"in the second of the Two Treatisesof Govemment,sec. 2.25,
Thomas I. Cook, ed. (New York: Hafner,1947), p. 134. Luhman has developed a nonteleological
formulationof differentiation that I have found useful in which he distinguishesamong
segmentation, functionaldifferentiation, withsegmentationhavingan obvious
and stratification,
temporalpriority.See Niklas Luhman,The Differentiation of Society,trans.StephenHolmes and
CharlesLarmore(New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press,1982). I use thetermherein thesense of
segmentation.
51. The classic statementof the traditionalanthropologicalview is found in Lewis Henry
Morgan,Ancient Society,firstpublishedin 1877;a reprintededitionwas editedbyEleanor Leacock
(Gloucester,Mass.: Peter Smith,1963). For a contemporary discussion,see JonathanHaas, The
EvolutionofthePrehistoricState(New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press,1982).
52. See Owen Lattimore'sworksInnerAsian Frontiersof China (London: OxfordUniversity
Press,1940) and StudiesinFrontier History(London: OxfordUniversity Press,1962).
53. Lattimore,StudiesinFrontier p. 535.
History,
54. Lattimore,InnerAsianFrontiers ofChina,p. 66.
55. JosephR. Strayerand Dana C. Munro, The MiddleAges (New York: Appleton-Century-
Crofts,1959), p. 115. See also Joseph R. Strayer,On theMedieval Originsof theModem State
(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversity Press,1970),passim.
abounded."56The differencebetween the medieval and modern worlds is

strikingin thisrespect.57
Brieflyput, the spatial extension of the medieval systemof rule was
structured in whichauthority
bya nonexclusiveformof territoriality, was both
personalizedand parcelized withinand across territorialformationsand for
whichinclusivebases of legitimationprevailed.The notionof firmboundary
lines between the major territorialformationsdid not take hold until the
thirteenthcentury;priorto that date, there were only "frontiers,"or large
zones of transition.58The medievalrulingclass was mobile in a mannernot
dreamedof since,able to assumegovernancefromone end of thecontinentto
the otherwithouthesitationor difficultybecause "public territories formeda
continuumwithprivateestates."59In this connection,Georges Duby writes,
wryly, of HenryPlantagenet:"This was Henry,countof Anjou on his father's
side, duke of Normandyon his mother's,duke of Aquitaine by marriage,and
forgood measure-but onlyforgood measure-king ofEngland,althoughthis
was ofno concernto the countryin whichhe spentthebest partof his time."60
In addition,the medievalsystemof rulewas legitimatedbycommonbodies of
law, religion,and custom expressinginclusivenatural rights.Nevertheless,
theseinclusivelegitimations of the constituent
posed no threatto the integrity
political units because these unitsviewed themselvesas municipalembodi-
mentsof a universalmoralcommunity.61 Hence the "heteronomousshackles,"
in FriedrichMeinecke'swords,on theautonomy-indeed,on theveryabilityof
thinkersto formulatetheconcept-of thestate.62
56. The quotationsare fromPerryAnderson,LineagesoftheAbsolutist State(London: New Left

Books, 1974),pp. 37 and 37-38, respectively.
57. I have exploredthesedifferences at greaterlengthin JohnGerard Ruggie,"Continuityand
Transformation in the World Polity:Toward a NeorealistSynthesis,"WorldPolitics35 (January
1983), pp. 261-85. MarkusFischerhas recentlyclaimed thatI and othertheoristswho findfault
with neorealism'sinabilityto capture the phenomenonof transformation "imply" or "would
expect" medievallife to have been more harmoniousand less conflictualthan moderninterna-
backed onlybyFischercitinga
tionalrelations.Certainlyin mycase the claimis entirelyfictitious,
sentencein myarticlethat had nothingto do withthis point and linkingit to what he "would
expect" me to have said. See MarkusFischer,"Feudal Europe, 800-1300: CommunalDiscourse
and ConflictualPractices,"IntemationalOrganization 46 (Spring1992), pp. 427-66; the question-
able referenceis citedin hisfootnote12.
58. Accordingto Edouard Perroy,as paraphrasedbyWallerstein,thiswas "the 'fundamental
change' in the political structureof Europe." See Immanuel Wallerstein,The Modem World
System, vol. 1 (New York: Academic Press,1974), p. 32. An extendeddiscussionof the difference
betweenbordersand frontier zones maybe foundin Lattimore,StudiesinFrontier History.See also
FriedrichKratochwil,"Of Systems,Boundaries and Territoriality," WorldPolitics34 (October
1986),pp. 27-52.
59. Anderson,LineagesoftheAbsolutist State,p. 32.
60. Georges Duby, The ThreeOrders:Feudal SocietyImagined,trans. ArthurGoldhammer
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1980),p. 286.
61. GarrettMattingly, RenaissanceDiplomacy(Baltimore,Md.: PenguinBooks, 1964),p. 41 and
passim.
62. Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellism,trans. Douglas Scott (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press,1957). The termis attributedto MeineckebyScottin hisintroduction to thebook,
whichwas firstpublishedin 1924.
Territoriality151
The antonymof Meinecke's term is "homonomous."63The distinctive

signatureof the modern-homonomous-variant of structuringterritorial
space is thefamiliarworldofterritorially disjoint,mutuallyexclusive,function-
allysimilar,sovereignstates.
The chief characteristicof the modern systemof territorialrule is the
consolidationof all parcelized and personalized authorityinto one public
realm. This consolidationentailed two fundamentalspatial demarcations:
betweenpublicand privaterealmsand betweeninternaland externalrealms.64
The publicspherewas constitutedbythemonopolizationon thepartofcentral
authoritiesof the legitimateuse of force.Internally,thismonopolizationwas
expressedthroughthe progressiveimpositionof what was called the "king's
peace," or the sole rightof the king'sauthorityto enforcethelaw. As Norbert
Elias notes,thisidea was "verynovel in a societyin whichoriginallya whole
class of people could use weapons and physicalviolence accordingto their
meansand inclinations."65 Externally, themonopolizationofthelegitimateuse
offorcewas expressedin thesovereignrightto makewar.PhilippeContamine
has put itwell: "' The king'swar' and 'the kingdom'swar' must,in the end, be
Finally,theinclusivebases oflegitimation
identical."66 thathad prevailedinthe
medievalworld,articulatedin divineand naturallaw,yieldedto thedoctrineof
sovereignty,andjus gentiumslowlygavewaytojus intergentes.
To summarize,politics is about rule. And, the distinctivefeatureof the
modernsystemof rule is thatit has differentiated its subjectcollectivity
into
territoriallydefined,fixed, and mutuallyexclusive enclaves of legitimate
dominion.As such, it appears to be unique in human history.67 Withoutthe
63. The term "heteronomous"refersto systemswhereinthe parts are subject to different

biologicallaws or modesof growthand "homonomous"to systemswhereintheyare subjectto the
same laws or modes of growth;see The OxfordEnglishDictionary, 2d ed. s.v."heteronomous"and
"homonomous."In the original,biologicalsense of the terms,the fingerson a hand would exhibit
homonomous growth-for a current internationalrelations meaning, read "all states are
functionally alike"-and the heartand hands of the same bodyheteronomousgrowth-read "all
statesare functionally different."
64. Accordingto PerryAnderson,"the age in which'Absolutist'public authority was imposed
was also simultaneously theage inwhich'absolute'privateproperty was progressivelyconsolidated";
see Anderson,LineagesoftheAbsolutist State,p. 429. Eric Jonesreachesa similarconclusionvia a
different route:"Productiveactivitiesthathad been subjectto collectivecontrolswere becoming
individualized.This is a staple of the textbooks.But thatEurope movedfromthe guildsand the
commonfieldstowardlaissez-faire is onlyhalfthestory. The missing halfis thatjustwhenproductionwas
becomingfullyprivatised, serviceswere becomingmoreof a collectiveconcern,or wheretheywere
alreadycommunal,nowthegovernment was beinginvolved."See E. L. Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle.
Environments, Economics,and Geopolitics in theHistory of Europeand Asia (Cambridge:Cambridge
University Press,1981),p. 147.Jonesis referring to theprovisionofsuchservicesas internalpacification,
internalcolonization ofuncultivated lands,disastermanagement, and thelike.The gradualdifferentia-
tionbetweeninternal andexternal, as seenthrough thelensofchanging normsandpractices ofdiplomatic
representation,is portrayed brilliantlybyMattingly inRenaissance Diplomacy.
65. NorbertElias, Powerand Civility (New York: Pantheon,1983),p. 202.
66. Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones (New York: Basil
Blackwell,1984),p. 169.
67. For a sophisticatedsurvey,see Robert David Sack, Human Teritoriality: Its Theoryand
History(New York: CambridgeUniversity Press,1986).
concept of differentiation, then, it is impossibleto define the structureof

modernityin internationalpolitics-modes of differentiation are nothingless
thanthefocusoftheepochal studyofrule.Hence thesupremeironyofWaltz's
continuedinsistencethatthedimensionofdifferentiation "dropsout" fromthe
neorealistmodelof international structure.68
The obviousnextissue to addressis howone accountsforthispeculiarform
of sociopoliticalindividuation.Now,providingan accountof thingsin contem-
poraryinternational relationsresearchtypically means specifying
theircauses.
That in turn requires that we have a theory-in this case, a theoryof
internationaltransformation. But we have no suchtheory.As I havesuggested,
we can barelyevendescribetransformation in theinternational
polity.Hence, I
mean somethingfarless ambitiousby the phrase "providingan account of."
The modern systemof states is socially constructed.The issue I mean to
addressis simplywhatwere the rawmaterialsthatpeople used and drewupon
in constructingit? I findthatdevelopmentsin threedimensionsof European
collectiveexperiencewere particularly salient,and thatthe threedimensions
are irreducibleto one another: namely, material environments,strategic
behavior,and social epistemology.
Material environments
The studyof thelonguedureehas become a special provinceof theAnnales
school of historiography.69
The startingpointof theAnnales approach is the
"ecodemographic" dimension of human collectivities,
on the premisethat it
poses thebiggestlong-term challengeforsocial structures.
It thenmoveson to
variousconstructed environments and patternsofroutinesocial practices.Ifwe
wereto viewtheemergenceofthemodernmode ofstructuring territorial
space
fromthe vantagepointof thisperspective,what sortsof developmentswould
catchour eye?
Consider the materialside of life throughoutthe thirteenthand into the
fourteenthcentury:human ecology, the relations of production,and the
relationsof force.Climatologically,
the earlyphase of the period remained
favoredbythe so-calledlittleoptimumof the earlyMiddle Ages.70Population
grew markedly.Land clearing, draining,and diking progressed rapidly,
increasingthe size of the cultivatedarea and breakingdown barriersto
68. Waltz,inexplicably,viewsthe differentiationof a collectivity

