Systems, Relations, and The Structures of International Societies

Systems, Relations,
and the Structures of

International Societies
cambridge studies in international relations
Jack Donnelly
Systems, Relations, and the Structures
of International Societies
Inspired by recent work in evolutionary, developmental, and systems

biology, Systems, Relations, and the Structures of International Societies
sketches a robust conception of systems that grounds a new concep-
tion of levels (of organization, not merely analysis). Understanding
international systems as multi-level multi-actor complex adaptive
systems allows explanations of important features of the world that are
inaccessible to dominant causal and rationalist explanatory strategies.
The book also develops a comprehensive critique of IR’s dominant
conception of systems and structures; presents a novel conception of
the interrelationship of the social production of continuities and the
social production of change; and sketches models of spatio-political
structure that cast new light on the development of international sys-
tems, including a distinctive account of the nature of globalization.
Jack Donnelly is the Andrew Mellon Professor in the Josef Korbel

School of International Studies at the University of Denver. His book
Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice is widely acknowledged as
one of the preeminent works in the field of international human rights
and his work in international relations theory has been published in
leading journals including International Organization, European Journal
of International Relations, and International Theory.
Cambridge Studies in International Relations
Editors
Evelyn Goh
Christian Reus-Smit
Nicholas J. Wheeler
Editorial board
Jacqueline Best, Karin Fierke, William Grimes, Yuen Foong Khong,

Andrew Kydd, Lily Ling, Nicola Phillips, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd,
Jacquie True, Leslie Vinjamuri, Alexander Wendt
Cambridge Studies in International Relations is a joint initiative of Cambridge

University Press and the British International Studies Association (BISA).
The series aims to publish the best new scholarship in international studies,
irrespective of subject matter, methodological approach or theoretical perspective.
The series seeks to bring the latest theoretical work in International Relations to
bear on the most important problems and issues in global politics.
165 Jason Ralph

On global learning
Pragmatic constructivism, international practice and the challenge of
global governance
164 Barry Buzan

Making global society
A study of humankind across three eras
163 Brian Rathbun

Right and wronged in international relations
Evolutionary ethics, moral revolutions, and the nature of power politics
162 Vincent Pouliot and Jean-Philippe Thérien

Global policymaking
The patchwork of global governance
161 Swati Srivastava

Hybrid sovereignty in world politics
160 Rohan Mukherjee

Ascending order
Rising powers and the politics of status in international institutions
Series list continues after index

Systems, Relations,
and the Structures of
International Societies
Jack Donnelly
University of Denver
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We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of
education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009355186
DOI: 10.1017/9781009355193
© Jack Donnelly 2024
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions
of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take
place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
First published 2024
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Donnelly, Jack, author.
Title: Systems, relations, and the structures of international societies /
Jack Donnelly.
Description: Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2024. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023021010 | ISBN 9781009355186 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781009355193 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: International organization. | Social systems. |
International relations – Philosophy.
Classification: LCC JZ1318 .D66 2024 | DDC 327–dc23/eng/20230821
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023021010
ISBN 978-1-009-35518-6 Hardback
Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence
or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this
publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will
remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
List of Figurespage xii

List of Tablesxiii
Acknowledgmentsxiv
Part I Systems, Relations, Levels, and Explanations:

Foundations for Systemic/Relational IR
1 Systems and Relations 3
1.1 Systems 3
1.2 Systemic and Analytic Explanations 5
1.3 Levels of Organization 6
1.4 Relations and Systems 7
1.5 Relationalism 10
1.6 Processes 13
1.7 Mechanisms 15
1.8 Assemblages 17
1.9 Treating International Systems as Systems 18
1.10 Postscript: Waltz and Jervis on Systems 19
2 Complex Adaptive Systems 20

2.1 The Partial (In)separability of Systems and Their Components 20
2.1.1 Analysis, Reduction, Decomposition 20
2.1.2 The (Limited) Holism of Systemic Wholes 23
2.1.3 States and States Systems 24
2.2 Emergence 26
2.2.1 Non-aggregativity 26
2.2.2 Dense Interconnections Require Systemic Explanations 27
2.3 Complexity 29
2.3.1 Complex, Complicated, and Aggregated 29
2.3.2 Non-linearity 30
2.3.3 Self-Organization 31
2.3.4 Adaptation (Complex Adaptive Systems) 33
2.3.5 Modularity 34
2.4 The Difference Systemism/Relationism Makes 36
3 From Levels of Analysis to Levels of Organization 38

3.1 Levels of Abstraction/Explanation 38
3.2 Levels of Analysis in IR 39
v
vi Contents
3.3 Levels of Analysis vs. Levels of Organization 42

3.4 Micro and Macro 43
3.4.1 Triads of Levels 43
3.4.2 Against Micro-foundations 44
3.5 The Agent–Structure Problem 46
3.6 Biological Individuals 49
3.7 Individual Human Beings 51
3.8 Social Groups Are Individuals Too 52
3.9 Genidentity: A Processual Perspective on Identity 53
3.10 Identities and Persons 56
3.11 Structure 58
4 Systems, Causes, and Theory: Explanatory Pluralism in IR 60

4.1 Waltz on Theory 61
4.1.1 Causes, Independent Variables, and Structural Theory 61
4.1.2 “A Theory Is a Picture” 62
4.1.3 How Explanations 63
4.1.4 The Diversity of Scientific Explanations 64
4.2 Explanation 64
4.3 Causes, Causation, and Explanation 64
4.4 Independent-Variable vs. Systemic Causation 67
4.5 This-Is-a-Cause-of-That vs. How Explanations 68
4.6 Explanation: How, What, and Why 69
4.6.1 Associational Explanations 70
4.6.2 Systemic Explanations 70
4.6.3 Additional Kinds of Explanations 72
4.7 Explanatory Pluralism 73
4.8 Theories, Models, and Explanations 73
4.8.1 Social-Scientific “Theory” 74
4.8.2 Laws and Theories vs. Mechanisms and Models 76
4.8.3 Schemas, Sketches, Perspectives, and
Causal Thickets 77
4.9 Descriptive Accuracy in Systemic/Structural Explanations 78
Part II Waltzian Structural Theory: A Postmortem

5 Structural Theory 85
5.1 Waltz’s Theory of International Politics 85
5.1.1 Systems, Structures, and Levels 85
5.1.2 The Elements of Political Structures 86
5.1.3 Structural Realism and Structural Effects 86
5.2 A Structure and Interacting Units 87
5.3 Structural Theory 89
5.4 Reductive Explanations 90
5.5 “Units” 91
5.6 “The System” 92
5.7 The Individualism of Waltzian Theory 93
5.8 Systems Are Not Environments 94
5.9 Systems of Structured Relations 95
Contents vii
6 Anarchy 97
6.1 Anarchy Is Not an Ordering Principle 97
6.1.1 Anarchy, Government, and Hierarchy 97
6.1.2 Anarchy over “Anarchy” 100
6.1.3 Waltz’s Double Dichotomy 101
6.1.4 Anarchy Is Not the Ordering Principle of
International Systems 103
6.1.5 Demarcation, Structure, and Explanation 103
6.1.6 What Is Anarchy? 104
6.2 Anarchy Has No Effects: The Consequences of Anarchy 105
6.3 Anarchy Has No Effects: The Case of Forager Societies 109
6.3.1 Demography and Economy 110
6.3.2 Politics 112
6.3.3 Conflict and Violence 113
6.3.4 Forager Warlessness 114
6.3.5 Binding through Sharing: A Logic of Anarchy 115
6.3.6 Anarchy Has No Effects 116
6.4 The Discourse of Anarchy in IR 117
6.4.1 “Anarchy” in Pre-1979 IR: Quantitative Evidence 117
6.4.2 The Pattern of Usage in Pre-1979 IR 118
6.4.3 The Rise of a Discourse of Anarchy 121
6.4.4 Words and Concepts 123
6.5 The Construction of Anarchy 127
7 The Tripartite Conception of Structure 134

7.1 The Distinctiveness of the Waltzian Conception 135
7.2 Three Simple Anarchic Systems 136
7.2.1 The Hobbesian State of Nature and Forager Societies 137
7.2.2 Great Power States Systems 138
7.2.3 The Effects of Existential Fear 139
7.2.4 The Failure of the Tripartite Conception 141
7.3 Looking Behind the Tripartite Conception 143
7.4 Structural Theory vs. Theory of International Politics 144
8 Functional Differentiation and Distribution of Capabilities 146

8.1 International Systems Are Functionally Differentiated 146
8.2 The Distribution of Capabilities 147
8.2.1 The Distribution of Capabilities in
Domestic Political Systems 148
8.2.2 The Distribution of Capabilities in International
Political Systems 150
9 Ordering Principles 153

9.1 Hierarchy 153
9.1.1 Hierarchy Is Not an Ordering Principle 154
9.1.2 The Discourse of Hierarchy in IR 155
9.2 Political Systems Do Not Have Ordering Principles 156
9.3 Ryan Griffiths: Two-Dimensional Ordering Principles 157
9.3.1 Anarchy, Hierarchy, Centralization, and Sovereignty 157
9.3.2 Mechanical and Organic Solidarity 159
viii Contents
9.3.3 Two-Dimensional Ordering Principles 160

9.3.4 “Ordering Principles” That Do Not Specify Forms
of International Order 162
9.4 Albert, Buzan, and Zurn: Three Principles of Differentiation 163
9.4.1 Types of Societies and Dimensions of Differentiation 164
9.4.2 Types Are Not Defined by a Dominant Dimension of
Differentiation164
9.4.3 Fitting Types to the World 166
9.4.4 Combining “Forms” of Differentiation 168
9.5 Causal Depth and Generative Structures 169
9.6 From Structure to the Structuring of Systems 171
9.7 Postscript: The Dead End of Waltzian Structuralism 172
Part III Systems, Relations, and Processes:

Reframing Systemic International Theory
Part III (A) Differentiation and Continuous (Trans)formation 177
10 Relations, Processes, and Systems: Configuring
Configurations That Configure 179
10.1 Relations and Processes: Toward Relational Processualism 179
10.2 Configuring Configurations That Configure 183
10.3 The Attractions of a Relational Processual Frame 184
10.4 Relational Processualism 185
10.5 International Systems as Hierarchically Layered Assemblages 185
11 Multiple Dimensions of Differentiation in

Assembled International Systems 188
11.1 Differentiation 188
11.1.1 Checklists, Toolkits, and Building Blocks 188
11.1.2 Vertical and Horizontal Differentiation 189
11.1.3 Formal and Substantive Differentiation 190
11.2 Differentiating Actors, Activities, and Authorities 190
11.2.1 Segmentation (Actors) and Terminal Peer Polities 190
11.2.2 Functional Differentiation (Activities) 192
11.2.3 Stratification (Authorities) 193
11.3 Material Differentiation: Geotechnics and Scarcity 194
11.3.1 Material Factors in Structural Realism 195
11.3.2 Geotechnics and Scarcity 196
11.4 Additional Dimensions of Differentiation 198
11.4.1 Polarity 198
11.4.2 Levels of Organization 199
11.4.3 Interaction Capacity 199
11.5 Positioned Social Persons 200
11.6 International Systems as Ecosystems 201
11.7 Summary 203
Contents ix
12 Continuous (Trans)formation: Producing Social Continuity

and Social Change 204
12.1 Systems Far from Thermodynamic Equilibrium 204
12.2 Continuous (Trans)formation 207
12.3 The Continuous (Trans)formation of Early Modern Militaries 209
12.3.1 The Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe 209
12.3.2 The Military Revolution in Early Modern France 210
12.4 The Inseparability of Continuities and Transformations 214
12.5 Transposition and Re-functionality 215
12.6 Eventful History 219
12.7 Conclusion 221
13 Life Sciences and Social Sciences: Studying Co-evolving

Complex Adaptive Systems 223
13.1 Evolution 224
13.1.1 Units and Levels of Evolution 224
13.1.2 The Process and Progress of Evolution 226
13.1.3 Co-evolution 227
13.1.4 Evolution as Modular Tinkering 229
13.2 “Evolution” in the Social World 230
13.3 Development 233
13.3.1 Cell Differentiation 233
13.3.2 Performing Processes of Development 235
13.3.3 Phenotypic Plasticity and Environmental Influences on
Development236
13.4 Systems Biology and Relational/Systemic Social Science 238
13.4.1 Systems Biology: A Model for the Social Sciences 238
13.4.2 Beyond Causes and Theories: How (Not What or Why)
Explanations239
13.4.3 Models and Theories 241
Part III (B) Four Excursions in Relational/Systemic IR 245

14 Normative-Institutional Differentiation 247
14.1 Institutions and Practices 248
14.2 Constitutional Structures 249
14.2.1 Principles and Practices of International Legitimacy 250
14.2.2 Principles and Practices of Domestic Legitimacy 252
14.2.3 Foundational Functional Practices 252
14.2.4 Hegemonic Cultural Values 254
14.3 Types of Security Systems 254
14.4 Transforming Post-World War II International Society 259
14.4.1 Abolishing Territorial Acquisition by War 259
14.4.2 Abolishing Overseas Colonial Empires 260
14.4.3 Norms, Causes, and Changing Social Practices 262
14.4.4 The Forcible Acquisition of Territory since 1945 263
14.4.5 The 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine 265
14.5 Regulative Regimes and International Governance 267
x Contents
15 Vertical Differentiation: Stratification and Hierarchy

in International Systems 268
15.1 Stratification, Hierarchy, and Inequality 268
15.2 Forms of Hierarchy 270
15.3 Single-Layer Systems: Unstratified and Autarchic Orders 272
15.4 Multilayered (Hierarchical) Orders 274
15.5 Single (Convergent) Hierarchies I: States Systems 274
15.5.1 Types of States Systems 274
15.5.2 Hierarchy in States Systems 280
15.6 Single (Convergent) Hierarchies II: Imperial International Systems 280
15.7 Multiply Ranked Orders: Heterarchies 282
15.7.1 Heterarchy 282
15.7.2 Hegemony as Heterarchy 284
15.7.3 Heterarchy at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 287
15.8 Conceptual Comments on Hierarchy and Heterarchy 289
15.9 Typologies and Model-Based Explanation 290
15.9.1 Model-Based Explanation 290
15.9.2 Thinking about Change with Typologies 291
16 Levels, Centers, and Peripheries: Spatio-Political Differentiation 295

16.1 Three Conceptions of Political Centralization 295
16.1.1 Centralization as the Concentration of Power 295
16.1.2 Centralization as the Centering of Power 296
16.1.3 Center–Periphery Differentiation 297
16.2 Spatio-Political Differentiation 299
16.3 Systems of Single-Level Governance (States Systems) 301
16.4 Systems of Single-Center Governance (States and Empires) 303
16.4.1 Integrated Polities (States) 303
16.4.2 Aggregated Polities (Empires) 305
16.4.3 Integrated and Aggregated Systems of Single-Center Rule 305
16.5 Systems of Multilevel Multiactor Governance (Heterarchies) 306
16.6 Summary: Types of Polities and International Systems 309
17 Continuous (Trans)formation of Eurocentric

Political Systems (c. 1225 – c. 2025) 310
17.1 High Medieval Heterarchy 310
17.2 Late Medieval Changes 313
17.3 New Monarchies and the Rise of a European States System 314
17.4 Early Modern Dynastic Empire-States 316
17.4.1 France 317
17.4.2 Spain 319
17.4.3 England/Britain 320
17.4.4 The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation 321
17.5 States, Status, Corporations, and Privileges 324
17.5.1 States and Status 324
17.5.2 Corporations, Privileges, and Estates 326
17.6 Agglomeration, Centralization, and Particularism 328
17.7 Early Modern Administration 329
17.7.1 Spain 330
17.7.2 France 331
17.7.3 Administering Early Modern Polities 333
Contents xi
17.8 The Logic of Composition in Early Modern Europe 334

17.9 Change in Early Modern Europe 335
17.9.1 Crisis and Growth 335
17.9.2 Periodizing Early Modern Politics 337
17.10 Baroque Absolutism and Fiscal-Military States 337
17.10.1 “Absolutist” States 338
17.10.2 Fiscal-Military States 340
17.11 A Succession of Types of Polities 341
17.12 Pre-modern Polities in an Early Modern States System 342
17.13 Before (and Beyond) “International Relations” 344
17.13.1 Before “International Relations” 344
17.13.2 Beyond “National” and “International” Politics:
Layered Systems of Polities 346
17.14 Re-assembling a Globalizing World 347
17.14.1 From States System to Heterarchy 348
17.14.2 Globalization as Continuous (Trans)formation 349
17.15 Alternative Framings 350
18 Afterword: Multiple Approaches to Multidimensional

Systems of Relations 353
18.1 Multiple Models of Multidimensional Systems 353
18.2 The Nature of Systemic/Relational Explanations 354
References 358
Index 452
Figures
3.1 Coleman’s boat page 45

6.1 Types of consequences of anarchy 107
9.1 Griffiths on political centralization 158
9.2 Griffiths on social differentiation 160
9.3 Two-dimensional ordering principles 161
14.1 Constitutional structure of international societies 251
15.1 A typology of hierarchical stratification 271
15.2 “Flat” orders 273
15.3 Stratification in an unpolarized states system 275
15.4 Stratification in a multipolar states system 276
15.5 Stratification in a great power states system 277
15.6 Spheres of influence and protectorates 278
15.7 Stratification in a concert system 279
15.8 Stratification in an imperial system 281
15.9 Stratification in a unipolar states system 282
15.10 Stratification in a dual hegemony system 285
15.11 Stratification in a single hegemony system 286
15.12 Stratification in turn-of-the-twentieth-century
international society 288
15.13 A typology of international systems 292
16.1 Centralized (spokes-and-hub) empires 296
16.2 Centralization in a states system 297
16.3 Centered hierarchy in an imperial system 298
16.4 A three-level spatial grid 300
16.5 A Waltzian states system 301
16.6 Single-level governance by terminal peer polities
(a states system) 303
16.7 Single-center governance of a unitary integrated polity
(a unitary state) 304
16.8 Single-center governance of a federal integrated polity 304
16.9 Single-center governance of an aggregated political
system (empire)305
16.10 Multilevel multiactor governance (heterarchy) 307
16.11 Heterarchic stratification in contemporary Europe 308
xii
Tables
6.1 Occurrences of “anarchy” and “anarchic”

in selected books page 118
9.1 Uses of “hierarchy” or “hierarchical” in selected books 155
14.1 Types of international security systems 255
xiii
Acknowledgments
If this is more than an OK book, that is largely due to the efforts of the
editors and reviewers at Cambridge University Press and at International
Theory, European Journal of International Relations, and International
Organization, where preliminary versions of more than a third of this MS
first appeared. I am immensely appreciative of the prodigious quantity
of thoughtful and constructive criticisms that I received from more than
twenty anonymous referees and multiple editorial teams trying to drag
out of me ideas and arguments that were not yet properly formulated (or,
sometimes, not even apparent) in the draft in question. (If this book were
to have a dedication, it would be “To Reviewer A (whoever you might
be).”) And I am particularly grateful to John Haslam at CUP, who has
shepherded this project through multiple proposals and drafts over (I am
embarrassed to admit) five years.
I also owe a considerable debt to a large group of readers and lis-
teners, going back in some cases nearly two decades. If my records
serve me correctly, these include Emanuel Adler, Dogus Aktan, Math-
ias Albert, Debbie Avant, Sarah Bania-Dobbins, John Barkdull, Naaz
Barma, Andy Bennett, Mariano Bertucci, Ahsan Butt, Chris Brown,
Barry Buzan, Andy Bennett, George Demartino, Dan Deudney, Jon
Elster, Rachel Epstein, Dave Forsythe, Paige Fortna, Claudia Fuen-
tes, David Goldfischer, Ilene Grabel, John Hobson, Barry Hughes,
Ian Hurd, Raslan Ibrahim, Patrick Jackson, Pat James, Leigh Jenco,
Dave Lake, Anthony Langlois, Jae Won Lee, Andrew Linklater†,
Charles Lipson, Andy Moravcsik, Jonathan Moyer, Abe Newman,
Dan Nexon, Nick Onuf, Lucas Paes, Louis Pascarella, M. J. Peterson,
Alex Prichard, Brian Rathbun, Martin Rhodes, Randy Schweller, Jason
Sharman, Chris Shay, Duncan Snidal, Jack Snyder, Hidemi Suganami,
Cameron Thies, Alex Thompson, Matt Weinert, David Welch, Alex
Wendt, Peter Wilson, Bill Wohlforth, Ayse Zarakol, and Michael Zurn
as well as participants at seminars at American University, Columbia
†
Deceased.
xiv
Acknowledgments xv
University, Georgetown University, London School of Economics,

National University of Singapore, Ohio State University, University of
British Columbia, University of California at San Diego, University of
Chicago, University of Denver, University of Southern California, and
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung.
Bob Jervis, who died while I was completing the final draft, deserves
special mention. He was a reviewer of an early article that helped to
define this book, hosted me twice for seminars at Columbia, and made
some very useful suggestions on the structure of the book. And his fine
book on systems was an inspiration. Although I did not know him well,
he was a kind and gracious colleague whose support I greatly appreci-
ated. Our discipline has been diminished by his death.
Finally, saving the most important for last, I thank my wife, Katy, and
my son, Kurosh, who are the true lights of my life. They make me a very
lucky boy indeed.
Part I
Systems, Relations, Levels, and Explanations

Foundations for Systemic/Relational IR
This book advocates a relational processual revival of systems-based

theory and research in International Relations (IR). Part I outlines
the distinctive character of systemic and relational approaches. Part II
comprehensively critiques Kenneth Waltz’s conception of systemic
theory, which has dominated IR for the past four decades. Part III
begins to plot paths forward towards new types of systemic research
and explanations.
In this Part, Chapters 1 and 2 establish basic terms of reference,
emphasizing the importance of considering international systems as sys-
tems and the actors in international relations as parts of systems. Chapter 1
lays out the ideas of systems and relations and introduces the framings
of processes, mechanisms, and assemblages. Chapter 2 looks at three
central features of systems: emergence, complexity, and the partial
(in)separability of systems and their components. It concludes by briefly
noting some important differences that a systemic/relational perspective
makes for IR.
Chapters 3 and 4 identify two major metatheoretical implications of
a focus on systems. Chapter 3 argues that a relational/systemic under-
standing of the world as a layered system of systems of systems suggests
looking less at levels of analysis and more at levels of organization. Chap-
ter 4 explores the differences between causal-effects and systems-effects
explanations and argues for explanatory, not merely methodological,
pluralism in IR.
Because I consider a wide range of topics, some of which are likely
to be of little interest to some readers, I have tried to write this book
so that each chapter can be read separately, pretty much in any order.
The detailed table of contents, introductions to each Part, and copious
cross-references aim to help readers engage the book in ways that work
well for them.
I also use extensive quotations and pinpoint citations and often offer
extended references and suggestions for further reading. And to cater to
readers with different degrees of engagement with the material at hand,
1
2 Part I: Systems, Relations, Levels, and Explanations
I make fairly extensive use of expository footnotes. I therefore encourage

you to treat the footnotes, which make up a full fifth of the manuscript,
and the reference list, which makes up another fifth, as integral parts of
the book.
With no further ado, though, let us begin to look at systems, relations,
and their place in a pluralistic social scientific IR.
1 Systems and Relations
This book explores some implications for the discipline of International

Relations (IR1) of accepting the following propositions.
• Some features of the world can be understood, more or less fully,
through knowledge of the elements that compose them.
• Other features can be understood only by also considering the orga-
nization of elements into larger systems/wholes and the structured
operation of those wholes.
• The biological and social worlds can be adequately understood only
by combining “analytic” knowledge of components considered sepa-
rately and “systemic” knowledge of the organized operations of struc-
tured wholes.
I ask readers to accept, for the sake of argument, the systemic perspective
sketched by these propositions – to see where it takes us.
In this chapter I define systems, identify a few fundamental features of
systemic explanations, and explore some alternative framings for study-
ing “things” that have qualities that cannot be fully explained in terms
of their parts.
1.1 Systems
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a system as “a group or set of
related or associated things perceived or thought of as a unity or complex
whole.” Most definitions in the natural and social sciences similarly see
a system as “an assembly of elements related in an organized whole.”2
1
As is conventional, I use IR to indicate the “discipline” of International Relations, which
studies the subject matter of international relations – whether IR is understood as a disci-
pline in its own right (which is more common in the UK), a sub-field of Political Science
(as is more common in the US), or an interdisciplinary field (often in the US under the
label International Studies).
2
(Flood and Carson 1993, 7).
3
“A whole which functions as a whole by virtue of the interdependence of

its parts is called a system.”3
“The most fundamental act of systems theory … [is] distinguishing
it [the system] from its environment.”4 A bounded set of components
that share “concentrated feedback relationships” is distinguished from
what lies outside the system – the environment – “with which the system
shares only input and output relationships.”5
In a system “the organization of units affects their behavior and their
interactions.”6 This produces “systems effects” including, most notably,
“emergent” phenomena.7 “A whole can have properties (or powers) …
that would not be possessed by its parts if they were not organised as a
group into the form of this particular kind of whole.”8
“System” is often used in a looser sense to refer to any bounded entity.
Here, however, I consider only structured wholes with emergent prop-
erties: what are often called “complex systems.”9 And I address only
systems that are, to the best of our knowledge, “in the world” (not mere
analytic constructs).10
I adopt the following definition.
A system is a bounded set of components of particular types, arranged in
definite ways, operating in a specific fashion to produce characteristic out-
comes, some of which are emergent.11
This definition emphasizes the operation, not just the organization,
of components.12 Some systems effects arise from arrangement alone.
3
(Rapoport 1968, xviii).
4
(Gougen and Varela 1979, 32). For Niklas Luhmann, the leading systems theorist in
the social sciences in the last four decades, “a system is the difference between system
and environment” (Luhmann 2013 [2002], 44. See also 52, 63, 187; 1995 [1984], 5–8,
16–18, 20–23; 2012 [1997], 43–44, 63–64, 121).
5
(Flood and Carson 1993, 8).
6
(Waltz 1979, 39).
7
See §2.2.
8
(Elder-Vass 2007a, 28).
9
See §2.3.
10
Older systems approaches often distinguished “concrete” systems from “analytic” (or
“abstracted”) systems. See, for example, (Bunge 1979, 1992), (Parsons 1979), (Bailey
1983). Artificial units of investigation, however, do not (unless they happen to corre-
spond to a concrete system) have emergent systems effects. They therefore will not be
addressed here.
11
This is similar to Mario Bunge’s definition of systems in terms of “composition, struc-
ture (relations among the parts), and connections with the environment”; “composition
(collection of parts), environment, and structure (set of bonds or couplings between
system components and things in the environment)” (1997, 417, 416. See also 458).
12
Operations might be considered arrangement across time. The temporal and processual
dimensions of operations, however, seem to me worth separate note. See also §§1.6,
10.1–10.3. I avoid the language of “structure and process,” though, because it facilitates
analytically severing organization from operation and reifying arrangement/structure.
Systems and Relations 5
(Consider the allotropes of carbon – the “same” “stuff” arranged differ-

ently to produce diamond, graphite, graphene (a single layer of graphite
with unusual electrical properties), char (the amorphous carbon in char-
coal), and vitreous carbon (used in certain electrodes), as well as various
nanocarbons (e.g., buckminsterfullerenes) and carbon nanofoam (which
is ferromagnetic).) Usually, though, especially in the living and social
worlds, the operation of the arranged elements is crucial.
This definition also emphasizes the specificity of the components, their
arrangement, and their operation. Parts of particular types are organized
and operate in specific ways.
Finally, systems are of special interest because of systems effects –
irreducible higher-level phenomena that emerge from the operation of
complex wholes – which are essential to a comprehensive understand-
ing of the things of the social world. For example, a state or society is
more than an aggregation of individuals. The national interest is not
the average of (or any other operation performed on) the interests of
the individuals and groups that make up the nation. And the reason
to study an international system is that it has properties that cannot be
understood by even the most intensive study of its components and
their interactions.
1.2 Systemic and Analytic Explanations

Systems require – and provide – a distinctive type of explanation.
This usually is explicated by contrasting “analytic” and “systemic”
explanations.13
In analytic explanations “the whole is understood by knowing the attri-
butes and the interactions of its parts,”14 “disjoined and understood in
their simplicity.”15 As Nicholas Onuf puts it, “analysis is the procedure
whereby someone (the analyst) observes (or causes and then observes,
or imagines) and describes the disaggregation of some (actual or hypo-
thetical) unit.”16 This strategy of breaking things down into smaller or
simpler pieces often produces epistemically powerful and pragmatically
valuable knowledge.
If, however, the object of inquiry has properties arising from the
organization or structured operation of its elements “then one can-
not predict outcomes or understand them merely by knowing the
13
In IR, Waltz’s account (1979, 39–40ff. See also 12, 37) is hegemonic. (I reject his
account, however, in §§5.3–5.6.)
14
(Waltz 1979, 18).
15
(Waltz 1979, 39. See also 12, 37, 60, 68, 121).
16
(Onuf 1995, 42).
characteristics, purposes, and interactions of the system’s units.”17 “Sys-

temic” approaches are required to comprehend “systems effects.” What
this implies for IR is the central subject of this book.
In the social sciences, analytic explanations typically rely on the attri-
butes, actions, and interactions of actors. Systemic explanations, by con-
trast, focus on the organization and operation of structured wholes – which,
I argue, require relational and processual explanations.
1.3 Levels of Organization

Systems have “multiple levels of organization … [arranged in] a rough
hierarchy, with the components at each ascending level being some kind
of composite made up of the entities present at the next level down.”18
In the life sciences, the standard framing is levels of organization19 or
“compositional levels – hierarchical divisions of stuff (paradigmatically
but not necessarily material stuff) organized by part–whole relations, in
which wholes at one level function as parts at the next (and at all higher)
levels.”20 (For example, cells, tissues, organs, systems, organisms; alleles,
individuals, populations, communities, ecosystems.) As Bert Hölldobler
and E. O. Wilson put it, “life is a self-replicating hierarchy of levels. Biol-
ogy is the study of the levels that compose the hierarchy.”21
Levels of organization are (understood as) “in the world.” “Levels of
organization are a deep, non-arbitrary, and extremely important feature
of the ontological architecture of our natural world.”22 In a strong for-
mulation, they are “levels of reality.”23 The world “is” a layered system
of systems of systems in which parts at one level are wholes on “their
own” lower level.
Higher-level “things” are, of course, made up (and obey all the laws)
of lower-level “things.” The whole, however, is not fully reducible
17
(Waltz 1979, 39).
18
(McClamrock 1991, 185). “Hierarchy” in this taxonomic sense, which is standard in the
natural sciences, indicates relations of inclusion (not command or control). “Things”
at higher levels encompass lower-level things in a graded series of part–whole relations:
metaphorically, boxes within boxes (within boxes).
19
(Eronen and Brooks 2018), (Brooks, DiFrisco, and Wimsatt 2021a), and (Brooks
2021) are good recent overviews of levels of organization in Biology. (Brooks, DiFrisco,
and Wimsatt 2021b) is an excellent recent edited volume, including (Potochnik 2021),
which reviews and extends recent criticisms of the concept.
20
(Wimsatt 1994, 222 [emphasis added]). Joseph Needham’s (1937) idea of “integrative
levels” is an early version of (or precursor to) this framing. And the levels ontology of a
chain of being (Lovejoy 1936) was popular in the West for two millennia.
21
(Hölldobler and Wilson 2009, 7).
22
(Wimsatt 1994, 225). See also (Floridi 2008, 319).
23
(Heil 2003), (Salthe 2009), (Poli 2009), (Nicolescu 2010). See also (Grene 1967).
to – cannot be explained entirely in terms of – its components. Quite the

contrary, its distinctive character only emerges in the higher-level whole.
In this understanding – which I adopt for the purposes of this book
(which addresses the implications of systemic approaches to IR) – each
organizationally differentiated level, because it is ultimately irreducible,
has the same ontological status.24 The world is organizationally layered
but, as Manuel DeLanda nicely puts it, ontologically flat.25 The things of
the world are larger and smaller, simpler and more complicated, aggre-
gated or complex. But no one level is more real, fundamental, or foun-
dational than any other.
Understanding such a world requires not only bottom-up explanations
of the large by the small or the whole by its parts but also attention to
“downward causation”26 and top-down explanations. (As Kenneth Waltz
puts it, systems “shape and shove.”27) “The combination of ‘top-down’
effects … and ‘bottom-up’ effects … is a pervasive feature of complex
systems.”28 And one of the great attractions of systemic approaches is
that they not merely allow but require us to comprehend the causal pow-
ers of both higher-level and lower-level entities, activities, and forces.29
1.4 Relations and Systems

In the social sciences, systems theories were common in the decades
following World War II.30 The failure of such projects, however, led in
the 1970s to a marginalization of, and in many circles a strong reaction
24
Rather than illegitimately sneaking in an important substantive claim, I intend this as a
plausible hypothesis or methodological move that is unlikely to impede work on (par-
tially) reductive explanations. (See §2.1.) Assuming that some level is ontologically pri-
mary, by contrast, not only commits one to an account that is inconsistent with most
scientific practice but encourages empirically baseless “in principle” reducibility claims.
Supporting evidence for this position is scattered through this book. For now I ask for a
willing suspension of disbelief, in order to pursue the implications of a radically systemic
view of the world.
25
(DeLanda 2006, 28. See also 13). See also (Bryant 2011, ch. 6), (Latour 2005),
(Schatzki 2016), (Salter 2019).
26
The term appears to have been coined by Donald Campbell (1974). See also (Emmeche,
Køppe, and Stjernfelt 1997, 2000), (Bedau 2002), (Kistler 2009), (Campbell and
Bickhard 2011), (Elder-Vass 2012), (Bechtel 2017b), (Paoletti and Orilia 2017).
(Eronen 2021) usefully links downward causation to compositional levels in the context
of the tangled hierarchies characteristic of the biological (and I would add the social)
world.
27
(Waltz 1990b, 34; 1997, 915; 2000, 24).
28
(Holland 2014, 5).
29
See §2.1.
30
The leading example in IR was (Kaplan 1957). See also (Rosecrance 1963), (Masters
1964), (McClelland 1966), (Deutsch 1968), (Banks 1969), (Thompson 1973). In
Political Science, see (Easton 1953, 1965), (Deutsch 1963), (Almond and Powell 1978).
against (the excesses and abuses of), “systems theories.”31 And such an
attitude remains common today.32
In IR, the publication in 1979 of Waltz’s Theory of International Poli-
tics revitalized explicitly systemic approaches – but in a very limited and
peculiar way that I argue has been a mixed blessing (if not a pyrrhic
victory). As I show in Part II, Waltz’s narrow structuralism is not actu-
ally systemic. And the only explicitly systemic substantive theory that is
widely employed in IR is structural realism, which is extremely conten-
tious. As a result, in much of IR today there is widespread skepticism of,
and even hostility to, “systemic theory” – which is usually taken to mean
Waltzian structural theory.
Nonetheless, in IR,33 Sociology,34 and most other social sciences,35 a
broadly systemic perspective has emerged under the label of relational-
ism. Relationalist approaches employ a variety of framings, including
In Sociology, Talcott Parsons was a leading proponent. See, for example, (Parsons
1951, 1966, 1971) and (Kroeber and Parsons 1958). More broadly, see (Buckley 1967)
and (Buckley 1968).
31
(Pickel 2011, 4–7) briefly reviews this decline. In IR, see (Weltman 1973).
32
The principal exception is transdisciplinary complexity science, which has made limited
but significant inroads in many social sciences. (Miller and Page 2007), (Holland 2014),
(Miller 2015), and (Ladyman and Wiesner 2020) are useful general introductions.
More briefly, see (Walby 2007). In IR, see (Bousquet and Curtis 2011), (Byrne and
Callaghan 2014), (Cineda 2006), (Cudworth and Hobden 2013), (Gadinger and Peters
2016), (Gunitsky 2013), (Harrison 2006), (Jervis 1997), (Kavalski 2007), (Orsini et al.
2020), (Pickering 2019), (Scartozzi 2018), (Snyder and Jervis 1993), (Wagner 2016),
(Walby 2009), (Young 2017).
33
(Jackson and Nexon 1999) is the seminal programmatic statement in IR. (McCourt
2016) and (Jackson and Nexon 2019) are excellent brief overviews. See also (Kurki
2020, 2022). Among “relational” works published in the 2010s, a good sample
might include (Adler-Nissen 2015), (Brigg 2018), (Bucher 2017), (Duque 2018),
(Gazit 2019), (Joseph 2018), (Kavalski 2016, 2018), (Learoyd 2018), (Lee 2019),
(MacDonald 2014), (McConaughey, Musgrave, and Nexon 2018), (Nordin et al.
2019), (Pratt 2016a, b), (Selg 2016). See also (Schneider 2015).
34
(Emirbayer 1997) is the classic programmatic statement. Charles Tilly (e.g., 1995,
1998, 2001b, 2015 [2008]) and Harrison White (esp. 1992, 2008) were particularly
influential. (Crossley 2011) is a good book-length introduction (useful also because
it is rooted in British, rather than American, discussions). See also (Dépelteau 2018),
(Donati 2011), (Powell and Dépelteau 2013).
35
Examples of relational Anthropology include (Ingold 2004), (Jansen 2016), (Salmond
2012), (Stensrud 2016), (Streinzer 2016), (Thelen, Vetters, and von Benda-Beckmann
2018). Anthropology also has a growing substantive literature on relational ontologies
(e.g., (Herva et al. 2010), (Lee 2019)). Archaeological literature explicitly using rela-
tional frames includes (Betts, Hardenberg, and Stirling 2015), (Collar et al. 2015),
(Fowler 2013, 2017), (Harris 2020), (Harrison-Buck and Hendon 2018), (Hill 2011),
(Hutson 2010), (Watts 2014). I have also found (Hodder 2012) especially useful for
its links to assemblage thinking. In Geography, see, for example, (Bathelt and Glückler
2003), (Bathelt and Li 2014), (Boggs and Rantisi 2003), (Hesse and Mei-Ling 2020),
(Malpas 2012), (Murdoch 2005), (Ward 2010), (Yeung 2005). (Gergen 2009) outlines
a relational psychology with clear connections to the social sciences more broadly. On
• networks36 – patterns of ties between nodes in webs of relations;