intoits constituentunitsto be
an attributeof the units ratherthan of the collectivity. His originalargumentis in Theoryof
IntemationalPolitics,chap. 5; and a defense of his position can be found in Kenneth Waltz,
"Reflectionson Theory ofIntemationalPolitics:A Response to My Critics,"in Robert0. Keohane,
ed., Neorealismand Its Critics(New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press,1986).
69. The exemplarofthisschool,ofcourse,is FernandBraudel; hisgeneralapproachis discussed
in Braudel,On History, trans.Sarah Matthews(Chicago: University ofChicago Press,1980).
70. David Herlihy,"Ecological Conditionsand DemographicChange,"in RichardL. De Molen,
ed., One ThousandYears:WestemEuropein theMiddleAges (Boston: HoughtonMifflin, 1974), p.
13. See also EmmanuelLe Roy Ladurie's classicstudy,TimesofFeast,TimesofFamine:A History of
ClimateSincetheYear1000,trans.Barbara Bray(Garden City,N.Y.: Doubleday,1971).
Territoriality153
communicationwithinterritorialformationswhile expandingtheirexternal
frontiers.7'Althoughthe overwhelming proportionof the populationcontin-
ued to livein ruralareas,medievalcitiesgrew,and some (Milan, Paris,Venice)
mayhave reached 150,000inhabitants.72
A sustainedeconomicexpansiontook place as well. Productivity increased;
more and moregoods were producedforsale or exchange;and trade revived,
notmerelyin luxurygoods butincreasingly in staples.That last pointis crucial.
In thewordsof Eric Jones,"the peculiaritiesof European tradearose because
of the opportunitiesof the environment.Climate, geologyand soils varied
greatlyfromplace to place. The portfolioof resourceswas extensive,but not
everything was found in the same place."73 Moreover, economic relations
became increasinglymonetized,and developmentsin "invisibles,"including
the greatfairs,shipping,insurance,and financialservices,furtherlubricated
commerceand helped to createa European-widemarket.74
In therealmofforce,thefeudalcavalrywas comingto be underminedbythe
longbow,pike, and crossbowand the feudal castle,subsequently,bygunpow-
der.75The monetizationof economicrelations,togetherwiththe commutation
offeudalservicesintomoneypayments, made itpossibleforterritorial rulersto
retainmercenaries.Generatingrevenuethroughtaxationaugmentedthetrend
toward standingarmies. The more effectiveinternalpacificationproduced
therebyprovided a more secure economic environment, which in turn in-
creasedbothprivateand publicreturns.76
Nevertheless,territorially
defined,territorially
fixed,and mutuallyexclusive
state formationsdid not emerge at thispoint. It was not that simple.What
happened instead was that this period of expansionand diversification was
arrestedsuddenlyand ferociouslyin the mid-fourteenth century.Famines,
wars,and plagues decimatedthe populationof Europe, reducingit by at least
one-thirdand probablymore. Entire localities disappeared; deserted lands
revertedto heathsand swamps.The economywentintoa deep and seemingly
permanentdepressionand pillaging,robbing,and civilunrestagain became
endemic. Recovery did not returnuntil the second half of the fifteenth
century.77
71. Jones,The EuropeanMiracle,chap. 4.

72. According to Herlihy,even in the most densely populated areas, northernItaly and
Flanders,threeout of fourpeople continuedto live in the countryside;elsewherethisproportion
was roughlynineout often.See Herlihy,"Ecological Conditionsand DemographicChange,"p. 30.
For a moreelaboratediscussionofthestructures and functionsoftownsin premodernEurope, see
Paul M. Hohenbergand LynnHollen Lees, TheMakingof UrbanEurope,1000-1950 (Cambridge,
Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press,1985),chaps. 1-3.
73. Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle,p. 90.
74. See ibid, chap. 5; Herlihy,"Ecological Conditionsand DemographicChange"; and Elias,
Powerand Civility.Elias explorestheimportanceofmonetizationnotonlyforeconomicbutalso for
politicaldevelopment.
75. McNeill,ThePursuitofPower,chap. 3.
76. See ibid.;Elias, Powerand Civility;
and Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle,chap. 7.
77. Surelythe mostreadable accountof thisperiod is Barbara Tuchman,A DistantMirror:The
Calamitous14thCentury(New York: Ballantine,1978). For a standardhistory,see Denys Hays,
Europein theFourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries,2d ed. (London: Longman,1989).
These changes in the materialworld,both positiveand negative,were so

profound,however,thatexistingsocial arrangements
werestrainedto thepoint
ofcollapse.
Strategicbehavior
Indeed, economic growthand diversification fromthe thirteenthto the
fourteenth centuryhad encounteredinstitutional limitswell beforetheywere
snuffedout by the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War. These limits
included the feudal structureof propertyrightsand formsof labor control;
inadequate investment,especially in agriculture;the maze of secular and
ecclesiasticaljurisdictionalconstraintsthatpervadedmedievalsociety;and the
sociallyparasiticnature of the multiplicity of territorialrulers.One way to
characterizethe impact of the material changes discussed above on the
prevailinginstitutionalorderis to saythattheyalteredthematrixofconstraints
and opportunities forsocial actors,givingriseto different
situationsofstrategic
interactionamong them. This is the subject matterof the "new economic
history."78Considerthefollowingillustrations.
First,the drasticdemographicdeclines of the fourteenthcenturyaffected
relativefactorprices,favoringagriculturalworkersand industrialproducers
whiledisadvantaging theland-owningclass-the verybasis offeudalsociety.
Second, as Jones has argued, the fourteenth-century calamities created
opportunitiesfor"entrepreneurialpoliticians"to prove theirsocial utilityby
providinga varietyof social services,rangingfromdisaster reliefto more
effectiveinstitutionalarrangements fortheconductofcommerce.Accordingto
Jones, theforces favoring institutionalchangerespondedmoreimaginatively to
thecalamitiesthantheforcesthatsoughtto impedeit.79
A third example involves the relationshipbetween medieval juridical
authoritiesand thetradefairs-a relationshipthatin some respectsresembles
thatbetweenthe transnationaleconomyand nationaljurisdictionstoday.The
medievaltrade fairswere encouragedby local lords; some took place onlya
stone's throwfromthe feudal castle. The fairswere favoredfor the simple
reason that theygeneratedrevenue. In the case of the famousChampagne
fairs,0. Verlinden writes that revenues were gained from"taxes on the
78. For the purposes of the presentdiscussion,the pathbreakingwork is the briefbook by

Douglass C. North and Robert Paul Thomas, The Rise of the WesternWorld:A New Economic
History(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,1973).
79. See Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle,chap. 7. Perhapsthedrollestillustration citedbyJones,but
nonethelessa significantone, actuallycomes froma later century,when the AustrianHapsburgs
builta cordonsanitairesome 1,000mileslong,promisingto shutout theplague thatpersistedin the
Ottoman empire. Their feat had little epidemiologicaleffect,but it called forthconsiderable
administrativeeffortand social mobilizationand contributed,thereby,to statebuilding.Douglass
North and his colleagues have produced a fascinatingformulationof the process whereby
innovationsin contractswere createdand enforced;see Paul R. Milgrom,Douglass C. North,and
BarryR. Weingast,"The Role of Institutions in the RevivalofTrade: The Law Merchant,Private
Judges,and the ChampagneFairs,"Economicsand Politics2 (March 1990),pp. 1-23.
Territoriality155
residencesand stallsof the merchants,entryand exittolls,levieson sales and

purchases,dues upon weightsand measures,justice and safe-conductcharges
upon the Italians and Jews."80Moreover,local lords at any time could have
closed down a fair in theirdomain-much as states today can close down
offshoremarketsor even shootdowncommunicationsatellites-thoughother
lords in otherplaces probablywould have been onlytoo pleased to provide
alternativessites.
In no sense could the medievaltrade fairshave become substitutsforthe
institutionsoffeudalrule.Yet, thefairscontributedsignificantlyto the demise
of feudal authorityrelations. They did so because the new wealth they
produced,the new instruments of economictransactionstheygenerated,the
new ethos of commercetheyspread, the new regulatoryarrangementsthey
required,and the expansion of cognitivehorizonstheyeffectedall helped
underminethe personalisticties and the modes of reasoningon whichfeudal
authority rested.As MarvinBecker has put it,the medievaltradefairswere a
place in which"the exchangesystemwas freedfromrulesand rituals."'81 Like
the exchange system,the systemof governance also ultimatelybecame
unraveled.Once momentumshiftedfromfairsto towns,greaterinstitutional
substitutabilitydid come to existbecause, in the wordsof a medievalmaxim,
"Town air brings freedom"-that is to say, the towns actually exercised
jurisdictionoverand evokedthe allegianceoftheirnew inhabitants.82
Fourthand finally, HendrikSpruytrecentlyhas shownthattheerosionofthe
medievalsystemofrule,thegrowthoftrade,and theriseofthetownstriggered
new coalitional possibilitiesamong kings,the aristocracy,and the towns.
Indeed, Spruytexplainsthe patternin politicalformsthatsucceeded medieval
rule-territorialstates in some places, city-statesin others,and city-leagues
elsewherestill-by the specificnatureofthe coalitionsthatformed.83 In short,
the exogenous shocks of the fourteenthcenturyfundamentally strainedthe
existingsocial orderand createda newmatrixof constraintsand opportunities
forsocial actors.
Some of the new economichistorianswant to go further, however,to imply
80. 0. Verlinden, "Markets and Fairs," CambridgeEconomic Historyof Europe, vol. 3