• fields37 – structured “spaces” that induce particular behaviors from
entities of particular types;
• practices38 – sets of shared expectations and opportunities that under-
lie action-channeling dispositions;
• (con)figurations39 – long-lived patterns of social relations;
• assemblages40 – complex combinations of human, institutional, and
material entities and forces; and
• “relational institutionalism”41 – the approach of a group of IR schol-
ars, rooted in both network theory and historical institutionalism,
focusing on causally efficacious relational forms.
relational economics, which is only beginning to emerge, see (Biggiero et al. 2022),
(Wieland 2020).
36
(Avant and Westerwinter 2016) is an excellent edited volume that suggests the range
of network approaches in IR. (Hafner-Burton, Kahler, and Montgomery 2009) is the
standard article-length overview. See also (Borgatti et al. 2009). (Victor, Montgomery,
and Lubell 2017) and (Knoke et al. 2021) are comprehensive overviews of political
network approaches at varied levels of analysis. (Light and Moody 2021) is a simi-
lar extended overview of social networks. Interesting IR applications include (Acuto
and Leffel 2021), (Beardsley et al. 2020), (Carpenter 2011), (Dorussen, Gartzke, and
Westerwinter 2016), (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni 2014), (Erikson and Occhiuto 2017), (Gade
et al. 2019), (Gallop and Minhas 2021), (Goddard 2009a), (Haim 2016), (Kim 2019,
2020), (Kim and Morin 2021), (Legg 2009), (Montgomery 2016), (Mueller, Schmidt,
and Kuerbis 2013), (Mulich 2020), (Oatley et al. 2013), (Owen 2010), (Owen 2016),
(Sazak 2020), (Sikkink 1993), (Torfing 2012).
37
In IR, see, for example, (Adler-Nissen 2011), (Berling 2015), (Dixon and Tenove
2013), (Go 2008, 2011), (Guzzini 2013), (Kauppi and Madsen 2013), (Lim 2020),
(Nexon and Neumann 2018), (Schmitz, Witte, and Gengnagel 2017), (Stampnitzky
2013), (Steinmetz 2007, 2008). (Bourdieu 1996 [1989]) is a classic empirical case
study in Sociology that has had immense impact. See also (Bourdieu and Wacquant
1992, 14–26, 94–115). (Martin 2003; 2011, ch. 7, 8) provides an excellent introduc-
tion, stressing analogies with physical fields. (Fligstein and McAdam 2012) presents a
more mainstream American sociological approach. (Barman 2016, 445–452) provides
a useful brief overview of field approaches in the social sciences. See also §4.6.2 at
nn. 74ff.
38
(Pouliot 2010) and (Adler and Pouliot 2011) were seminal in IR. (Bueger and Gadinger
2018) and (Lechner and Frost 2018) are good book-length overviews. See also (Adler-
Nissen and Pouliot 2014), (Bigo 2011), (Brown 2012), (Bueger 2014, 2016a), (Bueger
and Gadinger 2015), (Côté-Boucher, Infantino, and Salter 2014), (Davies 2016),
(Holthaus 2020), (Kustermans 2016), (Neumann 2002), (Pouliot 2013, 2016).
39
This is the framing of Norbert Elias (2000 [1939], 1978). See also (Mennell 1998),
(Baur and Ernst 2011), (Dépelteau and Landini 2013), (Tsekeris 2013), (Landini and
Dépelteau 2014). In IR, Andrew Linklater (e.g., Linklater 2011; Linklater and Mennell
2010) was a forceful advocate for drawing on Elias.
40
See §1.8 (esp. n. 93 for IR examples) and §10.5.
41
This is Nexon’s label (2010, 112ff.). (Nexon and Wright 2007) is a brilliant applica-
tion. (Nexon 2009, 39–65) offers a useful medium-length overview. See also (Goddard
2009b), (Jackson 2006), (MacDonald 2014), (McConaughey, Musgrave, and Nexon
2018). One might also include ch. 15–17 of this book.
The language of systems highlights wholes and emergence. “Rela-

tions” highlights ties between elements. But the “sense in which ‘the
whole is greater than the sum of the parts’ is that the parts are, to some
degree, constituted as the kinds of entities they are by their relation to
the whole.”42 Conversely, relationalists see related elements as parts of
larger wholes (systems). And both framings emphasize the organization
or arrangement of elements.
I therefore treat “relational” and “systemic” as substantially overlap-
ping. And an important aim of this book is to emphasize the systemic
character of relational work in order to bring these two styles of theory
and research, which are largely unconnected in contemporary IR, into
constructive dialogue.43
1.5 Relationalism
Relationalism (like systemism44) is not a substantive theory or research
program but an orientation to social theory and research. Relationalism
focuses on “connections, ties, transactions and other kinds of relations
among entities,”45 stressing the interconnections of the things of the
world (rather than their separate substantiality). Relationalists see the
world as made up more of configurations (of things) than of things (that
stand in various relations).
Relationalists typically oppose themselves to what they call “substan-
tialism,” which “maintains that the ontological primitives of analysis are
‘things’ or entities … Relationalism, on the other hand, treats configura-
tions of ties … between social aggregates of various sorts and their com-
ponent parts as the building blocks of social analysis.”46
42
(Bertolaso and Dupré 2018, 331).
43
Natural scientists widely employ networks and fields. They almost always, though, use
the language of systems to make what contemporary social scientists would call rela-
tional arguments. This, it seems to me, reflects the reaction against “systems theories”
in the social sciences that I noted at the outset of this section – in sharp contrast to the
normalization and naturalization of systems framings across the natural sciences (which,
I am suggesting, ought to be a model for IR).
44
By “systemism” I mean an orientation to social research that emphasizes systems, paral-
lel to established uses of “relationalism.” I am not adopting Mario Bunge’s sometimes
idiosyncratic approach to systems, which he (e.g., Bunge 2000) labels “systemism.”
45
(Jackson and Nexon 2019, 583. See also 592). Relationalists typically understand rela-
tions in the ordinary-language sense of “a connection, correspondence, or contrast
between different things; a particular way in which one thing or idea is connected or
associated with another or others.” Oxford English Dictionary. On conceptualizing rela-
tions, see (Crossley 2013).
46
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 291–292). See also (Emirbayer 1997, 281), (McCourt 2016,
478–479), (Adler-Nissen 2015, 285–286, 288, 290–295). (Dupré 2020) offers a brief
parallel critique of substantialism from a processualist (see §1.6) perspective. William
Substantialist approaches have predominated in the contemporary

social sciences. Individualist substantialism (e.g., rational choice mod-
els) treats actors as prior to and generative of relations – or, more mod-
estly, gives methodological priority to interests, identities, or preferences
that are treated as given. Holist substantialism (e.g., world systems the-
ory) sees large-scale formations as prior to and generative of the entities
that compose them. Variable-based substantialism employs independent
variables that are treated as separate from and causes of (the values of)
dependent variables.47
Relationalists do not deny the reality of substances or minimize their
importance. They do, however, deny that “things” are essentially sub-
stantial or exist prior to (or remain fundamentally independent of) rela-
tions. In particular, relationalism rejects the idea of “pre-given units such
as the individual or society.”48
Nothing in the world is purely substantial. “Stuff” (substance) becomes
things only when arranged in specific ways. The things of the world are
the things that they are – are real things – not because of substance alone
(or even necessarily primarily) but in part (and essentially) through their
relations to other (relational) things.
“Things” are other “things” arranged in particular ways. Salt is sodium
and chlorine arranged in a particular way. Bureaucracies are complex
assemblages of (among other things) offices, office holders, and admin-
istrative technologies.
Relationalism is also anti-essentialist.49 “Every so-called essence
appears as a dense bundle of relations.”50 “The question of what some-
thing is becomes one of the relational configurations within which it is
embedded.”51
Sewell (2005, 329) makes a similar point when he argues that “a useful way to get a
conceptual handle on the social is to think of it in terms of the various mediations that
place people into ‘social’ relations with one another – mediations that may not make
them companions but that, in one way or another, make them interdependent members
of each other’s worlds.” (“Mediations,” for my tastes, is a bit too actor-centric. But
Sewell’s point seems to me fundamentally relational.)
47
(Emirbayer 1997, 286) highlights the substantialist nature of mainstream causal analy-
sis, drawing heavily on (Abbott 1988). (Independent-variable explanations explain
through the attributes, actions, and inter-actions of entities – not their relations. See
§§4.3–4.5.)
48
(Emirbayer 1997, 287). See also (Jackson and Nexon 1999, 293).
49
For example, Stephan Fuchs (2001) frames what is usually called “relationalism” as
Against Essentialism. See also (Tilly 1998, ch. 1, esp. 17–21), (Jackson and Nexon 1999,
293, 295, 300, 301, 307, 321 n. 18), (Emirbayer 1997, 282, 283, 285, 286, 292, 295
n. 34, 308). For similar arguments in processual philosophy of Biology, see (Dupré and
Nicholson 2018, 23–26), (DiFrisco 2018, 79–92).
50
(Powell 2013, 205).
51
(McCourt 2014, 36).
Epistemological relationalism holds that whatever the world “really

is,” only relational “things” (not their essences or pure substances)
are accessible to science. Relationalism may also be understood as a
methodology for understanding some aspects of the world.52 And rela-
tionalism, whether ontological, epistemological, or methodological, is
sometimes embraced as a general “theory” of the world and sometimes
as an account of (only) some parts.
Relationalism/systemism is compatible with scientific realism,53 philo-
sophical constructivism,54 and pragmatism,55 each of which can accept
52
Jackson and Nexon (1999, 292) argue that “the distinction between relationalism and
substantialism involves ontological commitments.” That, however, need not be the
case. “There is an important distinction between an analytical standpoint and an onto-
logical standpoint” (Jackson and Nexon 1999, 320–321) – and relationalism, I am argu-
ing, is sometimes employed (only) as a useful analytical standpoint.
53
Scientific realism holds that “mature sciences” produce knowledge that we have good
reason to believe more or less approximates the way the world “really is” – or at least
that over time they move in such a direction. (Chakravarty 2017) and (Lyons 2016) are
good brief introductions. (Harré 1986) is dense but wide-ranging and extraordinarily
insightful. In IR, (Wendt 1999, ch. 2), (Patomaki 2002), and (Wight 2006) are standard
discussions.
It is probably worth noting that I reject Wendt’s (1999) privileging of scientific real-
ism. Scientific realism does provide a foundation for a pluralist social science. But it is
only “a condition of possibility for the argument of the rest of the book” (Wendt 1999,
91 [emphasis added]). Philosophical constructivism and pragmatism also can assure
“that everyone gets to do what they do” by “block[ing] a priori arguments against engag-
ing in certain kinds of work” (Wendt 1999, 91).
54
Philosophical constructivism holds that knowledge is dependent on ideas, instruments,
or experience; that Reality (with a big capital Germanic or Platonic R), whatever it may
be, is not accessible to (and perhaps not entirely independent of) human beings. (Berger
and Luckmann 1967) is an influential “classic.” Short introductions include (Luhmann
2002), (Mallon 2007), and (Sveinsdóttir 2015). At book length, (Hacking 1999) is
wide-ranging and engaging. Out of the huge literature in the philosophy of science, I
find (Knorr Cetina 1981, 1999) and (Kukla 2013) especially penetrating. (Hull 1988)
is also interesting, reading science as a selection process for ideas.
The boundaries between scientific realism and philosophical constructivism, however,
are fuzzy – especially because realists accept that all scientific knowledge is theory-laden
(and instrument-dependent). For example, Ronald Giere’s “scientific perspectivism”
(Giere 2006b; Massimi and McCoy 2020), which he describes as realist, seems to me
about equal parts constructivist and realist. And John Searle’s The Construction of Social
Reality (1995) is an influential work that combines realism about (knowledge of) the
natural world and constructivism about the social world.
55
“Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing
the world as inseparable from agency within it” (Legg and Hookway 2021, 1). (James
1904, 1907) are still-useful classic introductions. John Dewey’s Experience and Nature
(1925) is a book-length overview. (Thayer 1982) is a good reader. (Kivinen and
Piiroinen 2006) directly addresses pragmatism and relationalism. In IR, see (Cochran
2001, 2002, 2012), (Kratochwil 2007a, b), (Friedrichs and Kratochwil 2009), (Pratt
2016a), (Pratt et al. 2021). There are no clear lines, though, between pragmatism and
either scientific realism or constructivism. Individual pragmatists tend to lean in either
or both directions while emphasizing the distinctively human dimensions of action in
and knowledge of the world.
systems and relations as “real” “things” “in the world” – however much
they differ in their accounts of the nature of that reality.56 But because
systems and relations are not objects of sensory experience, systemic/
relational approaches are incompatible with empiricism.57 And systems
and relations are, at best, difficult to reconcile with neo-positivism’s58
focus on independent and dependent variables.
1.6 Processes
In the philosophy of Biology, processualism is an increasingly promi-
nent systemic framing.59 “Essentially, every biologist is engaged in the
description of processes.”60 Laura Nuño de la Rosa even argues that
“following processes is a – if not the – characteristic activity of science.”61
In the social sciences, processual approaches are relatively rare.62
But processes, as we will see in §10.1, appear centrally in accounts of
56
The best-known relationalist social theorists (e.g., Pierre Bourdieu, Niklas Luhmann,
Norbert Elias, Bruno Latour) are constructivists. But Margaret Archer, a leading scientific-
realist social theorist, is a strong relationalist. (See (Archer 1982, 1995), (Donati and
Archer 2015).) And Mustafa Emirbayer, who played an important role in popularizing
relationalism in Sociology (Emirbayer 1997), draws heavily on Deweyan pragmatism.
57
Empiricism holds that justified knowledge is grounded in sensory experience. In the
decades on either side of World War II, “logical empiricism” dominated the philosophy
of science. ((Creath 2022) is a useful overview of a huge literature.) The leading version
today is Bas Van Frassen’s (1980) “constructive empiricism,” which holds that science
aims to provide true knowledge of observables (but not unobservables). (Monton and
Molder 2021) is a good overview. (Churchland and Hooker 1985) presents several sci-
entific realist critiques and van Frassen’s reply.
58
See n. 35 in §4.3.
59
(Dupré and Nicholson 2018) and (Dupré 2020) are excellent brief introductions.
Contemporary processualism, especially in the philosophy of science, is very differ-
ent from the “process philosophy” of Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead. As
Dupré and Nicholson (2018, 7) put it, “for the purposes of our present project we wish
to distance ourselves from the association with Whiteheadian metaphysics. …. In fact,
we suspect that process philosophy has not received the attention it deserves partly
because of its close association with Whitehead’s work.” (Rescher 1996, 20–23) pro-
vides a very brief overview of Whitehead’s (arcane) process metaphysics.
60
(Bapteste and Anderson 2018, 283). See also (Bechtel 2011), (Darden 2013), (Craver
and Kaiser 2013, 130).
61
(Nuño de la Rosa 2018, 264). Glennan (2017, 24) quoting (Levin 1992, 1944) claims
that “understanding patterns in terms of the processes that produce them is the essence
of science.” Mark Bickhard (2004, 122) even argues that “every science has passed
through a phase in which it considered its basic subject matter to be some sort of sub-
stance or structure. Fire was identified with phlogiston; heat with caloric; and life with
vital fluid. Every science has passed beyond that phase, recognizing its subject matter
as being some sort of process: combustion in the case of fire; random thermal motion
in the case of heat; and certain kinds of far from thermodynamic equilibrium systems in
the case of life.”
62
The classic exception that proves the rule is (Elias 2000 [1939]). Charles Tilly is the
principal recent exception. See, for example, (Tilly 1984, 1995, 2001a, 2015 [2008]).
relationalism in IR. And, I will argue, processes merit not only indepen-
dent attention but emphasis in broadly systemic/relational work.
A process, in ordinary language, is “a continuous and regular action or
succession of actions occurring or performed in a definite manner, and
having a particular result or outcome.”63 As the philosopher Nicholas
Rescher puts it, a process is “an integrated series of connected develop-
ments unfolding in programmatic coordination”;64 “a coordinated group
of changes in the complexion of reality, an organized family of occur-
rences that are systematically linked to one another either causally or
functionally.”65
Processualism in effect extends the relational critique of substantialism,
adding (and emphasizing) activities.66 Processes “do things. They are
active and so ought to be described in terms of the activities of their enti-
ties, not merely in terms of changes in their properties.”67 Such organized
productive activities are no less worthy of scientific investigation than the
attributes, actions, interactions, and relations of the entities involved.
Processualism,68 like relationalism, is regularly understood as an onto-
logical,69 an epistemological,70 and a methodological stance.
Strong ontological processualists hold that the world is “a matrix of
process.”71 “Things” are “complex bundles of coordinated processes”;72
“precipitates of processes … what abides, as certain kinds of processes
continue and develop.”73 A human being, for example, is not so much
See also (Baur and Ernst 2011), (Fararo 2011), (Demetriou 2012), (Mackenzie 2004),
(Renault 2016), (Skalník 1978), (Van Krieken 2001). Note, though, that “process trac-
ing,” as typically practiced in the social sciences (see n. 78), rather than treat processes
as objects of investigation, examines the pathways between an independent/treatment
variable and its causal effects (usually in a single case).
63
Oxford English Dictionary. In the (now rare) sense of “that which goes on or is carried
on” (Oxford English Dictionary) a process need not occur in a definite manner or have
a particular result. (Anything that occurs might, in this broader sense, be considered a
process.) In the (standard) sense that I employ, however, a process has a particular kind
of order.
64
(Rescher 2000, 22). See also (Glennan 2017, 26).
65
(Rescher 1996, 38).
66
(Jackson and Nexon 2019, 592) make a similar point in somewhat different terms.
67
(Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 5). See also (Illari and Williamson 2013, 74).
68
(Rescher 1996, 2000) are excellent, wide-ranging, and readable introductions to pro-
cess philosophy. See also (Seibt 2011) and, much more briefly, (Seibt 2017).
69
See, for example, (Austin 2020), (Bapteste and Dupré 2013), (Bickhard 2011), (Galton
2006), (Galton and Mizoguchi 2009), (Guttinger 2018), (Seibt 2018).
70
See, for example, (Mancilla Garcia, Hertz, and Schlüter 2020), (Pradeu 2018, 105),
(Rescher 2000, 8).
71
(Rescher 1996, 92).
72
(Rescher 2000, 9). See also (Rescher 1996, 46 (“clusters of actual or potential pro-
cesses”), 51 (“manifolds of process”)).
73
(Simons 2018, 55). See also (Dupré and Nicholson 2018, 13).
“a” “substantial” (or even “relational”) “thing” as a complex assem-

blage of physical, chemical, biological, psychological, sociological, and
ecological processes. And this is true all the way down to – and is par-
ticularly striking at – the lowest physical levels. “Instead of very small
things (atoms) combining to produce standard processes (windstorms
and such), modern physics envisions very small processes (quantum
phenomena) combining to produce standard things (ordinary macro-
objects) as a result of their modus operandi.”74
More modestly, Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden, and Carl Craver
argue that an ontological dualism that sees both entities and activities as
irreducibly real “capture[s] the healthy philosophical intuitions underly-
ing both substantivalist and process ontologies.”75 Processualism is also
compatible with ontological agnosticism. And one may focus on pro-
cesses simply as a fruitful tool for generating useful knowledge.
In all of its forms, though, processualism is broadly systemic in its
focus on the operation of organized “things.”
1.7 Mechanisms
Mechanisms receive special attention in the life sciences. In the social
sciences we are also seeing growing attention to mechanisms in work on
causal mechanisms,76 rationalist modeling,77 and process tracing78 and
in multimethod research designs.79
The ordinary-language sense of a mechanism as “a system of mutually
adapted parts working together in a machine or in a manner analogous to
74
(Rescher 2000, 12–13).
75
(Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 4. See also 8).
76
(Baird et al. 2019), (Beach 2013), (Bennett 2013), (Capano and Howlett 2021),
(Checkel 2006, 2015), (Falleti and Lynch 2009), (Fortna 2004), (Friedrichs
2016), (Gerring 2010), (Hedström and Ylikoski 2010), (James 2017), (Johnson and
Ahn 2017), (Kincaid 2012), (Little 2011), (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2008), (Steel
2004). Note, however, that treating “mechanisms” as intervening variables, which is
common in causal inference research designs (e.g., Mahoney 2001, 578, citing half a
dozen examples; Beach 2013, 13, citing half a dozen examples; Morgan and Winship
2015, 224; Goertz 2017, 31), strips the mechanism out of “mechanisms.” See §§4.3–4.5.
77
See, for example, (Abell 2011), (Boudon 1998), (Demeulenaere 2011), (Hedström
and Bearman 2009a). Rationalist “mechanisms,” though, usually are “as if” models
that provide, at best, “how possibly” (not “how actually”) explanations. They do not
attempt to identify and understand the productive processes that in fact produce results
in the world – which are the focus of work on mechanisms in the natural sciences.
78
(Beach and Pedersen 2019), (Bengtsson and Ruonavaara 2017), (Bennett 2010),
(Bennett and Checkel 2015a), (Collier 2011), (Hall 2013), (Kay and Baker 2015),
(Mahoney 2012, 2016), (Saylor 2020), (Waldner 2012), (Zaks 2016). But cf. n. 62.
79
(Beach 2020), (Goemans and Spaniel 2016), (Goertz 2017), (Hesse-Biber and Johnson
2015), (Seawright 2016, 2021), (Stolz 2016).
that of a machine” or “an ordered sequence of events involved in a bio-

logical, chemical or physical process”80 is also standard in the philosophy
of Biology, especially “the new mechanical philosophy.”81 Machamer,
Darden, and Craver in their seminal article “Thinking about Mecha-
nisms” define mechanisms as “entities and activities organized such that
they are productive of regular changes from start or set-up to finish or
termination conditions.”82 William Bechtel and Adele Abrahamsen sim-
ilarly define a mechanism as “a structure performing a function in virtue
of its component parts, component operations, and their organization.”83
Entities and activities are the interdependent elements of mecha-
nisms.84 Organization into productive processes makes elements parts of
mechanical wholes.85 What mechanisms “do” is produce particular phe-
nomena. (“Mechanisms are always ‘for’ something, and they are identi-
fied by what they are for.”86) The “doing” is central to the mechanism.87
And the essence of mechanismic88 research is discovering such produc-
tive processes and explicating their operation.
Mechanisms are “composite hierarchical systems”89 in which “higher-
level entities and activities are … essential to the intelligibility of those
at lower levels, just as much as those at lower levels are essential for
80
Oxford English Dictionary.
81
(Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000) was seminal. (It is widely cited not only in the
philosophy of Biology but also in the social sciences. See, for example, (Hedström and
Bearman 2009b, 4), (Waldner 2012, 72), (Morgan and Winship 2015, 238–239), (Stolz
2016, 258–259), (Beach and Pedersen 2019, 3, 30, 31, 38, 69, 70).) Excellent over-
views include (Glennan 2017), (Glennan and Illari 2018), and, more briefly, (Craver
and Tabery 2019). The label underscores the rejection of early modern mechanical
philosophies (e.g., Hobbes, Descartes, Newton, Laplace). (Glennan 2017, 5–11) briefly
distinguishes “new” and “old” mechanical thinking.
82
(Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 3).
83
(Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2005, 423). See also (Bechtel 2016, 705–706), (Darden
2008, 965, table 1), (Glennan 2017, 1, 17, 19–20, 66), (Illari and Williamson 2012,
123), (Illari and Russo 2014, 134), (Love 2020, §1.3), (Povich and Craver 2017, 107–
111), (Steel 2008, 40–42).
84
(Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 3), (Machamer 2004, 28–30, 32–34), (Darden
2008, 961–964), (Illari and Williamson 2012, 125), (Glennan 2017, 20–22, 29–36).
85
(Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 3), (Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2005, 430),
(Illari and Williamson 2012, 127), (Bechtel 2016, 719), (Glennan 2017, 23).
86
(Glennan 2016, 789). See also (Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 5), (Illari and
Williamson 2012, 130). On the functional nature of mechanisms, see (Craver 2001),
(Craver and Darden 2013, 23–24), (Garson 2019, ch. 10), (Machamer, Darden, and
Craver 2000, 6).
87
(Machamer 2004), (Illari and Williamson 2013). See also §10.1.
88
I use “mechanismic,” following Bunge (1997, esp. 462), to underscore that “one should
not think of mechanisms as exclusively mechanical (push–pull) systems” (Machamer,
Darden, and Craver 2000, 2).
89
(Wright and Bechtel 2007, 45. See also 54–61). On levels of mechanisms, see (Kuorikoski
2009), (Glennan 2010), (Ylikoski 2012), (Craver and Darden 2013, 21–25).
understanding those at higher levels. It is the integration of different levels

into productive relations that renders the phenomenon intelligible and thereby
explains it.”90
“Mechanisms” and “processes” have very similar definitions and often
are used interchangeably, both in ordinary language and in professional
jargon. When carefully distinguished, one usually is taken as broader
than the other. I am inclined to say that all mechanisms are processes
but not all processes are sufficiently organized to be considered mecha-
nisms. Charles Tilly, however, argues, no less plausibly, that “mecha-
nisms compound into processes.”91
The key point, though, is that structured productive activities – mech-
anisms and processes – are modular,92 multilevel, and extend across time.
They therefore need to be studied with attention to their organization
and operation.
1.8 Assemblages
Assemblages are a type of system of special interest for the social sciences.
In assemblages, parts are related extrinsically, in the sense that they
retain a certain separateness or separability.93 For example, an archaeo-
logical assemblage (“an associated set of contemporary artefacts that can
be considered as a single unit”94) is the product of “extrinsic” “logics”
of deposition, preservation, excavation, and analysis. The assembled
whole has properties and meanings distinct from those of its constitu-
ent elements. The elements, however, although transformed by their
assembly, retain some separate identity (or at least a potential to be re-
divided or re-assembled). They are more or less tightly linked into a still-
heterogeneous entity.
The parts of a living organism, by contrast, are intrinsically related
to – fundamentally inseparable from – the whole. A human heart, for
90
(Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 23 [emphasis added]).
91
(Tilly 2010, 56). See also (Tilly 2001a, 25–26).
92
I am not sneaking in a new element here. Modularity is implicit in and central to both
processes and mechanisms. On the importance of modularity in complex systems, see
§2.3.5.
93
(DeLanda 2016, 2, 10, 11–12). This conception derives from “assemblage theory,”
based on (Deleuze and Guattari 1987 [1980], ch. 3, 4), as developed in (DeLanda 2016,
2006). See also (Buchanan 2020) and, coming to assemblage through the arts, (Brown
2020). IR applications of varied assemblage frames include (Puar 2017 [2007]), (Sassen
2008 [2006]), (Abrahamsen and Williams 2009), (Acuto and Curtis 2014), (Schouten
2014), (Bachmann, Bell, and Holmqvist 2015), (Dittmer 2015), (Wilcox 2015, ch. 4,
5), (Bueger 2018), (Collier 2018), (Fisher 2018), (Carter and Harris 2020), (Fox and
Alldred 2020), (Savage 2020), (Ankersen 2021), (Hope 2021). See also §10.5.
94
example, can be a part of only one kind of whole.95 It is a human heart;

a particular kind of part of a particular kind of whole.
“No [assembled] object is a seamless whole that fully absorbs its com-
ponents.”96 An assemblage is both a multiplicity and a unity. Niklas
Luhmann’s description of a system as a unitas multiplex97 is especially apt
for assemblages.
An assemblage perspective highlights the simultaneous irreducibility
and inseparability of individuals and social groups; their dialectical or
recursive relationship. Social groups, as systems, are not reducible to
their individual parts. But as assemblages they do not reduce individuals
to parts of social wholes. For example, a family is “more than” the sum
of its members. Family members, however, are also “more than” just
parts of a family.
Because there are irreducible phenomena at all levels, one might say
that most of the things of the world are assemblages. (This is indeed the
view of some advocates of “assemblage theory.”98) I think, though, that
(except when speaking of ontology) it is more profitable to use the term
only when we want to draw attention to the act or fact of assembly, the
possibility of re-division or re-assembly, or the presence of one entity in
multiple assemblages – all three of which are often important in thinking
about social groups and the social world more broadly.
1.9 Treating International Systems as Systems

This book emphasizes the need to study systems as systems; relational
wholes with important features that cannot be explained solely in terms
of their parts. I begin to sketch what that implies in the remaining chap-
ters of this Part. In Part II I show that, superficial appearances to the
contrary, the predominant “systemic” approach in IR (Waltzian struc-
turalism) is in fact thoroughly analytic. Part III then suggests some pos-
sible paths forward toward truly systemic/relational theory and research
in IR.
In making these arguments, I recurrently draw parallels with Biology,
which has undergone a systemic/relational transformation over the past
quarter century. “Twenty-first-century biology is fundamentally differ-
ent from twentieth-century biology. It is a biology of relationships rather
than entities.”99 This book aims to push IR in a similar direction.
95
Although not strictly true – imagine a collage of preserved hearts (which, not coinciden-
tally, is an assemblage) – this is close enough for our purposes here.
96
(Harman 2010, 172).
97
(Luhmann 1990b, 409–410, 418–419; 1995 [1984], 18).
98
See, for example, (DeLanda 2016).
99
(Gilbert 2018, 123).
1.10 Postscript: Waltz and Jervis on Systems

Isn’t this old hat in IR? Haven’t we understood the distinctive nature of
systems and systemic explanation at least since Waltz’s Theory of Inter-
national Politics?
In a certain sense, yes. But, more fundamentally, no.
Even if we accept Waltzian international political theory as genuinely
systemic, which I argue in Chapter 5 it is not, its narrow two-variable
structuralism differs fundamentally from systems approaches in the nat-
ural sciences – which I will argue have much to teach us about studying
the social world. Waltzian structuralism has also obscured the systemic
character of relational approaches – which, I am arguing, are likely to
prove especially fruitful if understood in broadly systemic terms.
Jervis’ Systems Effects moved the discussion in IR forward by introduc-
ing a complexity perspective.100 His work, however, proved not to be
transformative because, as we will see in Chapters 3 and 4, he retained
Waltz’s levels of analysis (rather than levels of organization) approach
and was inclined toward variable-based social science (which is funda-
mentally incompatible with the systemic/relational explanations based
on the organization and operating of complex wholes).
Furthermore, Jervis’ work did not encourage – and through treating
Waltz as a model of systems thinking discouraged – seeing the deep and
promising connections between relational and systemic approaches.
Elaborating those connections, as I have begun to do in this chapter,
seems to me a major justification for this book.
In other words, although I have similar starting points as Waltz and
Jervis, I try to push systems approaches in different directions. And I am
doing this in what seems to me a more conducive disciplinary environ-
ment, given the rise of network, field, and mechanism approaches and
the spread of more sophisticated and open-textured views of science.
Third time’s the charm?101
100
I am effectively treating Waltz as the culmination of the first wave of systems theories
in IR, bracketed at the front end by (Kaplan 1957). (See also n. 30 above.) This phase
was rooted in a cybernetic approach to systems, which emphasizes “control and com-
munication in machines and in living organisms” (Wiener 1948, 14). (Ashby 1956)
and (Wiener 1961) are classic works in cybernetics that Waltz explicitly notes (1979,
40 n. *) as influences. Although Waltz (1979, 12) does mention Warren Weaver’s
(1948) “organized complexity,” which is an early precursor of contemporary concep-
tions of complexity, I show in Part II that Waltz was not really interested in complexity.
Jervis’ Systems Effects, taking advantage of the transformation of systems science in the
late 1970s and 1980s (the Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984) moved IR away
from cybernetics toward complex adaptive systems (see §2.3.4) – but, I argue below,
not far enough in that direction.
101
I say this fully aware that I am nowhere near the caliber of scholar of Waltz or Jervis.
I do, however, claim to have some important things to say about systems and how to
study them in IR that push the conversation in new directions.
2 Complex Adaptive Systems
This chapter addresses three interrelated features of systems: complexity,

emergence, and the partial (in)separability of systems and their compo-
nents. Together they suggest an understanding of living and social sys-
tems as multilevel multicomponent complex adaptive systems. The final
section highlights some differences that a systemic/relational approach
makes for IR.
2.1 The Partial (In)separability of Systems

and Their Components
Systems cannot be fully explained in terms of the elements that compose
them. The components of a system, however, cannot be fully explained
by the whole of which they are a part. Systemic/relational approaches
thus on the one hand reject strong forms of both reductionism and
holism but on the other hand support weak forms of both.1 Systems and
their components are partially (in)separable.
2.1.1 Analysis, Reduction, Decomposition

Analytic explanations, which explain the whole in terms of its parts con-
sidered separately,2 are often described as reductive. Higher-level phe-
nomena are accounted for by (and thus epistemically “reducible to”)
lower-level phenomena.
Reduction, however, can be either partial or complete.
Systemic/relational approaches not only acknowledge that some fea-
tures of a system can be explained by its elements but emphasize that
certain characteristics of a system’s elements are essential to its struc-
ture and functioning. An ant colony can only be composed of ants (of a
1
See also (Bechtel 2017c), (Kaiser 2015), (Povich and Craver 2017), (Rosenberg 2007;
2020). For a similar view in the philosophy of Physics, see (Palacios 2022).
2
See §1.2.
20
particular species). Different kinds of “units” will behave differently in