(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,1963),p. 127. Verlindenalso pointsout anotherpossible
analogue to thepresentsituation,namelythat"fromthemiddleof thethirteenth centuryonwards,
money-changing [in the fairs] begins to take precedence over trade" (see p. 133). Also see
Robert-HenriBautier, The Economic Developmentof MedievalEurope, trans.Heather Karolyi
(London: HarcourtBrace Jovanovich, 1971),chap. 4.
81. MarvinB. Becker,MedievalItaly:Constraints and Creativity(Bloomington:Indiana Univer-
sityPress, 1981), p. 15. See also the excellentreviewarticleof Becker's book byJanetColeman,
"The CivicCultureof Contractsand Credit,"Comparative StudyofSocietyand History 28 (October
1986),pp. 778-84.
82. The originalquotationis "Stadtluftmachtfrei,"and is foundin FritzRorig,TheMedieval
Town(Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress,1967),p. 27. See also JacquesLe Goff,"The Town
as an Agentof Civilization,"in Carlo M. Cipolla, ed. TheMiddleAges (London: HarvesterPress,
1976).
83. Hendrik Spruyt,"The Sovereign State and Its Competitors:An Analysis of Systems
Change,"Ph.D. diss.,DepartmentofPoliticalScience,University of California,San Diego, 1991.
thatthemodernsystemof statesresulteddirectly fromthisprocessbecause the

staterepresentedtheoptimalsize ofpolitical units thatwas requiredto provide
efficient propertyrightsand physical security. Smaller units simply"had to
grow,"Douglass Northand RobertThomas contend.84 In the economicrealm,
thisdriveforjuridicalexpansionis said to have come,on thedemandside,from
a desire for efficientpropertyrights,which would reduce the discrepancy
betweenprivateand social ratesof return.On the supplyside, expansion,they
argue,was drivenby the fiscalinterestsof rulersforhigherrevenues.85 In the
securityrealm, new weapons technology and a shift in advantage to the offense
allegedly drove the desire for larger and fiscallymore capable political
formations.86
The theorythatthemodernstatewas functionally determinedinthismanner
has at least two serious shortcomings. First,its retrodictive value is severely
limited:centralizing monarchiesemergedin thewest,to be sure;butcity-states
were consolidatingin Italy and principalitiesas well as city-leaguesin
Germany,thuspreventingtheirformationintolarger(and by the logic of the
new economichistory,presumablymore efficient)politicalunits.Meanwhile,
easternEurope merelysankback intothesomnambulanceof anotherroundof
serfdom.Moreover,as Spruytdemonstrates, twoothersuccessorformsto the
medieval systemof rule, the Italian city-statesand the Hanse, in factwere
state,fullyable to levytaxes and
viable politicalalternativesto the territorial
raisearmies,forthebetterpartoftwocenturies.87 In social life,twocenturiesis
no meretimelag.
Second, there is a substantiallogical and empirical gap between the
existenceof some functionalpressurefor political units to grow,and their
blossomingspecifically intoa systemof territorially defined,territorially fixed,
and mutuallyexclusivestateformations. To assertthatthe specificities of the
modern state systemalso were functionallydeterminedentails a claim of
staggeringhistoricaland intellectualproportions,which the new economic
history cannotvindicate.We shallnow see why.
84. Northand Thomas,TheRiseoftheWestern World,p. 17.

85. See ibid; and Jones,TheEuropeanMiracle.
86. See McNeill,ThePursuitofPower.
87. For a more elaborate summaryof prevailingpatternsof state forms,see Charles Tilly,
"Reflectionson the Historyof European State-making,"in Charles Tilly,ed., The Formationof
NationalStatesin WestemEurope(Princeton,N.J.:PrinstonUniversity Press,1975),pp. 3-83. Tilly
pointsout a methodologicalproblemthat the "new economic historians"gloss over: there are
manymorefailuresthansuccessesin thehistory ofEuropean statebuilding."The disproportionate
distribution of successand failureputsus in theunpleasantsituationof dealingwithan experience
inwhichmostof thecases are negative,whileonlythepositivecases are well-documented"(p. 39).
Tilly exploresa greatervarietyof state-buildingexperiencesin his most recentwork,Coercion,
Capital, and European States,AD 990-1990. Spruyt'smethodologicalcritique is even more
damning,however.He pointsout thatbecause successorformsto themedievalsystemofruleother
thanterritorial stateshavebeen systematically excludedfromconsideration,thereis no fundamen-
tal variationin unitson the dependent-variable side in theoriesof statebuilding.See Spruyt,"The
SoverignState and itsCompetitors."
Territoriality157
Social epistemes
Michael Walzer pointsthe way."The state,"he once wrote,"is invisible;it
mustbe personifiedbeforeit can be seen, symbolizedbeforeit can be loved,
imaginedbefore it can be conceived."88The process wherebya societyfirst
comesto imagineitself,to conceiveofappropriateordersofruleand exchange,
to symbolizeidentities,and to propagate norms and doctrinesis neither
materiallydetermined,as vulgarMarxistsused to claim,norsimplya matterof
instrumental rationality,
as theirrepressible
utilitarians would have it.
Germansocial theoristsin a line fromMax Weber to JurgenHabermashave
viewedsocietyas comprising webs of meaningand signification. In the French
tradition, fromDurkheimto Foucault,therehas been a continuingexploration
of mentalitescollectives.No singleconceptcapturesboth sets of concerns,the
one beingmoresemiotic,theothermorestructural. For lack of a betterterm,I
shall referto theircombinationas expressingthe "epistemic" dimensionof
social life,and to anyprevailingconfiguration of its constituentelementsas a
"social episteme."89The demiseof the medievalsystemof rule and the rise of
the modernresultedin partfroma transformation in social epistemology. Put
simply,the mental equipment that people drew upon in imaginingand
symbolizing formsofpoliticalcommunity itselfunderwentfundamental change.
At the doctrinallevel, studentsof internationallaw and organizationhave
long noted the impact on the concept of sovereignty of the novel religious
principlecujusregioejusreligio,whichplaced thechoicebetweenProtestantism
and Catholicismin the hands of local rulers,and the correspondingsecular
principleRex in regnosuo est Imperatorregnisui, which stipulatedthat the
politicalstandingof territorialrulersin theirdomainswas identicalto thatof
theEmperorin his.90SirErnestBarkerexclaimedthatin thesetwophrases"we
mayhear thecrackingof the Middle Ages."91Moreover,the rediscovery of the
conceptof absolute and exclusiveprivatepropertyfromRoman law no doubt
aided in formulating theconceptof absoluteand exclusivesovereignty.92
At the deeper level of politicalmetaphysics, historiansof politicalthought
have long noted the impact on the emergingself-imageheld by European
territorialrulersof a newmodelofsocial order:a viewof societyas a collection
88. Michael Walzer, "On the Role of Symbolismin Political Thought," Political Science
Quarterly 82 (June1967),p. 194.
89. Withdue apologies,I adapt thelattertermfromMichelFoucault,TheOrderof Things(New
York: Random House, 1970).
90. See, forexample,Leo Gross,"The Peace ofWestphalia,1648-1948,"in RichardA. Falk and
WolframHanrieder,eds., International Law and Organization(Philadelphia, Penn.: Lippincott,
1968); and F. H. Hinsley,"The Conceptof Sovereignty and the RelationsbetweenStates,"Journal
ofInternationalAffairs, vol. 21, no. 2, 1967,pp. 242-52.
91. Cited byGross,"The Peace ofWestphalia,"pp. 56-57.
92. Berkiwritesthat" 'private'. . . refersnotso muchto the natureof the entitythatowns,but
to the factthatit is an entity,a unitwhose ownershipof nature... signifies theexclusionofothers
fromthisownership."See R. N. Berki,"On MarxianThoughtand the Problemof International
Relations," WorldPolitics24 (October 1971), pp. 80-105. On the relationshipbetween private
propertyand sovereignty, see Ruggie,"Continuityand Transformation in theWorldPolity."
of atomisticand autonomousbodies-in-motion in a fieldof forcesenergized

solelyby scarcityand ambition.This is a viewwithinwhichsuch distinctively
modern theoristsas Machiavelli and subsequentlyHobbes framed their
thinking.93
It maybe possible to claim,thoughI thinkhard to vindicate,thatboth the
doctrinaland perhaps even the metaphysicalchanges were determinedby
power and greed,or by "efficiency" considerations,to use the more clinical
term favored in the literaturetoday. However, the new formsof spatial
differentiation on which the novel political doctrinesand metaphysicswere
constructedare anothermatter:theirspecifically politicalexpressionsmirrored
a much broader transformation in social epistemologythat reached well
beyondthedomainsofpoliticaland economiclife.
Consider,forexample,analogouschangesin thelinguisticrealm,suchas the
growinguse of vernaculars,and the comingto dominanceof the "I-form"of
speech-which Franz Borkenau describedas "the sharpestcontradistinction
betweenI and you,betweenme and theworld."94Consideranalogouschanges
in interpersonalsensibilities,as in new notionsof individualsubjectivityand
new meaningsof personal delicacyand shame. These changes,among other
effects,led to a spatial reconfigurationof households,frompalaces to manor
houses to the dwellingsof the urban well-to-do,which more rigorously
demarcatedand separatedprivatefrompublicspheresand functions.95
93. See Walzer,"On the Role of Symbolismin PoliticalThought";Sheldon Wolin,Politicsand

Vision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960); C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theoryof Possessive
Individualism(New York: OxfordUniversity Press,1962); and J.G. A. Pocock, TheMachiavellian
Moment(Princeton,N.J.;PrincetonUniversity Press,1975).
94. On the use of vernacular,see Lucien Febvre and Henri-JeanMartin,The Comingof the
Book, trans.David Gerard,and Geoffrey Nowell-Smithand David Wootton,eds. (London: Verso,
1984), especiallychapter8, whichcontainsinteresting statisticson books in printby subjectand
language.On the I-formof speech,see Franz Borkenau,End and Beginning: On theGenerationsof
Culturesand theOriginsoftheWest,RichardLowenthal,ed. (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press,
1981).
95. Changingsensibilitiesare illustratedand analyzedat lengthbyNorbertElias, The Civilizing
Process (New York: Urizen Books, 1978). To illustrateonlyone aspect of medieval household
organizationas late as the fourteenthcentury,considerthe followingexcerptsfromTuchman,A
Distant Mirror:"Even kings and popes received ambassadors sittingon beds furnishedwith
elaborate curtainsand spreads" (p. 161); "Even in greaterhomes guestsslept in the same room
withhostand hostess"(p. 161), and oftenservantsand childrendid too (p. 39); "Never was man
less alone.... Except for hermitsand recluses,privacywas unknown"(p. 39). See also David
Herlihy,MedievalHouseholds(Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress, 1985); and Georges
Duby, ed., A Historyof PrivateLife, vol. 2, Revelationsof the Medieval World,trans. Arthur
Goldhammer(Cambridge,Mass.: Belknap,1988). Martinesdocumentsthat"Francesco di Giorgio
Martini(1439-1502)-the Sienese engineer,architect,painter,sculptor,and writer-was one of
thefirstobserversto urgethatthehousesof merchantsand smalltradesmenbe constructed witha
clean separationbetweentheroomsintendedforfamilyuse and thosefortheconductofbusiness."
See Lauro Martines,Powerand Imagination:City-States in RenaissanceItaly(New York: Vintage
betweenpersonand officealso evolvedduringthis
Books, 1979),p. 271. Finally,thedifferentiation
period.As Strongnotes,"the possibility thatone humanbeingcould separatelybe botha human
being and a king-a notionon whichour conceptionof officedepends-is firstelaborated by
Hobbes in hisdistinctionbetweennaturaland artificialbeingsin theLeviathan."See TracyStrong,
"DramaturgicalDiscourse and PoliticalEnactments:Toward an ArtisticFoundationforPolitical
Space," in StanleyLyman and Richard Brown,eds., Structure, Consciousness,and History(New
York: CambridgeUniversity Press,1974),p. 240.
Territoriality159
Arguably,the singlemostimportantof those developmentsoccurredin the

visual arts:the inventionof single-pointperspective.Previousvisualrepresen-
tationexhibitedtwospatialcharacteristics. First,artistsrenderedtheirsubjects
fromdifferent sides and angles "ratherthanfroma single,overallvantage."96
Second, variationin figurescale was determinedby the symbolicor social
importanceof the person or object representedand "not by any principleof
optical inversion."97 As Harold Osborne explains,in single-pointperspective
(the inventionof which is generallycreditedto Filippo Brunelleschiabout
1425) "the pictorialsurfaceis regardedas a transparent verticalscreen,placed
betweentheartistand his subject,on whichhe tracestheoutlines[ofthevisual
field]as theyappearfroma singlefixedviewpoint. "98 The corollaryto the fixed
viewpoint,fromwhichtheworldis seen,is thehorizonvanishingpoint,at which
objectsrecede out ofview.
By virtueof this development,precisionand perspectivebecame prized;
Brunelleschi,for example, also made major contributionsto optics and
cartography. But of greatestsignificanceis the factthatthiswas precisionand
perspectivefroma particularpointof view: a singlepointofview,the pointof
viewof a singlesubjectivity, fromwhichall othersubjectivities were differenti-
ated and againstwhichall othersubjectivities were plottedin diminishing size
and depthtowardthevanishingpoint.
If thereis one commonelementin thevariousexpressionsof differentiation
thatwe have been discussing,thisnovel perspectivalformsurelyis it. Every
civilizationtendsto have itsownparticularperspective,Edgertonconcludesin
his classicstudy,itsown dominantsymbolicformforconceivingand perceiving
space, and single-point perspective "was the peculiar answer of the
Renaissance."99What was true in the visual artswas equally true in politics:
politicalspace came to be definedas it appearedfroma singlefixedviewpoint.
The conceptof sovereignty, then,was merelythe doctrinalcounterpartof the
applicationof single-pointperspectivalformsto the spatial organizationof
politics.'00
This transformation in thespatialorganizationofpoliticswas so profound-
literallymind-boggling-thatcontemporarieshad great difficulty graspingits
fullimplicationsformanyyearsto come. Mattingly, forexample,recountsthe
96. Samuel Y. Edgerton,Jr.,TheRenaissanceRediscovery ofLinearPerspective (New York: Basic

Books, 1975),p. 9.
97. JohnWhite,TheBirthand Rebirth ofPictorialSpace (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1987),p. 103.
98. Harold Osborne,OxfordCompaniontoArt(New York: OxfordUniversityPress, 1970), p.
840,emphasisadded.
99. Edgerton,TheRenaissanceRediscovery ofLinearPerspective, p. 158.
100. Marshall McLuhan made several offhandremarksin The GutenbergGalaxy (Toronto:
Universityof TorontoPress, 1962) about an alleged parallelbetweensingle-point perspectiveand
nationalism.
He therebymisdatedtheadventofnationalism however.
byseveralcenturies, Moreover,he
was lessconcernedwithdevelopingtheparallelthanwithattributing itscause to thecognitive
impactof
the medium of movable print. Nevertheless,I have found McLuhan's thinkingenormously
suggestive.The relationshipbetweenchangingperspectivalformsand the organizationof cities
and townsis exploredextensively in the literature;see, amongotherworks,Martines,Powerand
Imagination;and Giulio C. Argan,TheRenaissanceCity(New York: George Braziller,1969).
efforts of FrancisI as late as 1547 to reformthe apparatusof the Frenchstate

byfixingthe numberofsecretaires d'Etat at four.Ratherthanseparatingtheir
duties accordingto the logical distinction,by modern standards,between
domesticand foreignrelations,each of the fourwas assignedone quadrantof
Franceand therelationswithall contiguousand outlyingstates.10'
To conclude,materialchangesmayhave awakenedbotha need and a desire
forthisbroad transformation in theprevailingsocial episteme,whichproduced
fundamentally new spatialforms.And entrepreneurial rulerscould and did try
to exploitthosenew imagesand ideas to advance theirinterests.Nevertheless,
the breadthand depthof these changesargue,at the veryleast, in favorof a
relativeautonomyforthe realmof social epistemology. Walzer has put itwell:
"If symbolization does notbyitselfcreateunity(thatis thefunctionofpolitical
practiceas well as of symbolicactivity), it does createunits-unitsof discourse
whichare fundamentalto all thinking and doing,unitsoffeelingaroundwhich
emotionsofloyaltyand assurancecan cluster."'102
Accordingly, I turnnextto the domain of social practice,whereinthe new
unitywas achieved. I highlighttwo aspects of it in particular:the process of
social empowerment, whichfacilitatedtheconsolidationofterritorial rule;and
the processof "unbundling"territoriality, whichmade it possible forthe new
territorialstates,who viewed their individualsubjectivityas constitutinga
moraland politicalfield,to forma societyofstates.
self-sufficient
Social empowerment
The disarticulationof the medieval systemof rule meant that parametric
conditionswould have to be fixedat threelevels in the newlyformedsocial
aggregationsof power:the domesticsocial structure, the territorial
formation,
of territorial
and the collectivity units.In each case, the relativesuccess of the
contendingpartieswas shaped notsimplybythematerialpowertheypossessed
or the intereststheypursuedbut also bya processof social empowerment that
reflectedthe ongoingtransformation of social epistemes.I focusbelow on the
stateand itscollectivity.103
territorial
101. Mattingly, RenaissanceDiplomacy,p. 195.

102. Walzer,"On theRole of Symbolismin PoliticalThought,"pp. 194-95,emphasisoriginal.
103. For a richand provocativediscussionof the processof social empowermentdomestically,
see Albert0. Hirschman,ThePassionsand theInterests: PoliticalArgumentsforCapitalismBeforeIts
Triumph(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversity Press,1977). As Hirschmanputsit: "Weber claims
that capitalistbehaviorand activitieswere the indirect(and originallyunintended)resultof a
desperatesearchforindividualsalvation.My claim is that the diffusionof capitalistformsowed
muchto an equallydesperatesearchfora wayofavoidingsociety'sruin,permanently threateningat
the timebecause of precariousarrangements forinternaland externalorder" (p. 130, emphasis
original).Thus, accordingto Hirschman,the ultimatesocial power of the bourgeoisiebenefited
froma shiftin social values wherebycommercebecame socially more highlyregarded-not
because of any perceivedintrinsicmeritor interestin commercebut forthe disciplineand the
restraintit was thoughtto impose on social behaviorin a period of severe turbulenceand grave
uncertainty. Cf.MaxWeber,TheProtestantEthicand theSpirit trans.TalcottParsons(New
ofCapitalism,
Territoriality161
At thelevelofterritorial
stateformations, thekeyparametricconditionto be
fixedwas preciselywherein society(i.e., aroundwhichpoweraggregation)the
rightto rule would crystallize.Let us returnfor a momentto the western
European monarchiesaroundthemiddleof thefifteenth century.Theirfuture
looked bleak. In Castile,whose kingsometimesclaimedthe titleEmperor,the
crownwas amongthe weakestin all of Europe; the townswere dominant.In
Aragon, the towns were weak and the nobilitywas in control,pledging
allegianceto theirkingwiththisunimpressiveoath: "We, who are as good as
you,swear to you,who are no betterthanwe, to accept you as our kingand
sovereignlord, providedyou observe all our libertiesand laws: but if not,
In France,themonarchyhad to be saved in 1429bya farmer'sdaughter
not."'104
who was guided in her quest byvisionsand voices from"higher"sources;but
not even thatintervention helped, and when the Hundred Years' War finally
groundto a haltmorethantwodecades later,thecountrylayin ruins.England,
alreadyweak and divided,became furthertorn by the deadly Wars of the
Roses. And so itwent.
The turn came suddenly.By the end of the century,strongcentralized
administration had "almostcompletelytransformed thepoliticallifeofwestern
and west-centralEurope," in Johnsonand Percy'swords.105 The new political
unitshad become a palpable reality,no longersimplyan aspiration,a trend,or
a struggle.In France,moreover,a weak centralmonarchyended up absorbinga
strongerduchyof Burgundyin theprocess.
How can this shiftbe explained? One way to put it is that centralrulers
became morepowerfulbecauseof theirstate-building mission.A fundamental
shiftwas occurringin thepurposesforwhichpowercould be deployedbyrulers
and be regardedas sociallylegitimateby theirsubjects.Internally,legitimate
powerbecame fusedwiththeprovisionofpublicorder,steadilydiscrediting its
deploymentforprimitiveextractionand accumulation.Externally,legitimate
power became fused withstatecraft,steadilydiscreditingits deploymentfor
primitive expansionand aggrandizement.106
This process of empowermentalso helps to account for the geographical
patternofsuccessfulcentralizing notedabove.The monarchsin thewest
efforts
tended to hitchtheirfate to those new objectives,and large-scaleexclusive
stateformationsemerged.West-centralEurope and Italy,on the otherhand,
stillhad to cope withthose meddlesomeremnantsof heteronomy, the Holy
Roman Empireand thePapacy.Whiletheylackedthepowerto prevail,so long
York:Scribners, 1958).AdditionalsupportforHirschman'sargumentmaybe foundin Pocock,The

MachiavellianMoment:"It looks, then,as if Machiavelliwas in search of social means whereby
men's natures mightbe transformedto the point where theybecame capable of citizenship"
(p. 193).
104. JerahJohnsonand WilliamPercy,TheAgeofRecovery:TheFifteenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y.:
CornellUniversity Press,1970),p. 56.
105. Ibid.,p. 73.
106. See Pocock, The MachiavellianMoment;and BernardGuenee, Statesand Rulersin Later
MedievalEurope,trans.JulietVale (New York: Basil Blackwell,1985).
as theyretainedsome degreeofsocial efficacy itremaineddifficult to formulate

clearly the concept, let alone create the institution,of an exclusivestate
formation.Here city-statesand principalitiesbecame the expression of
homonomousterritoriality. In the east,thesesocial changesnevertookhold in
thefirstplace. One shouldnot exaggeratethe ease withwhichtheseprocesses
took hold even in the westernkingdoms.As Charles Tilly points out, the
leaders of priorinstitutions and even ordinarypeople "foughtthe claims of
centralstatesforcenturies,"rightintothe seventeenthcentury.107 Over time,
however,the issue at stake increasingly became the termsof centralrule,not
thefactof it.
At the level of the collectivityof states, the critical parameter to fix
concernedthe rightto act as a constitutive unitof the new collectivepolitical
order.The issue here was not who had how much power,but who could be
designatedas a power.108 Such a designationinherently is a collectiveact. It
involvedthe mutual recognitionof the new constitutiveprincipleof sover-
eignty.MartinWightpointsout that"itwouldbe impossibleto have a societyof
sovereign states unless each state, while claiming sovereigntyfor itself,
recognizedthat everyother state had the rightto claim and enjoy its own
sovereignty Reciprocalsovereignty
as well."'109 thusbecame thebasis ofthenew
international order.
To be sure, the new organizingprincipleof reciprocal sovereigntywas
challenged in and hammeredhome by wars; but even in the evolutionof
European wars we can see signs of that new principle of international
legitimacytakinghold. As alreadynoted,privatewars ceased to be tolerated,
and war making came to be universallyrecognized as an attributeof
sovereignty.Even more interesting,European warfarethereafterseems to
exhibita progressionin the dominantformsofwar.1"0
The firstformwe mightcall "constitutive" war.Here theveryontologyofthe
units-that is to say,whatkindof unitstheywould be-was stillat issue. The
Wars of Religion are the prime instance. As characterizedby Reinhart
Koselleck,the Peace of Augsburg(1555) "meant thatthe frontsof religious
civilwar were to be shut down,frozenin situ.""' It also produced a moral
compromise.As describedbyKoselleck: "The compromise,bornof necessity,
concealed withinitselfa newprinciple,thatof 'politics,'whichwas to set itself
107. Tilly,"Reflectionson theHistoryofEuropean State-making," p. 22.