“the same” anarchic international system.
Systemic/relational approaches, however, do reject complete or elimi-
native reduction,3 which corresponds to the ordinary-language sense of
“describing or explaining a complex (esp. mental, social, or biological)
phenomenon in terms of relatively simple or fundamental concepts,
especially when this is said to provide a sufficient description or explana-
tion.”4 In eliminatively reducible wholes, “higher-level properties of a
system are determined by its lower-level properties.”5 “Societies are said
to have their social properties solely in virtue of the psychological prop-
erties possessed by individuals; individuals have psychological properties
solely in virtue of their having various biological properties; organisms
have biological properties ….”6
In eliminatively reducible wholes, “facts about composite entities are
implicitly included in facts about the atoms, together with facts about
the rules of composition.”7 Therefore, “there is nothing essentially new
about the composite entities.”8
An eliminatively reductive vision of the unity of science (in the sin-
gular), which was popular in the twentieth century,9 still has adherents.
It is conceivable that significant parts of Chemistry will be reduced
to Physics within the working lives of recent PhD graduates.10 But
reductionist programs in Cellular Biology and Evolutionary Biology,
inspired by the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, decisively
failed in the 1980s and 1990s.11 And in the life sciences and social
3
(Wimsatt 2007, 168–171, 195, 202–204, 241–242, 249–255, 274–277). See also (Ilardi
and Feldman 2001), (Kim 2008, 93–94), (Elder-Vass 2014), (Sharp and Miller 2019,
23, 25).
4
5
(Sober 1999, 544).
6
(Sober 1999, 544). In principle, eliminative reduction might stop at any level. (For
example, life might be reducible to Chemistry, which is not reducible to Physics.) In
practice, however, eliminative reduction is usually a program of reduction to Physics.
(Once one level is eliminated it is hard to stop there.)
7
(Humphreys 2016, 4).
8
9
See, for example, (Carnap 2013 [1934]), (Oppenheim and Putnam 1958). See also
(Cat 2017, §1.4), (Creath 2022, §4.3), (Symons, Pombo, and Torres 2011).
10
Michael Weisberg, Paul Needham, and Robin Hendry (2019, §7.3) note in a recent
overview of the philosophy of Chemistry that “while exact solutions to the quantum
mechanical descriptions of chemical phenomena have not been achieved, advances in
theoretical physics, applied mathematics, and computation have made it possible to
calculate the chemical properties of many molecules very accurately and with few ideal-
izations.” For contrasting arguments on the reduction of Chemistry, see, for example,
(Le Poidevin 2005) and (Hendry and Needham 2007). See also (Bunge 1982), (Drago
2020), (Hendry 2012), (Hettema 2015), (Ruthenberg and Mets 2020), (Scerri 2007).
11
See §§13.1.1, 13.3.
sciences today, nothing close to eliminative reduction is being practi-

cally pursued.
Furthermore, there is often less than first meets the eye in eliminative
reductionist arguments. For example, E. O. Wilson claims that “nature
is organized by simple universal laws of physics to which all other laws
and principles can eventually be reduced.”12 But in addition to admit-
ting that this “could be wrong,”13 Wilson goes on to note that “at each
level of organization, especially at the living cell and above, phenomena
exist that require new laws and principles, which still cannot be pre-
dicted from those at more general levels.”14 Eliminative reduction, in
other words, is a philosophical doctrine that has little relevance to most
theory and research on living and social systems.
For the foreseeable future, nearly every phenomenon that is widely
investigated in IR will have a systems-effect explanation that is of both
epistemic and pragmatic interest.15 I thus suggest that in IR, as in Biol-
ogy, we start from the presumption that a system “has some properties
that are emergent [irreducible] and others that are not.”16 Therefore,
some “reductions” – or, better, decompositions17 – will be more fruitful
than others. But we cannot know what will work until we try.
Decompositions that “cut up nature at its joints,”18 identifying more
or less modular elements of systems,19 are likely to be especially valuable.
But what those joints are depends in part on what you are looking for.
As Wimsatt colorfully puts it, the difference between a biophysicist and
a biologist is that only the former is interested in the decompositions that
result from running a frog through a blender.20
12
(Wilson 1998, 60).
13
(Wilson 1998, 60).
14
(Wilson 1998, 60).
15
This claim should be read as a challenge to advocates of eliminative reduction in IR to
point to just a handful of such explanations. I am unaware, though, of a single example
that comes even close. Therefore, partial reductive explanations, although often fruitful
foundations for entire careers, research programs, and sub-fields, merit no epistemic
or methodological privilege (as they might if they could be read as steps on a path to
eliminative reduction).
16
(Wimsatt 2007, 174).
17
At the risk of being overly fastidious, I suggest talking of decomposing complex systems
but disaggregating other kinds of entities. And I try to avoid the language of reduc-
tion, both because it is often unclear whether eliminative or non-eliminative reduction
is meant and because “reduction” in IR it often associated with Waltz’s idiosyncratic
account (see §5.4).
18
The idea goes back at least to Plato, Phaedrus 265d–266a.
19
See §2.3.4.
20
(Wimsatt 2007, 174–175). John Miller and Scott Page (2007, 233) use a frog in a
blender to illustrate the difference between reduction and emergence. “If you put a frog
in a blender and turn it on, there is only a macabre interest in the resulting chemical
soup [unless you are a chemist]. If, however, you start with a chemical soup and run the
What we can know about systems through knowledge of their parts is

an empirical, not a theoretical, question – except for the fact that some
features of complex systems cannot be understood analytically. Sys-
temic approaches in the social sciences only (but essentially) reject the
ontological or epistemic claim that social phenomena are fully reducible
to attributes and actions of individual human beings (as in Margaret
Thatcher’s notorious quip that there’s no such thing as society).
Systemic approaches, however, leave space for what I suggest we call
strong (but not radical) reductionist programs, which aim to show that
much of what is “most important” can be explained reductively. In other
words, systems approaches treat the range of reductive explanations as
an empirical question – as ought to be the case in a scientific discipline.21
2.1.2 The (Limited) Holism of Systemic Wholes

Systemic approaches similarly both are and are not “holist.”
Strong holists in the social sciences argue that “holist explanations
alone should be offered.”22 This is effectively eliminative upward reduc-
tionism. Systems approaches instead claim only that, because there are
irreducible phenomena at all levels of organization, full explanations of
systems must include emergent systems effects.23
Contemporary systems approaches also oppose what Mario Bunge
describes as “the obsolete holism of Hegel, Comte, Marx, Durkheim, or
Parsons,” which postulates “imaginary collective entities such as collec-
tive memory, national spirit, and nations that allegedly hover above indi-
viduals.”24 Vitalism in early twentieth-century Biology, which explained
life in terms of a non-material substance or force, falls in the same gen-
eral category.25
Contemporary systems theories, in other words, are fully naturalistic.
They reject any suggestion that social, psychological, or biological systems
blender backward, and out of the froth pops a fully formed frog, then something rather
different has happened.” But that can’t happen because such a soup is not (and cannot
be) organized in a way that can make (or become) a frog.
21
See also §2.2.2.
22
(Zahle 2016, §1 [emphasis added]). Durkheim’s “social facts” (2013 [1895]), esp. ch.
1, 2, 5) is a classic example.
23
This is a particular version of what Zahle (2016, §1) calls moderate holism.
24
(Bunge 2000, 147). Although I repeatedly refer to Bunge, who has an insightful concep-
tion of systems and often clearly expresses standard understandings in the natural and
social sciences, I do not adopt all of his (sometimes idiosyncratic) views on ontology and
methodology. In other words, I regularly appropriate Bunge for my purposes but do not
present a Bungean account.
25
See, for example, (Allen and Starr 2017), (Nicholson and Gawne 2015), (Normandin
and Wolfe 2013).
are in any way outside the world of matter-energy that is addressed by

Physics and Chemistry.26
There are, however, different styles of systemic research. What we
might call weak systemism recognizes the importance of systems effects
but focuses principally on parts and tends to work bottom-up. Strong
systemism emphasizes complexly structured wholes and gives significant
attention to top-down (or middle-out) explanations. These differing ori-
entations emphasize, respectively, the partial separability and the ulti-
mate inseparability of systems and their components.
I have thus identified five broad ranges of positions on a reductionism–
holism continuum: eliminative reductionism, strong reductionism, weak
systemism, strong systemism, and eliminative holism. “Systemism” is
compatible with the middle three perspectives. And, by emphasizing the
power of both (partial) reductionist and (partial) holist explanations –
that is, the power of systemic/relational explanations – I have begun to
lay the foundations for an argument for explanatory pluralism, which
will be the focus of Chapter 4.
2.1.3 States and States Systems

States systems and states nicely illustrate the partial (in)separability of
systems and their components.
Reductive holistic arguments are rarely encountered in IR today. “The
problem,” from a systemic perspective, is reductive individualism, as in
extreme versions of rational choice theory. Anti-individualist arguments,
however, do sometimes slide into separating international systems from
their parts and giving systems/relations priority.
For example, Patrick Jackson and Daniel Nexon, in their classic article
“Relations before States,”27 rightly reject Waltz’s argument28 that states
precede states systems. But they argue that states systems precede states;
that “the balance-of-power regime antedates the units that engage in the
balancing”29 and, more generally, that “relations precede (in a logical,
if not always in a temporal, sense) the very existence of the units doing
the relating.”30
26
On naturalism thus understood, see (Papineau 2020), (Giere 2006a, 2014) and, in IR,
(Wight 2006, 15–17ff.). Any non-naturalistic phenomena that may exist in the social
world have no special connection with (social) systems.
27
(Jackson and Nexon 1999).
28
See n. 60 in §5.6. See also §9.5 at n. 84.
29
(Waltz 1986, 337–338).
30
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 310). Similarly, David Blaney and Tamara Trownsell (2021,
54) assume that “interconnection [i]s prior to the existence of entities.”
Logically, however, a relation requires relata. A relation is “a

connection, correspondence, or contrast between different things; a par-
ticular way in which one thing or idea is connected or associated with
another or others.”31 You can’t connect or arrange (relate) nothing.32 And
logical precedence is an oddly analytical framing, forcing a separation of
relations and relata with no attention to how that might be possible in the
world (which, I am arguing, it is not).
Empirically, the modern balance of power regime did not precede
modern states. (I can’t even imagine what it would mean to have a bal-
ance of power system without powers that tend to form balances.) Across
the late-medieval and early modern periods, a changing international
system reshaped changing polities that reshaped a changing international
system ….33 Whether we date “the modern states system” to, say, 1559,
1648, 1713, 1756/1763, or 1792/1803/1815, it is no more true to say
that it pre-existed its member polities than to say that it was created by
pre-existing polities. Or, if either of these claims is true, both are – mak-
ing them (separately) uninteresting.
Neither “comes first.” States systems are neither reducible to the states
that compose them nor separate from (let alone prior to) them. They are
the wholes of which states are parts.
A systemic perspective sees not separate states and a separate states
system but a social configuration of states-in-a-states-system. This con-
figuration is partly decomposable. But states systems and their component
states are also ultimately inseparable.
No states without a states system – and no states system without states.
No relations without relata – and no relata that are not related. No whole
without parts – and no parts without the wholes of which they are part.
Comprehensive explanations of assembled social systems must address
both the ways that wholes are more than the sum of their parts and
the ways that parts are more than parts of a whole. Systemic/relational
explanations, however, focus on the partial (in)separability of wholes and
parts.
International systems, I am arguing, are systems. Therefore, some
important part of IR must address both international systems as systems
and international actors as parts of a system. And, as I noted at the end of
§1.2, a great attraction of systemic approaches is that (because neither
31
Oxford English Dictionary [emphasis added].
32
The abstract idea of relation may “logically precede” particular related things. It does
not, however, precede the abstract idea of relata. And no particular relation “logically
precedes” the “things” that it relates.
33
See Chapter 17.
whole nor parts are fully reducible to the other) they require investigating
the causal powers of both higher-level and lower-level entities, activities,
and forces.
2.2 Emergence
Irreducible systems effects are regularly described as emergent.34 Here
too, though, we need to be careful and clear about what we mean by the
term.
2.2.1 Non-aggregativity
Although there is no agreed-upon definition of emergence,35 most
accounts converge on the idea of “much coming from little;”36 that a
systemic whole is “more than” – or, better, different from37 – the sum of
its parts. Emergent phenomena are “properties of the system that … are
collective outcomes of the whole system and have to be understood at
the system level rather than at the individual level.”38 For example, indi-
vidual water molecules are not wet. “Wetness emerges from the interac-
tions of the constituent molecules.”39
Consciousness and life are classic examples. Musical chords, traffic
jams, and pixelated pictures are more mundane but no-less-arresting.
Balances in states systems is a well-known example in IR.
Waterfalls and thunderstorms are not at all like (or predictable from)
the elements that compose them. Phase transitions – for example, solid,
liquid, gas – involve the identical “stuff” arranged in different ways.40
34
(Humphreys 2016) is a thorough philosophical study of emergence. (Jervis 1997, 12–17)
cites much of the classic literature. Other useful discussions include (Anjum and Mumford
2017), (Bechtel and Richardson 1992), (Bedau 1997), (Boogerd et al. 2005), (Bunge
2003, ch. 1–3, 5), (Campbell and Bickhard 2011), (Craver 2015), (Holland 1998; 2014,
ch. 6), (Luisi 2016, ch. 9), (Miller and Page 2007, ch. 4), (Moreno and Mossio 2015,
ch. 2), (Sawyer 2005), (Sears 2017). (Bedau and Humphreys 2008) is a useful reader.
(Hodgson 2000) addresses the history of ideas of emergence in the social sciences.
35
(Holland 1998, 3), (Humphreys 2016, xvii–xviii, 26), (Miller and Page 2007, 44).
36
(Holland 1998, 1, 2).
37
I follow Jervis (1997, 12–13) in drawing this distinction, both for conceptual clarity –
not only are “more” and “less” not very clear notions in this context but a whole can be
less than the sum of its parts (as in a poorly assembled or badly managed soccer team) –
and to emphasize that systems accounts do not (see §2.1.2 at n. 26) appeal to any exotic
kind of substance or force (which some might inappropriately take to be an implication
of “more than”).
38
(Guisasola, §1.3).
39
(Holland 2014, 49).
40
(Solé 2011) is a wide-ranging introduction (for those willing to take on a little bit of
math), addressing both biological and social systems.
Rayleigh–Bénard convection, in which a heated fluid develops a regular

pattern of cells, is a physical analogue to flocks of birds, schools of fish,
and oscillations of firefly flashes. Consider also ant colonies and bee-
hives. In the social sciences, Thomas Schelling’s model of residential
racial segregation arising from individual decisions that have nothing to
do with race or prejudice41 is a standard example. The material world
itself may be an emergent phenomenon. As Nicholas Rescher puts it,
“modern physics envisions very small processes (quantum phenomena)
combining in their modus operandi to produce standard things (ordinary
macro objects).”42
Emergent features are characteristic of “integrated functional
wholes.”43 “Emergence indicates dependence of a system property upon
the mode of organization of parts of that system.”44 And attributions of
emergence “have a logical form that is relational.”45
Those who find the language of emergence too mysterious (or impre-
cise) may prefer Wimsatt’s formulation of non-aggregativity,46 which
draws on the contrast between (complex) systems and (mere) aggre-
gates.47 “Aggregation can produce different values of a property already
possessed by the constituents” but not different properties.48 An aggre-
gate is the sum of its parts (and their interactions). Wimsatt thus defines
a property as “aggregative” when it does not vary if you rearrange the
parts, change their scale, or decompose and reaggregate them – and then
treats “emergence” as non-aggregativity.
However we frame it, though, almost everything in the (physical, liv-
ing, and social) world has some properties that are, at “their own” level
of organization, emergent/non-aggregative. Therefore, I think it worth
emphasizing that there is nothing occult or odd about emergence. Emer-
gence is a pervasive feature of the world addressed not only in Biology,
Psychology, and the social sciences but in Physics and Chemistry as well.
2.2.2 Dense Interconnections Require Systemic Explanations

(Ir)reducibility is epistemic not ontological; a matter of explaining higher-
level phenomena by lower-level phenomena. “The explanatory gap”
41
(Schelling 1978, ch. 4).
42
(Rescher 1996, 98).
43
(Wimsatt 2007, 281). See also (Humphreys 2016, 26, 5).
44
(Wimsatt 2007, 174. See also 276).
45
46
(Wimsatt 2007, 168–171, 195, 202–204, 241–242, 249–255, 274–277). See also
(Mitchell 2012, 179).
47
See, for example, (Humphreys 2016, 35), (Bunge 1979, 3–5).
48
between a system and its components, however, may reflect “a knowl-

edge gap that might be bridged in the indefinite future.”49 Paul Hum-
phreys thus usefully distinguishes three types of emergence.
• Ontological emergents are “objective features of the world.”50
• Inferential emergence arises from “limited abilities to make predic-
tions”51 or “lack of derivability.”52
• Conceptual or methodological emergence employs “novel theoretical and
linguistic representations to represent features that are not efficiently
describable in the vocabularies of other domains or that allow for more
effective predictions.”53
Social scientists rarely can determine how much of the irreducibility that
they observe reflects their limited knowledge. This uncertainty, I think,
explains why Robert Jervis, although arguing that “interconnections and
emergent properties define systems,”54 develops an account of systems
effects in which “emergent properties are less central … than is ‘inter-
connectedness’.”55 In IR, complicated interconnections regularly defeat
analytic explanations even where we might doubt that the phenomena
are ontologically emergent.
“When the interconnections are dense, it may be difficult to trace the
impact of any change even after the fact, let alone predict it ahead of
time.”56 In fact, “when elements interact it [may be] difficult to appor-
tion responsibility among them as the extent and even the direction of
the impact depends on the status of the others.”57 This is particularly
true when, as is often the case in international relations, “the fates of
the units and their relations with others are strongly influenced by inter-
actions at other places and at earlier periods of time.”58 Complicated
situations59 often demand, in Humphreys’ terms, explanatory strategies
employing inferential or methodological emergence.
Furthermore, “a system property may be aggregative for some decom-
positions but not for others.”60 For example, a garbage dump is from
49
(Humphreys 2016, xvi).
50
51
52
53
(Humphreys 2016, 38–39).
54
(Jervis 1997, 28. See also 6).
55
(Jervis 1997, 17). Jervis was also led in this direction, I think, by his leaning toward
independent-variable social science. See §§4.3–4.6.
56
(Jervis 1997, 17).
57
(Jervis 1997, 40).
58
(Jervis 1997, 17. See also 48).
59
On the systems theory distinction between complicated and complex see n. 64.
60
(Wimsatt 2007, 286).
one perspective a model of an aggregate. But the fact that it emergently

produces methane may be of central importance to its managers and
neighbors.
Despite all these qualifications, though, it remains crucial to empha-
size that systems can only be fully explained non-aggregatively. And in
IR, reductive explanations leave much unexplained – and many things
mis-explained.
2.3 Complexity
Biological and social systems are, as Sandra Mitchell nicely puts it, “mul-
tilevel, multicomponent, complex systems.”61 Complexity62 involves
multiple components on multiple levels organized and operating in ways
that produce emergent phenomena.
2.3.1 Complex, Complicated, and Aggregated

Scientific uses of “complex” build on the ordinary-language sense of
“consisting of or comprehending various parts united or connected
together; formed by combination of different elements.”63 In ordinary
language, though, “complex” and “complicated” usually are not sharply
differentiated. And both are regularly contrasted to “simple.”
In discussing systems, however, the opposite of “complex,” as we have
seen, is “aggregated.” And both aggregated and complex entities may be
more or less “complicated” or “simple.”64
For clarity, I will use “complicated” as a relative term, contrasted to
simple, that applies to anything. “Complex,” however, I try to use as a
binary term that applies only to systems. Although in ordinary language
we do talk about things being more or less complex, that sense usually is
61
(Mitchell 2003, 115. See also 10, 147, 156, 161).
62
(Holland 2014), (Miller 2015), (Miller and Page 2007), and (Ladyman and Wiesner
2020) are useful general introductions to complexity science. More briefly, see (Walby
2007). (Thurner, Hanel, and Klimek 2018) is useful for those willing to take on
some math. In IR, (Jervis 1997) is the classic application. (Snyder and Jervis 1993)
and (Harrison 2006) are still-useful edited volumes. See also (Bousquet and Curtis
2011), (Byrne and Callaghan 2014), (Cudworth and Hobden 2013), (Gadinger and
Peters 2016), (Gunitsky 2013), (Kavalski 2007), (Orsini et al. 2020), (Pickering 2019),
(Scartozzi 2018), (Wagner 2016), (Walby 2009), (Young 2017).
63
64
(Holland 2014, 3–5) is a good brief discussion of the complex–complicated distinction,
which he notes (2014, 3) is clear “at the extremes but there is a middle-ground where
the distinction becomes unclear and arbitrary.” See also (Miller and Page 2007, 9–10,
27–29), (Grabowski and Strzalka 2008), (Glouberman and Zimmerman 2012), (Poli
2013).
well captured by complicated65 – which allows us to use “complex” only

in reference to systems with emergent properties. As John Holland, one
of the pioneers of complexity science, puts it “emergent behavior is an
essential requirement for calling a system ‘complex’.”66
Although there is no standard definition of complexity – one account
in the mid-1990s identified between 30 and 45 definitions67 – Mitch-
ell notes that this “reflects not confusion on the part of scientists but
the actual variety of ways that systems are complex.”68 And the various
dimensions commonly identified do combine into a broadly coherent
account.
James Ladyman and Karoline Wiesner emphasize self-organization,
non-linearity, robustness, nesting and modularity, and adaptation.69
Santiago Guisasola, in the Santa Fe Institute’s online course Introduc-
tion to Complexity, presents complex systems as composed of relatively
simple parts that interact non-linearly, in the absence of central control,
to produce emergent hierarchical organization, information processing,
complex dynamics, and evolution and learning.70 John Miller and Scott
Page associate complexity with “heterogeneity, adaptation, local interac-
tions, feedback, and externalities.”71
The remainder of this section looks briefly at four features of com-
plex systems – non-linearity, self-organization, adaptation, and mod-
ularity – leading to the formulation that living and social systems are
self-organizing complex adaptive systems.
2.3.2 Non-linearity
Complex systems are non-linear. (Because results are not additive, plot-
ting values does not produce a straight line.) “The same change” has
different effects at different times or in different circumstances.
Feedback is at the heart of most non-linearities. Positive feedback rein-
forces change (as in a hurricane growing as it moves over warm water).
65
I do, however, find myself wanting to say “more complex” of a system with more dimen-
sions of complexity.
66
(Holland 2014, 6. See also 4, 85; 2012, 113).
67
See (Mitchell 2003, 4).
68
(Mitchell 2003, 4). In other words, “complex” is a residual (whatever is not aggre-
gated) and thus contains many different kinds of things (that are not aggregative). That
something is complex is an important piece of information. How it is complex, though,
usually will be much more important.
69
(Ladyman and Wiesner 2020, 65–66, 76–83). See also (Ladyman, Lambert, and
Wiesner 2013).
70
(Guisasola, §1.3).
71
(Miller and Page 2007, 232). See also (Thurner, Hanel, and Klimek 2018, §1.5),
(Pickel 2011, 9).
Negative feedback damps an intervention (as in the regulation of blood

sugar levels in the human body). In either case, the impact of adding a
unit of something depends on the state of the system at the time of the
intervention (or the system’s subsequent operation).
Familiar non-linearities include tipping points (e.g., the straw that
broke the camel’s back), critical masses (e.g., for initiating nuclear chain
reactions), and phase transitions (e.g., water remains liquid right up to
the point that it turns to steam), as well as path dependence (responses
depend on how the system reached its current state) and interaction
effects (an input’s effect varies when it operates in the presence of some
other “thing”). Many complex systems are chaotic, in the mathematical
sense of extreme dependence on initial conditions, which makes even an
entirely deterministic system unpredictable.72 (The classic example is a
butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil causing a tornado in Texas.73) Cata-
lysts, which alter reaction rates, create non-linearities across large parts
of the chemical world. Diminishing returns is a familiar example from
Economics. Public policy interventions undertaken separately often pro-
duce less impact than their proportion in a set of coordinated interven-
tions (e.g., free meals, preschool, and access to social workers and health
care in the schools) or have different impacts in different places (because
of how they interact with other factors that either enhance or undermine
the intended effects of the intervention).
2.3.3 Self-Organization
Complex systems are self-organized;74 “produced by the system’s own
operations.”75 This may sound, as my twelve-year-old son might put it,
“super spooky.” Self-organization, however, was the basis of the work
that earned Ilya Prigogine the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977. And
self-organization is a pervasive feature of the living and social worlds.
In all living systems and most social systems – but not in complex
mechanical systems such as clocks and automobiles – “‘order’ at a higher
72
(Gleick 2008 [1987]) is the classic “popular science” introduction. See also (Feldman
2019), (Kiel and Elliott 1996), (Lorenz 1995), (Prigogine and Stengers 1984). Much
more technically, see (Skiadas and Skiadas 2017).
73
(Lorenz 1972), based on (Lorenz 1963), was the initial formulation of what soon came
to be called the butterfly effect.
74
(Kauffman 1995) is probably the most useful place to begin reading on self-
organization. See also (Eigen 1971), (Eigen and Schuster 1977; 1978a, b), (Jantsch
1975; 1980a, b), (Jooss 2020), (Kauffman 1993; 2000), (Levin 2005), (Luisi 2016,
ch. 8), (Schieve and Allen 1982), (Solé and Bascompte 2012), (von Foerster 2007
[1959]), (Zeleny 1977).
75
(Luhmann 2013 [2002], 70).
level [is generated] from the interaction of components at a lower level

without requiring the resulting structure to be coded for in genetic blue-
prints76 or be solely a result of centralized control structures.”77 There is
“no single governing equation, or rule, that controls the system. Instead,
it has many distributed, interacting parts, with little or nothing in the
way of a central control.”78
Niklas Luhmann describes this as autopoiesis (self-making), in the
sense that “the system state that serves as the point of departure for
many further operations is determined by the operations of the very same
system.”79 Autocatalysis is a standard framing in Biology and Chemis-
try.80 In the social sciences, John Padgett and Walter Powell conceptual-
ize autocatalysis in network terms as “a set of nodes and transformations
in which all nodes are reconstructed through transformations among
nodes in the set.”81
Whatever the formulation, the key point is that no external impetus,
control, or plan is required. The system is self-organizing – and self-
sustaining. It “reproduces itself through time, given appropriate energy
inputs.”82
Every living organism is constantly engaged in self-sustenance, self-
repair, and, ultimately, self-replacement (“re-production”). All of these
processes are rooted in metabolism, “the single most important char-
acteristic of life … [and] the basis for … autopoiesis.”83 “Metabolism
encompasses the means by which organisms break down the materials
they take in from their environment in order to acquire the energy they
need to rebuild their constituents and maintain themselves in a steady
state far from thermodynamic equilibrium.”84
76
DNA, rather than a blueprint for an organism, codes for proteins that self-organizing
living systems use to produce and reproduce themselves. See §13.3.1.
77
(Mitchell 2003, 38).
78
(Holland 1992, 21).
79
(Luhmann 2013 [2002], 70). See also (Luhmann 1990a), (Luisi 2016, ch. 6),
(Maturana and Varela 1980), (Meincke 2019a), (Ulrich and Probst 1984), (Zeleny
1980). (Pańkowska 2021) is a recent collection of applications to varied kinds of
research in the social sciences. But cf. (Padgett 2012a, 55–58) for a critical complexity-
science perspective.
80
See (Kauffman 1986; 1993; 2000) as well as (Bachmann, Luisi, and Lang 1992),
(Hordijk, Hein, and Steel 2010), (Gabora and Steel 2017), (Gatti et al. 2018),
(Blokhuis, Lacoste, and Nghe 2020), (Xavier et al. 2020), (Andersen et al. 2021).
81
See (Padgett and Powell 2012e, 8). See also (Padgett and Powell 2012b, 35–36).
82
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 8). On the importance of energy inputs in “open” “self-
organizing” systems, see §12.1.
83
(Nicholson 2018, 145). In §13.3 we look at self-organizing processes in embryonic
development.
84
(Dupré and Nicholson 2018, 16). On far from thermodynamic equilibrium systems
see §12.1. “Metabolism forces us to recognize that organisms, despite their apparent
The results can be stunning. Consider the human body, a coral reef, or
a tropical forest ecosystem. A complex whole is produced through largely
local coordination among semi-autonomous components “without direc-
tion from external factors and without a plan of the order embedded in
any individual component.”85
The social world is similarly characterized by a dizzying array of self-
making, self-sustaining, self-repairing, and self-replacing entities and
processes. Although social groups and organizations often do evidence
intentionality, planning, and direction, intention is only one part of the
story. And direction usually is more a matter of pointing toward a goal
than controlling the processes of attaining it. Even the most regimented
and hierarchical organizations, to the distress of “those in charge,” “have
a life of their own.” And most social systems or groups – for example,
families, neighborhoods, communities, countries, and international sys-
tems – are in significant measure self-organized.
2.3.4 Adaptation (Complex Adaptive Systems)

Self-organization, operating cumulatively over time, produces adaptation.
The complexity science literature distinguishes complex physical sys-
tems (CPS),86 which are composed of elements that are physically the
same in every token of a type – for example, a water molecule is always
composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen – from
complex adaptive systems (CAS).87 CAS, which have variable elements,
“change and reorganize their component parts to adapt themselves to
the problems posed by their surroundings.”88 And as Holland puts it in
the subtitle of one of his books “adaptation builds complexity.”89
Because all living and social systems are adaptive, I will usually use
“systems” to mean complex adaptive systems. (I try to use “complex sys-
tems” to refer to both CAS and CPS.)
“A CAS gathers information about its surroundings and about itself and
its own behavior.”90 It then formulates “rules,” “schemata,” or “internal
fixity and solidity, are not material things but fluid processes.” (Dupré and Nicholson
2018, 17).
85
(Mitchell 2003, 6).
86
See, for example, (Holland 2014, 8, passim), (Miller and Page 2007).
87
(Gell-Mann 1994) and (Holland 1992) are early classic statements by a founder of the
Santa Fe Institute and one of its leading intellectual forces. At book length, (Miller and
Page 2007) and (Holland 2012) are useful and accessible. (Holland 1992 [1975]) is
seminal but, after the first chapter, highly technical. See also (Hooker 2011).
88
(Holland 1992, 18).
89
(Holland 1995).
90
(Gell-Mann 1994, 18).
models” for dealing with the environment in order to realize its ends/
functions.91 Then, by testing these rules, routines, or practices and devis-
ing new ones (and testing them, in competition with others) the system
alters its behavior – and sometimes even its structure or functioning.92
Processes are central in (complex adaptive) systems. As Luhmann
puts it, we must “begin with operations and not with elements”93 and
think of social systems “in terms of their temporal operation and not
just as a network or a relational system.”94 Static accounts provide a
time-slice that may or may not be representative of the multicomponent,
multilevel, self-organizing, adaptive systems that populate the living and
social worlds.
“History and context play a critical role.”95 What a (complex adap-
tive) system “is” depends in part on when and where you ask. For exam-
ple, every instance of a chemical element, everywhere in our universe,
has the same number of protons. But there are no “things” that every
family has. That, however, does not make families any less real. It sim-
ply reflects the fact that they are complex adaptive systems – which, by
definition, are defined historically. They do not have a transhistorical
essential character.
Therefore, to take an IR example, to understand “the state” or “the
international system” as a type of entity with essential characteristics
falsely universalizes what is typical at one time or place. What states and
international systems “are” is a matter of historical succession – much as
what makes a Homo sapiens a Homo sapiens is descent from other Homo
sapiens (which at some point in the past adapted in ways that distin-
guished them from their ancestors).96
2.3.5 Modularity
Adaptation is closely connected with modularity:97 the division of a
larger whole into “relatively autonomous, internally highly connected
91
(Gell-Mann 1994, 18–20), (Holland 1992, 20, 21–22).
92
(Holland 1992, 23–25).
93
(Luhmann 2013 [2002], 99).
94
(Luhmann 2013 [2002], 199).
95
(Holland 1992, 20).
96
Section 3.9 presents a historical processual account of identity. Section 13.1 looks at
evolutionary adaptation in living organisms.
97
(Simon 1962) is the seminal work on modularity and complexity. See also (Wimsatt
2007, 176, 184–186, 188, 195, 347, 369 n. 2), as well as (Callebaut and Rasskin-
Gutman 2005), (Darden 2002), (McClamrock 2005), (Samuels 2012). On modularity
in Cellular and Evolutionary Biology, see (Hatleberg and Hinman 2021), (Hartwell
et al. 1999), (Wagner, Pavlicev, and Cheverud 2007).
components”98 that are integrated with respect to a task, function or

process but are relatively autonomous from the other parts of the whole.
(Adapting is much easier if only certain modules must be rearranged,
replaced, or internally reconfigured.)
Modularity also, as Herbert Simon famously showed, usually is central
to creating complex systems.99 If you always had to start from scratch it
would be hard to build anything other than relatively simple “things.”
Often, though, combining simpler things into larger wholes with emer-
gent effects is “doable.”
Research on complex systems thus often involves identifying the
decomposable building blocks of a system and trying to understand how
they operate, both separately and as parts of a whole.
Modular adaptation regularly leads to different agents, groups, or
sub-populations both developing different ways to achieve the same
end/function and doing different things with “the same” elements. For
example, birds have found varied ways to use their “wings” to propel
themselves – in the case of penguins, through water. And in ratites
(ostriches, emus, cassowaries, rheas, and kiwi) wings became vestigial
as “the problem” of predation “solved itself” (through gigantism or
isolation).
One common strategy of modular assembly involves specialization and
tight coupling. For example, some aphids have specialized cells that host
Buchnera bacteria from which they obtain amino acids that they require
to live. And those bacteria have evolved such a reduced genome that they
can live nowhere else.100 Similarly, many plants have co-evolved with a
single species of pollinator (e.g., yucca and yucca moths and Darwin’s
Orchid and the Hawk Moth). This strategy is efficient in a stable world.
But it risks catastrophe if something crucial changes.
Another common strategy employs looser couplings, multifunction-
ality (a single agent does multiple things), variable co-action patterns
(which allow different types of agents to “cover” for one another), and
redundancy (multiple components are able to perform a task) to enhance
robustness, the capability to operate in and respond to varied and chang-
ing contexts.
98
(Wagner, Pavlicev, and Cheverud 2007, 921).
99
(Simon 1962). See also (Craver and Tabery 2019, §4.2), (Wegner and Lüttge 2019),
(Bechtel and Richardson 2010), (Darden 2002). Although Simon (1962, 473–476)
describes complex modular systems as “nearly decomposable,” I think that partly
decomposable is a better label (because the ways that a system can be decomposed
is an empirical (and/or methodological) question). And I think that my formulation
“partially (in)separable” better captures the modularity of complex systems.
100
See (Pradeu 2018, 103–104).
In practice, living and social systems tend to combine both strategies.

But even lock-in to a very particular way of doing things is a historical
artifact. (In the case of aphids, it goes back about 200 million years.) To
repeat, what a (complex adaptive) system “is” is a product of adaptation
(evolution) – and subject to continuing evolution.101
2.4 The Difference Systemism/Relationism Makes

The remainder of this book illustrates the characters and contributions
of a systemic/relational orientation in IR. I close this chapter by noting
several “big differences” that systemism makes.
• A new view of international systems and their structures. International sys-
tems, rather than things external to states/units, are the social wholes
of which units are assembled parts.102 The structures of international
systems, rather than relatively constant compositions of a few ele-
ments arranged in just a few ways, are multidimensional, varied, and
regularly changing.103 And international structures are not entirely
formal (anarchy and polarity). They are also essentially substantive,
with important material, institutional, and normative dimensions.104
• Renewed attention to hierarchy. IR’s overemphasis on anarchy,105 rooted
in the mistaken Waltzian idea that it is the ordering principle of inter-
national political systems, has obscured the epistemic, pragmatic, and
normative significance of hierarchy. Once we realize that anarchy only
tells us one way in which a system is not ordered (i.e., not by the
authority of a central government) hierarchy (re)appears as a central
feature of nearly all international systems.106
• A distinctive understanding of social continuity and social change. Both
constancy and change are socially produced – usually interdepen-
dently. Constancy is not given but constantly (in need of) being
reproduced. “Reproduction” not only regularly misfires and drifts but
often requires “stabilizing” modifications just to “stay the same.” And
change usually involves repurposings and recombinations of existing
elements.107
• New tools for comparative historical analysis. The dominant Waltzian
account of structure is useless for comparative historical analysis.
101
On evolution in living and social systems, see §§12.6, 13.1, 13.2.
102
See §§5.2, 5.6–5.8.
103
See Chapters 9, 11–13ff.
104
See §§7.2, 11.3 and Chapter 13.
105
See §§6.4, 6.5.
106
See Chapters 15 and 16.
107
See Chapters 12, 13, and 17.
(The only thing that varies is polarity – rarely, with only minor or
modest impact.) Relational/systemic frameworks allow us to capture
and compare both continuity and change across multiple structural
dimensions.108
• A distinctive understanding of globalization. The Waltzian conception
denies that globalization involves structural change. More broadly, IR
tends to see globalization as an anomaly that can best be depicted
through ad hoc comparisons to selected features of states systems. My
systemic/relational framework, by contrast, depicts globalization as
substantively distinctive but the result of transformations that are both
similar in scope to and operating along the same dimensions as other
structural transformations over the past two or three millennia.109
• A new view of levels. Attention is shifted from levels of analysis, which
have been the near-exclusive focus of IR for more than half a century,
to levels of organization. This implies, as we will see in the next chap-
ter, new understandings of micro–macro relations, the agent–structure
problem, and the nature of social actors.
• A new view of theory and explanation. Systemic/relational research,
rather than explain through causal inferences or as-if rational actor
models, focuses on the organized operation of structured wholes.
This demands both explanatory pluralism and a new understanding of
the nature, functioning, and epistemic significance of theories. (This is
the subject of Chapter 4, the final chapter of this Part.)
108
See Chapters 11, 14–16.
109
See §§17.15, 17.16.
3 From Levels of Analysis to Levels
of Organization
A relational/systemic approach requires a new understanding of levels.

The levels of analysis account introduced by Kenneth Waltz’s Man,
the State and War (1959) and J. David Singer’s “The Level-of-Analysis
Problem in International Relations” (1961) still pervades IR, from intro-
ductory textbooks to sophisticated scholarly literature. Of special rel-
evance here, the Waltz–Singer framing is so deeply embedded that it
is almost never noted that levels of analysis are precisely that – levels
of analysis (that produce analytic/reductionist rather than systemic/rela-
tional explanations1).
This chapter advocates focusing instead, or at least in addition, on
systemic/relational levels of organization and applies that framing to the
interrelated topics of micro–macro relations, the agent–structure prob-
lem, and the nature of social actors.
3.1 Levels of Abstraction/Explanation

Levels indicate qualitative differences between tiered or ranked sets of
entities or phenomena.2 A set of levels arranges discontinuous but inter-
linked elements one “on top” (or “inside”) of another.
Section 1.3 introduced the notion of levels of organization, to which
we will return in §3.3. The natural and social sciences, however, also
often address levels of abstraction, analysis, or explanation.
Higher levels of abstraction, as the label indicates, abstract from –
leave out of account – information about lower levels. “The higher the
level of abstraction, the more cases that will be covered but the less con-
tent the explanation will have.”3
1
On the contrast between analytic/reductionist and systemic/relational explanations, see
§§1.2, 2.1.1.
2
As Mario Bunge (1960, 397) puts it, “Why use the word ‘level,’ instead of ‘degree,’ when
no qualitative changes are involved in the transition among different degrees?”
3
(Moghaddam, Walker, and Harré 2003, 125).
38
From Levels of Analysis to Levels of Organization 39
Levels of abstraction are rooted in a particular purpose or perspective.