108. Richard K. Ashley,"The Povertyof Neorealism,"International Organization38 (Spring
1984),especiallypp. 259 and 272-73.
109. Wight,Systems ofStates,p. 135.
110. Kaiser pointsout that all wars throughoutthe period I am here discussinghad specific
politicaland economicobjectives,but thatpriorto the eighteenthcenturytheyalso exhibitedvery
complexoverlaysofotherdimensionsthathave notbeen seen since.See David Kaiser,Politicsand
War:EuropeanConflictfrom PhilipII toHitler(Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress,1990),
chap. 1. I am here attemptingto captureand giveexpressionto theseotherdimensions.
111. Kosellek,FuturesPast,p. 8.
Territoriality163
in motionin the followingcentury.""12 Still,an internationalpoliticsmorally

autonomousfromthe realmof religiondid notbecome firmly establisheduntil
thePeace of Westphalia(1648), endingtheThirtyYears' War.
This firstphase was followedbywarfarein whichthe natureof theunitswas
acceptedbut theirterritorial configurationremainedcontested.We mightcall
these "configurative" wars. The Wars of Succession of the early eighteenth
century-Spanish,Polish,and Austrian-and the Seven Years' War (1756-63)
illustratethisform.Amongotherfactors,these conflictsrevolvedaround the
principlesof territorialcontiguity dynasticclaimsas the
versustransterritorial
basis fora viablebalance ofpower.In theend,territorial contiguitywon out,at
least in the European core.113
The thirdphase in the evolvingformof warfareconsistsof the familiar
strategicand tacticalwars ever since,wars thatwe mightcall "positional"-
interrupted byperiodicquests foruniversalempire,whichhave been success-
fullyrepulsedon each occasion.1"4
Finally,when the concept of state sovereigntyexpanded to become the
conceptofnationalsovereignty, theuse ofmercenariesinwarfaredeclinedand
ultimatelywas eliminatedaltogether.Armed forcessubsequentlybecame an
expressionofthenation.1"5
The criticalthresholdin thistransitionwas the passage fromconstitutive to
configurativewars, for it firstacknowledged the principle of reciprocal
sovereignty. When all was said and done, Europe ended up witha greatmany
not-so-powerful states,includingthe nearlytwo hundredGerman principali-
ties,whichcould not possiblyhave vindicatedtheirrightto existby means of
materialpower,butwhichwere sociallyempoweredbythecollectivity of states
units.1"6
to act as itsconstitutive
Thus,theprocessofsocial empowerment was partofthemeansbywhichthe
new unitsof politicaldiscoursewere inscribedin social life to produce new
unitsofpoliticalorder.
112. Ibid.
113. See Anderson,Europein theEighteenth Century, 1713-1783;and Kaiser,Politicsand War.
114. Ludwig Dehio, The PrecariousBalance (New York: Knopf,1962). What Gilpin calls the
cycleof hegemonicwars does not contradictmypoint.As definedby Gilpin,a "hegemonicwar"
concernswhichpowerwillbe able to extractgreaterresourcesfromand exercisegreatercontrol
over the systemof states; neitherthe natureof the unitsnor the natureof the system,forthat
matter,is at issue. In fact,Gilpin'sdescriptionof the calculusofwould-behegemonssuggeststhat
hegemonicwars fitwell intomygenericcategoryof positionalwars. See Robert Gilpin,Warand
Changein WorldPolitics(New York: CambridgeUniversity Press,1981).
115. For a good discussionof this development,see Janice E. Thomson, "State Practices,
InternationalNorms,and the Decline of Mercenarism,"International StudiesQuarterly 34 (March
1990), pp. 23-47. On the emergenceof national sovereignty, see Benedict Arnold,Imagined
Communities: Reflectionson theOriginsand SpreadofNationalism(London: Verso, 1983).
116. Stranghas demonstratedthe impact of reciprocalsovereignty forthe entirehistoryof
European expansioninto non-Europeanterritoriessince 1415. He findsthat politiesthatwere
recognizedas sovereignhave fared much betterthan those that were not. See David Strang,
"Anomaly and Commonplace in European Political Expansion: Realist and Institutionalist
Accounts,"International Organization45 (Spring1991),pp. 143-62.
164 International
Organization
The paradox of absolute individuation

Our storyends in a paradox.Havingestablishedterritorially fixedstate
formations,havinginsistedthattheseterritorial domainsweredisjointand
mutually and havingacceptedtheseconditions
exclusive, as theconstitutive
basesofinternationalsociety,whatmeanswerelefttothenewterritorial rulers
fordealingwithproblems ofthatsociety thatcouldnotbe reducedtoterritorial
solution?
Thisissuearoseinconnection withcommonspaces,suchas contiguous and
transborderwaterways as wellas theoceans:howdoesone possesssomething
one does notown?And,stillmoreproblematic, howdoes one excludeothers
fromit?Inlandwaterways couldbe splitdownthemiddleand typically were,
thoughoftennotuntilotherand moreviolentmeanshad been exhausted.
Ocean space beyonddefendablecoastal areas posed a more substantial
problem.Spainand Portugaltrieda bilateraldeal whereby Spainclaimeda
monopoly of westernocean traderoutesto the Far East and Portugalthe
eastern,buttheyfailedto maketheirdeal stick.At therequestoftheDutch
East IndiaCompany, a younglawyer bythenameofHugoGrotiuslauncheda
distinguishedcareerby penninga pamphletentitled,and proclaiming the
contrarydoctrineof,MareLiberum, whichdidstick.117
The reallyseriousproblemarosenotinthecommons, however, butrightin
theheartofthemutually exclusiveterritorial
stateformations: no spacewas
leftwithinwhichto anchorevenso basica taskas theconductofdiplomatic
representationwithout fearof relentlessdisturbance,arbitraryinterference,
andseveredlinesofcommunication.
In medievalEurope,the rightof embassywas a methodof formaland
privilegedcommunication thatcouldbe admitted or denieddepending upon
thesocialstatusand rolesofthepartiesinvolved andthebusinessat hand.118
Ambassadors hadspecific missions,forwhichtheyenjoyedspecific immunities.
For a varietyof misdeedsand crimes,however, ambassadors weretriedand
sentenced bytheprincetowhomtheywereaccredited, as thoughtheywerea
117. Grotius'simmediateaim was to establishthe principleof freedomto conducttradeon the

seas, but in orderto establishthatprinciplehe had firstto formulatesome doctrineregardingthe
medium throughwhichships passed as theyengaged in long-distancetrade. The principlehe
enunciated,and whichstatescame to adopt,definedan oceans regimein twoparts:a territorial sea
under exclusivestate control,which custom set at three miles because that was the range of
land-basedcannonsat thetime,and theopen seas beyond,availableforcommonuse butownedby
none. See Aster Institute,InternationalLaw: The GrotianHeritage(The Hague: Aster Institute,
1985).
118. The followingdiscussionis based on Mattingly, RenaissanceDiplomacy.Note Mattingly's
summaryof medievalpractice,and contrastit withwhatwe knowto be the case forthe modern
world:"Kings made treatieswiththeirown vassals and withthe vassals of theirneighbors.They
receivedembassiesfromtheirown subjectsand fromthe subjectsof otherprinces,and sometimes
sent agentswho were in factambassadorsin return.Subject cities negotiatedwithone another
withoutreferenceto theirrespectivesovereigns.Such behaviormightarouse specificobjection,but
neveron generalgrounds"(p. 23).
Territoriality165
subjectofthatprince.This solutionceased to be acceptable,however,once the

rightof embassybecame a signof sovereignrecognitionand ambassadorswere
in place permanently. The short-termresponsewas to grantmore and more
specificimmunities to residentambassadorsas thesituationdemanded.During
the centuryor so of religiousstrife,however,that option too came to be
underminedby,amongotherfactors,theso-calledembassychapel question.
As the term implies,this had to do with the services celebrated in an
ambassador'schapel, at whichcompatriotswere welcome,when the religions
ofthehomeand hostsovereignsdiffered. For example,EdwardVI insistedthat
the new Englishprayerbook be used in all his embassies; Charles V would
tolerate no such heresyat his court. It was not uncommonfor diplomatic
relationsto be brokenovertheissue in theshortrun.In thelongrun,however,
that proved too costly a solution; the need for continuous and reliable
communicationamong rulerswas too great.A doctrinalsolutionwas found
instead. Rather than contemplatethe heresyof a Protestantservice at a
Catholiccourtand vice versa,it provedeasier to pretendthatthe servicewas
nottakingplace in thehostcountryat all buton thesoil ofthehomelandof the
ambassador.And so itgraduallybecame withotherdimensionsof theactivities
and precinctsof embassy.A fictitiousspace, designated"extraterritoriality,"
was invented.Mattingly has puttheparadoxwell: "By arrogating to themselves
supremepowerovermen's consciences,the new stateshad achievedabsolute
sovereignty.Havingdone so, theyfoundtheycould onlycommunicatewithone
anotherby toleratingwithinthemselveslittleislandsof alien sovereignty."119
These islandsof alien sovereigntywereseen,Adda Bozeman adds, "not onlyas
the foreignarm of each separate government, but also as the nucleus of the
collective systemof ... states ... outside of which no sovereigncould
survive."'20
Whatwe mightcall an "unbundling"of territoriality (of whichthe doctrine
of extraterritoriality
was the firstand mostenduringinstantiation)over time
has become a genericcontrivanceused by statesto attenuatethe paradox of
absolute individuation.2lVarious typesof functionalregimes,commonmar-
kets,politicalcommunities,and the like constituteadditionalformswhereby
has become unbundled.Thus, in the moderninternationalpolity
territoriality
an institutionalnegationof exclusive territorialityserves as the means of
situatingand dealing with those dimensions of collective existence that
territorialrulers recognize to be irreduciblytransterritorial in character.
Nonterritorial functionalspace is the place whereininternationalsocietyis
anchored.
119. Ibid, p. 244. See also Adda B. Bozeman, Politicsand Culturein International
History
(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress,1960),pp. 479-80.
120. Bozeman,Politicsand Culturein Intemational
History,pp. 482-83.
121. I adapt thisnotionfromthe discussionof unbundlingsovereignrightsin Kratochwil,"Of
Systems,Boundariesand Territoriality."
Patternsof change
Mattingly, in his magisterialstudy,acknowledgesthat"the taprootsof the
modern statemaybe followedas farback as one likesin Westernhistory[even]
to the cities antiquitywhereofthe hazy imagescontinuedto providesome
of
statesmenin everymedieval centurywith an ideal model of authorityand
order."'122But, he shows persuasively,the modernstate did not evolvefrom
these earlierexperiences;rather,itwas invented bythe earlymodernEurope-
ans. Indeed, it was inventedby themtwice,once in the leading cities of the
Italian Renaissance and once again in the kingdomsnorth of the Alps
sometimethereafter. This suggestsa finalissue forconsideration:thepatterns
exhibitedby epochal change.Three are indicatedby the medieval-to-modern
transformation.
First,unanticipatedconsequences played a major role in determiningthe
ultimateoutcomesof long-termchanges.The Crusades were not designedto
suggestnew modes of raisingrevenuesforterritorial rulers,but theyended up
doingso.123The modernstatewas notlogicallyentailedin themedievalpapacy;
yet,accordingto Strayer,bytheexampleof effective administration it set,"the
Gregorian concept of the Church almost demanded the inventionof the
conceptof the State."'124Societydid not vote forcapitalismwhen it endorsed
the civilizingimpulsesof commerce;but the bourgeoisie,the social carriersof
commerce,embodied it. Later, monarchsdid not set out to weaken their
constitutional powersby sellingofficesor conveningassembliesto raise taxes;
theysoughtonlyto increasetheirrevenues.125 In short,the reasons forwhich
thingswere done oftenhad verylittleto do withwhatactuallyended up being
done or whatwas made possiblebythosedeeds.126
Second, fundamentaltransformation may have had long-standing sources,
but when it came, it came quicklyby historicalstandards.Moreover,it came
amidcrisisand disintegration ofthepreviousorder-amid a generalizedloss of
predictability and understandingof, in Tracy Strong'swords, "what might
122. Mattingly, RenaissanceDiplomacy,pp. 105-6.