Luciano Floridi offers the example of wine.
To evaluate a wine, the “tasting LoA [level of abstraction]” … would be relevant.
For the purpose of ordering wine, a “purchasing LoA” (containing observables
like maker, region, vintage, supplier, quantity, price, and so on) would be appro-
priate; but here the “tasting LoA” would be irrelevant. For the purpose of storing
and serving wine, the “cellaring LoA” ….4
Floridi usefully calls these levels of explanation, which are associated
with “different epistemic approaches and goals.”5 In IR, Hans Mourit-
zen similarly speaks of explanatory levels.6
Much useful knowledge is produced by employing levels of abstrac-
tion, analysis, or explanation. That knowledge, however, is analytic. And
in IR (analytic) levels of analysis are employed extensively and largely to
the exclusion of (systemic) levels of organization.
3.2 Levels of Analysis in IR

In Man, the State and War, Waltz neither used the language of levels
(he spoke instead of “images”) nor linked levels to systems thinking.
(Those were Singer’s contributions.7) But Waltz’s central research ques-
tion “Where are the major causes of war to be found?”8 set IR on the
path of understanding levels as where one looks for causes; “the level at
which causes are located.”9 As Barry Buzan puts it, “the ‘level of analysis
problem’ is about how to identify and treat different types of location in
which sources of explanation for observed phenomena can be found.”10
(In this framing, “unit of analysis” indicates the “thing” being studied,
which may be explained by causes on various levels.)
4
(Floridi 2008, 309).
5
(Floridi 2008, 319). Abstraction, however, seems to me more a matter of degree than
levels. Nonetheless, it has become standard to speak of “levels” of abstraction – perhaps
because most uses do identify discontinuous levels even when an incremental scale or
continuum is defined. A further problem, as the wine example illustrates, is that “levels”
of abstraction need not be hierarchically ordered. (There can be multiple, largely unre-
lated, “higher” “levels” of abstraction.)
6
(Mouritzen 1980).
7
His article begins “In any area of scholarly inquiry, there are always several ways in
which the phenomena under study may be sorted and arranged for purposes of systemic
analysis” (Singer 1961, 77) and the two principal sections are titled “The International
System as Level of Analysis” and “The National State as Level of Analysis” (which he
also calls the “sub-systemic level” (1961, 89)).
8
(Waltz 1959, 12).
9
(Waltz 1979, 19).
10
(Buzan 1995, 199. See also 204–205). See also (Wendt 1999, 8) and (Buzan, Jones, and
Little 1993, 33). The principal exceptions of which I am aware are (Onuf 1995) and
(Wight 2006, 102–119). See also (Jepperson and Meyer 2011).
Causes, separated by levels, are looked at as independent variables. As

Buzan, Charles Jones, and Richard Little put it, levels involve “distinct
elements of causality.”11 “Each level must identify a major source of
impact on behavior, and thus an explanation for events, that is distinct
from other major sources.”12
Explanations based on distinct elements, however, are analytic (not
systemic).13 (Systemic explanations rely on related elements.) Focus-
ing on “causes operating at the international level”14 leads to analytic
theory.
Waltz argued that “any approach or theory, if it is rightly termed ‘sys-
temic,’ must show how the systems level, or structure, is distinct from the
level of interacting units.”15 In this account, only structure is “on the
systems level.” The parts of the system are consigned to a level that is
not a system level. And “the system,” understood as a level (rather than
a whole), is considered not only separately from but as an external influ-
ence on the parts that compose it.16
This framing analytically disconnects one “part” (structure, on the
system level) and uses it to explain features of other parts.17 The result-
ing depiction, despite being labelled “systemic,” does not even attempt
to address the arrangement of the parts of a system.18 Waltzian explana-
tory levels really are levels of analysis.19
IR, rather than look at “international systems” systemically, as Waltz
said we should, has followed what Waltz did, looking at levels analyti-
cally. Consider Robert Jervis’ System Effects.
In the ninety pages of the first two chapters, which broadly explore
systems and systems effects, Jervis refers only once to levels.20 And his
sole reference to independent and dependent variables indicates that the
11
(Buzan, Jones, and Little 1993, 32).
12
(Buzan, Jones, and Little 1993, 33). See also (Buzan 1995, 204–205).
13
Jervis (1997, 107, 108) seems to me correct when he suggests that Waltz chose his “aus-
tere” definition of structure “to rigorously separate systemic from unit attributes.” But,
like Waltz, Jervis fails to appreciate that such separation leads to analytic (not systemic)
theory.
14
(Waltz 1979, 18).
15
(Waltz 1979, 40 [emphasis added]).
16
See also §5.6.
17
See also §§5.2, 5.3, 2.1.3.
18
See also Chapter 5, esp. §5.9.
19
Waltz did not use the language “levels of analysis” – except at (1979, 61–62) in reference
to Singer’s account. This, I think, was because he disagreed with some of the details in
Singer’s treatment and because he must have been uneasy with the term analysis in the
context of systemic theory. I think, though, that he would have been comfortable with
the framing of levels of explanation – which, I am arguing, he deployed analytically.
20
(Jervis 1997, 4). (This passage, not coincidentally I think, refers to Waltz.)
distinction is “problematic” in systems21 – as is labeling “one set of ele-

ments ‘causes’ and [the] other ‘effects’.”22
Jervis, however, in Chapter 3 (“Systems Theories of International
Politics”) not only adopts Waltz’s levels language23 but “naturally” com-
bines it with an analytic focus on independent and dependent variables,24
producing an (analytic) location-of-causes account of “systemic” theory.
Despite having stressed that in systems “the impact of one variable …
depends on others”25 – that variables in systems are not independent or
(merely) dependent – Jervis organizes “systems theories” of international
politics “by whether the dependent variables, the independent variables,
or both are on the system level.”26 The organized operation of multi-
level, multicomponent complex wholes is replaced by a focus on separate
variables on separate levels that have separate effects.
Similarly, Alexander Wendt claims that “it is important to distinguish
two senses in which a theory might be considered ‘systemic’: when it
makes the international system the dependent variable, and when it
makes the international system the independent variable.”27 But treating
the international system as a dependent variable explained by something
on a lower level of analysis produces reductive/analytic (not systemic)
explanations (of “international systems,” understood simply as bounded
objects of investigation, not multilevel, multicomponent complex
wholes28).
This (mis)understanding goes back to Singer, who claimed that “for
the purposes of systemic analysis … the observer may choose to focus
upon the parts or upon the whole, upon the components or upon the
system.”29 This confuses “systemic analysis” with “analyses of sys-
tems;” systemic theories or research with (possibly analytic) theories of or
research on “international systems” (treated not as complex systems but
as units of analysis or dependent variables).
21
(Jervis 1997, 58). More generally, he addresses “variables” (1997, 35–41, 58, 73, 78,
81, 83) principally to emphasize their complex interconnections and non-linear rela-
tions in systems.
22
(Jervis 1997, 48. Cf. 76–81).
23
(Jervis 1997, 92 (twice), 93, 99 (three times), 103 (twice)).
24
(Jervis 1997, 92 (three times), 93 (four times), 98, 99 (three times), 107). And where
“variable” appears in none of the 22 section headings in Chapters 1 and 2, it is in four
of the 11 headings in Chapter 3.
25
(Jervis 1997, 91).
26
(Jervis 1997, 92). We will return to explanations employing independent variables in
§§4.1.1, 4.4, 4.5.
27
(Wendt 1999, 11). Bear Braumoeller (2012, 13) argues, even more narrowly, that sys-
temic theories treat structure as either a dependent or an independent variable.
28
See §1.1 at nn. 9, 10.
29
(Singer 1961, 77).
Across IR, levels of analysis are deployed to study the impact of sepa-
rate causes located on particular levels – usually ignoring the structured
relations and productive processes of entities and activities organized
and operating as parts of complex structured wholes.
3.3 Levels of Analysis vs. Levels of Organization

There is, of course, nothing wrong with levels-based analytic theory and
research – except if it is presented as systemic, privileged, or the only
valid form of scientific explanation or research. In fact, selecting a focal
level of investigation selects a level of abstraction.
In systemic/relational theory and research, however, focal levels of
abstraction aim to correspond to and are chosen as focal because they
are understood to be levels of organization.
As we saw in §1.3, levels of organization are (understood as) “in the
world.” Levels of explanation or analysis are fundamentally in the mind
of the observer. They refer more to the structure of our knowledge than
to the structure of the world.30 And they need not be employed in ways
that respect or even acknowledge the organizational structure of the
world.
Waltz’s initial three-level scheme of human beings, states, and states
systems might be read as a simplistic social ontology. But in Man, the
State and War it was deployed simply as an epistemic accounting device.
And collapsing individuals and states into a single “unit level,” as Waltz
did in Theory of International Politics,31 is a pure levels of abstraction/
analysis framing.32
Waltz’s unit level is a residual; everything that is not “on the system/
structural level.” It corresponds to no organizational level in the world.
And no system can be constructed out of the entirely abstract – or, alter-
natively, wildly diverse – entities on this level. (A system is composed of
parts of particular types (organized and operating in particular ways).)
Although no frame is entirely neutral – any way of studying the world is
“for some purpose”33 – a levels of organization framing attempts to depict,
more or less accurately,34 the organizational structure of (a part of) the
world. Levels of abstraction/explanation instead facilitate addressing a
30
As Onuf (1995, 41) puts it, most discussions of levels in IR “tell us how we see, and not
what we see.”
31
(Waltz 1979, 38, 44, 45, 46, 49, 56, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 78, 79, 145, 202).
32
Much the same is true of Singer’s framings of “level of analysis or orientation” and “focus
or level of analysis” (1961, 78 [emphasis added], 80 [emphasis added]).
33
(Cox 1981, 128).
34
On the necessity of descriptive accuracy in systemic explanations see §4.9.
particular concern or question for a particular analytic purpose. (Waltz’s

purpose was to isolate the effects of international anarchy.)
“All theories have a perspective.”35 A levels of organization frame,
however, strives to maintain contact with a defensible account of how
the world, to the best of our knowledge, is organized. A levels of abstrac-
tion/explanation frame employs a particular epistemic or methodological
perspective to try to extract a certain kind of knowledge from the world.
Finally, to repeat, levels of organization (compositional whole–parts
hierarchies) are systemic. Levels of abstraction or explanation usually
are employed analytically. And even when a levels-of-explanation frame
mirrors the organizational structure of the world, it functions differently
in explanations.
3.4 Micro and Macro

The following chapter examines differences between systemic explana-
tions and the analytic causal explanations that are the focus of much
of mainstream social science. The remainder of this chapter illustrates
the value of a systemic/relational levels-of-organization framing. This
section argues that the organization of the world in hierarchical com-
positional levels explains the widespread use of micro–macro fram-
ings across the natural and social sciences and challenges the idea of
“micro-foundations.”
3.4.1 Triads of Levels

Micro and macro are relative terms that identify levels of abstraction.36
In an organizationally layered world, nearly every “thing” is both a
micro-entity and a macro-entity; a part of a larger system and a system
composed of smaller parts.
Scientific research typically focuses on one or a few levels. Such choices
of focal levels of investigation – what are taken as wholes – are in signifi-
cant measure conventional. But in a world of systems of systems of sys-
tems, the choice cannot be arbitrary (or, if it is, we are dealing solely with
a level of analysis/explanation). The world has an organizational structure
that we ignore at the cost of incomplete, and often inaccurate, knowledge.
Furthermore, once a focal level is chosen, investigation tends to oper-
ate primarily over (roughly) three levels, also looking “down” to the parts
that compose that whole and “up” to the larger whole of which it is
35
(Cox 1981, 128).
36
See §3.1.
a part.37 This arresting feature of how sciences typically operate, I am

arguing, reflects the fact that the world “is” an organizationally layered
system of systems of systems.
3.4.2 Against Micro-foundations

Because micro and macro (and meso) are levels of abstraction (not organi-
zation), no type of entity is inherently micro or macro. The common prac-
tice in the social sciences of identifying individual human beings as “micro”
and social groups as “macro” thus deserves no privilege. And the idea of
micro-foundations38 is misguided (at least to the extent that there is not
equal attention to macro-foundations, which in fact are rarely addressed39).
Analytical Sociology40 presents a particularly clear micro-foundations
argument. Consider James Coleman’s famous boat/bathtub diagram
(see Figure 3.1).41
From a systems point of view, the obvious problem is that this depicts
micro and macro levels as separate – interacting rather than organiza-
tionally related42 – and accounts for the explanandum (at the top right)
by the separate impacts of micro-level and macro-level causes. There is
not even a hint of parts organized and operating to produce outcomes.
Furthermore, although this figure depicts causes operating at both lev-
els, Analytical Sociology privileges micro-level explanations.
As Jon Elster puts it, “in principle, explanations in the social sciences
should refer only to individuals and their actions.”43 Some even argue
that “there exist no macro-level mechanisms,”44 making the top arrow
reducible (in principle) to the bottom arrows.
37
“Foundational” “bottom-out” entities thus are fundamentally conventional.
38
(Kertzer 2017) briefly reviews discussions of micro-foundations in IR.
39
An October 2020 Google Scholar search for “microfoundations” returned almost
47,000 results. A search for “macrofoundations” returned only 2,400 (barely 5%) –
along with the question “Did you mean: micro-foundations?” (On repeating this search
in November 2021 and October 2022, the proportions were the same but the question
did not reappear.) Also notable is the fact that on the first ten pages of results for micro-
foundations, only one item (less than 1%) was from the natural sciences. The idea of
the micro being foundational seems to be a common way of thinking only in the social
sciences – because, I am suggesting, it is analytic/reductionist, whereas the natural sci-
ences usually adopt an open-ended levels-of-organization framing and employ research
strategies that decompose higher-level systems without privileging lower-level compo-
nents or explanations. See also §2.1.1.
40
See, for example, (Hedström 2005), (Hedström and Bearman 2009a), (Demeulenaere
2011), (Manzo 2014), (Keuschnigg, Lovsjö, and Hedström 2018).
41
See (Coleman 1990, 702, Fig. 26.1).
42
See §5.2 at nn. 24, 25.
43
(Elster 2015, 7).
44
(Hedström and Swedberg 1996, 299).
Macro Level
(system of action)
Micro Level
(actors and resources)
Figure 3.1 Coleman’s boat
More modestly, analytical sociologists often claim that explanations

ought to prioritize micro-level forces and that individual human beings
are privileged (if not the sole) micro-level actors. For example, Peter
Hedström and Richard Swedberg argue that “intelligible social science
explanations should always include explicit references to the causes and
consequences of [individual actors’] action.”45 Hedström even argues
that “individuals are the core entities and their actions are the core
activities that bring about the social-level phenomena that one seeks to
explain.”46
But treating individuals as pre-given and irreducible is, as we will see
in more detail in the remainder of this chapter, merely a sometimes-
fruitful methodological move. It deserves no privilege in Sociology, IR,
or any other social science. Quite the contrary, it is a strange conception
of a science that sees a defining feature – the fact that it deals with social
phenomena – as something that needs to be explained away by some-
thing “more basic.” We certainly would never as biologists claim that we
should explain biological phenomena through chemical or physical enti-
ties and processes.
The insistence on micro-foundations, which ignores the shaping of
individuals by social relations, reflects a contentious philosophical or
theological view that sees human beings as somehow outside of the lay-
ered ontology of the rest of reality – or holds, no less problematically, that
social phenomena, whatever their ontological status, are best explained
by the actions and interactions of individual human beings.
A systemic/relational view, by contrast, sees levels as inescapably
intertwined and human beings as fully embedded in (the rest of) nature.
45
(Hedström and Swedberg 1998, 11–12). This is obviously false (or stipulative) –
although it is defensible if we replace “intelligible” with “complete.”
46
(Hedström 2005, 26. See also 28).
In the social sciences no less than in the life sciences, “higher-level enti-
ties and activities are … essential to the intelligibility of those at lower
levels, just as much as those at lower levels are essential for understand-
ing those at higher levels.”47 “No phenomenon at any level can be
wholly characterized without incorporating other phenomena that arise
at all levels.”48
In fact, to the extent that the macro-entity is a system, no privilege
attaches to lower-level entities or explanations. Deeper means lower
or smaller not better or more revealing, fundamental, or foundational.
And going “even deeper” is likely to produce less useful explanations.
For example, having decomposed social groups into individual human
beings, looking at their “underlying” biochemistry or even deeper physi-
cal “foundations” will almost always produce less illuminating knowl-
edge about social groups.
In systems, neither micro nor macro entities or processes are founda-
tional in a strong sense of that term. Understanding sometimes requires
working down, analytically, to a lower level. At other times, we must
work up to emergents on a higher level. And robust understanding usu-
ally requires the sort of triadic perspective highlighted in the preceding
subsection.
3.5 The Agent–Structure Problem

The remainder of this chapter addresses the interrelated issues of “the
agent-structure problem” and the natures of “individual human beings”
and social groups. The account of “persons” outlined here, I argue, is a
central feature of a relational/systemic understanding of the social world.
I therefore encourage even readers with no prior interest in such ques-
tions to at least skim the following sections.
A particular type of micro–macro relation, usually called “the
agent–structure problem”49 – the question of how individuals/agents
are related to larger social groups or structures – has been a central
metatheoretical issue in IR and Sociology for four decades. Seeing “the
things of the world” as organizationally layered systems of systems of
47
(Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 23). See also §1.7, where I also quoted this
passage.
48
(Hölldobler and Wilson 2009, 7). “All levels” may be a considerable exaggeration,
unless we emphasize “wholly.” “Neighboring levels” seems to me both more accurate
and more penetrating.
49
(Wendt 1987), (Dessler 1989), and (Wight 2006) are the classic discussions in IR.
(They cite most of the standard literature.) I would also draw attention to (Sewell
1992) = (Sewell 2005, ch. 4).
systems suggests a simple solution to – or, more precisely, pre-empts –

the “problem.”50
“Agents” are not things in the way that rabbits and radios are; that
is, entities/systems of a particular type (composed of entities/systems of
particular types). “Agency” is a property possessed by a great variety
of types of things (ranging from bits of computer code and individual
human beings to families, firms, churches, and states).51 “Agent” is
a class of extremely diverse kinds of things (that share a capacity for
agency). There is no good reason to imagine that “agents” share any-
thing beyond their capacity for agency.
Similarly, as Mario Bunge nicely puts it, structure “is a property, not
a thing”52 – a relational property of a system.
The property of agency, however, has no intrinsic relation to the prop-
erty of structure (and vice versa). And how particular agents are related
to particular structures (if at all) is an empirical question.
A problem arises only if one analytically separates and reifies agents
and structures or sees them as substances or essences – and then further
insists that one must be (onto)logically prior. Why one would do that,
though, is a mystery to me. And from a relational/systemic perspective
(which is the perspective being employed and examined in this book)
this is an obviously counter-productive way to cut up the world.
Many readers, I suspect, will find the preceding paragraphs willfully
obtuse. What really is at stake, they might argue, is how individual human
beings (or agents of a particular type, such as states) are related to the
higher-level groups and systems of which they are parts.
Thus formulated, though, there is no “problem” because levels of orga-
nization do not imply ontological (or causal or chronological) priority.
Each organizationally differentiated level, because it is ultimately irre-
ducible,53 has the same ontological status. And how entities on different
levels are related is an empirical question.
Furthermore, every entity, at least from the subatomic to the interga-
lactic levels, “is” both a whole and a part, simultaneously and essentially.
The framing “whole” adopts the perspective of a particular level. “Parts”
provides a view from (or looking up to) a higher level.
50
The idea that there is no real “problem” if we see agents and structures as mutually co-
constitutive is common in relational social theory. See, for example, (White 2008, 15),
(Powell 2013, 197–201) and in IR (Jackson and Nexon 1999, 295–296), (McCourt
2016, 481). See also (Wendt 1987, 339, 360–361), (Bucher 2017), (Braun, Schindler,
and Wille 2019). My argument adds a levels of organization twist and draws attention
to the systemism and relationalism implicit in the idea of mutual co-constitution.
51
“The term ‘agency’ can apply at any scale” (White 2008, 292).
52
(Bunge 1997, 415).
53
On irreducibility, see §§2.1, 2.2.
Individual human beings are members (parts) of the species Homo

sapiens. Although this may not be of much interest to social scientists, it
may be of great importance to biologists or ecologists. (We need to be
careful not to confuse interest with ontology.) Conversely, social groups
such as states are no less (although differently) agents (that act in larger
social systems).
In addition, whether a particular social system or its components
“came first” is, at best, an empirical question – and usually a question
that makes little sense, especially when (as is characteristic in the social
world) they co-evolve. In assembled social systems, individuals and
groups mutually co-constitute and recurrently reconstitute one another
(and the structures within which they operate).54
To start the story with either “agents” or “structures” is a methodologi-
cal or analytic decision. As Margaret Archer emphasizes, agent–structure
identifies an analytic, not ontological, dualism. Both agency and structur-
ing are always in play.55 As John Padgett and Walter Powell put it, “in the
short run, actors create relations; in the long run, relations create actors.”56
Individual human beings and human social groups stand in the inter-
twined micro–macro relations characteristic of all of reality. Like other
layered systems of systems, individual human beings and social groups,
as well as groups of lesser and greater scale (including states and states
systems) are partially (in)separable entities located on irreducible but
interlinked levels of organization.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
No “problem.”
Quite the contrary, agency and structure require each other. Struc-
ture does not merely enable agency but is its precondition. Social agency
only occurs in structured social contexts. Agency is impossible in an
unstructured void, such as Hobbes’ state of nature (which allows only
atomistic action and reaction). And, as William Sewell notes, “agents are
empowered by structures.”57 Conversely, structure is not merely caused
by streams of agency but is inseparable from – is an unreal abstraction if
severed from – the agents whose actions it structures.
54
This suggests an account of social continuity and social change that I develop in
Chapter 12.
55
(Archer 2000). Archer’s (1995; 2013) “morphogenetic” theory treats “agency” and
“structure” as cyclically recurrent phases in the life history of social entities.
56
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 2). Even more radically, Padgett (2012a, 59, n. 164) argues
that “the distinction between agency and structure is just a matter of time scales.”
He also complains that “incantations of ‘agency’” often mean “nothing more precise
than … structural indeterminacy” or are “just a label for the (admittedly large) error
term” (2012a, 59, n. 164).
57
(Sewell 2005, 151).
No social structures without social agents. No social agents without

social structures. No problem – when agency and structure are under-
stood in relational/systemic terms.
3.6 Biological Individuals

Pushing a bit further on “agents,” Biology has problematized the dis-
tinction between “individual” and “collective” organisms. There are a
great variety of types of biological “individuals,” understood as function-
ally integrated living wholes with a particular life history, corresponding
to the dictionary-definition sense of “existing as a separate indivisible
entity; numerically one; single, as distinct from others of the same kind;
particular.”58
For example, bacteria make up about half of the cells in a human
body.59 An “individual human being” is a superorganism60 or ecosys-
tem. Conversely, an “organism” containing only human somatic cells
would not be – cannot be – a living organism. Remove a human being’s
microbiome (and prevent it from being replaced) and the mangled entity
that remains will die as surely, although not quite as quickly, as if you
cut off its head.
More generally, “the entities we used to refer to as single living things
(for instance termites moving around, eating, and digesting food) turn
out to be less autonomous than we might have thought them to be: in
order to function the way they do, they need the other elements of the
symbiotic system.”61 (Compare “individual human beings.” You can’t
be a human being separate from society; from families and other social
groups.)
Conversely, beehives are no less individuals than the bees that they
house.62 Similarly, a particular elephant herd or chimpanzee band is no
58
Oxford English Dictionary. (Clarke 2010) and (Pradeu 2016) are good brief introduc-
tions to biological individuality. (Guay and Pradeu 2016a) discusses the idea of indi-
viduals across the sciences. Coming at the issue from the other side, (Gissis, Lamm, and
Shavit 2018) looks at the nature of collectivities in the life sciences (with an eye to the
social sciences).
59
On the human microbiome, see (Costello et al. 2012), (Gilbert et al. 2018), (Proctor
et al. 2019). (Sender, Fuchs, and Milo 2016) estimates a 1.3:1 ratio of bacterial to
human somatic cells (and shows the often-reported ratio of 10:1 to be based on a prob-
lematic back-of-the-envelope estimate).
60
See, for example, (Wilson and Sober 1989), (Bouchard 2013). (Hölldobler and Wilson
2009) is a fascinating study of instinct colonies as superorganisms.
61
(Guttinger 2018, 311).
62
If forced to choose the “most real” individual, the hive (not the bee) would be the obvi-
ous choice. (If there is a case to be made for something approximating reductive holism
(see §2.1.2), eusocial insects would be a leading contender.)
less an individual than particular elephants and chimpanzees. They are

all persistent, integrated functional wholes composed of other entities.
In “holobionts” – a unit composed of a host and associated species63 –
both the whole and the separate organisms (and species) are individu-
als. For example, the Great Barrier Reef is as much an individual as its
individual biotic components.64 And by some definitions, the reef system
is as alive as are the corals, fish, and other organisms that compose it.65
“Biological individuality cannot be severed from a wider collective
organization: as the individual organisation unfolds, it creates and sup-
ports a more encompassing historical and collective network, which in
turn sustains and facilitates its evolution in a changeful environment.”66
“‘Individual’ does not denote a fixed level in the biological hierar-
chy.”67 It is “a theoretical term that can mean different, even conflicting,
things in different theoretical contexts.”68
“There is a great variety of ways in which cells, sometimes genomi-
cally homogeneous, sometimes not, combine to form integrated biologi-
cal wholes.”69 This can be true even within a single species. Consider
“slime molds” in the genus Dictyostelium. Individual cells usually “live”
separately, moving independently in search of food. But when threat-
ened by starvation, they assemble into a multicellular entity with a stalk
and fruiting body that emits spores that lie dormant until more favorable
conditions appear.70
Individuals can even overlap and interpenetrate. Consider Dan Molt-
er’s fascinating brief account of multiple forms of mushroom individual-
ity.71 You come upon a patch of chanterelles under the fallen leaves of
63
See (Margulis 1991), (Gilbert and Tauber 2016), (Gissis, Lamm, and Shavit 2018,
Pt. IV), (Gilbert 2019), (Simon et al. 2019). (Cf. (Skillings 2016) and (Bourrat and
Griffiths 2018) for critical assessment of the individuality of holobionts.) In a broad
sense, which includes humans as holobionts, (Kutschera 2018) advocates placing the
holobiont concept at the heart of Systems Biology. The concept is also used more nar-
rowly to refer only to a host-microbiome unit. See, for example, (Rosenberg and Zilber-
Rosenberg 2018), (Theis et al. 2016). It seems to me, thinking as a social scientist
looking for biological analogies, that it is useful to distinguish holobionts that are and
are not contained within the body of one of the symbionts.
64
Much the same is true of biofilms, such as dental plagues; “assemblages of micro-
bial cells attached to each other and/or to a surface, encased within a self-produced
matrix” (Penesyan et al. 2021, 1). See (Ereshefsky and Pedroso 2013), (Pedroso 2018),
(Militello, Bich, and Moreno 2021).
65
On definitions of life see n. 62 in Chapter 13.
66
(Moreno and Mossio 2015, 138). See also (Kaiser 2018).
67
(Okasha 2018, 252).
68
(Griesemer 2018, 137).
69
(Arnellos 2018, 201. See also 209).
70
(Weijer 2004), (López-Jiménez et al. 2019), (Hehmeyer 2019).
71
(Molter 2017).
an oak. You count 15 mushrooms, which are phenomenological indi-

viduals. But you also know that these are parts of a single physiological
organism (a mycelium). If you are up on your knowledge of Basidiomy-
cetes (one of the two major divisions of the subkingdom Dikarya, “the
higher fungi”) you also know that the nuclei of the individual hyphae
(the cell-like structures that compose a mycelium) are evolutionary indi-
viduals72 – as are certain of the fruiting bodies by which the mushroom
propagates. And the oak-chanterelle pairing is a symbiotic organism that
is both an evolutionary and a physiological individual.
Such interpenetration of individual entities is not at all surprising in
an organizationally hierarchical world. Wholes on one level are parts of
larger wholes across the living world. In fact, one of life’s “most famil-
iar characteristics [is] its hierarchical organization, in which biological
individuals … are comprised of groups of cooperating individuals from
lower levels.”73 (My heart and my liver are as much individuals – an
individual human heart and an individual human liver – as I am an indi-
vidual (human being).)
Finally, to extend the discussion in a different direction, the boundary
of an organism need not be biotic. For example, J. Scott Turner argues
that “extended organisms” are surprisingly common.74 How much more
external is a hermit crab’s found shell than a lobster’s (periodically
molted) grown shell? Is the hive really external to the bees?
3.7 Individual Human Beings

Humans beings, in addition to being individual ecosystems, are assem-
bled social persons. As Padgett and Powell nicely put it, “individuals
don’t have goals; roles have goals. Profit maximization, for example,
might be the goal of a businessman. But that is not the goal of a more
complicated businessman-father-political ensemble person.”75 The
“individual identities” of human beings are multiple, assembled, regu-
larly re-assembled, and complex – not given, singular, atomic, or addi-
tive. And the assembled bio-social wholes that we conventionally call
individual human beings are no less essentially parts of larger individual
social wholes.
Human beings also extend into the abiotic world. For example, the
literature on “extended cognition” understands material objects (such
72
On evolutionary individuals, understood as units of natural selection, see (Gould 2002,
595–613). See also §13.1.1.
73
(Davison and Michod 2021, 241).
74
(Turner 2000, 2004).
75
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 5).
as paper and pencil used in mathematical computations) as part of the

human mind. Or consider man–machine military assemblages. The
mounted man and his horse, tack, and arms was a social and military
unit/individual among the Mongols (and the army/society/polity that
they composed was a superorganism).
“Individual human being” is a very particular construction. And
“human beings” are many different kinds of things – both individual
wholes and parts of various larger biological, ecological, and social
systems – in the multiple streams of being and becoming in which
they are enmeshed in our hierarchically layered, constantly adapting,
world.
3.8 Social Groups Are Individuals Too

Social groups are equally individuals. In a world of hierarchical compo-
sitional levels of organization, it is a mere anthropocentric prejudice to
hold that human beings but not social groups are individuals. (Social
groups are persons too.)
Compare the biological understanding of species as individuals.76
Each species, like each organism, is “individuated on the basis of spatio-
temporal location and continuity”77– and thus is unique.78 Species, like
organisms and social groups, have no essence79 or intensions; “there are
no properties necessary and sufficient to define their names.”80 Further-
more, “the identity of a species is not dependent upon the existence of
any one organism, so a species cannot be a set of organisms defined by
its extension.”81 What a species “is” is what it has, through evolution,
become (which is subject to further evolution).
A particular chimpanzee, of course, is a token of the type Pan trog-
lodytes. But each actual species, like each of its actual members, is an
individual (not a type or class).82 Homo sapiens is an individual (spe-
cies) – just as the Barack and Michelle Obama family is an individual
(family) and Barrack and Michelle Obama are individual human beings
in the dictionary-definition sense of “single, as distinct from others of the
same kind.”83
76
(Ghiselin 1974), (Hull 1976, 1978). See also (Ereshefsky 1992).
77
(Hull 1976, 176).
78
(Hull 1976, 176).
79
(Hull 1976, 176).
80
(Ghiselin 1974, 537).
81
(Molter 2017, 1118).
82
(Hull 1976, 177–180ff.), (Ghiselin 1974, 537).
83
(“Individual”) human beings and (“collective”) social groups are

(interconnected and often interpenetrating) individuals (unique wholes)
on different levels of organization. The biological, psychological, and
social parts composing Donald Trump – all his human somatic cells,
the bacteria in his gut and mouth and on his skin, his historical experi-
ences, and his multiple social roles – are parts of a complex system that
is an exemplary “individual.” But the Trump Organization is every bit as
much an individual.84 And so is the United States of America.
Both actual human beings and actual social groups are persistent self-
organized complex adaptive systems that are spatiotemporally differen-
tiated from others of their kind. They have proper names. They have
particular histories and identities. They are individuals.
“Individuation is clearly a theory-relative procedure. What will count
as an individual unit will depend on the formulation of the causal pro-
cess of interest.”85 Therefore, whether we approach “individual human
beings” and “social groups” as wholes or as parts depends largely on our
epistemic or pragmatic purposes – and cultural prejudices. For example,
throughout most of history in most parts of the world, families have been
a far more important unit of social life that their individual members –
let alone “individual human beings.” And the idea that all members of
the species Homo sapiens are equally human beings is a very particular
understanding that in the broad sweep of human history is a recent and
unusual idea.86
Nearly all the “things” of the social world, from human beings to
international systems, “are” both wholes, at one level of organization,
and parts, at a higher level.87 Privileging one level or kind of social or
biological entity in theory or research is, at best, a potentially fruitful
methodological choice of limited applicability.
3.9 Genidentity: A Processual Perspective on Identity

What the entities of the social and biological worlds “are” becomes
even more complicated when, as a processual perspective requires,
we take time into account.88 “Animals, and indeed all organisms, are
84
“Species are to evolutionary theory as firms are to economic theory. … Species are
individuals, and they are real. They are as real as American Motors, Chrysler, Ford and
General Motors” (Ghiselin 1974, 538).
85
(Mitchell 2003, 67).
86
See (Donnelly 2015; 2013, chs. 5, 9, 10).
87
Similarly, Scott Gilbert (2018, 123) argues that “Biology is, in large part, a study of
relationships between parts and wholes. An individual on one level is a part on another.”
88
For recent processual accounts of biological individuality, see (Austin 2020) and, at
greater length, (Meincke and Dupré 2021).
four-dimensional things. The three dimensions of their bodies … change

as they slide along the slippery and inevitable slope of time.”89
“The entities that we commonly represent or model as thing-like, such
as organisms and other biological individuals, are just particular time
slices of their life cycles.”90 This is especially striking in organisms that
undergo dramatic morphological changes, such as frogs and butterflies.91
But even in relatively stable-appearing creatures, such as humans, often
“it is surprisingly difficult to specify what stays the same throughout the
life cycle of an organism.”92
“An organism’s persistence does not depend on being kept in a single
state [or form] but on being maintained through numerous processes.”93
A living thing is the thing that it is by and through its history (not the
persistence of some substrate, essence, or relational structuring). Phi-
losophers of science call this genidentity.94
“A process perspective allows us to identify (i.e., specify the identity
of) an individual through time, however discontinuous that individual
may be.”95 Chickens and eggs and acorns and oak trees “are slices of
the same genetic series connecting the selfsame biological individual
along a temporal sequence”96 – selfsame being defined by that temporal
sequence. “Without an identical subject that passes through each stage,
one can interpret the stages as temporal parts of an extended process.”97
John Dupré and Daniel Nicholson even argue that rather than otherwise-
defined organisms having life cycles “it is the life cycle that constitutes
the organism.”98
Among humans, as Rescher puts it, “the unity of the person resides
neither in the physical body as such” – form and substance change –
“nor in the psychic unity of custom and memory” – which credits dubi-
ous first-person reports and ignores important parts of the human life
cycle (for example, none of us remembers infancy or much of early
89
(Arthur 2004, 1).
90
(Arnellos 2018, 201).
91
Even more strikingly, the giant river fluke (Fasciola gigantica) develops through four dif-
ferent forms in four different environments. See (DiFrisco 2018, 79–81).
92
(Dupré and Nicholson 2018, 19). See also (Godfrey-Smith 2016).
93
(Anjum and Mumford 2018a, 63). More generally, “what allows the identification of a
token as being of a specific type is historical continuity” (Mitchell 2003, 100).
94
(Guay and Pradeu 2016b) and (Pradeu 2018) are useful introductions.
95
(Bouchard 2018, 194).
96
(Padovani 2013, 105).
97
(DiFrisco 2018, 82).
98
(Dupré and Nicholson 2018, 19). See also (Rescher 1996, 105, 116–118). More mod-
estly, Michael Barresi and Scott Gilbert (2020, 79) argue that “the life cycle can be
considered a central unit in biology.”
childhood) – “but in a synoptic unity of process.”99 “People are con-

stituted as the individuals they are through their doings, their history:
one is the individual that one is by nature of the macroprocess that inte-
grates the microprocesses constituting one’s life and career.”100 As Anne
Sophie Meincke argues “I am … a higher-order process relying on a
manifold of lower-order processes – I am a processual form.”101
Padgett and Powell note that
from the perspective of chemistry, we are just a complex set of chemical reac-
tions. Chemicals come into us; chemicals go out of us; chemicals move around
and are transformed within us. Solid as we may appear from the outside, no
single atom in our body has been there for more than a few years. It is possible
(and flattering) to see our physical selves as autonomous bodies exchanging food
and other nutrients, but it is also possible to see ourselves as an ensemble of
chemicals that flow, interpenetrate, and interact. Stability of the human body
through time does not mean mechanical fixity of parts; it means organic repro-
duction of parts in flux.102
Or as Rani Anjum and Stephen Mumford put it, “an organism’s per-
sistence does not depend on being kept in a single state but on being
maintained through numerous processes.”103
Social actors do typically retain a persistent biographical identity.
But persons, as Harrison White colorfully puts it, “have unique identi-
ties thrust upon them like the beached litter of ongoing social processes
and embeddings.”104 Over time, the substance of their identity – who/
what they “are” – changes, often dramatically. This is true not only of
collective agents (consider “France” at hundred-year intervals in either
direction from the ascension of Francis I in 1515) but also of individual
human beings. Imagine a woman who moves to a new country, adopts
a new religion, enters a new profession, joins a new political party, and
becomes a fanatical amateur hockey player. Or consider the fundamental
changes typically associated with becoming, and then being, a father.
Rescher thus argues “Heraclitus was only half right: We indeed do not
step twice into the same waters, but we can certainly step twice into the
same river. The unity of a particular that defines what it is consists in
what it does.”105
99
(Rescher 1996, 107–108).
100
(Rescher 1996, 108).
101
(Meincke 2018, 369). See also (Meincke 2019b). (van Inwagen 2002) surveys philo-
sophical answers to the question “What do we refer to when we say I?”
102
103
(Anjum and Mumford 2018b, 63).
104
(White 2008, 195).
105
(Rescher 1996, 52–53). See also (Seibt 2018, 3).
The “things” of social world, however, “do” many different things.

They therefore are many different things. “Persons” of greatly varied
types emerge out of the varied temporal successions in the diverse and
intersecting physical, biological, psychological, social, and ecological sys-
tems that comprise the world in which human beings and social groups
live “their” lives. And all of these types of persons merit intensive study
by social scientists.
3.10 Identities and Persons

Harrison White’s conception of persons as high-level assemblages of
identities allows us to drill down even deeper.
“Much theory in social science stipulates persons, takes them as pre-
existing atoms.”106 White argues instead that “persons develop only
under special circumstances” and that “personhood is a compounding
across identities.”107 At what we might call the social cellular level, we
are composed of identities. (The following paragraphs contain a lot of
jargon. Because of the novelty of White’s argument, though, the jargon
is actually clearer and more precise than a superficially easier to read
framing – or at least I have been unable to find an equally good compact
ordinary-language formulation.)
Identities “spring up out of efforts at control in turbulent context. …
An identity emerges for each of us only out of efforts at control amid
contingencies and contentions in interaction.”108 Identities are the rela-
tional results of efforts at “finding footings among other identities.”109
And in this account, persons “appear as bundles of identities.”110
Social action takes place within a great variety of “network-domains
(netdoms).” Social persons, which are composed of and carry identities,
regularly switch between netdoms. During these switchings, “identities
trigger.”111 And as identities act and interact, both they and netdoms
are (re)constructed. Identities mutually co-constitute each other through
their efforts at finding footings in the structured netdoms in which (and
along with which) they co-evolve.112
106
(White 2008, 127).
107
(White 2008, 127).
108
(White 2008, 1).
109
(White 2008, 1).
110
(White 2008, 2).
111
(White 2008, 2).
112
(White 2008, 4, xviii). Or as Gertrude Stein puts it “I am I because my little dog
knows me.” (Quoted at https://quotefancy.com/quote/1019870/Gertrude-Stein-I-am-
I-because-my-little-dog-knows-me-but-creatively-speaking-the-little.)
One level up, White argues, identities combine into “disciplinary

units.” (“Disciplines offer rules of the game that yield coordination in
tasks in an otherwise messy world.”113) At a still higher level of organi-
zation, White identifies what he calls “styles,” “profiles of the commin-
gling of network relations and discursive processes across switchings that
result from and also shift situations.”114
In this account, “person[s] grow as styles.”115 “The ordinary person,
so called, is a late and sophisticated product resulting from the inter-
play of larger social formations, of populations.”116 “Persons come into
existence and are formed as the result of overlaps among identities from
distinct network-populations.”117 (The same biological human being is
a different person as an infant and as an adult because she has different
identities rooted in the very different interactional domains she occupies
and histories she has experienced. And that adult often becomes differ-
ent persons as her “personal,” professional, and social relations change.)
Persons are “dynamic, self-reproducing amalgam[s] across profiles of
switchings.”118 Although central to social life, persons are (neither more
nor less than) “one class of socially constructed actors.”119 And “‘indi-
viduals’ in the modern sense – persons – need an advanced division of
labor and a high degree of social distinction to emerge.”120
Even readers who find White’s account more than a bit too much
can, I hope, appreciate the power of a relational/systemic vision that sees
levels of social organization below as well as above the level of “indi-
vidual human beings” – which itself is just one of many levels of social
organization.
Individual human beings are no more given and indivisible than
atoms turned out to be once physicists began examining them. Each is
an important type of entity on a level of organization that is vital to the
structuring of our world. For some purposes it is fruitful to consider
them wholes; to cut nature there. But they also are composed of parts
that are no less real and significant. And they are parts of larger wholes/
persons that also are no less real and significant.
This book argues that IR needs to be able to comprehend the
whole range of social levels of organization, from micro-identities to
113
(White 2008, 63).
114
(White 2008, 113).
115
(White 2008, 126).
116
(White 2008, 126–127).
117
(White 2008, 129).
118
(White 2008, 18).
119
(White 2008, 130).
120
(White 2008, 127 n. 8).
international systems – and that a relational vision of a world of systems

of systems of systems provides a fruitful foundation for doing that.
3.11 Structure
The preceding sections have focused on actors and agency. I conclude
this chapter with a few brief comments on structure that point toward
Part II, which criticizes the dominant Waltzian account, and Part III,
which begins to sketch alternatives.
Systemic/structural theory in IR has over the past four decades been
dominated by the Waltzian vision of structures as simple, fixed things
that constrain actors and cause outcomes. From a relational/systemic
perspective, every element of that account is wrong – including the focus
on structures and structural theory (rather than systems and relational
theory).
Structure is not a thing. (As noted above, it is a property.) And struc-
tures do not (cannot) “do” things. (In particular, they do not constrain
actors – a framing that sees neither actors nor structures as integral parts
of complex wholes.) Social systems structure relations between social
positions and regulate interactions of positioned social actors.
Social structures are not unitary compositions of a few elements. All
but the simplest societies are made up of multiple systems composed
of many types of components, organized on multiple levels, operating
in many institutional domains, on multiple spatial scales. Furthermore,
these systems characteristically overlap and interpenetrate.
The structures of social systems are not fixed. Social systems are com-
plex adaptive systems.121 Both types (e.g., states, families, persons) and
tokens (e.g., the USA, the Joneses, James Earl Jones) change over time.
Although social systems and their structures can sometimes fruitfully be
treated as if they were given – over short periods of time, we might even
say that they “are” effectively given – that givenness is contingent, his-
torical, and (over long periods of time) certain to change.
Social structures do not cause or determine outcomes. Rather, the
structured and regulated activities of positioned social actors character-
istically (but not deterministically) lead to typical outcomes.
So what, then, “are” social structures? I suggest that we would do bet-
ter to evade that question than try to answer it. In fact, I would suggest
avoiding the noun structure122 – which is too easily taken to be a thing
with a fixed or essential character.
121
See §2.3.4.
122
See also §10.2.
• Systems structure. They “organize or arrange the parts or elements” of

the system; “absorb or integrate [them] into a … system.”123
• Actors, activities, and relations in social systems are structured. They
“hav[e] some kind of internal organization or arrangement.”124
• The structuring of social systems is inescapably intertwined with the
structured actions of positioned social actors.
And, I will argue, systemic/relational research and explanation should
focus more on the organization and operation of the system (the whole)
than its structure (a part or property of that whole).
123
124
4 Systems, Causes, and Theory
Explanatory Pluralism in IR
A relational/systemic approach also demands new understandings of

theory and explanation. As Sandra Mitchell puts it, in the context of
Biology,
Complexity in nature … has direct implications for our scientific theories, mod-
els, and explanations. … Nature is complex and so, too, should be our represen-
tations of it. … The multilevel, multicomponent, complex systems that populate
the domain of biology are ill suited to a simple, unified picture of scientific theo-
rizing. Pluralism in this domain is … the mark of a science of complexity.1
This is in sharp contrast to Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney
Verba’s argument, in the most-used research design text in IR and Political
Science, that “real explanation is always based on causal inferences”2 and
that “all good [scientific] research can be understood – indeed, is best
understood – to derive from the same underlying logic of inference.”3
I suspect that most scholars in IR today would agree or allow that
King, Keohane, and Verba go too far. Nonetheless, in much of main-
stream social science “causal inference” explanations are treated as epis-
temically or scientifically privileged.
One goal of this book is to help to undermine the hold of such con-
stricted visions of scientific explanation. Explanatory pluralism, which is
a long-established reality in the natural sciences,4 is, I argue, necessary
1
(Mitchell 2003, 115).
2
(King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 75 n. 1).
3
(King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 4).
4
The old prescriptive insistence that scientific explanation has a nomological-deductive
(“covering law”) form (see (Hempel and Oppenheim 1948), (Hempel 1965), (Nagel
1961), (Woodward and Ross 2021, §2)), which was still inflicted on students of my gen-
eration, has long-since been discarded. And the idea that science has a singular demar-
cation criterion, which was most vociferously championed in the twentieth century by
Karl Popper (esp. 1963, ch. 1, 10) – and which remained popular in IR through the
1990s in the form of Lakatosian (Lakatos 1970; 1978) progressive scientific research
programs (e.g., (Vasquez 1997), (Elman and Elman 1997), (Elman and Elman 2003)) –
is endorsed by few philosophers of science under fifty. The (intentionally polemical)
framing of “the disunity of science” (e.g., (Fodor 1974), (Rosenberg 1994a), (Dupré
60
Systems, Causes, and Theory 61
for a social science that is able to address the systems effects that are not
merely pervasive but central, both epistemically and pragmatically, in the
social world.
4.1 Waltz on Theory

I begin, though, in what might seem an odd place: Kenneth Waltz’s
Theory of International Politics.
Waltz was driven by a desire to produce theory of international politics.
(The first words of the Preface are “theory is fundamental to science.”
The first chapter is titled “Laws and Theories.”) And, as Ole Waever
notes, the impact of his book “owed much to being widely accepted as
setting a new standard for ‘theory’ in the discipline.”5
Laws, Waltz argues, “establish relations between variables.”6 But
“a law does not say why a particular association holds.”7 “Theories
show why those associations obtain;”8 they “explain laws.”9 And Waltz
strongly implies that a scientific theory of international politics must take
a form similar to structural realism.
I argue instead that this is but one of many types of scientific theory;
that such theories preclude systemic explanations; and that on careful
examination Waltz has at least three different accounts of the nature of
scientific explanation – which provides a compelling illustration of the
need for explanatory pluralism in IR.
4.1.1 Causes, Independent Variables, and Structural Theory

Science, Waltz argues, explains with causes. “What entitles astronomy
to be called a science is not the ability to predict but the ability to specify
causes.”10 “A theory of international politics can succeed only if political
1995), (Galison and Stump 1996)) may go too far. It is clear today, though, that there
is nothing even close to a singular way in which natural scientists engage or explain the
world. ((Knorr Cetina 1999) offers a particularly vivid and compelling illustration of the
radically different epistemic worlds of the cutting-edge scientific disciplines of particle
physics and molecular biology.)
5
(Waever 2009, 204–205. See also 201 [abstract]). What Waever nicely calls “Waltz’s
theory of theory” has received far less attention than the Waltzian conception of struc-
ture (let alone structural realism). (Jackson 2011, ch. 5), (Onuf 2009), and (Goddard
and Nexon 2005) are, in my view, the other leading exceptions.
6
(Waltz 1979, 1).
7
(Waltz 1979, 6).
8
(Waltz 1979, 2). “A theory is not the occurrences seen and the associations recorded,
but is instead the explanation of them” (Waltz 1979, 9).
9
(Waltz 1979, 6. See also 2).
10
(Waltz 1990b, 29).
structures are defined in ways that identify their causal effects.”11 And
Waltz repeatedly insisted that “structures are causes.”12
Waltz further argues that “a real causal connection” involves “the rela-
tion between an independent and a dependent variable.”13 But systemic
variables, as we have seen, are interdependent. Independent-variable
analysis brackets or breaks the interconnections that make systems sys-
tems.14 And Waltz, unfortunately, really did end up presenting interna-
tional systems and their structures as independent variables. As Robert
Jervis accurately notes, “for Waltz, the crucial independent variable is
the structure of the system.”15
For example, Waltz argues that “balance-of-power politics prevail
wherever two, and only two, requirements are met: that the order be
anarchic and that it be populated by units wishing to survive.”16 There
are no emergent system effect here. Anarchy (alone) is the cause of bal-
ancing, a law-like regularity.
This is not a marginal example. (“If there is any distinctively political
theory of international politics, balance-of-power theory is it.”17) Neither
is this passage accidentally phrased.18 Waltz, as we will see in more detail
in Chapter 6, really did aim to explain international political regularities
by deploying “structure” (anarchy) as an independent-variable cause.
4.1.2 “A Theory Is a Picture”

Waltz also argues that “A theory is a picture, mentally formed, of a
bounded realm or domain of activity. A theory is a depiction of the orga-
nization of a domain and of the connections among its parts.”19
11
(Waltz 1979, 70. See also 4, 65, 78, 87, 90).
12
(Waltz 1979, 74. See also 73 (“in considering structures as causes …”), 87 (“struc-
ture operates as a cause”), 50, 67, 69, 78, 90, 107). Waltz also repeatedly talked of
“systemic causes” (1979, 62, 69) and “structural causes” (1979, 67, 74, 90; 1986,
343; 1993, 49). And as Waever (2009, 208) notes, “large parts of chapters 4–6 [of
Theory of International Politics] explain in what ways structures can be said to be causes.”
Furthermore, Chapters 7 and 8 are titled “Structural Causes and Economic Effects”
and “Structural Causes and Military Effects.”
13
(Waltz 1979, 2). This reflects the conjunction of his claims that theories explain laws
and that “laws establish relations between variables … If a, then b, where a stands for
one or more independent variables and b stands for the dependent variable” (Waltz
1979, 1). For other uses of the language of independent (and dependent) variables, see
(Waltz 1979, 1, 2, 52, 68, 133; 1990b, 25, 27; 2000, 15).
14
The contrast between relational and variable-based explanations is a recurrent theme
in the relationalism literature. See, for example, (Emirbayer 1997, 286), (Jackson and
Nexon 1999, 293–295), (Crossley 2011, 21).
15
(Jervis 1997, 107).
16
(Waltz 1979, 121).
17
(Waltz 1979, 117).
18
See also (Waltz 1979, 58, 118, 119).
19
(Waltz 1979, 8). Waltz repeated this definition (1997, 913) in his article “Evaluating
Theories.”
Depicting the organization of a domain, however, does not identify

what causes what. Rather, as Waltz nicely puts it,
the significance of the observed is made manifest … Once the system is
understood, once its principle of organization is grasped, the phenomena are
explained. … “Understanding” probably means nothing more than having what-
ever ideas and concepts are needed to recognize that a great many different phe-
nomena are part of a coherent whole.20
In this sense, “structurally we can describe and understand the pressures
states are subject to.”21 “Theories indicate what is connected with what
and how the connection is made. They convey a sense of how things
work, of how they hang together, of what the structure of a realm of
inquiry may be.”22
Embodying these two very different visions, Waltz writes of “relations
of cause and interdependency”23 and of “connections and causes.”24 Theo-
ries, Waltz claims, ask both “What causes what?” and “How does it all
hang together?”25 And although (as we will see below) connections and
interdependencies dropped out of Waltz’s theory, this picture theory of
theory fits systemic research well – in sharp contrast the theories-explain-
laws account.
4.1.3 How Explanations

Waltz also repeatedly claims that theories show how a regularity is pro-
duced. Theories “convey a sense of how things work;”26 “help one to
understand how a given system works;”27 answer the question “How
does that thing work?”28 “Neorealists offer a theory that explains how
structures affect behavior and outcomes.”29
Below we will see that Waltz did not – and Waltzian structural theory
cannot – show how structure does anything. (At best, he showed that
anarchy and polarity are causes of certain outcomes.) Here I simply draw
attention to Waltz’s identification of still another type of explanation –
mechanical explanation (which I introduced in §1.7 and to which we will
return in §4.5).
20
(Waltz 1979, 9, quoting (Heisenberg 1971, 31)).
21
(Waltz 1979, 71).
22
(Waltz 1979, 12).
23
(Waltz 1979, 10 [emphasis added]; 1997, 913).
24
(Waltz 1979, 9 [emphasis added]. See also 12).
25
26
(Waltz 1979, 12. See also 3, 121, 122).
27
(Waltz, 1990b, 31).
28
(Waltz 1979, 8. See also 9; 1986, 344; 1990b, 23, 29).
29
(Waltz 1990b, 37). See also (Waltz 1986, 336).
4.1.4 The Diversity of Scientific Explanations

Waltz clearly (although unintentionally) shows that there is no single
kind of scientific theory or explanation. “The leap from law to theory …
[involves] trying to answer questions such as these: Why does this occur?
How does that thing work? What causes what? How does it all hang
together?”30
Beyond the plurality of the questions, note their particulars: what causes
what (causal relations between independent and dependent variables), how
things work (mechanisms or processes), and how things are connected or
hang together (systems). Scientific explanations address, at minimum,
causal effects, mechanical and processual effects, and systems effects.
4.2 Explanation
To explain is “to make plain or intelligible … to describe or give an
account of in order to bring about understanding.”31 “Explanation is
a matter of representing what depends upon what;”32 of showing that
something we want to understand (the explanandum) depends on some-
thing else that does the explaining (the explanans).
There are, however, many types of explanatory dependence. “To
explain an event is to give an account of why it happened.”33 “Why?”
though, has many different types of answers. Most explanations can be
formulated “Because of…” Scientific explanations, however, employ dif-
ferent kinds of “becauses.”
The remainder of this chapter thus argues for explanatory pluralism.
In particular, I argue that incorporating systemic/relational explanations
in IR requires rejecting the privileging of “casual inference.”34
4.3 Causes, Causation, and Explanation

Mainstream social-scientific IR, Political Science, Sociology, and Eco-
nomics are dominated by a “positivist” understanding of causes as
observable independent variables that have “causal effects.”35 A cause,
30
(Waltz 1979, 8).
31
32
(Glennan 2017, 212. See also 237).
33
(Elster 1989, 3). But cf. §4.6.
34
What follows abstracts from the centrality of rational actor explanations in contempo-
rary social science. But as rationalist explanations also are not systemic (see §§4.6.3,
3.4.2) this is a useful simplification in the interest of space.
35
In Political Science and IR, the most influential positivist account is (King,
Keohane, and Verba 1994, esp. §§1.1, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.6, 3.1–3.5). Waltz’s
in this understanding, is separate from, prior in time to, and constantly

conjoined with an effect. But for an association to be (considered) causal
there must be more than mere regularity.36
In recent decades, intervention and counter-factual accounts, includ-
ing manipulation and potential outcomes theories,37 along with struc-
tural models,38 have predominated.39 Causation, in such explanations,
is established through “a ‘surgical’ change in A which is of such a char-
acter that if any change occurs in B, it occurs only as a result of its causal
connection, if any, to A.”40 If we can change B by changing a “treat-
ment variable” A while leaving everything else the same – for example,
through a controlled trial, thought experiment, regression modeling, or
natural experiment – then we are warranted in saying that B is a causal
effect of A.
Such explanations claim that A is a cause of (not merely associated/
correlated with) B. I will call these this-is-a-cause-of-that explanations.41
theories-explain-laws-through-causes account also falls into this camp. (Jackson 2011,

ch. 3) examines neo-positivism’s metatheoretical commitments. Positivism, however,
is easier to identify than to define. And it has taken many different forms, even within
a single discipline. Perhaps the most useful way to think of neo-positivism, for those
familiar with twentieth-century philosophy of science, is as a descendant of logical
empiricism (see n. 57 in Chapter 1), which at the time was often called logical posi-
tivism, and a commitment to a reductionist unity of science perspective (see n. 9 in
Chapter 2 and n. 4 above). (Steinmetz 2005) is a thoughtful and wide-ranging overview
of positivism and its alternatives in the social sciences in the second half of the twentieth
century. (Smith, Booth, and Zalewski 1996) offers a similar survey for IR.
36
Regularity theories go back to David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part
iii (esp. §§2–4, 14, 15) and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, §§ iii–x (esp.
§iv and part ii of §vii). (Beauchamp and Rosenberg 1981) and (Beebee 2006) are good
book-length philosophical discussions. More briefly, see (Bell 2008). On contemporary
regularity theories of causation, which are a decidedly minority view, see (Andreas and
Guenther 2021, §1).
(Cartwright 2014) and (Brady 2008) provide brief discussions of alternative concep-
tions of causes, focusing on the social sciences. At greater length, looking at both the
natural and the social sciences, see (Illari and Russo 2014). (Kurki 2008) is a wide-
ranging discussion of causation focused on IR.
37
(Illari and Russo 2014, ch. 8–10), (Menzies and Beebee 2019), (Woodward 2004;
2016).
38
The work of Donald Rubin (e.g., Rubin 1974; 2005; Imbens and Rubin 2015) and
Judea Pearl (e.g., Halpern and Pearl 2005; Pearl 2009a, b; Pearl, Glymour, and Jewell
2016) have been especially influential. (Morgan and Winship 2012) provides a good
brief introduction focused on the social sciences. For a brief philosophical account, see
(Andreas and Guenther 2021, §2.5).
39
See, for example, (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 76–85), (Morgan and Winship
2015, ch. 2), (Seawright 2016, 32, 192), (Goertz 2017, 30, 75–78, 208, 246ff.).
40
(Woodward 2016, 13).
41
Note the narrow and substantialist formulation “is a cause of” (rather than the broader
and processual “causes”). “Causal inferences” only identify some causes of an effect –
not all the causes of that effect (or all the effects of those causes).
Systemic explanations are not, in this sense, “causal.” As Jervis puts

it, the causality operating in complex systems “cannot be captured by
labeling one set of elements ‘causes’ and [the] other ‘effects’.”42 And in
systems “we can never do merely one thing”43 – undermining the ceteris
paribus assumptions that are essential to intervention and counter-factual
accounts of causation.
Debating what causality “really is” would serve no purpose here. Ter-
minological clarity, however, is essential.
A coherent and well-established usage understands causes as indepen-
dent variables with causal effects. Therefore, I will use the noun “cause,”
either in scare quotes or with the adjective independent-variable, to refer
to independent variables (or “things”44) that (are reasonably held to)
have causal effects.
“Causes” thus understood, though, do not exhaust “causation” in
the broad ordinary-language sense of “production of an effect,”45 cor-
responding to the sense of “to cause” as “to effect, bring about, produce,
induce, make.”46 Causation or causality is not essentially, let alone sim-
ply, a matter of (the effects of) “causes.”
Some phenomena are caused by (independent-variable) “causes.”
Others, however, are caused (produced, brought about) in other ways.
Not every “effect” is caused by a “cause” (or set of “causes”).
My argument thus might be criticized as slightly off target. Causal inference directly
addresses the effects of treatment variables – effects is the noun in “causal effects” –
rather than the causes of an effect. (Simply seeking causes of an effect easily leads to
mindless searches for associations (e.g., garbage-can regressions).) Therefore, one
might argue, we should speak of this-is-an-effect-of-that explanations.
That formulation, however, focuses on the inference of a causal relation – which is
indeed the focus of causal inference methods. My focus here, however, is on the causal
nature of causal-inference explanations (which I contrast to systemic explanations).
Rather than seek to establish methodological criteria for validating “causal inferences”
between variables, I am concerned with the epistemic (or substantive) question of the
nature of explanations that employ independent-variable causes to explain dependent-
variable effects.
Consider Rubin’s motto (1986, 962) “no causation without manipulation.” This is a
purely methodological maxim. Manipulation may identify or confirm a causal effect. It
does not define a cause or causal relation. Manipulation often merely triggers something
else that “is” “the cause.” And most causation has nothing to do with manipulation.
42
(Jervis 1997, 48).
43
(Jervis 1997, 10 [this is the title of a subsection]. See also 65, 68, 91, 139, 291).
44
Potential outcomes causality, strictly speaking, is about relations between variables in
a dataset. (King, Keohane, and Verba (1994: 80–82) are especially clear about this.)
Relations between variables, though, are of explanatory interest only if tied to relations in
the world. Understanding “causes” to include “things” (as well as variables) both is the
harder case for my argument and avoids tying the discussion to a particular very narrow
theory of causality.
45
46
Systems and “causes” produce outcomes through different kinds of

processes. Systems effects and causal effects are caused differently, must
be explained differently, and explain differently.
4.4 Independent-Variable vs. Systemic Causation

Neo-positivist social science aims to make valid “causal inferences”47
through identifying and estimating “causal effects.” The essential sepa-
rability of “causes” and effects in this enterprise is often expressed as the
conditional independence of the values of the independent and depen-
dent variables.48 The (change in the) value of the independent variable
must not be in any way influenced by the dependent variable, which, in
the context of the intervention – that is, ceteris paribus – must be merely
dependent. For example, to say that the ball was the “cause” of the win-
dow breaking entails both that the impact of the ball was in no way
caused by the window49 and that, given the state of the glass at impact,
the breaking of the window was solely the result of the ball.
Consider, by contrast, a classic dynamic systems example: the Lotka–
Volterra predator–prey model.50 Assuming that prey have ample food
and that food for predators depends on the stock of prey, the number of
prey animals at any time is a function of the number of predators (and
the natural birth and death rates of the prey). Conversely, the number of
predators is a function of the number of prey (and the birth, death, and
net emigration rates of the predators).
A decline in the population of prey is, of course, produced by (the feed-
ing of) predators. But no independent variables determine the numbers
of either predators or prey. (These are interdependent systems effects.)
And the emergent cyclical oscillations of the stocks of predators and
prey – a shortage of prey leads to a collapse in the number of predators,
47
See, for example, (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 75), (Collier, Brady, and Seawright
2010, 3), (Waldner 2015), (Goertz 2017, 4, 5), (Beach and Pedersen 2019, 1, 2, 4,
ch. 5), (Beach 2020, 163). (Seawright 2016) uses “causal inference” forty times in the
seventeen pages of Chapter 1.
48
See, for example, (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 94–95), (Morgan and Winship
2007, 40–41, 48, 75, 76 n. 12), (Pearl 2009a, §4.2). For a critical discussion of the
independence assumptions of linear regression models, see (Abbott 1988, 171–181).
A bit more broadly, from the perspective of a historian, see (Sewell 2005, 91–101, esp.
95–96).
49
More precisely, the window exerted no physical force on the ball – although it may have
had a considerable psychological attraction to the nine-year-old thrower.
50
The Wikipedia entry provides a useful brief introduction. Overfishing is an obvious
application. (Tahara et al. 2018) is a relatively accessible recent work that addresses
the impact of immigrants on stabilizing predator–prey systems in the wild. (Mao et al.
2020) is an interesting application to online third-party payment systems in China.
which leads to a rebound in the population of prey, which leads to grow-

ing numbers of predators … – cannot even begin to be understood in
terms of (independent-variable) “causes” and their effects.
Systems, pace Waltz,51 are not “causes.” Rather than “things” that
are separate from their parts, on which they exert causal effects, systems
are the wholes of which their parts are parts. (A grandfather clock is not
separate from its pendulum, gears, etc. and does not exert causal effects
on them.) And the states of a system’s parts, processes, and outcomes do
not result (simply) from the aggregated effects of independent-variable
“causes.” They arise also from the structured organization and operation
of a system.
Part–whole and “cause”–effect are different kinds of productive/causal
relations that require (and provide) different types of explanations.
4.5 This-Is-a-Cause-of-That vs. How Explanations

Mechanismic explanations are a type of systemic explanation that, as
we saw in §1.7, “mak[e] intelligible the regularities being observed by
specifying in detail how they were brought about;” “identify the enti-
ties, activities, and relations that jointly produce the outcome to be
explained.”52 A mechanismic explanation “is explanatory precisely in
virtue of its capacity to enable us to understand how the parts of some
system actually conspire to produce that happening.”53
At least three interrelated differences between “causal” this-is-a-cause-
of-that explanations and mechanismic how explanations merit note.
• Causes vs. causation. This-is-a-cause-of-that explanations identify
causes; “things” responsible for an outcome. Mechanismic explana-
tions identify processes of causation; how an outcome is produced.
• Causal effects vs. causal processes. This-is-a-cause-of-that explanations
identify causal effects. Mechanismic explanations identify productive
causal processes.
• Causal relevance vs. causal efficacy.54 This-is-a-cause-of-that explana-
tions establish causal relevance; show that particular “things” are part
of the story of causality. Mechanismic explanations establish causal
efficacy; show how processes produce – actually cause – an outcome.
51
See n. 12 above.
52
(Hedström and Bearman 2009b, 5, 8). See also (Glennan 2017, 223, 228–230),
(Bechtel 2011).
53
(Waskan 2011, 393). See also (Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 22), (Illari and
Williamson 2012, 123), (Craver and Darden 2013, 23).
54
(Machamer 2004, 36) uses this language. Glennan (2017, 150–151, 153–155) contrasts
“causal relevance” to “causal production.” See also (Rescher 1996, 48), (Steel 2008,
19–28).
King, Keohane, and Verba’s claim that “real explanation is always based
on causal inferences”55 simply is not true if we mean (as they do) that
only independent-variable “causes” really explain. As Mario Bunge puts
it, “whereas every social cause has (by definition) a social effect, not
every social change results from a social cause. The methodological con-
sequence is obvious: not every correct explanation in social science is of
the causal type.”56 And, as the central role of mechanical explanations in
Biology57 indicates, the same is true of the natural sciences.
“Causes,” of course, operate within mechanisms. Usually, though,
they are of interest at a lower level of organization (or within a module
of a mechanism).58 Social and biological mechanisms rarely are centrally
about transmitting causal effects.59 Mechanismic effects are more than
the sum of the effects of all the “causes” operating within a mechanism.
And the focus of mechanismic explanations is on the organization and
operation of productive wholes (not what causes what).
4.6 Explanation: How, What, and Why

It is often claimed that (scientific) explanations tell us why some-
thing happened. As Waltz puts it, “theories show why … associations
obtain.”60 “What do I mean by explain? I mean explain in these senses:
to say why the range of expected outcomes falls within certain limits;
to say why patterns of behavior recur; to say why events repeat them-
selves.”61 Jon Elster similarly claims that “to explain an event is to give
an account of why it happened.”62 Jason Seawright and David Col-
lier define an explanation as “a statement about why an outcome has
occurred.”63
Above, though, I talked extensively about explanation largely with-
out reference to why. This, I now want to suggest, is because the why
account of explanation is either wrong (if “why” means something dif-
ferent from “because of what” or “how”) or unhelpful (because there are
different kinds of “whys” and it is the kind of why that really matters).
55
(King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 75 n. 1).
56
(Bunge 1997, 434).
57
See §1.7.
58
As Sewell (2005, 106) puts it, in the case of historical explanations, such explanations
do not “dismiss etiological factors but … specify their mode of effectuation.”
59
The metaphor of a row of falling dominoes (e.g., (Bennett and Checkel 2015b, 6))
therefore rarely is appropriate. “Social networks don’t just pass things; they do transfor-
mational work” (Padgett and Powell 2012e, 9).
60
(Waltz 1979, 5. See also 6, 8, 60, 72, 90; 1997, 913, 914, 916).
61
(Waltz 1979, 69).
62
(Elster 1989, 3).
63
(Seawright and Collier 2010, 329. See also 325).
There are many kinds of scientific explanatia (“things” that explain) –

and thus many kinds of scientific explanations.64
4.6.1 Associational Explanations

Some explanations are associational: they tell us what depends on what
(rather than why or how in any strong sense of those terms). And there
are many types of associational explanatory dependence.
“Universal” laws of nature, such as Newton’s Laws,65 take the form
“Because (period). This is the way the world is, as stated in this law,
which identifies this invariant relationship between these features of the
world.” The laws of Physics tell us not why the world is as it is but that it
is like “this.” (“Why is e = mc2?” is an incoherent question.)
Predictive explanations also usually are associational. Such explana-
tions – and they are explanations; they provide (limited but real and
often valuable) understanding or intelligibility – will almost certainly
grow in importance with the development of artificial intelligence and
“big data.”
Similarly, causal effects explanations establish causal associations that
answer what questions. They tell us that B is a causal effect of A – not
how A causes B or why B occurs.66
4.6.2 Systemic Explanations

Systemic explanations show outcomes to be the result of the organiza-
tion and operation of a complex whole. Different kinds of systems, how-
ever, produce or explain different kinds of outcomes, differently.
Mechanismic explanations take the form “because this is the way the
world works.” For example, photosynthesis explains how – not why –
glucose and oxygen are produced. If “Why?” is not an inappropriate
question, it asks for a different kind of answer. (Glucose is explained
functionally (it fuels life in plants) and oxygen is a byproduct.)
Networks are neither (independent-variable) “causes” nor mecha-
nisms in this sense. Network explanations abstract from the entities
64
I have adopted a “naturalistic” conception of science (see §2.1.2 at n. 26) that sees no
categorical epistemic difference between the natural and the social sciences.
65
I set aside the (lively) philosophical debate about the existence and character of “univer-
sal” laws of nature. (See, for example, (Cartwright 1983), (Carroll 2016), (Cartwright
and Ward 2016), (Roberts 2016).) I address instead how “things” that are regularly
called physical laws explain.
66
If one insists that this is why, then “why” means nothing more than “is a cause (or a
causal effect) of.” And this certainly is not what “why” means in many other contexts.
involved (in favor of nodes and edges) and from the particulars of the
activities.67 The “flow” through the “pipes” of the network explains the
outcome.68 Consider the strength of weak ties,69 first-mover and “net-
work” effects,70 and brokerage.71
In fields,72 outcomes arise from the presence of entities of a par-
ticular type in a field of a particular type that together produce an
emergent outcome. John Levi Martin, drawing an analogy with classi-
cal electromagnetism, identifies five distinctive features of social field
explanations.
First, we explain changes in the states of some elements … but need not appeal
to changes in states of other elements (i.e., “causes”); instead we make refer-
ence to a quality of space or position. Second, the elements have particular
attributes that make them susceptible to the field effect … Third, changes in
state involve an interaction between the field and the existing states of the
elements …. Fourth, the field without the elements is only a potential for the
creation of force, without any existent force. Finally, the field itself is orga-
nized and differential. In other words, at any position in the field we have a
vector of potential force, and these vectors are neither identical nor randomly
distributed.73
For example, in Pierre Bourdieu’s well-known schema of capital, habitus,
and field74 “the same” social resources have different values and modes
of operation in different social fields. (For example, wealth functions dif-
ferently in markets and in universities.) The dispositions of actors (habi-
tus) are shaped by the fields in which they operate. The consequences
of social action reproduce and reshape social fields. And outcomes arise
from actors of particular types deploying particular kinds of resources in
a field of a particular type.
In all these cases, understanding is rooted in recognizing that things
hang together in a particular way; that parts of particular types organized
into structured wholes of a particular type operate in distinctive ways.
67
(Kadushin 2012) is an accessible introduction to social network analysis. On networks
in IR, see n. 36 in §1.4.
68
(Craver 2016) is a useful discussion of how networks are explained in Biology.
69
(Granovetter 1973).
70
See, for example, (Lieberman and Montgomery 1988), (Kerin, Varadarajan, and
Peterson 1992), (Epstein 2008), (McIntyre and Srinivasan 2017), (Weiss 2018),
(Thurner et al. 2019), (Chalmers and Young 2020), (Clarke and Kocak 2020), (Druzin
2021).
71
See (Burt 2005) and, more briefly, (Stovel and Shaw 2012). See also (Kwon et al.
2020), (Stokes et al. 2013).
72
For IR examples, see n. 37 in §1.4.
73
(Martin 2003, 4).
74
(Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, 14–26, 94–115, 228–232) and (Bourdieu and
Wacquant 1993) are useful brief introductions.
4.6.3 Additional Kinds of Explanations