123. Ronald C. Finucane,SoldiersoftheFaith (New York: St. Martin's,1983).
124. Strayer,On theMedievalOriginsoftheModem State,p. 22.
125. Northand Weingastdemonstratethisverynicely,bothformally and empirically,in thecase
of seventeenth-centuryEngland-except forthe overalllogic theyattributeto the process,which
changes on the basis of the goals of the winners."See Douglass C.
"interpretsthe institutional
North and BarryR. Weingast,"Constitutionsand Commitment:The Evolutionof Institutions
GoverningPublic Choice in Seventeenth-century England," Journalof Economic History49
(December 1989), p. 803, emphasisadded. The problemwiththeirinterpretation is thatthegoals
ofthelosers-the insatiablequest forrevenueson thepartofrulers-not ofthewinners,drovethe
process that ultimatelymade possible the impositionof constitutionalconstraintson the
prerogatives ofmonarchs.
126. Discussing a biological parallel, Stephen JayGould contendsthat avian limbs became
useful for flyingonce theywere fullydeveloped into wings,but theyprobablyevolved for so
commonplacea purpose as keepingbirds warm.See Gould, "Not NecessarilyWings,"Natural
History10/85.
Territoriality167
count as politics,of whatcountsas evidence and what as fact,and of whatis

contentiousand what mightappear secure.'127Once the systemof modern
stateswas consolidated,however,the process of fundamentaltransformation
ceased: "[states]have all remainedrecognizablyof the same species up to our
own time," Tilly concludes, thoughtheir substantiveformsand individual
trajectoriesof course have differedsubstantially over time.'28Paleontologists
describethispatternof change-stable structures, rupture,new stable struc-
tures-as "punctuatedequilibrium."'129
Finally,change has never been complete or all-encompassing.As Spruyt
makesclear,themedievalsystemof rule in thefirstinstancewas succeeded by
several viable formsof territorialgovernance:large-scale territorialstates,
city-states,and city-leagues.And the process thatultimatelyselected out the
territorialstateembodieda different logicthantheprocessthatproducedboth
Moreover,keep in mindthatthe formal
the state and its alternativeforms.130
demise of the Holy Roman Empire (1806)-a relic of medievaldomthat
historiansinsistneverwas holy,nor Roman, nor an empire-actuallyis closer
in timeto the birthof the European Community(EC) than to the Peace of
Westphalia, the usual marker of the inception of modern international
relations.Finally,sociopoliticalcollectivitiesof verylong historicalstanding
remainvitaltodaywithoutbeingcontainedin territorial states.13'In short,the
coexistenceof different historicalformsis not unusual. Designatingdominant
historicalforms,therefore,is a matterof balance: ofjudgingascendancyand
decline,relevanceand spurioussignification. Nonetheless,itis thecase thatthe
modern state has succeeded in drivingout substitutablealternativesmore
effectivelythananyotherpriorform.
127. Strong,"DramaturgicalDiscourse and PoliticalEnactments,"p. 245.

128. Tilly,"Reflectionson the Historyof European State-making"p. 31. For a suggestive
typology of differentsubstantivestateforms,see Michael Mann, States,War,and Capitalism(New
York: Basil Blackwell,1988),chap. 1.
129. See Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Mythsof Human Evolution (New York:
ColumbiaUniversity Press,1982). Eldredge,in a personalconversation,attributedthebasic insight
forthe punctuatedequilibriummodel to the historianFrederickTeggart-which is ironicin the
lightof the influencethatthe Darwinianmodel of human evolutionhas had on social thinking,
includinghistoriography! See FrederickJ. Teggart,Theoryof History(New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press,1925). Bock has describedlarge-scalesocial changein similarterms:"In place of
a continuousprocessof socioculturalchange,the recordsclearlyindicatelong periodsof relative
inactivityamongpeoples, punctuatedbyoccasional spurtsof action.Ratherthanslowand gradual
change,significant alterationsin peoples' experienceshave appeared suddenly,movedswiftly, and
stoppedabruptly";see KennethBock,HumanNatureand History: A Responseto Sociobiology (New
York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1980), p. 165. Excellentdiscussionsof punctuatedequilibrium
and pathdependencyin theoriginsofthemodernstatemaybe foundin twoarticlesbyStephenD.
Krasner:"Approachesto the State:AlternativeConceptionsand HistoricalDynamics,"Compara-
tivePolitics 16 (January1984), pp. 223-46; and "Sovereignty:An InstitutionalPerspective,"
Comparative PoliticalStudies21 (April 1988),pp. 66-94.
130. See Spruyt,"The SovereignState and itsCompetitors."
131. The so-called Arab nation is a case in point; see Albert Hourani,A Historyof theArab
Peoples(Cambridge,Mass.: BelknapPress,1991).
Historicizingpostmodernity
century,Europe stood poised to reach out to and

At the close of the fifteenth
then conquer the globe. By the beginningof the twentiethcentury,this
"Columbian epoch," as Sir HalfordMackindercharacterizedit in 1904,was
comingto an end.132In his seminalessay,Mackinderaddressed two distinct
dimensionsof the new "global" epoch. The firsthas attractedthe most
attentionbut is the less importantforpresentconcerns:the strategicconse-
quences oftheessentialunityoftheworld'soceans,whichgave riseto thegreat
heartland/rimland and land-power/sea-power debatesthatbecame thestuff of
geopolitics,rightdown to the postwartheoryof containment.The second,
whichsubsequentcommentatorshave largelyignored,concernedthe spatial
and temporalimplosionoftheglobe: theintegration ofseparateand coexisting
a
world systems,each enjoying relatively autonomous social facticityand
its
expressing own laws into
of historicity, a singularpost-Columbian world
system.133
In thisessay,I have looked fora vocabularyand the dimensionsof analysis
that would allow us to ask sensible questions about possible postmodern
tendencies in the world polity.I have done so by unpackingthe process
wherebythemostdistinctfeatureofmodernity in internationalpoliticscame to
be: a particularformof territoriality-disjoint, fixed,and mutuallyexclu-
sive-as the basis for organizingpolitical life. In conclusion,I summarize
briefly themainfindings of thisendeavorand pointtowardsome methodologi-
cal as well as substantiveimplicationsforfutureresearch.
To summarize,the conceptof differentiation was the keythatallowed us to
uncoverthe historically specificand salientcharacteristics
of modernterritori-
ality.Acceptingthatthe internationalpolity,bydefinition, is an anarchy,that
is,a segmentedrealm,on whatbasis is itsegmented?On whatbasis are itsunits
individuated?What drovethe peculiarlymodernformof individuation?And
what were its implicationsfor the internationalcollectivity?The mode of
differentiation withinany collectivity,I suggested,is nothingless than the
centralfocusoftheepochal studyof rule.
The modern mode of differentiation resulted from changes in several
domains of social life,whichare irreducibleto one another.These domains
included materialenvironments(ecodemographics,relationsof production,
relationsof force); the matrixof constraintsand opportunitieswithinwhich
social actorsinteracted(the structureof propertyrights,divergencesbetween
132. See H. J.Mackinder,"The GeographicalPivotof History,"Geographical Joumal23 (April

1904).
133. As Mackinderpredicted,"Everyexplosionofsocial forces,insteadof beingdissipatedin a
surrounding circuitof unknownspace and barbaricchaos, willbe sharplyre-echoedfromthe far
side of the globe, and weak elementsin the politicaland economicorganismof the worldwillbe
shatteredin consequence." See ibid,p. 421.
Territoriality169
privateand social rates of return,coalitionalpossibilitiesamongmajor social

actors); and social epistemes(politicaldoctrines,politicalmetaphysics,spatial
constructs).Each was undergoingchange in accordancewithits own endoge-
nous logic. But these changes also interacted,sometimessequentially,some-
timesfunctionally, sometimessimplyvia themechanismof diffusion, thatis,of
conscious and unconsciousborrowing.Whereas individualstrandsof change
can be tracedback almostat will,at a certainpointthe new formscrystallized
fairlyquicklyand shaped all subsequentdevelopments.
The domain of social epistemes,the mentalequipmentby means of which
people reimaginedtheir collective existence,played a criticalrole.134The
specificityof modern territoriality is closely linked to the specificityof
single-pointperspective.Social epistemes did not, however,act as some
ethereal Zeitgeistbut throughspecificsocial carriersand practices. Social
epistemesaffectedoutcomesvia the mechanismsof social empowermentand
delegitimation and byinforming suchdoctrinalcontrivances as extraterritorial-
ity,on whichthesocietyofterritorial stateformations came to rest.
Our case offerssome methodologicalimplicationsforthe studyof transfor-
mation today. One methodologicalpoint followsdirectlyfromthe relative
autonomyof the diverse domains wherein past change occurred. Clearly,
differentbodies of contemporaryinternationalrelations theoryare better
equipped to elucidatedifferent domainsof contemporary changeand continu-
ity.Neorealismis verygood on the endogenouslogicsof the relationsof force,
but it is even morereductionistthanmostmodernMarxismswhenit comes to
appreciatingthe role of social epistemology.The microeconomicsof institu-
tionsprovidesgreatinsightintostrategicbehavior,butitis silenton theorigins
ofthesocial preferencesthatgiveitsubstantivemeaning.Culturaltheoriesare
virtuallyalone in addressingthe role of spatial imageries,but typicallythey
neglectthe effectof micromotives, and so on. Each, therefore,can become a
"grandtheory"onlybydiscountingor ignoringaltogetherthe integrity ofthose
domainsof social lifethatitspremisesdo not encompass.Nor are thevarious
bodies of extanttheoryin anysense additive,so thatwe could arriveat a grand
theoryby steps. In short,while there maybe law-likegeneralizationsin the
medieval-to-modern transformation,thereare none of it. Accordingly,under-
standingthattransformation-andpresumablyanyanalogousshiftthatmaybe
takingplace today-requires an epistemologicalposturethatis quite different
fromthe imperiousclaims of most currentbodies of internationalrelations
theory.It requires, as Quentin Skinnercharacterizesit, "a willingnessto
emphasize the local and the contingent,a desire to underlinethe extentto
whichour ownconceptsand attitudehave been shaped byparticularhistorical
sociale,whichI draw
134. There is no adequate EnglishtranslationofDuby's notionl'imaginaire
on here;histranslatorrendersitas "collectiveimaginings."See Duby, The ThreeOrders,p. vii.
circumstances,and a correspondingly strongdislike ... of all overarching