Rational-actor explanations usually claim not that actors are rational but
that treating them as if they were provides a kind of understanding. For
example, treating firms as rational profit maximizers allows us to predict
prices. But anyone who has ever had a private-sector job knows that
firms are not rational profit maximizers – and that this therefore cannot
be why (or how) prices are (or become) what they are.75
As if models sometimes explain not predictively but analogically – an
underappreciated style of reasoning in the social sciences.76 Analogical
explanations help us to make (a certain kind of) sense of phenomena not
by identifying actual causes or productive processes but by identifying
“something” of explanatory significance.
Intentional explanations, which are common when dealing with
human behavior, are why explanations. Conversely, “unintended conse-
quences” is often an explanation – but not a why explanation.
We also regularly explain by reference to other internal states of
agents, such as habits, dispositions, and instincts. But dispositions, for
example, are not “causes.” They are dispositions. (They dispose rather
than cause.)
We also often explain things as being functional. Why does that part
have that form? Because of its role in that system. Why did you do that
that way? Because it works well in these circumstances.
Functional explanations are, as Mitchell puts it, “challenging since
they are not causal in the usual sense, they are teleological”77 – and teleo-
logical explanations are often seen as circular, spooky, or easily subject to
abuse.78 Functional explanations, however, are common and important
in the life sciences.79 And they are powerful when it can be shown not
75
It simply is not true, as Waltz claimed, that “microeconomic theory explains how
an economy operates and why certain effects are to be expected” (1979, 90) or that
“microeconomic theory describes how an order is spontaneously formed from the self-
interested acts and interactions of individual units” (1979, 89). Neoclassical microeco-
nomics tells us what (not how or why).
76
(Hofstadter and Sander 2013) is a superb introduction with wide range. See also (Lakoff
and Johnson 1980), (Hesse 1996), (Bartha 2019), (Bailer-Jones 2009, ch. 3).
77
(Mitchell 2003, 95). On teleological explanations, see (Allen and Neal 2020), (Ariew
2007), (Ayala 1970), (Moreno and Mossio 2015, ch. 3), (Walsh 2008). (On functional
explanation, see n. 79 immediately below.)
78
Wendt (2003, 2005) is exceptional in IR for embracing functional and teleological
explanations.
79
(Garson 2019) is a good recent discussion. (Wright 1973) and (Cummins 1975)
are classic philosophical works on functional explanation. See also (Allen and Neal
2020), (Ariew, Cummins, and Perlman 2002), (Boorse 1976), (Craver 2001), (van
Hateren 2017), (Krohs et al. 2009), (Lombrozo and Carey 2006), (McLaughlin
2001), (Moreno and Mossio 2015, ch. 3), (Teufel 2011), (Walsh 2008). On
just that a trait “is functional but that that functionality explains its pres-
ence;”80 that “having the functional consequence in the past was respon-
sible for the current presence of the item in question.”81
4.7 Explanatory Pluralism

In the natural and social sciences alike, there is great variation in what is
explained, by what, how. It is not even close to true that “all good [scien-
tific] research can be understood – indeed, is best understood – to derive
from the same underlying logic of inference.”82 Different scientists, not
just in different disciplines but in different parts of a discipline (e.g., par-
ticle physics and astrophysics) and even in different research programs
in a particular field, appropriately ask different questions about different
kinds of “things” that generate qualitatively different (but equally “sci-
entific”) forms of knowledge.
There is no “best” kind of explanation – because neither the world nor
science speaks in a single authoritative voice. Mitchell’s argument for
the life sciences holds in the social sciences as well: multiple explanatory
practices “are driven by both the ontology of the biological world and the
special interests of the scientific community.”83 Explanatory pluralism84
is essential to an adequate social science.85
4.8 Theories, Models, and Explanations

A careful reader may have noted that I have avoided referring to theory.
Although this might seem odd, even troubling, it was intentional and
surprisingly easy – and, I now want to argue, productive.
functionalist theories of mental states, which is a leading view in the philosophy of

mind, see (Levin 2018).
80
(Mitchell 2003, 97–98).
81
(Mitchell 2003, 108). In evolutionary terms, the trait was not merely selected but
selected for.
82
83
(Mitchell 2003, 112).
84
Note that methodological pluralism, which is increasingly popular in the social sciences,
need not support explanatory pluralism. And in fact much multimethod research has
operated within a monistic causal inference (this-is-a-cause-of-that) explanatory frame-
work. (Goertz 2017) is a particularly striking example.
85
Mitchell argues for integrative pluralism. (The title of one of her books is Biological
Complexity and Integrative Pluralism.) This might be an inspiring aspiration in the social
sciences. I think, though, that explanatory eclecticism ((Sil and Katzenstein 2010a, b),
but cf. (Sanderson 1987)) usually will be the most we can aspire to – leaving us with the
problems of combining different approaches (which rarely produce knowledge that is
simply additive).
4.8.1 Social-Scientific “Theory”

Although “theory” has a variety of relatively narrow and precise senses,
those who stress theory in the social sciences typically use the broad
ordinary-language sense of “an explanation of a phenomenon arrived
at through examination and contemplation of the relevant facts.”86 For
example, King, Keohane, and Verba define a social science theory as “a
reasoned and precise speculation about the answer to a research ques-
tion, including a statement about why the proposed answer is correct.”87
(Roughly, a theory is a (good) explanation.) Even more vaguely, Sea-
wright and Collier define a theory as “the conceptual and explanatory
understandings that are an essential point of departure in conducting
research, and that in turn are revised in light of research.”88 (Roughly,
theory and research are somehow recursively related.)
A theory, in this broad sense, explains with some degree of abstrac-
tion and generality. This makes it easy to talk about explanation without
mentioning theory – which means, roughly, generalizable explanation.89
Why, then, do so many social scientists give so much emphasis to
“theory”? (For example, King, Keohane, and Verba not only insist that
“theory and empirical research must be tightly connected” but that
“every piece of information that we gather should contribute to specify-
ing observable implications of our theory.”90) Much of the explanation,
it seems to me, is that it is often difficult in the this-is-a-cause-of-that
explanations that such scholars usually advocate or employ to decisively
distinguish mere statistical associations from truly causal relations. The-
ory is one way to do that.
A regularity that is nothing more than a correlation is not explanatory.
Statistical associations only explain when embedded within some other
more general explanatory structure – such as a theory.
“A is a cause of B,”91 however, claims not that that A is merely associ-
ated with B but that A is a “cause” of B.92 And that claim is explanatory,
without the need for additional “theory.” (The explanation, whatever its
accuracy, takes the form of identifying a “cause.”)
In “causal” social research, however, it often is difficult to establish
a real or valid causal relation. (Thus the emphasis on causal inference.)
Careful researchers therefore tend to be reluctant to overinterpret the
86
87
88
(Seawright and Collier 2010, 354).
89
(Schieder and Spindler 2014, 5).
90
(King, Keohane, and Verba, 1994, 29, 51).
91
Or “B is a casual effect of A.” See n. 43 above.
92
See §4.3.
meaning of, say, coefficients in a regression equation. Out of appropriate

epistemic caution, an identified “causal effect” is treated gingerly until
we can further validate causality.
This-is-a-cause-of-that explanations thus often lie in an epistemic grey
area between mere associations and the sort of well-established causal
relations that we are warranted in relying on (epistemically or prag-
matically). For example, we often talk of hypothesized causes and then
devote considerable effort to increasing our confidence in the causality
of an observed association through, for example, statistical tests, data-
modeling, process tracing, and identifying causal mechanisms – and,
I am arguing, “theory.”
Theories – like mechanisms, networks, and fields – explain a particular
causal relation by showing it to be an instance of a more general explana-
tory relation. Like statistical tests of significance, “theory” is a useful
technique for validating a research finding; for increasing our confidence
that this really “is” what is going on in the world.
The fact that an explanation is theoretical, however, tells us little
about its character or form (other than that it employs abstraction and
generalization). And “theoretical” explanations, as I have argued above,
are not privileged. In fact, most of the forms of explanation noted above
explain without a theory.
For example, a mechanismic explanation requires nothing beyond
identifying the mechanism that is in fact responsible for an outcome.
Why? Because that’s how the world works. “Biologists explain why by
explaining how.”93
Laws too explain without theories. (The Second Law of Thermody-
namics is regularly employed as an explanation.) Rational actor mod-
els explain without a theory (or we simply call the model a theory even
though it tells us neither how nor why). Intentional and functional
explanations also explain without a theory. And in causal inferences as
well explanatory dependence is established without appeal to a “theory.”
Theory, in other words, is but one of many scientific explanatia.
I readily admit that we usually would like to be able to place our expla-
nations, whether causal, mechanical, as if, or other, within a more com-
prehensive explanatory structure (“theory”). But theory, pace Waltz, is
not essential to scientific research and explanation.94
Therefore, even if we agree that causal inferences in the social sci-
ences usually should not be accepted without theoretical (in addition to
statistical) support, this is a distinctive feature of social-scientific causal
93
(Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2005, 422. See also 421, 439).
94
See also §13.4.3.
inferences – not a general feature of scientific explanations. For exam-

ple, biologists explain photosynthesis (in terms of mechanisms and func-
tions) without a theory of photosynthesis.95
Good theories, when we have them (which is rarely is the social sci-
ences) can be of considerable explanatory value. But appreciating that
different kinds of scientific explanations explain different parts of the
world differently, I am arguing, is an important step toward a more ade-
quate understanding of what we do and do not know about how the
world is and how it works – and how we might go about developing
deeper and more useful understandings.
4.8.2 Laws and Theories vs. Mechanisms and Models

Stuart Glennan helpfully contrasts “the laws and theories image of sci-
ence” – which not only remains strong in much of the physical sciences
but in a “causes”-and-theories variant is the norm in mainstream social
science – with a “mechanisms and models approach.”96 Mechanismic
explanations employ models97 that represent/depict “real” mecha-
nisms.98 They show us (a model of) how an outcome is produced. And
the model is the explanation; what makes the outcome intelligible or
understandable.
In this context, recall Waltz’s claim that “a theory depicts the organi-
zation of a realm and the connections among its parts.”99 Few theories in
IR even try to depict the organization of a domain of activity. (As we will
see in the following chapters, Waltz did no such thing.) And it is hard to
think of most explanations of law-like regularities as pictures.
A depiction of the organization of a realm, however, is “naturally”
understood as a model, in the ordinary-language sense of “something
which accurately resembles or represents something else” or “a simpli-
fied or idealized description or conception of a particular system, situa-
tion, or process.”100 And systemic explanations, I am suggesting, “are”
95
For example, a Google Scholar search in November 2022 for “photosynthesis” pro-
duced almost 1.7 million results. Searches for “theory of photosynthesis” and “photo-
synthesis theory,” however, together produced barely 500 results. See also §13.4.2.
96
(Glennan 2017, 7, 8). See also (Rosenberg 1994a, 128–139).
97
See, for example, (Craver 2006), (Illari 2019). On scientific models more generally, see
(Giere 2004, 2010), (Godfrey-Smith 2006), (Frigg and Hartman 2020).
98
Pictorial representations thus usually are central in reporting the results of mechanis-
mic research. (Abrahamsen, Sheredos, and Bechtel 2017), (Bechtel 2017a), (Sheredos
and Bechtel 2019), (Craver and Darden 2013, 56–59). (James 2019) offers a variant
on such an argument in the context of IR.
99
(Waltz 1997, 913).
100
models that explain phenomena as characteristic outcomes of the opera-

tion of an organized domain (system).
Such models of mechanisms may be verbal, pictorial, or mathemati-
cal. They may provide how-actually explanations or how-possibly expla-
nations (e.g., agent-based models101). In all of their variations, though,
they focus on how outcomes are produced (not what causes what or
why).
4.8.3 Schemas, Sketches, Perspectives, and Causal Thickets

The biological literature on mechanisms often distinguishes more and
less fully elaborated models. For example, Peter Machamer, Lindley
Darden, and Carl Craver call a simplified (abstracted) representa-
tion of a mechanism that leaves out only “unimportant” “details” a
schema.102 A sketch of a mechanism, by contrast, has “missing pieces,
black boxes, which we do not yet know how to fill in.”103 More sub-
tly, Craver and Darden identify an epistemic progression from black
box sketches (in which the mechanisms are largely unknown or highly
speculative) to grey box sketches (which contain incomplete or con-
tested knowledge of the mechanisms) to glass box schemas (in which
the components are relatively fully specified and supported by strong
evidence).104
In IR (and other social sciences) models usually have, at best, lots of
black boxes. More typically, our theories/models instead involve what
William Wimsatt calls “perspectives” and “causal thickets.”
Perspectives are partial cuts into complex problems. “Sometimes prob-
lems appear to be big enough, or generally enough stated … that they
seem to be intrinsically multi-perspectival.”105 And often our knowledge
supports only multiple, and sometimes even contradictory, perspectives.
(When there is agreement on a single perspective, it stops being (just) a
perspective.)
Causal thickets arise where boundaries between perspectives are
unclear or incomplete. In causal thickets we have “an unusually large
proportion [relative to Physics and Chemistry] of conceptual issues,
101
See, for example, (Epstein 2006), (Sotomayor, Pérez-Castrillo, and Castiglione 2020).
102
(Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 17). See also (Darden 2008, 966–967),
(Darden 2013, 23).
103
(Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 18). See also (Darden 2013, 23), (Bechtel
2011, 537).
104
(Craver and Darden 2013, 31). See also (Darden 2008, 966–967), (Bunge 1997, 427–
430, 460–461). (Craver and Kaplan 2020) is an interesting recent discussion of levels
of detail in mechanismic explanations.
105
(Wimsatt 2007, 238).
methodological arguments, and boundary disputes. Some of these dis-

putes are likely to indicate sources of genuine disagreement, but this
can’t be determined when so many things are up for grabs.”106
This, Wimsatt suggests, is common in the social sciences.107 In fact,
“on a priori grounds, considering the possible connectivities of causal
networks, shouldn’t causal thickets be the norm?”108 “There are some
things that are just too multiply connected” to fit neatly defined mod-
els.109 (Classical physicists have it easy, being able to deal (analytically)
with relatively simple and separable entities and activities.110)
“Theories” and research programs in IR often amount to what I sug-
gest thinking of as pathways through causal thickets. They are lines of
inquiry that do not involve, but can be seen to be pointing in the direc-
tion of, plausible perspectives (or perhaps even mechanism sketches).
This framing, however, highlights the fact that discovering and
depicting a mechanism or system, however roughly sketched, is an
important epistemic achievement.111 Showing (incompletely but
insightfully) how parts of a system are productively organized and
operate, even if we can’t say much about the nuts and bolts of opera-
tions at lower levels of organization or within particular black-boxed
modules, usually counts as a highly developed (and often valuable)
understanding.
4.9 Descriptive Accuracy in Systemic/

Structural Explanations
I close this chapter with a coda that contrasts the emphasis on descriptive
accuracy in relational/systemic research with the neo-positivist denigra-
tion of description. Consider Waltz’s claim that “the assumption that
men behave as economic men, which is known to be false, turns out to
be useful in the construction of theory.”112
106
(Wimsatt 2007, 239).
107
(Wimsatt 2007, 239).
108
(Wimsatt 2007, 240).
109
(Wimsatt 2007, 240). For interesting uses of the idea of causal thickets, see, for exam-
ple, (Jackson and Sax 2010), (Harris and Heathwaite 2012), (Craver et al. 2020),
(Winning 2020).
110
As Waltz (1979, 39. See also 12) noted, the analytical (reductionist) method is “pre-
eminently the method of classical physics.” His justificatory references to Galileo and
Newton (1979, 5, 6, 9, 25) thus are at best awkward.
111
(Craver and Darden 2013) extensively explores the discovery of mechanisms in the life
sciences.
112
(Waltz 1979, 89). King, Keohane, and Verba (1994, §2.5) do recognize some value
in “descriptive inference” but give it much lower epistemic (and scientific) status than
“causal inference.”
Theories, as Waltz notes, “are combinations of descriptive and theo-

retical statements.”113 Fruitful “inaccuracy” in descriptive terms, how-
ever, involves “simplifications [that] lay bare the essential elements in
play and indicate the necessary relations of cause and interdependency –
or suggest where to look for them.”114 Such justified-because-revealing
simplifications have a certain essential accuracy. Calling them “false” is,
at best, misleading.
All descriptions are “inaccurate.” For example, “the book is on the
table” leaves out most of what is visible in the room (and everything at
the microscopic level). And descriptions must leave out most things if
they are to be useful – although what is included and what is not depends
largely on the purposes of the observer.
Consider two extreme examples. We usually treat water as a singular
thing. But at the atomic level there are eighteen types of water (arising
from the existence of three isotopes of hydrogen and three stable isotopes
of oxygen). And if you are interested in nuclear fusion, which requires
water made with tritium (hydrogen with two neutrons), this “tiny” – lit-
erally, subatomic – difference is of immense importance. Similarly, the
genomes of chimpanzees and humans differ by about one percent. We
might imagine a superior class of being that considers this “essentially
the same.” To us, though, this “tiny difference” seems crucial.
Theoretically defensible, desirable, or necessary descriptive “inaccura-
cies” set aside (abstract from) “secondary” features in order to identify
causal or structural relations that are relevant to a particular explana-
tory purpose. They do not fundamentally misdescribe what is theoretically
primary. Quite the contrary, they are intended to “lay bare the essential
elements [that are] in play.”115
Consider Waltz’s argument that “the survival motive is taken as the
ground of action in a world where the security of the state is not assured,
rather than as a realistic description of the impulse that lies behind every
act of state.”116 But if survival does not in fact impel an action then to
assume that it does is simply an error – or results in a predictive or ana-
logical explanation (with no indication of why or how), not a systemic
(or causal) explanation.
In any case, systemic or structural explanations claim that a system is
arranged in a particular way and that that arrangement explains the phe-
nomena in question. Revealing simplifications are, of course, necessary.
Systemic/structural models, however, must be fundamentally accurate.
113
(Waltz 1979, 10).
114
(Waltz 1979, 10).
115
(Waltz 1979, 10).
116
(Waltz 1979, 92).
Systems are not merely convenient analytical constructs that allow us

to predict.117 Systemic explanation is a matter of showing that (to the
best of our knowledge, at the levels of organization under consideration)
this part of the world is organized in this way and does operate in these
ways – and, as a result, does produce those outcomes.
More generally, Mitchell argues that “the function of scientific gener-
alizations is to provide reliable expectations of the occurrence of events
and patterns of properties. The tools we design and use for this are true
generalizations that describe the actual structures that persist in the nat-
ural world.”118 If we read true and actual with scare quotes (of what-
ever size or intensity you think is necessary)119 and take reliable to mean
something that we can reasonably depend on for epistemic or pragmatic
purposes then this seems to me to capture what I take to be the central
impulse behind the scientific study of the world in general and of systems
in particular.
117
See §1.1 at n. 9.
118
(Mitchell 2003, 124).
119
Recall that systemic/relational research is compatible with (at least) scientific realism,
philosophical constructivism, and pragmatism, which have very different understand-
ings of “true” and “actual.” See the last paragraph of §1.5.
Part II
Waltzian Structural Theory

A Postmortem
The five chapters of this Part argue that almost everything about the
account of systemic/structural theory developed in Kenneth Waltz’s
Theory of International Politics, which remains the predominant under-
standing in IR today, is misguided or just plain wrong if we evaluate it as
systemic theory. Waltzian structuralism, understood as systemic theory, not
only has failed but has retarded and corrupted the development of sys-
temic research and explanation in IR.
Prior critiques of Waltz have been legion. Most, though, have focused
on his substantive theory of structural realism (which I will refer to as
“Waltz’s theory”). Those that have addressed what I will call “Waltzian
theory,” the structural framework that Waltz introduced, have addressed
particular parts. None has made the sort of detailed, coordinated, and
comprehensive arguments about anarchy, structure, and systemic theory
that I attempt here.
In IR today, almost all theorists and researchers acknowledge that the
details of Waltz’s account need to be amended, modified, elaborated, or
refined.1 The predominant view in the discipline, however, remains, as
Barry Buzan, Charles Jones, and Richard Little put it three decades ago,
that Waltz “offers a solid foundation.”2 And few disagree with Robert
Jervis’ claim that Waltz’s theory is “the most truly systemic of our theo-
ries of international politics.”3
The following chapters argue that these assessments are radically
wrong – and that, therefore, IR needs a new understanding of interna-
tional political systems and how to study them.
1
I take these descriptions from (Ruggie 1983, 273), (Keohane 1986c, 162, 193–194),
(Walt 1988, 281), (James 1993), (Schweller 1997). The dates of these works (and the
prominence of the authors) show that particular inadequacies were well known even as it
was establishing its hegemony. My contribution is to show the comprehensive systematic
failure of the Waltzian account.
2
3
(Jervis 1997, 124).
81
82 Part II: Waltzian Structural Theory: A Postmortem
As we will see below, almost nothing actually follows from anarchy and
polarity alone – which Waltz argued (see §5.1.2) are the sole elements of
the structure of international political systems. Therefore, Waltz himself
explained “the long Cold War peace” by the conjunction of the structural
variable of bipolarity and the non-structural variable of nuclear weapons.4
Right from the beginning, no one, including Waltz, used Waltzian struc-
tural theory, in the sense of presenting explanations based on ordering
principle and polarity alone. And we have long known that.
Nonetheless, standard practice in IR has been (and remains) to make
an apparently foundational reference to Waltz and then go about one’s
business, adding (as Waltz himself did) whatever one finds necessary
to address the world insightfully. Realists typically add non-structural
variables such as technology, geography, and domestic politics.5 Neo-
liberal institutionalists, when they do not ignore structure, typically
adopt what Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye call “the neorealist sense”6
and explore how institutions alter the effects of anarchy. The rare cases
of more elaborated structural models are ad hoc constructions, with no
relation to any general account of elements or types of political struc-
tures.7 And, more often than not, “system” and “structure” are used in
loose ordinary-language senses of indeterminate import.
Some might suggest that this is because systems approaches have little
to contribute to IR (other than identifying some broad background con-
ditions that we ignore at our analytic or practical peril). I argue, though,
that the problem is the particular Waltzian conception.
The structures of international systems are not simple and fundamen-
tally the same. Capturing their complexity and variety requires a radi-
cally different conception of international systems. And making way for
such an understanding, I am suggesting, requires a comprehensive post-
mortem of the Waltzian approach.
To switch metaphors, we can’t just rearrange the furniture or remodel
the house. We need to tear it down and start over. Only after we have
bulldozed and swept away the deeply embedded Waltzian understand-
ings of systems and structures can systemic theory in IR move produc-
tively forward.
Chapter 5 is brief but essential. I show that Waltz abandoned systemic
theory for an outside-in analytical theory that tried to explain the whole
(the system) in terms of one of its parts (its structure).
4
(Waltz 1990a). See also (Waltz 1981).
5
See n. 2 in Chapter 10.
6
(Keohane and Nye 1987, 745).
7
See, for example, n. 2 in ch. 7 and n. 55 in ch. 9.
Part II: Waltzian Structural Theory: A Postmortem 83
Chapter 6 considers anarchy, the substantive heart of the Waltzian

account of international political systems. I begin by demonstrating the
diversity of definitions of anarchy in contemporary IR – a troubling, even
appalling, situation, given the centrality of the concept. This is rooted, I
argue, in the impossible-to-fulfill desire to make anarchy both the defin-
ing feature of international relations and a master explanatory variable. I
then argue that anarchy has no determinate effects. Therefore, we need
to overcome now-long-naturalized understandings – which in §6.4 I
show are largely due to Waltz – by de-centering anarchy in systemic
international theory.
Chapter 7 shows that anarchy and polarity cannot explain characteris-
tic outcomes even in relatively simple anarchical systems.
Chapter 8 argues that, pace Waltz, functional differentiation is equally
characteristic of international and national political systems and that the
distribution of capabilities is not an essential element of political systems.
Chapter 9 considers political ordering principles, which are the heart
of the Waltzian conception of political structures. I show that hierarchy,
Waltz’s other political ordering principle, neither is an ordering principle
nor was an established frame for IR before Waltz. I then criticize two
recent efforts to vindicate Waltz’s (widely shared) intuition that most
political systems come in one of few simple types. These failures, I sug-
gest, indicate that international political systems don’t have ordering
principles.
Taken together, these arguments imply that rather than continue
to look for a few simple types of international systems, defined by a
few features, we need to develop broad, multidimensional systemic
framings – which I begin to try to do in Part II.
Much of this Part, I am well aware, will be of little interest to many
(most?) readers. Therefore, nothing in Part III depends on anything
addressed here. I do, however, think that even those inclined to jump
immediately to Part III probably should read (the very short) C hapter 5,
to appreciate how far Waltzian structuralism diverges from systemic
approaches as they are understood in all other natural and social science
disciplines. As for the remaining chapters in this part, if you understand
anarchy as definitional and of central explanatory importance in IR,
I suggest that you look at Chapter 6. And I think that §7.2, which shows
that the Waltzian account cannot explain outcomes even in great power
states systems, is of relatively broad general interest.
5 Structural Theory
Much of the appeal of Theory of International Politics rests on Waltz’s

claim to have developed a systemic theory. This chapter shows that,
despite its systemic starting point, Waltzian structural theory is thor-
oughly analytic.1 Its dominance in IR thus has produced a perverse mis-
understanding of the nature of systemic explanation and research.
5.1 Waltz’s Theory of International Politics

I begin with a brief summary of Theory of International Politics, for those
who might want a refresher.
5.1.1 Systems, Structures, and Levels

After discussing the nature of theory in Chapter 1, Waltz devoted
Chapters 2–4 to contrasting analytic and systemic theory and arguing for
the value of systemic international political theory.
Waltz presented systems as “composed of a structure and of interact-
ing units,”2 located, respectively, on the system or structural level3 and
the unit level.4 “Reductionist” theories, Waltz argued, explain outcomes
in terms of attributes, actions, and interactions on the unit level (such
as ideology, constitutional structure, and leadership). Structural theories
explain through variables on the system or structural level.
Previous “systems theories” of international politics, however, rather
than explain exclusively by reference to system-level variables, relied, to
a greater or lesser degree, on attributes and interactions of units.5 Waltz’s
project was to develop a purely system-level theory of international politics.
1
On the distinction between systemic and analytic explanations, see §1.2.
2
(Waltz 1979, 79).
3
(Waltz 1979, 67, 68, 69, 71, 78, 79, 99, 100, passim).
4
(Waltz 1979, 18, 38, 44, 69 and passim).
5
Most of Chapters 2 and 3 of Theory of International Politics critiqued “classic” authors
such as Lenin and Hobson and recent contemporaries, especially Hoffmann, Kaplan,
and Rosecrance.
85
5.1.2 The Elements of Political Structures

In Chapter 5 Waltz argued that all political structures can, in a rough but
exhaustive first approximation, be defined by their ordering principle,
differentiation of functions, and distribution of capabilities.
“In defining structures, the first question to answer is this: What
is the principle by which the parts are arranged?”6 Political systems,
Waltz argued, have one of two ordering principles: hierarchy, which
places units in relations of super- and subordination, or anarchy, in
which units stand in relations of coordination.7 National politics, Waltz
argued, is hierarchical; it takes place in the presence of government.
International politics, by contrast, is anarchic; it takes place in the
absence of government.
“The second term in the definition … specifies the functions performed
by differentiated units.”8 In hierarchies, super- and subordination are
associated with differentiated actors that perform different functions.9 In
anarchic orders, Waltz argued, all units are fundamentally the same and
thus “the second term is not needed in defining international-political
structures.”10
The third element of a political structure is the distribution of capa-
bilities among the units.11 Because all international systems are anar-
chic and lack functional differentiation, international systems differ only
in their distribution of capabilities (which Waltz treated as a matter of
polarity; the number of great powers12).
5.1.3 Structural Realism and Structural Effects

Using these understandings of structural theory and political structure,
Chapter 6 developed a substantive theory of international politics that
quickly came to be known as neorealism (to distinguish it from earlier
realist theories) or structural realism (which identifies its central explana-
tory variable).
“Self-help is necessarily the principle of action in an anarchic order”13
in which actors “are coupled by force and competition rather than by
6
(Waltz 1979, 81). (Waltz addressed ordering principles in more detail on pp. 88–92.)
7
(Waltz 1979, 88–93, 114–116).
8
(Waltz 1979, 93).
9
(Waltz 1979, 88).
10
(Waltz 1979, 93).
11
(Waltz 1979, 82). (Waltz addressed distribution of capabilities in more detail on pp.
97–99.)
12
(Waltz 1979, 129–131ff. and 161–170).
13
(Waltz 1979, 111).
Structural Theory 87
authority and law.”14 This, Waltz argued, has two principal conse-
quences. States in anarchy “must be more concerned with relative
strength than with absolute advantage,”15 making cooperation extremely
difficult. And because all large concentrations of external power are
potentially threatening, states in anarchy respond to a rising power by
balancing rather than bandwagoning.16
These effects, Waltz claimed, arise from anarchy alone. Polarity, he
argued (in Chapters 7 and 8), produces additional economic and military
effects. In contrast to liberal arguments that interdependence is a source
of peace and cooperation, Waltz argued that it is a source of conflict.
He also argued that a bipolar system will be more stable than a multipo-
lar system.17 And in Chapter 9, which concluded Theory of International
Politics, Waltz argued that bipolar systems allow for more effective great
power management of international affairs.
5.2 A Structure and Interacting Units

“A system is composed of a structure and of interacting units.”18 This
formulation, which Waltz employed in developing his theory, made three
subtle but crucial changes to the standard understanding of systems as
structured elements organized into complex wholes.
First, Waltz replaced the past participle “structured” (“arranged,” “posi-
tioned,” “organized”) with the noun “a structure”19 – turning the arrange-
ment of a system’s parts into some thing that acts upon and interacts with
those parts. (“Structure [i]s a force that shapes and shoves the units.”20
“The structure of the system and its interacting units mutually affect each
other.”21 A systems theory shows “how structures and units interact and
affect each other.”22) But structure, in fact, “is a property, not a thing.”23
14
(Waltz 1979, 117).
15
(Waltz 1979, 106. See also 134, 195). In slightly different terms, states seek not to maxi-
mize their power but rather to maintain their position within the system (Waltz 1979,
126–127).
16
(Waltz 1979, 125–126. See also 118–119, 128).
17
(Waltz 1979, 138ff., 164–170).
18
(Waltz 1979, 79). “A system is composed of a structure and of interacting parts” (Waltz
1979, 80).
19
“Structured” was used only three times in Theory of International Politics (1979, 72
(twice), 88) and never in (Waltz 1990a, 1993, 2000). Waltz, however, used “a struc-
ture” or “the structure” repeatedly. (1979, 40, 43, 45, 46, 49, 57, 58, 69, 72, 73, 74,
78, 79, 80, 82, 87, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97, 99, 105, 106, 108; 1990b, 29, 34, 37; 1993,
49, 50, 52, 71; 2000, 5, 8, 10, 20, 39).
20
(Waltz 1990b, 34).
21
(Waltz 1979, 58). See also nn. 26, 28.
22
(Waltz 1979, 100. See also 40).
23
(Bunge 1997, 415).
Second, Waltz replaced elements of particular types with characterless

“units.” Abstract analytic constructs, however, cannot be parts of sys-
tems. You can’t make a stopwatch out of a barrel of monkeys. And you
can’t make a system of any sort from “thingies.”
Third, Waltz replaced the organization or arrangement of elements by
their interaction. Waltz rightly criticized his predecessors for “fail[ing]
to distinguish the interaction of units from their arrangement.”24 “To
define a structure requires ignoring how units … interact … and con-
centrating on how they stand in relation to one another (how they are
arranged or positioned).”25
Waltz in fact, though, theorized interactions of units (with one
another and with a reified structure). Systems and their structures thus
became external constraints on otherwise more or less autonomous
actors.
“Structure designates a set of constraining conditions.”26 A systems
theory “describes the constraints that arise from the system.”27 Waltz
even suggested that we think of structure “as simply a constraint.”28
Systems, however, are not only – or even fundamentally – constraints.
(Although families do constrain their members they are not essentially,
or even primarily, constraints on the actions of individuals.) Systems
also direct, enable, empower, and sometimes even constitute actors and
actions.
As Robert Powell accurately notes, Waltz “decomposed [systems] into
units and constraints” and assumed “that we can usefully conceive of the
actors or units in a system as separate and distinct from the constraints
that define the strategic setting in which the units interact.”29 Everything
in this account – decompose, separate, distinct, interact – screams “ana-
lytic.” Nevertheless, Powell, again nicely paraphrasing Waltz, argues that
“fixing the units’ attributes and varying the constraints facing the units
comprise the fundamental conceptual experiment underlying systemic
explanations.”30
24
25
(Waltz 1979, 80 [emphasis added]. See also 98).
26
(Waltz 1979, 73). See also (Waltz 1979, 12, 52, 58, 69, 71, 76, 86, 90, 91, 92, 107, 109,
117, 122; 1990b, 36). The index to Theory of International Politics included “Structure,
as set of constraining conditions” and “Behavior, patterns derived from structural
constraints.”
27
(Waltz 1979, 118. See also 57).
28
(Waltz 1979, 100). On Waltz’s fundamentally individualistic (actor-centered rather
than system-centered) perspective, see §5.7.
29
(Powell 1994, 317. Cf. 321).
30
(Powell 1994, 317).
In fact, however, decomposing “units” and “constraints” and explor-

ing the impact of constraints on assumed-to-be-fixed units can only pro-
duce analytic (not systemic) explanations.
This stunning reversal was rooted in Waltz’s conception of levels. As
we saw in §3.2, Waltz used levels to locate independent-variable causes.
He also argued that “any approach or theory, if it is rightly termed ‘sys-
temic,’ must show how the systems level, or structure, is distinct from
the level of interacting units.”31 Only “the structure” is “on the system
level.” The parts of the system have been consigned to a level that is not
a system level. And “the system,” now understood as a level (rather than
a whole), is considered separately from (and as an external influence on)
the parts that compose it.
Waltz confused systemic theory with “structural theory” “on the sys-
tem level.”32
5.3 Structural Theory

The analytic nature of this approach to theory was further obscured by
Waltz’s reformulation of the distinction between analytic and systemic
approaches as the difference between “reductionist” and “structural”
theory.
Reductionist approaches, as we saw in §2.1.1, “reduce” A to x by
explaining A by x, either partially or completely (eliminatively). Waltz
rightly insisted that because states systems are not fully reducible to
states and individuals, an eliminative reductionist program cannot suc-
ceed in IR.
Waltz also used “reductionist” in a weaker sense, though, to indicate
explanations of international phenomena that in any way invoke unit-
level causes.33 And he did indeed avoid explanations that were in any
way “inside-out;”34 that made any reference (except by assumption35) to
any attributes or actions of the units.
Systemic theory, however, explains not with variables on the system
level but through the organized operation of complex wholes. And it
31
32
Buzan, Jones, and Little (1993, ch. 2, 3) powerfully critique Waltz’s confusion of sys-
tems and structures and present a usefully expanded account of the system level (1993,
12, 33–34, 66, 72, 86, 90, 233). Nonetheless, they continue to employ a levels of analy-
sis framing that reifies structure and (analytically) separates systems and units. They
therefore share many of the other problems in the Waltzian account.
33
(Waltz 1979, 18–19, 31, 37, 38, 45, 56, and passim; 1988, 617, 618, 619, 620, 624,
626–627, 628; 1990b, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37; 1993, 49; 2000, 5).
34
(Waltz 1979, 47, 63, 64, 67). Compare (Waltz 1986, 322; 1975, 67).
35
See below at nn. 45–50.
does not require avoiding all reference to all characteristics of the units.
Quite the contrary, as we saw in §2.1.1, only parts of particular types
can be parts of a system and the nature of those parts is essential to the
character of the systems (e.g., DNA and organisms).
Waltz at one point did seem to adopt this understanding: “theories of
international politics that concentrate causes at the individual or national
level are reductionist; theories that conceive of causes operating at the
international level as well are systemic.”36 Systemic explanations include
(and focus on), but are not restricted to, entities, activities, and phenom-
ena “on the system level” (to use Waltz’s framing).
In practice, though, Waltz instead tried to apportion causality between
analytically walled off “units” and “the structure,” treated as indepen-
dent variables.37 And from these disarticulated pieces he produced an
“outside-in” theory that was “structural,” in the sense that it relied on
“the structure,” but analytic (not systemic), because it did not explain
through the organization and operation of the parts of a complex whole.
Because a system is “more than” the sum of its parts, a systemic
explanation can never explain only by the parts. Any parts. Even “the
structure.”
Neither inside-out nor outside-in explanations consider “the system”
as a system or “units” as parts of a system. Complex wholes – systems – are
nowhere to be found in Waltzian “systemic” structural theory.
5.4 Reductive Explanations

Partially reductive explanations regularly produce valuable knowledge,
even about systems. In fact, comprehensive explanations of international
systems must include both bottom-up and top-down explanations.38 As
Waltz put it, “the weight of systems-level and of unit-level causes39 may
well vary from one system to another.”40 In systems, (only) “some part
of the explanation … is found in the system’s structure.”41
36
37
Here Waltz’s repeated claim that structures are causes (Waltz 1979, 74. See also n. 12
in §4.1.1) becomes crucial, given the fundamental incompatibility of systemic and
independent-variable causal explanations (see §§4.4, 4.5).
38
This arises from the partial (in)separability of systems and their components. See §2.1.
39
Note his reliance on separate causes at separate levels – rather than addressing the orga-
nized operation of complex wholes.
40
(Waltz 1979, 48. See also 39, 78, 175, 202; 1990b, 34, 36).
41
(Waltz 1979, 73). It is often claimed that for Waltz “the internal characteristics of the
elements matter less than their place in the system” (Jervis 1997, 5); that he “locates
the key causes of international life in the system-level” (Wendt 1999, 12); that “Waltz
favored the system level as the dominant source of explanation” (Buzan 1995, 201);
Partially reductive explanations are problematic only when (mis)rep-

resented as either systemic or as everything necessary to understand “the
system.” And such misrepresentations were indeed a problem in IR in
the decades before Theory of International Politics.
I am suggesting, though, that Waltz, in combatting such errors, devel-
oped a virtual phobia of explanations that in any way reference a system’s
elements. But just as you can’t explain an ant colony without reference
to ants, you can’t explain an international system as a system without
reference to certain characteristics of its parts.
5.5 “Units”
It is indeed true that, as Waltz argued, in depicting the structures of
international systems we should “leav[e] aside questions about the kinds
of political leaders, social and economic institutions, and ideological
commitments states may have.”42 The reason, though, is not that these
are attributes of units/states. Rather, those attributes are “unit-level attri-
butes” in the Waltzian sense that their causes are located “on the unit
level;”43 that is, within particular states or particular individuals.
Other attributes of states – most obviously, statehood itself – are
“system-level attributes.” Their causes are “on the system level.” (More
precisely, these attributes are matters of the organization of the system’s
elements.) They therefore must be included in any systemic theory of
international politics.
To “abstract from every attribute of states except their c apabilities,”44
as Waltz claimed a systemic/structural theory must, is to treat states as
if they were neither states nor parts of a system. Such radical abstrac-
tion precludes not only systemic theory but explanatory theory of any
sort. “Units” without attributes are inert. They cannot even react, let
alone act.
that structural realism holds that “structure is the overwhelming factor of interna-
tional politics” (Harknett and Yalcin 2012, 502). I have, however, been able to find
no passage where Waltz advanced such strong claims. Rather, he claimed that “to
explain outcomes one must look at the capabilities, the actions, and the interactions
of states, as well as at the structure of their systems” (Waltz 1979, 174). (Structure
(only) “tell[s] us a small number of big and important things” (Waltz 1986, 329).
“The placement of states in the international system accounts for [only] a good deal of
their behavior” (Waltz 1993, 45).) And the relative balance between these various ele-
ments is an empirical, not a theoretical, question. “An international political theory can
explain states’ behavior only when external pressures dominate the internal disposition
of states” (Waltz 2004, 3).
42
(Waltz 1979, 80 = 1975, 46).
43
§§3.2 critiques Waltz’s understanding of levels.
44
Therefore, rather than abstract from all (other) attributes, Waltz

assumed specific attributes. “A balance-of-power theory, properly stated,
begins with assumptions about states: They are unitary actors who, at a
minimum, seek their own preservation and, at a maximum, drive for
universal domination.”45 He also assumed “that survival is the goal of
states,”46 that states seek power only as a means to survival,47 and that
sovereign states are the “units” in international political systems.48
Whatever the fruitfulness of such assumptions, my point (here) is that
Waltz did not, because he could not, abstract from all attributes of states
(other than their capabilities). As Robert Keohane notes, “the key distin-
guishing characteristic of a [Waltzian] systemic theory is that the inter-
nal attributes of actors are given by assumption rather than treated as
variables.”49 And the particular attributes that are assumed significantly
shape the substance of the theory.50
5.6 “The System”

Conversely, a systemic theory cannot refer only to “the system,” under-
stood as something separate from the elements that compose it. Talk of
“how much the system affects the units”51 and of “the effects of structure
on interacting units”52 evidences an analytic perspective – and a very odd
analytic perspective at that.
Systems are not “things” that are separate from their parts, on which they
exert causal effects.53 They are the wholes of which their parts are parts.
45
(Waltz 1979, 118).
46
(Waltz 1997, 913).
47
On this basis, Waltz argued that Randall Schweller’s work on balancing and bandwag-
oning rejected rather than refined structural realism. Schweller, Waltz argued, “rejects
neorealism’s assumptions about power as a means and survival as the goal of states in
favor of Morgenthau’s assumption that states seek ever more power” (Waltz 1997, 915).
(This seems to me incompatible with the passage just quoted at n. 45 in which Waltz
says that a balance of power theory assumes that states at minimum seek survival and at
maximum seek universal domination.)
48
(Waltz 1979, 71, 80, 88, 91, 94, 95, 96. 99, 116; 1990b, 26; 1993, 49, 60, 80, 93).
49
(Keohane 1986c, 165).
50
For example, a Prisoners’ Dilemma arises from particular preference orderings. Change
the assumptions about the (preferences of the) actors and you change the game. (For
example, saints often will cooperate.)
51
(Waltz 1979, 57).
52
(Waltz 1990b, 37). Compare (Waltz 1979, 88, 162, 175).
53
To talk about a family affecting its members, in the way that Waltz’s sees an interna-
tional system affecting states, decomposes the system and looks at the parts separately;
analytically. In assemblages, this can produce valuable knowledge. But such knowledge
is radically incomplete because it ignores the organization and operation of the system.
Consider, by contrast, looking at how being a parent, child, caregiver, or breadwinner
Furthermore, systems exist only through the organization and oper-

ation of their constituent elements. They can be separated from their
parts only analytically. An “international system” that is separate from,
rather than composed of, states (units) is no more an international sys-
tem than a “family” without members is a family or a “human body”
without organs is a human body. To imagine such a “thing” is to adopt
an analytic perspective.54
In discussing both units and structure, Waltz abandoned the funda-
mental idea that, as he put it, “a system is composed of a structure and of
interacting parts.”55 Systemic explanations must address both the char-
acter of the parts and their arrangement and operation – together. Waltz
instead made arbitrary and often inaccurate assumptions about units and
tried to explain solely through a reified and wildly over-abstracted struc-
ture. The organized operation of parts of a whole to produce emergent
phenomena – systems and systems effects – disappeared from his theory.
5.7 The Individualism of Waltzian Theory

Waltz, despite employing systems language, viewed international systems
individualistically;56 from the perspective of units/states (“actors”) – to
whom international systems often do appear as external constraints.
For example, Waltz retained the statist language of “internal” and
“external” politics and relations in what was ostensibly a systemic the-
ory. When he talked of “external pressures”57 Waltz meant pressures on
states (not on the states system). Such “perspectival” state centrism is
radically analytic.58
shapes the behavior of the individual human beings that occupy such positions and
enact such roles. This considers family members as parts of a system – not as separate
entities affected by “the system.” The explanatory work is done by positioning and
relations in the system (not a reified entity separate from and outside of separate entities
viewed separately). Waltz, however, as I will emphasize in §5.9, consigns such genuinely
systemic effects on states and human beings to the unit level. The only systemic or
structural effects he allows are causal effects of anarchy and polarity.
54
Recall Nicholas Onuf’s (1995, 42) description of analysis as “the procedure whereby
someone (the analyst) observes (or causes and then observes, or imagines) and describes
the disaggregation of some (actual or hypothetical) unit.”
55
56
This line of criticism goes back at least to (Ashley 1984, 240–241, 252, 254–255ff.) and
(Wendt 1987). See also (Dessler 1989, 448–450), (Rosenberg 1994b, 28).
57
(Waltz 1979, 72). Waltz similarly referred to “the external game of alignment and
realignment” (1979, 118) and internal and external realms, problems, affairs, and orders
(1979, 81, 96, 103, 152).
58
As Wendt (1999, 8–10) emphasizes, though, what we might call “empirical” state cen-
trism – the claim that states are, in fact, predominant actors in international relations – is
entirely compatible with systemic theory.
A systemic perspective employs bottom-up and top-down, not inside-

out and outside-in, explanations. And in a systemic perspective “inside”
refers to inside the system (not within one of the parts).
Or consider Waltz’s argument that “nationally, relations of authority
are established. Internationally, only relations of strength result.”59 In
fact, though, in a states system authority is decentralized (not absent).
Authority in the system is allocated to states, which have recognized rights
to rule their territories and subjects as well as international rights and
obligations. Waltz, however, seeing like a state, took sovereignty as given
and saw only the absence of a higher government and the presence of
external constraints on states.
Likewise, Waltz’s claim that international political systems are “indi-
vidualist in origin”60 obscures the systemic interdependence of wholes
and parts. It also attempts to provide a theoretical answer to the empirical
question of how systems emerge. And this individualist answer is almost
always wrong. The ex nihilo creation of international systems is rare.61
A similar individualism is surprisingly common among constructivists.
For example, Wendt claims that “states (individuals) are ontologically
prior to the states system (society).”62 But even if this is true – which is
not at all obvious63 – it does not follow that “states systems emerge from
the interaction of preexisting units.”64 (This confuses ontology with
chronology or causality.) Whether “units” are “pre-existing,” whether
“pre-existing” units are reconstituted by membership in a states system,
and how a system in fact emerged are empirical (not ontological, concep-
tual, or theoretical) questions.
5.8 Systems Are Not Environments

This individualistic analytic perspective ultimately led Waltz to aban-
don the fundamental distinction between a system and its environment,
understood as what is outside the system.65
An international political system, viewed as a system, is not the environ-
ment of states. It is, to repeat (again), the whole that states are parts of.
59
(Waltz 1979, 112. See also 88, 104).
60
(Waltz 1979, 91. See also 89–90; 1990b, 29).
61
The international actors that “create” states systems usually are themselves creatures of
“another” (or an earlier phase of the same) international system. Like the chicken and
the egg, neither is ontologically (or chronologically) prior. See also §2.1.3.
62
(Wendt 1999, 244).
63
See §§3.5–3.10.
64
(Wendt 1999, 244).
65
See §1.1 at n. 5.
Systems are, at best, misleadingly described as environments. For

example, a family is not the environment of its members but the com-
plex entity of which they are parts – just as a car is not the environment
of car parts and an organism is not the environment of organs. Further-
more, the environment of individual human beings includes much more
than the family. Nonetheless, Waltz wrote of “the environment of states’
action, or the structure of their system”66 and, using his favorite eco-
nomic analogy, of “a market as the firms’ environment.”67
This fundamental error is surprisingly widespread. For example, David
Dessler’s argument that “the job of structural theory is to explain the con-
nections between the conditions of action and action itself”68 does not
distinguish between systemic and environmental conditions of action; that
is, between action in systems of structured relations and interactions in
an unstructured environment. Powell, in passages quoted above, reframes
structure as “strategic environment” and “constraints.”69 Kenneth Abbott,
Jessica Green, and Robert Keohane describe the “organizational ecology”
perspective as “primarily a structural theory” because “it focuses on the
institutional environment in which organizations operate.”70
Looking at the world through the eyes of states, Waltz saw “the inter-
national system” as (merely) a constraining environment. Everything
that is not inside the state is, indiscriminately, outside. If there are any
actual systems in this story, they are national not international.
5.9 Systems of Structured Relations

In the end, Waltz lost sight of the very idea of systems of structured
relations.
Systems, as Waltz nicely observed, “shape and shove” actors.71 But
he addressed “shaping” only through the interactional (rather than rela-
tional/systemic)72 processes of “selection” and “emulation.”73
66
(Waltz 1979, 93). Here it is not even the system but its structure that Waltz claims is the
environment!
67
68
(Dessler 1989, 44).
69
See nn. 29, 30.
70
(Abbott, Green, and Keohane 2016, 250–251). Ecological perspectives look at ecosys-
tems; hierarchically structured systems of relations – not mere environments. To appre-
ciate the crucial difference between an environment and a system, compare members of
an alien species that have been displaced into a new environment by a massive fire with
animals occupying established niches in that ecosystem.
71
(Waltz 1990b, 34; 1997, 915; 2000, 24).
72
On the distinction between interactions and relations see §5.2 at nn. 24, 25.
73
(Waltz 1979, 76–77, 92, 127–128).
Allies, for example, are not symmetrically constrained autonomous

actors. Their assembly into an alliance (system) gives them particular
roles, rights, and responsibilities. Their structured relations (re)consti-
tute some of their interests and transform many of their interactions
(both with one another and with some others). How allies behave and
why, as well as the meaning and significance of their behavior, are shaped
by their being parts of an alliance (system). But all of this, which is obvi-
ously systemic in the sense that it concerns the organized operation of a
complex whole, is consigned by Waltz to the unit level.
Structured relations also “shove” actors in distinctive ways. Behavior
in social systems is not merely constrained but regulated, in the strong,
ordinary-language sense of controlled, governed, or directed.74 For
example, international systems regulate the use of force, typically by
determining who can legitimately use it, when, and how. Rules and insti-
tutions govern practices for establishing and maintaining cooperation.
And polities that infringe rules, norms, and expectations are subject to
sanctions (of varying sorts, with varied effects). All this, too, is for Waltz
unit-level or reductionist; not a matter of the structure of international
political systems.
What IR needs now, I am arguing, is to recover systemic theory from
the analytic structural theory of Theory of International Politics. At root,
this requires nothing more (but nothing less) than returning to a focus
on the organization and operations of complex wholes; to what makes
systems systems (and significant).
What that might look like is the subject of Part III. How long it takes
you to get there should be a matter of your tastes and interests – and your
willingness to abandon the Waltzian conception of systems and struc-
tural theory, which the next four chapters critique, comprehensively and
in considerable detail.
74
See also ch. 14, esp. §14.5.
6 Anarchy
“Virtually all scholars agree [that anarchy] … is one of the most unique,
important, and enduring features of world politics”1 and is the structural
ordering principle of international systems. I argue instead that anarchy,
which was not a core concept in IR before Waltz (see §6.4), neither is an
ordering principle nor has determinate effects – and therefore should be
removed from its central place in discussions of the structures of inter-
national societies in order to open space for the kinds of truly systemic
theory that I argue for in Part III.
6.1 Anarchy Is Not an Ordering Principle

Anarchy means, literally, the absence of “archy,” from arkhe ̄ (empire,
realm, magistracy, primacy in power) or arkhos (leader, ruler). The con-
cept is so entrenched in contemporary IR that most uses do not define
or gloss the term, taking its sense to be obvious.2 But contrary to David
Lake’s claim that “scholars of international relations do not differ in their
conception of anarchy”3 there is deep definitional disarray, both in The-
ory of International Politics and across the discipline.
6.1.1 Anarchy, Government, and Hierarchy

Waltz began the subsection on “Ordering Principles” in Chapter 5
(“Political Structures”) of Theory of International Politics by noting that
“Domestic political structures have governmental institutions and offices
1
(Lake 2009, 2).
2
For example, early in working on this book I searched all articles in International
Organization and International Security published between 2000 and 2012 that used the
term (international) “anarchy.” Only two of 35 articles in International Organization
(Snyder 2002, 7; Donnelly 2012, 620) and one of 29 in International Security (Taliaferro
2000/2001, 128) defined it explicitly.
3
(Lake 2009, 2).
97
as their concrete counterparts.4 International politics, in contrast, has

been called ‘politics in the absence of government’.”5 The next paragraph
asks “If international politics is ‘politics in the absence of government,’
what are we in the presence of?”6 The answer, for Waltz, was anarchy.7
In the remainder of the chapter, however, Waltz opposed anarchy not to
government but to hierarchy.8 Similarly, Waltz began Chapter 6 (“Anar-
chic Orders and Balances of Power”) by speaking of “anarchy, or the
absence of government” and “the distinction between anarchy and gov-
ernment.”9 After that, though, he contrasted anarchy to hierarchy nearly a
dozen times.10 Absence of government made only one additional appear-
ance – at the beginning of the subsection on “Anarchy and Hierarchy”
(which thereafter, as the title indicates, addressed absence of hierarchy).11
Government and hierarchy, however, are very different things. And
although international systems (by definition) lack a government, most
have hierarchical relations of super- and subordination.12 For example,
great power states systems are defined by the official hierarchical supe-
riority of states over nonstate actors and the (at least informal) rights,
liberties, and responsibilities of great powers.
Furthermore, Waltz’s divergent uses have a systematic bias. Anarchy
is contrasted to government only when introducing a discussion. When
addressing matters of substance, anarchy is always contrasted to hier-
archy.13 This deeply dubious pattern, I want to suggest, was driven by
Waltz’s project of theory of international politics.14
Waltz’s goal was to reveal “a small number of big and important
things”15 about international systems. To do so based on anarchy,
anarchy must be both a demarcation criterion (allowing him to speak
4
Note the peculiarity of the idea that political institutions, rather than essential elements
of domestic political structures, are “their concrete counterparts.” (On Waltz’s separa-
tion of structures from systems and their parts, see §5.2.)
5
(Waltz 1979, 88).
6
(Waltz 1979, 89). The absence of one thing, however, need not entail the presence of
one other thing. (There may be many other things – or none.)
7
The “presence” of anarchy, however, is the absence of a government (not the presence
of something else). (A better answer would be something like decentralized or nongov-
ernmental authority.)
8
(Waltz 1979, 93, 97, 100, 101).
9
(Waltz 1979, 102, 103).
10
(Waltz 1979, 104, 113, 114 [twice], 115 [five times], 116 [twice]).
11
(Waltz 1979, 114). We return to hierarchy in §9.1.1 and Chapter 15.
12
See ch. 15, 16.
13
See nn. 5, 8–11. For a similar pattern in the case of distribution of capabilities, see
§8.2.2 at n. 24.
14
I am not suggesting that Waltz was intentionally duplicitous. Such a pattern, however,
is, at best, suspicious – especially in a writer as careful as Waltz.
15
(Waltz 1986, 329).
Anarchy 99
about international systems in general) and a major explanatory variable

(allowing him to say some big and important things). But any definition
of anarchy can fulfill (at most) only one of these roles.
Anarchy plausibly demarcates international relations only if defined as
absence of a government (or a comparable institution or function). This,
however, has few if any interesting implications. (For example, a system
without a government may or may not have higher authority, rules, or
enforcement.) Conversely, various other absences have analytical bite.
(For example, systems without hierarchy do have a certain character (or
characters).) But they identify only a subset of international systems.
Waltz seems to have been seduced by the word “anarchy” into believing
that he could have it both ways.
In criticizing other arguments, Waltz complained that “anarchy is
taken to mean not just the absence of government but also the presence
of disorder and chaos.”16 Ironically, though, he took anarchy to mean
not just absence of a government but also absence of hierarchy. Waltz
thus illegitimately extended substantive conclusions about international
systems without hierarchy, which are rare, to international systems with-
out a government (international systems in general) – an analytical blun-
der that, it seems to me, would be inconceivable were it not obscured by
“anarchy.”
Waltz’s account, it is important to emphasize, is not an “ideal type” in
the Weberian sense17 of an empirically grounded analyst-created model
that may (or may not) be approximated in actual cases. Waltz claimed
not merely that some actual international systems resemble this model.
(Anarchy thus understood would be a feature of some, not (nearly) all,
international political systems.) Waltz really did argue that, as a first
approximation, (nearly all) international systems do lack both govern-
ment and hierarchy.
This, however, is not even close to true. As Waltz himself put it,
“inequality is what much of politics is about.” And “internationally,
inequality is more nearly the whole of the political story.” “The inequal-
ity of nations is … the dominant political fact of international life”18 –
but, bizarrely, not (according to Waltz) a feature of the structure of
international political systems.
16
(Waltz 1979, 114).
17
See Economy and Society (Weber 1978, ch. 1–4, especially pp. 19–22) and an essay
on objectivity that is available in (Bruun and Whimster 2012). For brief secondary
accounts, see (Swedberg and Agevall 2016, 156–158) and (Parsons 1937, 601–610).
On using ideal types in social research, see (Swedberg 2018). (Jackson 2017) is a useful
account oriented toward IR. A bit more broadly, see (Kedar 2007).
18
(Waltz 1979, 142, 143, 144).
6.1.2 Anarchy over “Anarchy”

Waltz, unfortunately, is just the tip of the definitional iceberg. Of the
numerous definitions of anarchy encountered in contemporary IR –
more than a dozen are identified in the following paragraphs – most dif-
fer only in minor ways from many others. As a set, though, they cover a
very wide range of senses.
Definitions of anarchy in contemporary IR fall into three broad groups
that, with a bit of mnemonic license, I label absence of a ruler, absence of
rule, and absence of rules.
“Absence of a ruler” identifies a missing actor or institution. Standard
examples are a central,19 higher,20 common,21 or overarching22 authority,
an enforcer,23 or a sovereign.24 Absence of a government also falls here.
“Absence of rule” identifies a missing function or kind of authority. Com-
mon examples are enforcement25 and higher,26 overarching,27 central,28
common,29 superior,30 supranational,31 or superordinate32 authority.33
19
(Jervis 1992, 717), (Mearsheimer 2001, 3), (Snyder 2002, 35), (Kegley and Raymond
2011, 26), (Zhang 2012, 91), (Havercroft and Pritchard 2017, 253–254), (Lees 2020, 404).
20
(Raymond 1997, 208; 2021, 1, 9), (Dombrowski 1998, 21), (Rosenau and Durfee
2000, 17), (Philpott 2001, 18), (Johnson 2004, 187), (Lopez and Johnson 2020, 987).
21
(Jonsson and Tallberg 1998, 379), (Lake 2003b, 308), (Goddard and Nexon 2005, 12),
(Paris 2006, 435), (Jackson and Nexon 2009, 923), (Kim and Wolford 2014, 30).
22
(Elman and Elman 1997, 924), (Schmidt 2004, 430), (Goh 2008, 356), (Trachtenberg
2012, 44), (Mandel 2013, 62), (Liu 2016, 575), (Eckstein 2017, 471–472), (Posen
2017, 168).
23
(Booth 1991, 529), (Philpott 2001, 22), (Crawford 2002, 418), (Lake 2003a, 85),
(Miller 2004, 240), (Blagden 2021, 258).
24
(Posen 1993, 27), (Schweller 1998, 51), (Jervis 1999, 43), (Taliaferro 2000/2001, 128),
(Schwarz 2017, 145), (Wu 2018, 791).
25
(Keohane 1990, 193), (Cederman 1994, 504 n. 2), (Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal
2001, 766), (Snyder 2002, 14), (Mitzen 2013, 46).
26
(Krasner 1992, 39), (Powell 1994, 330), (Rosenau 1997, 151), (Angstrom 2000, 33),
(Lake 2003a, 84), (Mansbach 2004, 20), (Friedberg 2005, 17), (Copeland 2012, 59),
(Al-Otaibi 2020, 139).
27
(Buzan 1984, 112, 116), (Grieco 1988, 497), (Mandelbaum 1998–1999, 26), (Snyder
2002, 7 n. 2), (Bromley 2004, 108), (Kahler and Lake 2004, 409), (Druzin 2014, 452),
(Liu 2016, 589).
28
(Bull 1977, 58), (Lynn-Jones and Miller 1995, ix), (Cronin 1999, 136), (Jakobsen 1999,
208), (Duffield 2001, 96 n. 2), (Mearsheimer 2001, 414 n. 5), (Snyder 2002, 34),
(Harknett and Yalcin 2012, 508), (Bain 2019, 278, 280, 283), (Davenport 2020, 538).
29
(Keohane 1986b, 1), (Christov 2005, 564), (Goodhart 2005, 56), (Guzzini 2012b, 33),
(Amstutz 2013, 13).
30
(Powell 1991, 1306), (Bartelson 1995b, 257), (Stivachtis 2000, 102), (Snyder 2002, 7
n. 2), (van Ham and Medvedev 2002, 129), (Weinert 2016, 62).
31
(Mansfield 1993, 107), (Gowa 1994, 6), (Glenn 2009, 532), (Geldenhuys 2014, 354).
32
(Haas 1991, 225), (Weinert 2007, 6), (Nardin 2008, 387), (Davenport 2013, 33),
(Schieder and Spindler 2014, 6).
33
“Absence of government” appears, on its face, to fall into this second category. I
suspect, though, that absence of the institution, rather than the function, usually is
Anarchy 101
Absence of an institution, however, does not entail absence of a func-

tion typically performed (or a type of authority characteristically held) by
that institution. (For example, a government is but one possible locus of
political authority and one mechanism to provide enforcement.) These
definitions, being substantively thicker, apply to a smaller set of cases.
None plausibly demarcates international systems.
Finally, anarchy is also often defined as the absence of (all) authority –
“absence of rules.” For example, Lake claims that “the core assumption of
the discipline of international relations is that the international system is
anarchic or devoid of authority.”34 Stephen Krasner contends that “the
defining characteristic of international politics is anarchy, the absence of
authority.”35 Waltz’s absence of hierarchy also falls here.
Few international systems, however, lack authority (“rules”). For
example, in states systems, authority in the system is not absent but allo-
cated to states.
These are not minor variations in detail (such as the fact that higher
or superior authority need be neither supreme (or sovereign) nor cen-
tralized). Absence of an authority of a particular type, absence of a par-
ticular type of authority, and absence of all authority are quite different
“things.” And as we move from (absence of) a ruler to rule to rules, the
number of historical “anarchic” systems declines, precipitously.
All of these definitions, however, are common in contemporary IR.
The differences between them are regularly elided or ignored. And it is
distressingly common to generalize claims that rely on the absence of rule
or rules to “international relations” defined by the absence of a ruler.
6.1.3 Waltz’s Double Dichotomy

Multiple definitions might not pose a serious problem if a clear con-
ception provided a widely shared common point of reference. For four
intended. (It is unfortunate that this ambiguous formulation is standard. For example,
a Google Scholar search in November 2021 produced 25,000 results for “absence of
government” and “international” but less than 3,000 substituting “absence of a govern-
ment.”) And the important difference between these two senses is rarely noted. For
example, Buzan, Jones, and Little (1993, 37) comment that “as Ruggie argues, there
was government without sovereignty in the Medieval political system,” ignoring the fact
that medieval “government” (in the sense of governance) was not provided by a govern-
ment (a single set of authoritative political institutions).
34
(Lake 2009, ix).
35
(Krasner 1992, 48). See also (Webber 1996, 2), (Katzenstein, Keohane, and Krasner
1999b, 658), (Inoguchi and Bacon 2001, 5), (DeGarmo 2005, 17), (Hoddie and
Hartzell 2005, 22), (Lentner 2006, 103), (Holmes 2011, 291), (Vucetic 2011, 29),
(Polat 2012, 1), (Hurd 2014, 366), (Slaughter 2019, 40).
decades, Theory of International Politics has been widely seen as a sound

theory-neutral account of anarchy. In fact, it is conceptually confused
and substantively indefensible – even setting aside Waltz’s conflation of
government and hierarchy.
Waltz argued that “two, and only two, types of structures are needed
to cover societies of all sorts.”36 Sometimes he contrasted anarchic and
hierarchic orders.37 Other times he contrasted international and national
orders.38 And he treated these distinctions as equivalent,39 creating what
I call a “double dichotomy” of anarchic/international versus hierarchic/
national orders.40
In fact, however, these dichotomies overlap only partly. And Waltz’s
accounts are defensible neither as depictions of national and interna-
tional political orders nor as explications of hierarchy and anarchy.
Waltz claimed that “national politics is the realm of authority, of
administration, and of law. International politics is the realm of power,
of struggle, and of accommodation.”41 Many international systems, how-
ever, have significant elements of law and authority. Conversely, simple
nonstate polities often lack administration. (Some even lack offices.)
And power, struggle, and accommodation not only are regular features
of most national polities but sometimes are as characteristic as authority,
administration, and law.
National politics need not be “vertical, centralized, heterogeneous,
directed, and contrived.”42 (We will see this in some detail in §6.3.)
Neither is international politics necessarily “horizontal, decentralized,
homogeneous, undirected, and mutually adaptive.”43 Quite the contrary,
as we will see below,44 nearly all international systems are vertically dif-
ferentiated and heterogeneous. For example, not only are states legally
superior to nonstate actors in states systems but hierarchical relations of
super- and subordination are the most striking feature of hegemonic and
imperial international systems.45
36
(Waltz 1979, 116).
37
(Waltz 1979, 114–116, 93).
38
(Waltz 1979, 81–93).
39
(Waltz 1979, 81, 88, 104, 113, 115–116).
40
Waltz also equated international systems with segmentary orders integrated by mechan-
ical solidarity and national systems with functionally differentiated orders integrated by
organic solidarity. (1979, 114–115, 115 n. *, 95 n. *). On this move, see (Ruggie 1983,
264, 269, 281–285), (Goddard and Nexon 2005, 22–25, 39–40), (Buzan and Albert
2010, 322–326).
41
(Waltz 1979, 113).
42
(Waltz 1979, 113).
43
(Waltz 1979, 113).
44
See §§8.1, 9.4.4, 11.2.3 and ch. 15, 16.
45
See §§14.3, 15.6, 15.7.2.
Anarchy 103
These are not modest, to-be-expected deviations from necessarily sim-

plified representations of broad classes. Many systems fail to approxi-
mate the specified model. Some have the opposite characteristics.
Waltz’s claims are simply false.
It is probably worth repeating that Waltz’s model of anarchic-
international orders is not an ideal type. He did not claim that some
international systems are of this type. (Anarchy, in that case, would not
demarcate international relations.) Waltz really did insist that, as a first
approximation, nearly all international systems both are anarchic and
are not hierarchic.46 But in fact anarchy (absence of a government) and
hierarchy (relations of super- and subordination) stand in various rela-
tions to one another, to national and international politics, and to the
additional features that Waltz associated with them.
6.1.4 Anarchy Is Not the Ordering Principle of International Systems

Across contemporary IR, anarchy is almost universally understood, even
by critics of other elements of Waltz’s work, as the ordering principle of
international systems. It is not.
Absence of a government (or comparable institution) is not an order-
ing principle. (It simply tells us one way in which the system is not
ordered.) Absence of hierarchy may be an ordering principle. It is not,
however, the ordering principle of international systems.47 And the various
other absences noted above all run up against one or the other of these
problems (each of which is fatal to the Waltzian project).
6.1.5 Demarcation, Structure, and Explanation

Behind this confusion, I suspect, is the mistaken assumption that what-
ever demarcates international relations should be central to its structure
and to substantive explanations of international behavior.48
But even if anarchy is “the defining characteristic of international poli-
tics,”49 there is no good reason to expect that all international political
46
See (Waltz 1979, 114–116) for a parallel argument that nearly all political systems are
either national/hierarchical or international/anarchic.
47
Even granting that most international systems are merely “flecked with particles of gov-
ernment” (Waltz 1979, 114 [emphasis added]) many international systems, including
great power states systems, are deeply hierarchical. See Chapters 15 and 16.
48
Such expectations, it seems to me, arises from inappropriately assuming that they must
be master independent variables. (On the difference between systemic/structural and
independent-variable explanations, see §4.4.)
49
(Krasner 1992, 48).
systems will share any other features of interest – let alone have the same
structure. For example, mammals can be demarcated from other verte-
brates as milk-producing animals with hair, three bones in their middle
ear, a neocortex, and a lower jaw made of a single bone. These features,
however, do not define the structure of mammals.
Defining characteristics simply identify an object of inquiry; a class
of phenomena that share those (demarcating) features. That A differs
from B by c does not make c the structure of A. Demarcation criteria and
structural ordering principles are very different “things.”
In fact, demarcation criteria often have little broader analytical util-
ity. For example, the two principal orders of dinosaurs, Saurischia and
Ornithischia, are distinguished by their hipbones. This neat demarcation,
however, although it has evolutionary significance, provides little insight
into their structure or functioning.50 Or consider the Platonic/Aristote-
lian demarcation of humans as featherless bipeds.
Taxonomies are useful primarily for distinguishing a limited range
of similarities within and differences between taxa – not for generating
explanations of the attributes or actions of members of a taxon. Demar-
cating features tell us something about certain similarities in systems that
share that feature (and certain differences from those that don’t). Rarely,
though, will such features be central to understanding the structure or
functioning of systems of that type.
6.1.6 What Is Anarchy?

If anarchy – absence of a government – is not an ordering principle, what
is it?
Anarchy poses a problem: how to provide governance in the absence
of a government. And even this may be too “realist” a formulation.
“Anarchy” prioritizes certain forms of autonomy and sociability over
governmentally enforced order. International anarchy persists because
dominant actors “prefer” it to alternatives such as a world state. We
50
IR more generally, it seems to me, is unreasonably reluctant to acknowledge that a
demarcated object of inquiry may be so diverse as to preclude powerful explanatory gen-
eralizations about its members. For example, much of the literature on “the causes of
war” simply assumes that “war” is a singular kind of thing, with specific causes – rather
than that “war” encompasses events of varied types with very different causes or mecha-
nisms of generation. Similarly, Hasenclever, Mayer, and Rittberger (1997, 6), like many
in the field, assume that we can have “theories of international regimes,” understood
as explanations of “the origins, stability, and consequences of international regimes.”
The diversity of international regimes, though, seems to me to make this exceedingly
unlikely – as the failure of all such efforts to date suggests.
Anarchy 105
might even say that “international anarchy” is a pre-emptive solution to

the “problems” or threats of world (or regional) government.
Absence of a government is a perennial fact of international political
life that is of greatly varying explanatory significance. In the Hobbesian
state of nature, it is very much in the foreground. In the European Union
today it is almost always rather far in the background. And where any
particular anarchic or international system lies on the continuum defined
by these examples and how historical international systems are distrib-
uted along that continuum are empirical questions.
6.2 Anarchy Has No Effects: The Consequences of Anarchy

These conceptual muddles might be tolerable if anarchy in some funda-
mental sense(s) had determinate effects. And in contemporary IR there
is considerable agreement on the “dangers”51 or “perils”52 of anarchy
and the nature of its “pernicious”53 effects. As Anders Wivel puts it,
summarizing Waltz, “the anarchic structure of the international system
creates a strong incentive for self-help behavior characterized by relative
gains seeking … and power balancing.”54
This understanding of “the effects of anarchy” has been subject to
devastating criticism since the early 1990s. For example, Alexander
Wendt showed that anarchic systems distinguished by role structures
of enmity, rivalry, and friendship have radically different characteristic
outcomes and modes of action.55 And both Duncan Snidal and Robert
Powell showed that rational states in anarchy do not necessarily pursue
relative gains.56 As Powell put it, “what have often been taken to be the
implications of anarchy … result from other implicit and unarticulated
assumptions about the states’ strategic environment.”57
51
(Keohane 1993, 275), (Wendt and Friedheim 1995, 388), (Krebs 1999, 334), (Snyder
2002, 11), (Lind 2004, 103), (Parent and Baron 2011, 207), (Baron 2013, 7, 42–43,
61), (Kelly 2020, 20).
52
(Roth 2009, 378), (Berenskoetter 2011, 649), (Kelly 2012, 407), (Phillips 2017, 43), (Rose
2019, 10). See also (Goddard and Nexon 2005, 13). A Google Scholar search in July 2022
for “perils of anarchy” and “international” yielded nearly 800 results. (About half are refer-
ences to the structural realist reader The Perils of Anarchy (Brown, Lynn-Jones, and Miller
1995).) “Dangers of anarchy” and “international” produced more than 350 results.
53
(Walter 1997, 338), (Schweller 1998, 51), (Jervis 1999, 63), (Brown et al. 2000, xii),
(Friedberg 2005, 13), (Levy and Thompson 2013, 415), (Knuppe 2014, 66), (Kydd
2018, 183).
54
(Wivel 2013, 161).
55
(Wendt 1992). See also (Wendt 1999, ch. 6) and below at nn. 66–68.
56
(Snidal 1991a, b), (Powell 1991). See also (Powell 1993, 1994).
57
(Powell 1994, 314. See also 330). For a particularly spirited refrain, see (Wagner 2007,
16–18, 21–29).
Nonetheless, a Google Scholar search in May 2023 for “logic of anarchy”

or “effects of anarchy” and “international relations” produced more than
3,400 results since 2000. And there is a kernel of truth in Michael Barnett
and Kathryn Sikkink’s (exaggerated) claim that “the study of international
relations has largely concerned the study of states and the effects of anar-
chy on their foreign policies.”58 For example, realists regularly assert that
“the security dilemma is an intractable feature of anarchy;”59 that “little
can be done to ameliorate the security dilemma as long as states operate
in anarchy;”60 that “the systemic imperatives of anarchy require states to
view their gains and losses in relative, not absolute, terms;”61 and that
anarchy “forces states to be concerned primarily with maximizing their
security.”62 Among non-realists, the ability of institutions to mitigate “the
effects of anarchy”63 has long been a standard subject of discussion.
To clarify the possible “effects of anarchy” I distinguish what I call
“effects” and “outcomes.” I will say that anarchy has “determinate
effects” if it regularly pushes in a particular direction or directions; if,
ceteris paribus, it causes either a singular effect (or set of effects) or a few
patterned (sets of) effects. Anarchy has “determinate outcomes” to the
extent that its effects are not altered or overcome by other forces.
“Effects,” in other words, refers to directionality. “Outcomes” depend
on the relative causal force of effects. When not making this distinction,
I will speak of “consequences.”
Figure 6.1 maps a range of possible consequences of anarchy.
The vertical axis distinguishes singular, multiple, and indeterminate
effects. (The differently shaded bands represent effects as a discrete
(not a continuous) variable with only a small number of possible values;
namely, one, a few, and many/no sets of patterned effects. The space is
more a field, in which there are qualitatively different potential forces at
different places, than a homogeneous Cartesian space.) The horizontal
axis identifies the intensity of anarchy’s effects as high, moderate, or low
(considered as ranges of a continuum).
The story begins at the top left corner, where anarchy both points in
a single direction (“has singular effects”) and is of high intensity relative
58
(Barnett and Sikkink 2008, 62).
59
(Schweller and Wohlforth 2002, 72).
60
(Mearsheimer 2001, 36).
61
(Copeland 2003, 434–435).
62
(Taliaferro 2000/2001, 131).
63
(Barnett 1993, 272), (Slaughter 1995, 724–725), (Deudney and Ikenberry 1999, 182),
(Jervis 1999, 45; 2020, 436), (Ikenberry 2002, 6), (Mitchell and Hensel 2007, 724),
(Beach 2015, 86), (Di Floristella, 2015, 17, 31), (Kennedy and Beaton 2016), (Murray
2016, 63, 87), (Weber 2019, 254).
Anarchy 107
Anarchy
operates with (relatively)
HIGH MODERATE LOW INTENSITY

has Singular No Discernible
Outcomes Consequences
SINGULAR •x •y •b
Singular Effects
with (more or less) determinate outcomes
MULTIPLE •z Multiple Structured Effects

with (more or less) determinate outcomes
INDETERMINATE •a •c
Indeterminate No
EFFECTS Consequences Consequences
Figure 6.1 Types of consequences of anarchy
to other forces, resulting in “singular outcomes” (e.g., in the neorealist

story, self-help balancing and the pursuit of relative gains). The focus of
Figure 6.1, however, is not on the top-left to bottom-right diagonal but
across the top and down the left side.
The debate between neorealists and neoliberals takes place along the
top of Figure 6.1, where anarchy pushes strongly in one direction (has
singular effects) but, depending on its relative intensity, produces varied
outcomes. Realists concentrate on the top left, around point x.64 Liberal
institutionalists focus on the top center, around point y, where the singu-
lar effects of anarchy are variably mitigated or modified.
Along the top of Figure 6.1 anarchy is one of many potent causal
variables. Anarchy’s singular effects may or may not be disrupted, trans-
formed, or obliterated by the effects of other variables. Multiple pat-
terned outcomes thus arise from different balances of causal forces.
At the top right, near point b, there are no discernible consequences
64
Even realists, though, recognize the impact of “intervening variables.” For example, an
advantage for defense typically “dampen[s] the effects of anarchy” (Walt 1998, 31) and
“engaged U.S. power dampens the baleful effects of anarchy” (Brooks, Ikenberry, and
Wohlforth 2011, 34). Realists also “have identified a set of foreign policy strategies that
states pursue to mitigate the dangers of anarchy” (Lind 2004, 103). Realists, in other
words, see a (more or less) strong tendency for outcomes to fall toward x.
because anarchy’s effects have been largely overcome by other forces.