theoriesand singularschemesof explanation."'135
A secondmethodologicalpointfollowsdirectly fromthefirst.If itis truethat
the intellectualapparatus by which we studyfundamentalchange is itself
implicatedin a world that may be changing,how valid and viable is that
intellectualquest to begin with? This is particularlyvexingin attemptsto
understandthe prospectsof postmodernity, insofaras prevailingscientific
approachesare partand parceloftheverydefinition ofmodernity.136 Not being
a philosopherof science,myanswerperforceremainssomewhatunschooled.
Nevertheless,I find fault with the postmodernistepistemologuesand the
dominantpositivists alike.
For thepostmodernists, modernscientific methodrepresentseitherforceor
farce. In its stead, theyretreatinto a fettishistic parent(he[re]tical)obscu-
rantismthat theyimpute to poststructuralist/postmodernist method.137 But
their"move"-to borrowone oftheir"privileged"terms-is deeplymisguided,
as a simple example will show. In discussionsof culturaltransformations
towardpostmodernforms,fewinsightsare accordedgreatersignificance than
Einstein'stheoriesof relativity. This is because relativityshatteredone of the
fixedand even absolutepillarsof modernistthoughtbyrevolutionizing human
understanding of space and time.Yet Einstein'stheorieswere soon confirmed:
thespecial theorybylaboratoryexperiments and thegeneraltheoryduringthe
eclipseof 1919,all in accordancewithfairlystraightforward scientific
methods.
What Einsteindid was to formulatean entirelynew and different ontology of
the physicalworld. Indeed, he never even accepted the implicationsfor
epistemology thatothersdrew fromhis work,as illustratedby his often-cited
rejoinderto the uncertainty principle,that God does not play dice withthe
universe.Hence, it is entirelypossible to say thingsof importanceabout
postmodernity, and even to have contributedto the historicalconditionof
postmodernity, without degeneratinginto what passes for postmodernist
method.
As for the dominantpositivistposture in our field,it is reposed in deep
Newtonianslumberwhereinmethodrules,epistemology is oftenconfusedwith
method, and the term "ontology" typicallydraws either blank stares or
bemused smiles.I choose the Newtoniananalogydeliberatelyand withcare.
Gerald Feinberg's depiction helps to show why it is useful: "Newtonian
mechanicsbyitselfdid notattemptto explainwhatforcesmightexistin nature,
but rather described how motion occurred when theforce was known."138
135. Quentin Skinner, The Returnof Grand Theoryin the Human Sciences (New York:
CambridgeUniversity Press,1985),p. 12.
136. For a superbdiscussionof these issues,see Seyla Benhabib,"Epistemologiesof Postmod-
ernism:A Rejoinderto Jean-FrancoisLyotard,"New GermanCritique33 (Fall 1984),pp. 103-26.
137. For examples,consulttheextensivebibliography in Pauline Rosenau, "Once Again intothe
Fray."
138. Gerald Feinberg,Whatis theWorldMade Of pAtoms, Leptons,Quarks,and OtherTantalizing
Particles(Garden City,N.Y.: AnchorBooks, 1978),p. 9, emphasisadded.
Territoriality171
Merely by substituting"structures"or "preferences"for "forces" in that

sentence,one obtains an apt renderingof prevailinginternationalrelations
theoriestoday.139 Theydescribehow"motion"occurs-givena setofstructures
or preferences.Accordingly, these theoriescannot,ontologically,apprehend
fundamentaltransformation, for the issue of "what forces [structures/
preferences]mightexistin nature" is preciselywhatthe studyof transforma-
tionis all about.140
Our examination of the emergence of modern territoriality also has
substantiveimplicationsfor the study of potential transformation in the
internationalsystemtoday. A full application of the historicallygrounded
conceptual frameworksketchedout here is well beyond the scope of this
article.Nevertheless,I close withan overall analyticallead, as well as some
workinghypothesesabout each oftheillustrative cases withwhichI began.
The precedinganalysissuggeststhat the unbundlingof territoriality is a
productivevenuefortheexplorationofcontemporary international
transforma-
tion.Historically, meansthroughwhich
as we have seen,thisis theinstitutional
of sovereignshas soughtto compensateforthe "social defects"
the collectivity
that inhere in the modernconstructof territoriality.14' This negationof the
exclusiveterritorialformhas been the locale in whichinternationalsociality
throughoutthe modernera has been embedded. The terrainof unbundled
therefore,is the place whereina rearticulationof international
territoriality,
politicalspace wouldbe occurringtoday.
Take firstthe EC, in whichthe processof unbundlingterritoriality has gone
furtherthan anywhereelse. Neorealism ascribes its origins to strategic
bipolarity;microeconomicinstitutionalism examineshowthenationalinterests
and policypreferencesofthemajorEuropean statesare reflectedinpatternsof
EC collaboration; and neofunctionalismanticipated the emergence of a
supranationalstatism.Each containsa partialtruth.From thevantageof the
139. Using Kratochwil'stypology, mainstreaminternationalrelationstheorytraffics mostlyin

"the worldof brutefacts,"or the palpable here and now; it discounts"the worldof intentionand
meaning"; and it largelyignores altogether"the world of institutionalfacts." See Friedrich
Kratochwil, Rules,Norms,and Decisions(New York: CambridgeUniversity Press,1989),chap. 1.
140. Structurationist theoryis one recent attemptto formulatean ontologyof international
relationsthatis predicatedon the need to endogenizethe originsof structures and preferences,if
transformation is to be understood.See Alexander Wendt, "The Agent-Structure Problem in
InternationalRelationsTheory,"International Organization 41 (Summer1987), pp. 335-70; David
Dessler, "What's at Stake in theAgent-Structure Debate?" International Organization43 (Summer
1989),pp. 441-73;JohnGerardRuggie,"InternationalStructureand International Transformation:
Space, Time,and Method,"in Czempiel and Rosenau, Global Changesand Theoretical Challenges,
pp. 21-35; Alexander Wendt and RaymondDuvall, "Institutionsand InternationalOrder," in
ibid., pp. 51-73; and Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social
Construction ofPowerPolitics,"International Organization46 (Spring1992),pp. 391-425.
141. Once again,I have inminda Lockean understanding, namelythose"Inconvenienceswhich
disorderMens propertiesin thestateofNature,"the avoidanceofwhichis said to drive"Men [to]
uniteintoSocieties." See Locke, Two Treatisesof Government, sec. 2.136. These "social defects"
thusmaybe thoughtof as thegenericformof international "collectiveactionproblems,"ofwhich
varioustypesof externalities, publicgoods, and dilemmasof strategicinteractionare but specific
manifestations.
presentanalysis,however,a verydifferent attributeof theEC comes intoview:

itmayconstitutethefirst"multiperspectival polity"to emergesincethe advent
of the modernera. That is to say, it is increasinglydifficult to visualize the
conduct of internationalpolitics among communitymembers, and to a
considerablemeasure even domesticpolitics,as thoughit took place froma
startingpointof twelveseparate,single,fixedviewpoints.Nor can models of
strategicinteractiondo justice to thisparticularfeatureof the EC, since the
collectivityof membersas a singularity, in additionto the centralinstitutional
apparatusof the EC, has become partyto the strategicinteractiongame. To
put it differently,
theconstitutive processeswherebyeach of thetwelvedefines
itsownidentity-andidentitiesare logicallypriorto preferences-increasingly
endogenizetheexistenceoftheothereleven.Withinthisframework, European
leaders may be thoughtof as entrepreneursof alternativepolitical identi-
ties-EC CommissionPresidentDelors, forexample,is at thisverymoment
exploitingthe tensionbetweencommunity wideningand community deepen-
ingso as to catalyzethefurther reimagining ofEuropean collectiveexistence.142
There is no indication,however,thatthisreimagining will resultin a federal
state of Europe-which would merelyreplicateon a largerscale the typical
modernpoliticalform.
The concept of multiperspectival institutionalformsoffersa lens through
whichto view otherpossible instancesof internationaltransformation today.
Considerthe global systemof transnationalized microeconomiclinks.Perhaps
thebestwayto describeit,whenseen fromourvantagepoint,is thattheselinks
havecreateda nonterritorial "region"in theworldeconomy-a decenteredyet
integratedspace-of-flows, operatingin real time,which existsalongside the
spaces-of-places thatwe call nationaleconomies.These conventionalspaces-of-
places continueto engage in externaleconomic relationswithone another,
whichwe continueto call trade,foreigninvestment, and thelike,and whichare
more or less effectively mediated by the state. In the nonterritorial global
economicregion,however,the conventionaldistinctions betweeninternaland
externalonce again are exceedinglyproblematic,and anygivenstateis butone
constraintin corporateglobal strategiccalculations.This is theworldin which
IBM is Japan'slargestcomputerexporter,and Sony is the largestexporterof
televisionsets fromthe United States. It is the world in which Brothers
Industries,a Japanese concernassemblingtypewriters in Bartlett,Tennessee,
bringsan antidumpingcase beforethe U.S. InternationalTrade Commission
against Smith Corona, an American firmthat importstypewriters into the
United States fromits offshorefacilitiesin Singaporeand Indonesia. It is the
world in whicheven the U.S. Pentagon is baffledby the problemof how to
maintainthenationalidentity of "its" defense-industrialbase.143This nonterri-
142. This processis byno meansfreeofcontroversyor resistance,as a recentLondon front-page

headline("Delors Plan to Rule Europe,") makesclear-but historicalchangeneverhas been. See
SundayTelegraph, 3 May 1992,p. 1.
143. At thetimeofwriting, thePentagonis considering,
amongotheroptions,a "reconstitution"
model forthe U.S. defense-industrial
base, now thatlarge and long-termprocurementrunsare
Territoriality173
torialglobal economic regionis a world,in short,that is premisedon what

Lattimoredescribedas the "sovereignimportanceof movement,"notofplace.
The long-term significanceof thisregion,muchlike thatof the medievaltrade
fairs,mayresidein itsnovelbehavioraland institutional formsand in thenovel
space-timeconstructs thattheseformsembody,notin anydirectchallengethat
itposes as a potentialsubstitutefortheexistingsystemofrule.
Consider also the transformative potentialof global ecology.The human
environment is of centralimportanceforfutureplanetarypoliticsfrommany
perspectives.Centralamongthemis its potentialto comprisea new and very
different social episteme-a new set of spatial, metaphysical,and doctrinal
constructsthroughwhichthevisualizationof collectiveexistenceon theplanet
is shaped. This epistemewoulddiffer in formfrommodernterritoriality and its
accoutrements insofaras theunderlying premiseofecologyis holism
structural
and mutual dependence of parts. The difficulty is in tapping this social
epistemologicaldimensionempirically. Nonetheless,itmaybe possibleto infer
fromstatebehaviorwhetherand to whatextentitis comingto expressnew and
different principlesof internationallegitimacy,for example. The concept of
internationalcustodianshipis an obviouscandidateforcloser scrutiny. Under
it,no otheragencycompeteswithor attemptsto substituteforthestate,butthe
state itselfacts in a mannerthat expressesnot merelyits own interestsand
preferencesbut also its role as the embodimentand enforcerof community
norms-a multiperspectival role,in short,somewhatin themannerofmedieval
rulersvis-'a-viscosmopolitanbodies of religionand law.'44Anotherpossible
approach is to examine the impact of real or simulated environmental
catastropheson thethinking ofpolicymakers and on thepopularimaginationat
large:Chernobyl,theAntarcticozone hole,and globalwarmingscenarioscome
to mind.145
Finally,this analysis also potentiallyenriches the field of international
securitystudies.To cite but one example,despitethe severedislocationsthat
have accompaniedthe collapse of the Soviet Union's East European empire
and then of the Soviet Union itself,no one in any position of authority
anywherein Europe to date has advocated,or is quietlypreparingfor,a return
to a systemofcompetitivebilateralalliances.Thus far,all oftheoptionson the
table concerningthe externalmechanismsfor achievingsecurityin Europe,
unlikelyto persistwidely.It has provedextraordinarily however,to decide whetherwhat

difficult,
shouldbe available forreconstitution shouldbe definedbyownership,locale, commitment to the
economy,nationality ofresearchers,orwhathaveyou-the divergencebetweenthoseindicatorsof
nationalidentitybeing increasingly pronounced-and to determinewhether,once defined,such
unitswillactuallyexistand be availableforreconstitution whenneeded.
144. Allottconsidersseveral provisionsof the maritimeExclusiveEconomic Zone to exhibit
"delegatedpowers,"underwhichcoastal statesact "not onlyin the mysticalcompositepersonage
of the international
legislatorbut also in performing the functionof the executivebranchof their
ownself-government." See PhilipAllott,"Power Sharingin the Law ofthe Sea," AmericanJoumal
ofIntemational Law 77 (January1983),p. 24.
145. On theepistemicimportoftheAntarcticozone hole,see Karen ThereseLitfin,"Power and
Knowledgein InternationalEnvironmental Politics:The Case ofStratospheric Ozone Depletion,"
Ph.D. diss.,DepartmentofPoliticalScience,University of California,Los Angeles,1992.
East and West, have been multilateralin form.146 These mechanismsinclude

NATO reachingout institutionally to the EC via the WestEuropean Union on
one side; and, on the other side, to the East European statesvia the newly
created NorthAtlanticCooperation Council, comprisingthe membershipof
thetwoformerly adversarialalliances,as well as to the Conferenceon Security
and Cooperation in Europe.147This developmentsuggestsa hypothesisfor
furtherexploration.Withinthe industrializedworld,and partiallybeyond,we
maybe witnessing emergingfragments ofinternational securitycommunities-
alongsidethe traditionalwar systemthatcontinueselsewhere.These security
communitiesare not integratedin the sense that the ill-fatedEuropean
Defense Community wouldhavebeen,buttheyare moreextensively institution-
alized thanthe "pluralisticsecuritycommunities"of integrationstudiesin the
1950s.148 Once more the term"multiperspectival" seems appropriate.Within
the scope of these securitycommunitiesthe imbalances of advantage that
animatedpositionalwarsthroughout themodernera now are resolvedbymore
communitarianmechanismsinstead. Such mechanismsdo not imply the
abolitionof the use of force;theydo imply,however,thatthe use of forceis
subjectto greatercollectivelegitimation.
It is trulyastonishingthat the concept of territoriality has been so little
studiedbystudentsof international politics;itsneglectis akinto neverlooking
at the groundthat one is walkingon. I have argued that disjoint,mutually
exclusive, and fixed territoriality most distinctivelydefines modernityin
internationalpoliticsand thatchanges in fewotherfactorscan so powerfully
transform themoderninternational polity.What is more,I have triedto show
thatunbundledterritoriality is a usefulterrainforexploringthe conditionof
postmodernity in internationalpolitics,and I have suggestedsome ways in
whichthat mightbe done. The emergenceof multiperspectival institutional
formswas identifiedas a key dimensionin understandingthe possibilityof
postmodernity.
On reflection,though,the reason territoriality is taken for grantedis not
hardto guess.Samuel Becketputitwell inEndgame:"You're on earth,there's
no cureforthat."Unbundledterritoriality is notlocated some place else; butit
is becominganotherplace.
146. John Gerard Ruggie, "Multilateralism:The Anatomyof an Institution,"International

Organization46 (Summer 1992), pp. 561-98. Waltz distinguishesbetween internaland external
balancingmechanismsin Theory ofInternationalPolitics.
147. Based on personal interviewsat NATO headquarters,Brussels,May 1992. Japan has
undertakena slowbut systematic processof itsown to normalizeitssecurityrelationsbymeansof
throughthe postministeralconferencesof the Association of South East
multilateralization:
Nations,forexample,as well as throughthe recentlegistationpermitting Japan to participatein
United Nations peacekeeping forces(based on personal interviewsat the Ministryof Foreign
Affairs,
Tokyo,May 1992).
148. The classicstudyis Karl W. Deutsch et al., PoliticalCommunity
and theNorthAtlanticArea
(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversity Press,1957).

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Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations

Author(s): John Gerard Ruggie

performed.2Here, no shared vocabularyexists in the literatureto depict

2. For a specificationof the ontologicaland epistemologicaldifferencesamong incremental,

Prevailingperspectivesmay have difficulty describingand explainingthe

9. For a descriptionof global factories,see JosephGrunwaldand KennethFlamm,The Global

only half-in-cheek, has proposed definingservicesas "thingswhich can be

"Trade in Servicesand the MultilateralTrade Negotiations,"The WorldBank EconomicReview,

woke up one morningin Julyto findtheiraccountsfrozen.... If the United

21. Kapstein,"We are US," pp. 56 and 61.

system;that is, at addressingthe question of whetherthe modernsystemof

The ends ofmodernity

24. One recent attemptto correctthis shortcoming, to which I returnbelow, is James N.

It was notlong,however, beforepostmodernity cameto be associatednot

(Lexington,Mass.: Lexington/Heath, 1989). For a sympathetic

cal consequences can be that followfromthe moral vacuum-if not moral

Jamesontermsit, a heteronomyof fragmentswhich neverthelessremains

which to grasp what he calls "global hyperspace,"I hope to advance our

Historically,the self-conscioususe of the term"modern" to denote "now"

45. RaymondWilliams,"When was Modernism?"New LeftReview175 (May/June1989), pp.

propertyin severalparts of thatwhichGod gave to mankindin common."50

abounded."56The differencebetween the medieval and modern worlds is

56. The quotationsare fromPerryAnderson,LineagesoftheAbsolutist State(London: New Left

The antonymof Meinecke's term is "homonomous."63The distinctive

63. The term "heteronomous"refersto systemswhereinthe parts are subject to different

concept of differentiation, then, it is impossibleto define the structureof

68. Waltz,inexplicably,viewsthe differentiationof a collectivity

71. Jones,The EuropeanMiracle,chap. 4.

These changes in the materialworld,both positiveand negative,were so

78. For the purposes of the presentdiscussion,the pathbreakingwork is the briefbook by

residencesand stallsof the merchants,entryand exittolls,levieson sales and

80. 0. Verlinden, "Markets and Fairs," CambridgeEconomic Historyof Europe, vol. 3

thatthemodernsystemof statesresulteddirectly fromthisprocessbecause the

84. Northand Thomas,TheRiseoftheWestern World,p. 17.

of atomisticand autonomousbodies-in-motion in a fieldof forcesenergized

93. See Walzer,"On the Role of Symbolismin PoliticalThought";Sheldon Wolin,Politicsand

Arguably,the singlemostimportantof those developmentsoccurredin the

96. Samuel Y. Edgerton,Jr.,TheRenaissanceRediscovery ofLinearPerspective (New York: Basic

efforts of FrancisI as late as 1547 to reformthe apparatusof the Frenchstate

101. Mattingly, RenaissanceDiplomacy,p. 195.

York:Scribners, 1958).AdditionalsupportforHirschman'sargumentmaybe foundin Pocock,The

as theyretainedsome degreeofsocial efficacy itremaineddifficult to formulate

107. Tilly,"Reflectionson theHistoryofEuropean State-making," p. 22.

in motionin the followingcentury.""12 Still,an internationalpoliticsmorally

The paradox of absolute individuation

117. Grotius'simmediateaim was to establishthe principleof freedomto conducttradeon the

subjectofthatprince.This solutionceased to be acceptable,however,once the

122. Mattingly, RenaissanceDiplomacy,pp. 105-6.

count as politics,of whatcountsas evidence and what as fact,and of whatis

127. Strong,"DramaturgicalDiscourse and PoliticalEnactments,"p. 245.

century,Europe stood poised to reach out to and

132. See H. J.Mackinder,"The GeographicalPivotof History,"Geographical Joumal23 (April

privateand social rates of return,coalitionalpossibilitiesamongmajor social

circumstances,and a correspondingly strongdislike ... of all overarching

Merely by substituting"structures"or "preferences"for "forces" in that

139. Using Kratochwil'stypology, mainstreaminternationalrelationstheorytraffics mostlyin

presentanalysis,however,a verydifferent attributeof theEC comes intoview:

142. This processis byno meansfreeofcontroversyor resistance,as a recentLondon front-page

torialglobal economic regionis a world,in short,that is premisedon what

unlikelyto persistwidely.It has provedextraordinarily however,to decide whetherwhat

East and West, have been multilateralin form.146 These mechanismsinclude

146. John Gerard Ruggie, "Multilateralism:The Anatomyof an Institution,"International

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