(Consider the strong and effective regulatory regimes governing interna-
tional postal services and diplomatic relations between states.)
Wendt’s well-known models of cultures of anarchy, by contrast, draw
our attention to the center-left of Figure 6.1; toward point z. These
models identify multiple patterns of structured effects. There are a few
different effects of anarchy, arising from the structured relations of anarchy
and a small number of other variables (in Wendt’s case, roles).
Point z, it should be emphasized, includes all three of Wendt’s types
of anarchy – each of which has a different (anarchic) structure and dif-
ferent set of characteristic effects. Among enemies, anarchy typically has
emergent “realist” effects: states tend to plan for worst-case outcomes,
stress relative military capabilities, and fight without limits and the sys-
tem tends to be characterized by endemic and unlimited warfare, the
culling of “unfit” actors, relatively fragile and temporary balances, and
the difficulty of neutrality or nonalignment.65 Among rivals, however,
anarchy has very different but no less predictable emergent outcomes:
the system tends to be characterized by regular but limited warfare, rela-
tively stable membership, relatively stable balances, and a recognition
of nonalignment and states tend to respect one another’s sovereignty,
pursue absolute as well as relative gains, rely substantially on allies, and
limit their resort to violence.66 Among friends, anarchy has still different
(but no less structured and predictable) outcomes.67
In the middle and bottom bands of Figure 6.1, anarchy – anarchy
by itself – has no effects. In particular, “the effects of anarchy” in the
middle band are not effects of anarchy but of anarchy and something
else (in Wendt’s case, role identities). The outcomes vary, dramatically,
with the “something else” in question. And this variation is systemic;
the result of different structured relations (not contingent actions and
interactions).68
At z, which is roughly the same distance from the top left as y, anar-
chy is systematically related to other forces, creating structures (systems
of relations) that shape and shove actors in particular ways. Mul-
tiple outcomes arise not from different interactions between anarchy
and other variables but from different “anarchy-plus” structures or
65
(Wendt 1999, 261, 265–266).
66
(Wendt 1999, 282–285).
67
(Wendt 1999, 299–302). See §6.3 immediately below for an empirical case study of one
form of anarchy among “friends.”
68
On the distinction between (unstructured) inter-actions and (structured) relations, see
§5.2 at nn. 24, 25.
Anarchy 109
configurations. These are emergent systems effects69 – not, as across

the top of Figure 6.1, the additive (or inter-active) result of the causal
effects of separate variables.
Finally, in the bottom left corner, near a, anarchy has indeterminate
consequences – not because “the effects of anarchy” have been coun-
terbalanced by other forces (as at b) but because the relations between
anarchy and other forces do not produce (one or a few) structured/pat-
terned outcomes. There either are no effects at all or so many different
effects (of anarchy and other forces) that we can say that anarchy has
indeterminate consequences.
To summarize. Even if at x we see determinate singular outcomes
like self-help balancing and the pursuit of relative gains, this is only one
small part of the space of the possible consequences of anarchy. And
there are at least three very different reasons why we might not see those
outcomes elsewhere: the underlying effects have been mitigated (y), they
have been overcome (b), or they never existed (a and c). Only along the
top of Figure 6.1 are those the effects of anarchy. Around point z there
are (also) other effects of anarchy. And along the bottom anarchy has no
determinate effects of any sort.
6.3 Anarchy Has No Effects: The Case

of Forager Societies
I turn now to an empirical example. Forager societies, the simplest type
of hunter-gatherer societies, lack both government and hierarchy, both
internally and externally. They have minimal functional differentiation.
And men are not only equal but equally armed. In other words, they
perfectly fit Waltz’s model of anarchic orders. But they experience none
of IR’s standard “effects of anarchy.”
Hunter-gatherer societies usually are divided into relatively simple
and complicated subtypes. Lewis Binford distinguishes “foragers”
(who “have high residential mobility, low-bulk inputs, and regular daily
food-procurement strategies”) from “collectors” (who, facing “incon-
gruent distributions of critical resources” “move goods to consumers
with generally fewer residential moves”). James Woodburn calls these
immediate-return and delayed-return societies.70
69
See §2.2.
70
(Binford 1980, 9, 10, 15), (Woodburn 1982, 2005). These are “classic” works in
Archaeology and Anthropology. In May 2023, (Binford 1980) had more than 3,600
Google Scholar citations and (Woodburn 1982) had over 1,800. See also (Meillassoux
1981 [1975], 14–17), (Leacock and Lee 1982, 7–9).
I consider only immediate-return or forager societies, interchangeably

using the labels “bands”71 and “foragers” (which draw attention to their
principal social unit and the material basis of their way of life). More pre-
cisely, by “forager societies” I mean a type defined ostensively by three
African peoples that live in desert or dry savannah environments (the
!Kung (San, Ju’hoansi, Basarwa) of Botswana and Namibia, the G/wi
of Botswana, and the Hadza of Tanzania) and three non-African forest
dwellers (the Aché of Paraguay, the Eastern Penan of Borneo, and the
Nayaka of southwestern India).72 This ecologically and geographically
diverse set of societies provides an empirical test while avoiding the pos-
sibility of working with an idiosyncratic individual case.
Although most forager societies today have been pushed near to or
over the edge of extinction by incursions of pastoralists, agriculturalists,
loggers, or miners or by government settlement schemes,73 a few bands
still maintain a foraging life. And in earlier centuries, forager societies
were common across much of the globe.
6.3.1 Demography and Economy

Foragers live in bands that typically number from about fifteen to several
dozen individuals, composed of households of nuclear (or slightly more
extended) families.74 Forager bands, however, are not kinship units.
Most foragers practice “universal kinship.”75 All members of the band
71
Some broader uses of “bands” refer to all hunter-gatherer societies. Therefore, I want
to underscore that I restrict the term to bands of immediate-return foragers (as I try to
emphasize by speaking of “forager bands”).
72
Binford (1980) uses the G/wi as his principal example and draws comparisons with the
!Kung, Aché, and Penan. Woodburn (1982) focuses on the Hadza, with comparisons
to the Mbuti (See also Turnbull 1961; Ichikawa 1999), !Kung, Panaram, and Batek
(See also Eder 1999; Lye 2004). I have added the Nayaka based on (Bird-David 1992,
1994). Other peoples that appear to fit this model more or less closely include the
Paliyan of south India (Gardner 1972, 1999), the Okiek of Kenya (Kratz 1999), the
Cuiva of Colombia and Venezuela (Arcand 1999), and the Buid of the Philippines
(Gibson 1985, 1986). (To my knowledge, though, no Australian hunter-gatherers have
the social characteristics of forager societies as defined here. This, it seems to me, must
be significant – but I do not know why or how.)
73
Nomadic/foraging Penan and Aché bands probably no longer exist. Most !Kung,
G/wi, and Hadza bands have adopted sedentary or semi-sedentary lives. (Hitchcock and
Ebert 1989, 53–54, 57–58). (Silberbauer 1996) looks at issues of diversity and change
in Kalahari forager societies.
74
(Lee and Daly 1999, 3), (Lee 1979, 54–71), (Clastres 1998 [1972], 217), (Silberbauer
1981, 295), (Woodburn 1968), (Hitchcock and Ebert 1989, 55), (Sellato 1994 [1989],
143–144).
75
(Barnard 2002, 11–12; 1992, 280), (Lee 1984, 62–73; 1986), (Kaare and Woodburn
1999, 202), (Silberbauer 1981, 309), (Sellato 2007, 74), (Meillassoux 1981 [1975],
19). See also (Bird-David 1994, 592–595), (Needham 1971).
Anarchy 111
are kin, even in the absence of relations of descent or marriage.76 Kinship

binds rather than divides individuals and groups. “The emphasis is on
inclusion of individuals or families and not on the exclusiveness of their
qualifications.”77
Individuals and households regularly change bands,78 following “lines
of dissent rather than those of descent.”79 Forager bands are “open, flex-
ible, and highly variable in composition.”80 Society “is constantly being
reconstructed around the free movement of individuals.”81
Subsistence is “at least routine and reliable and at best surprisingly
abundant.”82 Marshall Sahlins famously called foragers “the original
affluent society.”83 They “are poor only in the sense that they do not
accumulate property.”84 “All the people’s wants (such as they are) are
generally easily satisfied.”85
Individuals and families privately possess simple tools and small per-
sonal items. “Property,” however, is minimal – more by social choice
than technological or ecological necessity. Sanctions against accumula-
tion “apply even to the lightest objects … individuals with any objects
for which they appear to have no immediate need are under the greatest
pressure to give them up and many possessions are given away almost as
soon as they are obtained.”86
Sharing resources is central to forager life. “All individuals have an auto-
matic right of access to ungarnered resources, [but] they are elaborately
76
Such relations are neither “fictive” nor (mere) analogies to “real” kinship. “Kinship as
it is studied by social anthropologists is not a set of genealogical relationships; it is a set
of social relationships” (Beattie 1964, 101). See also (Sahlins 2013).
77
(Silberbauer 1982, 24).
78
(Lee and DeVore 1968, 7), (Woodburn 1968, 103; 1982, 435), (Silberbauer 1982,
24–26), (Bird-David 1994, 591). Most !Kung individuals do not live in the band into
which they were born (Lee 1979, 54, 338–39).
79
(Turnbull 1968, 137).
80
(Woodburn 1968, 103). See also (Silberbauer 1982, 24), (Bird-David 1994, 591),
(Tanaka and Sugawara 1999, 196), (Sellato 2007, 74, 145).
81
(Meillassoux 1981 [1975], 18).
82
(Lee 1968, 30). See also (Silberbauer 1982, 24), (Bird-David 1992, 32), (Gowdy 1999,
392).
83
(Sahlins 1968).
84
(Woodburn 1988, 39).
85
(Sahlins 1968, 89). See also (Lee 1984, 51–53), (Tanaka and Sugawara 1999, 196),
(Clastres 1977 [1974], 164). (Kaplan 2000), however, emphasizes issues of food quality
and vulnerability to climatic stress.
86
(Woodburn 1982, 442). See also (Lee 1982, 54), (Clastres 1972, 140–149). Some
bands also have distinctive mechanisms to assure that goods circulate. On the !Kung
gift-exchange practice of hxaro, see (Wiessner 1982, 66–74; 1986), (Lee 1984, 97–102).
The Hadza gamble, in a game of pure chance, for hours a day and weeks on end, with
only one’s bow, leather bag, and unpoisoned arrows exempt from relentless social pres-
sure to wager. (Woodburn 1998, 52–53; 1982, 442–443).
constrained about how they can use them. Garnered resources have to be
shared and used immediately.”87 Plant products and small animals may
be consumed individually, often while foraging. Large game, though, the
most prized resource in many forager societies, is shared by everyone.88
Although hunting takes place individually or in small groups, the
meat and its distribution belong to the community. Forager bands have
“elaborate formal rules dissociating the hunter from his kill.”89 Among
the Aché, everyone in the band except the hunter and his parents gets a
share.90 Food “is, above all, a good that circulates.”91
6.3.2 Politics
In forager bands, authority, like resources, is dispersed rather than con-
centrated. “The essence of this way of life is … communal sharing of
food resources and of power.”92
“Foragers are characterized by minimal social differentiation and a
strong ethos of equality and sharing”93 and by the “virtual absence of
laws and social hierarchy.”94 “Families are not dominated by larger orga-
nizational structures.”95 “Social actors come together as autonomous
agents to pursue a common goal.”96
Equality, which “does not have to be earned … but is intrinsically
present as an entitlement of all,”97 “is actively promoted and inequality
is actively resisted through a set of interlocking and mutually reinforcing
institutional procedures.”98 “Relative age is one of the few status distinc-
tions that can be made.”99 Among the Hadza, “principles of equality
apply even between … father and son.”100
Even gender inequality is limited. Men monopolize hunting101 but
have neither political nor domestic control over their wives or daughters,
87
(Woodburn 2005, 23).
88
(Kaare and Woodburn 1999, 202), (Lee 1984, 45; 1979, 336), (Wiessner 1982, 62–63).
89
(Woodburn 1982, 440). See also (Lee 1984, 50).
90
(Clastres 1972, 170–172), (Hill and Hurtado 1999, 93–94).
91
(Clastres 1972, 171).
92
(Lee 1982, 54–55). See also (Barnard 2002, 7), (Woodburn 2005, 23), (Bird-David
1992, 31).
93
(Johnson and Earle 2000, 89).
94
(Sugawara 2005, 107). See also (Woodburn 1982, 434), (Leacock and Lee 1982, 8–9).
95
(Bird-David 1994, 583). See also (Sellato 1994 [1989], 152).
96
(Gibson 1985, 392).
97
(Woodburn 1982, 446). See also (Wiessner 1986, 31).
98
(Woodburn 2005, 21). See also (Boehm 1999, 60), (Kelly 1995, 296), (Lee 1982, 53),
(Flanagan and Rayner 1988, 2).
99
(Lee 1984, 63).
100
(Kaare and Woodburn 1999, 202).
101
The Hadza also have exclusively male ritual associations. (Woodburn 2005, 26).
Anarchy 113
even in matters of marriage and divorce. Heike Becker, in an article on

Kalahari foragers, suggests an affirmative answer to her title question,
“The Least Sexist Society?”102
Leaders, who vary with time and topic, “aid in group decision-making,
but … do not hold power.”103 Forager bands have no political offices.
All adults may participate in discussions leading to a decision, which
typically is reached by consensus.104 And decisions are neither formally
binding nor centrally enforced105 (although informal social pressures106
do produce high levels of compliance).
Foragers highly value autonomy.107 They seek it, however, cooperatively
rather than competitively. Generalized interdependence not only prevents
dependence on any particular individual, family, or band but provides
autonomy for all – in contrast to the competitive and individualistic strat-
egy of self-help balancing, which provides autonomy only to those capable
of successfully deploying the resources necessary to help themselves.
6.3.3 Conflict and Violence

Flexible band composition, minimal property, and consensual decision-
making mitigate conflict. Foragers also emphasize “early detection of
conflict and its treatment by means of a number of tension-relieving pro-
cesses which reinforce cooperation and harmony.”108 Exit is a last resort,
restoring harmony in the band and providing dissatisfied individuals a
fresh start at little cost.
Foragers, of course, experience violent crime.109 But despite the
absence of hierarchy and formal sanctions, they suffer no internal security
102
(Becker 2003). See also (Endicott 1999), (Lee 1979, 447–454 and ch. 9, 11),
(Turnbull 1981), (Biesele and Royal-/o/oo 1999, 207), (Tanaka and Sugawara 1999,
197), (Woodburn 2005, 23; 1982, 434; 1968, 51–52).
103
(Barnard 2002, 9). See also (Hill and Hurtado 1999, 94), (Clastres 1998 [1972], 105–
108), (Sellato 1994 [1989], 150–151), (Lee 1982, 45–49), (Silberbauer 1982, 29).
104
(Needham 1972, 180), (Silberbauer 1981, 169, 188; 1982, 26–34), (Hofffman,
1986, 36), (Barnard 1992, 108), (Endicott 1999, 416), (Hill and Hurtado 1999, 94),
(Tanaka and Sugawara 1999, 197–198).
105
(Clastres 1977 [1974], ch. 7; 1998 [1972], 106–108), (Lee 1979, 343–348; 1982, 45–52),
(Silberbauer 1981, 273–274, 316), (Sellato 1994 [1989], 144), (Barnard 2002, 9–10).
106
(Boehm 1999, 72–86) surveys sanctioning in egalitarian societies.
107
(Ingold 1999, 405, 407–408), (Kaare and Woodburn 1999, 202), (Kelly 1995, 296),
(Bird-David 1994, 586), (Sellato 1994 [1989], 145, 152).
108
(Silberbauer 1981, 318). See also (Lee 1979, 371–87ff.).
109
(Lee 1979, 376–97), (Woodburn 1979, 252), (Clastres 1998, 269–72). Although the
!Kung do have a high murder rate (Lee 1979, 370–71, 387–97) – given the small size
of bands, any murder produces a rate comparable to the most violent countries in the
world today – they “do not fight much, but they do talk a great deal” (Lee 1979, 372).
dilemma.110 If informal sanctions and reintegrative conflict resolution

fail, exit is the standard solution, even for murder.111
Amity and sharing, not fear and balancing, characterize relations within
the band. Self-help is not the norm. Feuding is unknown. Revenge kill-
ing is rare. Even enmity is atypical and usually short-lived.
6.3.4 Forager Warlessness

“Internationally,” foragers are “warless societies.”112 In relations
between and across bands, foragers neither experience security dilem-
mas nor engage in “warfare,” broadly understood as organized violent
intergroup conflict (including not only “war” with “armies” but also
organized raiding and violent feuding).
Warfare simply does not exist among the !Kung, Hadza, G/wi, Penan,
and Nayaka. One cannot say much more about such a negative existen-
tial fact – except to challenge others to present contrary evidence. But
in examining nearly two hundred sources, some sixty of which are cited
here, I could not find a single documented instance of warfare among
these five peoples.
Aché bands do fight – but only in accidental encounters, and even
then only when flight is impossible.113 They do not go to war, set out on
raids, or in any other way intentionally attack one another.
Even inter-group enmity is largely unknown114 – and not because
bands lack regular contact. Seasonal aggregations and periodic gather-
ings are common, as are interactions with neighbors. Individuals and
groups regularly move between bands, both temporarily and perma-
nently. In addition, marriage partners are typically found outside the
band.
Sharing is much less intense between bands than within them. The
alternative to sharing, however, is a sort of amicable neutrality, not com-
petition. And inter-band relations, contrary to IR’s standard expecta-
tions, are less violent than relations within bands. (Forager societies do
have murders but don’t have warfare.)
Relations with sedentary peoples follow different rules. Fear and
uncertainty, however, provoke hiding rather than balancing. The Hadza,
110
(Woodburn 1979, 252), (Silberbauer 1981, 318).
111
Informal but socially sanctioned executions, however, do occur in exceptional circum-
stances. (Lee 1979, 392–95), (Clastres 1998, 259–260).
112
(Kelly 2000).
113
(Clastres 1972, 161–163; 1998 [1972], 218, 237).
114
The Aché, again, are the exception. (Clastres 1972, 161–163; 1998 [1972], 218, 237).
Anarchy 115
for example, practice defense by “avoidance. They protect themselves by

scattering … [They] can and do avoid most serious inter-group conflict
with enviable ease.”115
6.3.5 Binding through Sharing: A Logic of Anarchy

Foragers perfectly fit the Waltzian model of anarchic orders. Seeking
survival and autonomy, they interact without central, overarching, or
superordinate authority and without a government or any other formal
mechanism to make or enforce rules or agreements. Furthermore, func-
tional differentiation is minimal. All men – and all bands – are equal (and
equally armed).
Forager bands and their members, however, seek (and generally
achieve) both security and autonomy by circulating (rather than accu-
mulating) goods and authority and by binding themselves to (rather than
balancing against) other individuals, families, and bands. Security and
autonomy are achieved through the interdependence of all members of
the band, backstopped by the option of easy exit.
Foragers pursue neither relative gains nor absolute gains. Rather, they
seek sufficiency and guaranteed access to whatever is socially available. I
suggest that we call this strategy “binding through sharing.”
It simply is not true, as Waltz claimed, that “self-help is necessarily the
principle of action in an anarchic order.”116 Self-help balancing is a rea-
sonable strategy for competitive and fearful actors pursing security and
autonomy in a world of scarcity and weak norms and institutions. Bind-
ing through sharing, however, is a reasonable strategy for individuals and
families seeking autonomy and security in a relatively tightly integrated
and normatively robust world of abundance.
In contemporary international relations, pluralistic security communi-
ties117 practice a similar sort of mutual binding that creates a common
shared fate. In Wendt’s terms, forager bands and members of pluralistic
115
(Woodburn 1979, 250). See also (Woodburn 1988, 35). Although violent conflict is
documented between foragers and intruding pastoralists in southern Africa (Keeley
1997, 132–137), hiding is the preferred security strategy.
116
(Waltz 1979, 111). “A self-help system is one in which those who do not help them-
selves, or who do so less effectively than others, will fail to prosper, will lay themselves
open to dangers, will suffer” (Waltz 1979, 118). Although this may be a good descrip-
tion of a self-help system, it is simply wrong as an account of (the effects of anarchy
in) forager societies. And if balancing is “the behavior [rationally] required of parties
in self-help systems” (Waltz 1979, 163) then foragers show that not all anarchic orders
are self-help systems.
117
(Deutsch 1957) formulated the concept. (Adler and Barnett 1998) reintroduced it into
the mainstream of the discipline. See also §14.3.
security communities are “friends” that practice not just nonviolence but
also mutual aid.118
Sharing should not be romanticized. “Acts of sharing come no more
naturally to hunter-gatherers than to members of industrial society.”119
Sharing does not reflect generosity.120 It is “imposed on the donor by
the community,” much like our practice of taxation121 – and despite
(or because) of the absence of coercive or official enforcement, it works
more smoothly and more effectively than most tax systems.
Nonetheless, sharing is an “ordering principle.” Interests, ratio-
nality, and even needs122 have particular characters in sharing
societies.123 Sharing even helps to explain the absence of coercive
enforcement of collective decisions. “Coercion, the attempt to extract
by force, represents a betrayal of the trust that underwrites the will-
ingness to give.”124
6.3.6 Anarchy Has No Effects

Foragers show, empirically, that anarchy is not a master explanatory
variable. It simply is not true, as Waltz claimed, that “the logic of anar-
chy does not vary with its content.”125
“Effects of anarchy,” wherever we find them, in whatever form, are
socially constructed and variable. The effects of anarchy in forager soci-
eties are amity and sharing. The effects of anarchy in Hobbesian states of
nature are a war of all against all. The effects of anarchy in great power
states systems are self-help balancing and the pursuit of relative gains.126
And in all these cases, the system of social relations, rather than the
absence of government, does the explanatory work. Anarchy (alone) has
no effects.
Anarchy is not (cannot be) either the principal element of the structure
of international systems or the heart of a theory of international politics.
118
(Wendt 1999, 298–299).
119
(Kelly 1995, 164). See also (Woodburn 1998, 55), (Lee 1984, 55), (Peterson 1993).
120
(Peterson 1993, 860), (Wiessner 1986, 106), (Kishigami 2004, 345).
121
(Woodburn 1982, 441).
122
The Nayaka “culturally construct their needs as the want of a share” (Bird-David
1992, 31). And the “abundance” of forager societies is largely a function of limited
needs and desires.
123
(Sugawara 2012) even argues that the unusual conversational pattern of sustained
simultaneous discourse among the G/wi is explained by their sharing (“egalitarian”)
social structure.
124
(Ingold 1992, 42). See also (Needham 1971, 204).
125
(Waltz 1990b, 37).
126
See also §7.2.2.
Anarchy 117
6.4 The Discourse of Anarchy in IR

Assuming that my arguments above are correct, there is a fundamental
flaw in the very constitution of the discipline if, as it is usually believed
today, “the field of international relations has, from its earliest years,
been structured by a discourse about anarchy.”127 However, this section
shows that anarchy became central in IR only following the publication
(in 1979) of Waltz’s Theory of International Politics – and thus is a remedi-
able, although now deeply embedded, problem. (If you find this section
overkill, or simply boring, I encourage you, before moving on to Chapter
7 (or Part III), to look at the following section (§6.5), which concludes
this chapter by stepping back to consider the constructed character of
the concept of anarchy in IR.)
6.4.1 “Anarchy” in Pre-1979 IR: Quantitative Evidence

I begin by counting the occurrences of “anarchy” and “anarchic” in
more than two hundred books: 93 published between 1895 and 1945,
54 published between 1946 and 1978, and 75 published between 1979
and 2020. (Appendices 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 list the books.) This sample, I
believe, comprises a relatively unbiased (although not at all random) set
of “significant” works in the field.128
Table 6.1 shows a sharp transition around the publication of Waltz’s
Theory of International Politics.
Prior to 1979 the median number of uses of “anarchy” or “anarchic”
is 2. After 1978 the median jumps to 22. Prior to 1979 three-fifths of the
books use “anarchy” or “anarchic” three or fewer times. After 1978 only
a quarter use these terms ten or fewer times. And the pattern is essentially
the same for 1895–1945 and 1946–1978.
This transition is nicely illustrated in “handbooks” of the discipline.
The IR volume of Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby’s 1975 Handbook
of Political Science129 contains 11 occurrences of “anarchy” or “anar-
chic,” six of which are in the chapter by Waltz, with a seventh in the
index (which references only pages in the Waltz chapter). The Handbook
of International Relations, edited by Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and
Beth Simmons,130 contains 86 occurrences in both its 2002 and 2013
127
(Schmidt 1998, 41).
128
In selecting pre-1979 sources I relied heavily on (Schmidt 1998), (Olson and Onuf
1985), and (Long and Wilson 1995). The choice of later works is based entirely on my
own judgment.
129
(Greenstein and Polsby 1975).
130
(Carlsnaes, Risse, and Simmons 2002, 2013).
Table 6.1 Occurrences of “anarchy” and “anarchic” in selected books
Mean Median
1895–1978 (n = 147) 6.8 2
1895–1945 (n = 93) 7.2 2
1946–1978 (n = 54) 6.3 2
1979–2020 (n = 75) 32.5 22
Three or fewer Ten or fewer
1895–1978 (n = 147) 60% 79%
1979–2020 (n = 75) 12% 27%
editions. Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal’s 2008 The Oxford

Handbook of International Relations131 has over a hundred.132
“Anarchy” was not even widely employed by pre-Waltzian realists.
For example, the term occurs only twice, in passing, in E. H. Carr’s
The Twenty Years’ Crisis, in George Kennan’s American Diplomacy, and
in Henry Kissinger’s A World Restored.133 None of the seven editions
of Hans Morgenthau’s Politics among Nations contains an index entry
for anarchy.134 Scientific Man versus Power Politics uses “anarchy” only
once – referring not to international relations in general but to “the inter-
national anarchy of our age.”135
6.4.2 The Pattern of Usage in Pre-1979 IR

A quarter (26%) of my pre-1979 books do not use “anarchy” or “anar-
chic” at all. Another quarter use these terms once (12%) or twice (17%).
We can therefore safely assume that in more than half of these pre-1979
works anarchy is not a term of art but an ordinary-language concept.
When anarchy is used, the ordinary-language sense of extreme dis-
order is, by far, most common: “anarchy and disorder,”136 “chaos and
131
(Reus-Smit and Snidal 2008).
132
A similar pattern is evident in James Dougherty and William Pfaltzgraff’s IR Theory
textbook Contending Theories of International Relations (1971, 1981, 1990, 1997). The
1971 and 1981 editions use “anarchy” or “anarchic” five and seven times respectively.
This jumps to 23 in 1990 and 56 in 1997.
133
(Carr 1964 [1946], 28, 162), (Kennan 1951, 33, 149), (Kissinger 1957, 17, 25).
134
Furthermore, all the passages in the first edition associate anarchy with disorder and
violence. (Morgenthau 1948, 138, 174, 210, 310, 311, 361, 378, 431).
135
(Morgenthau 1946, 117). In Defense of the National Interest uses “anarchy” twice, both
times indicating disorder (Morgenthau 1951, 102, 203).
136
(Moore 1898, II, 1503), (Grant et al. 1916, 160), (Bowman 1921, 616). See also
(Leacock 1906, 114–115), (Hill 1911, 26), (Lawrence 1919, 143), (Morgenthau 1948,
208), (Kennan 1951, 33).
Anarchy 119
anarchy,”137 “confusion and anarchy,”138 “discord and anarchy,”139

“violence and anarchy.”140 More than a third of my pre-1979 books use
“anarchy” or “anarchic” in this sense in half or more of their total uses.141
In other words, in more than 70 percent (104142 of 147) of my pre-
1979 books “anarchy” indicates lawlessness and political disorder. This
largely explains its infrequent use. Because “anarchy” neither had a well-
established technical sense nor was understood as a defining feature of
international relations there was little reason to use it often.
In the remaining works, there is no pattern to the usage.
Sometimes anarchy is understood as the external juridical conse-
quence of state sovereignty – and thus a characteristic of states systems
(not of international systems generally).143 But anarchy also is presented
as the condition that exists in the absence of sovereignty, which in this
usage establishes mutual legal recognition and restraints that put an end
137
(Trueblood 1899, 145), (Barnes 1930, 5), (Middlebush and Hill 1940, 15). See also
(Angell 1921, 98), (Grant et al. 1916, 160), (Laski 1932, 28), (Sharp and Kirk 1940,
236).
138
(Lawrence 1898 [1895], 205), (Walsh 1922, 221), (Zimmern 1922, 22). See also
(Russell 1936, 20).
139
(Hill 1911, 18), (Buell 1925, 306).
140
(Bowman 1921, 211), (Niebuhr 1932, 139), (Sprout and Sprout 1945, 408). See also
(Morgenthau 1948, 210), (Herz 1959, 35), (Claude 1962, 260).
141
(Lawrence 1898 [1895], 56, 60, 205), (Moore 1898, vol. II, 1503, 1975, vol. III,
2929), (Trueblood 1899, 145), (Leacock 1906, 101, 112, 114–115, 289), (Angell
1910, 6), (Hill 1911, 26, 66, 137, 154–155, 173), (Mahan 1912, 114), (Brailsford
1917 [1914], 158), (Lippmann 1915, 151, 152), (Woolf 1916, xv), (Smuts 1918, 8),
(Lawrence 1919, 143), (Mackinder 1919, 223), (Dickinson 1920b, 27), (Hicks 1920,
7), (Keynes 1920, 255), (Angell 1921, 60, 98, 99, 181, 199, 237, 298, 301), (Bowman
1921, 2, 12, 34, 25, 44, 45, 47, 211, 219, 289, 385, 548), (Laski 1921, 13, 45, 72,
290), (Bryce 1922, 58, 71), (Gibbons 1922, 19, 109, 126, 135, 179, 180, 182, 212,
214, 246, 270, 350, 479), (Hobson 1922, 67, 199, 228, 252), (Walsh 1922, 57, 88,
123, 221), (Zimmern 1922, 22, 80), (Brown 1923, 159, 161), (Hall 1924, 18, 21),
(Buell 1925, 46, 306), (Moon 1926, 395, 536), (Politis 1926, 6, 10), (Delaisi 1927,
62, 77), (Potter and West 1927, 267), (Potter 1929, 25), (Niebuhr 1932, 16, 18, 19,
21, 33, 129, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 175), (Muir 1932, 113, 122), (Lauterpacht
1933, 393, 438), (Russell 1936, 20, 198), (Wolfers 1940, 216), (Carr 1964 [1946],
28, 162), (Earle, Craig, and Gilbert 1943, 33, 236, 332), (Butterfield 1950, 34, 63),
(Friedmann 1951, 191, 248, 273), (Kennan 1951, 33, 149), (Morgenthau 1951,
102, 203), (Kaplan 1957, 49, 147), (Kissinger 1957, 17, 25), (Schelling 1960, 74),
(Boulding 1962, 187), (Wolfers 1962, 21, 53), (Aron 2003 [1966], 65, 122, 128, 199,
273, 327, 376, 377, 720), (Wallerstein 2011 [1976], 38, 177, 233).
142
This number (104) represents the 79 books that use anarchy less than three times plus
the 25 (of the 49 works in the preceding note) that use it more often but principally in
the sense of disorder.
143
In addition to the works cited in the following notes, see (Willoughby 1896, 196),
(Leacock 1906, 89, 95), (Hill 1911, 15, 140), (Mahan 1912, 2), (Woolf 1916, 125),
(Dickinson 1917 [1916], 13), (Politis 1926, 6), (Mitrany 1933, 165), (Fenwick 1934,
47), (Simonds and Emeny 1935, 28, 563), (Russell 1936, 540), (Hinsley 1963, 326,
327).
to “anarchic” lawlessness and disorder.144 For example, John Herz con-

trasts sovereignty, which provides “agreed upon standards and rules,”
with “real ‘anarchy’”.145
Although anarchy is occasionally presented as a defining feature of
international relations – “the only alternative to anarchy is govern-
ment;”146 “the power which prevents anarchy in intra-group relations
encourages anarchy in intergroup relations”147 – most such passages148
are isolated occurrences. And they are swamped by a wide range of dis-
parate passages that contrast sharply with contemporary IR’s usage.
Quincy Wright claims that “universal empire or anarchy has usually fol-
lowed balance-of-power periods” and that when defense predominates
“international anarchy has sometimes resulted.”149 Morton Kaplan
argues that bipolar war leads to “a hierarchical international system
if one side wins or international anarchy if both sides are exhausted.
Almost any kind of system may replace this state of anarchy.”150 Both
Alfred Zimmern and F. H. Hinsley contrast the rise of international con-
ferences in the nineteenth century to the anarchy of the eighteenth cen-
tury.151 Nationalism,152 the will to power,153 and “the backwardness of
weak states”154 are presented as sources of anarchy. For Mary Parker
Follett “anarchy means unorganized, unrelated difference.”155 For Fred-
erick Hicks “international anarchy … implies absolute disrespect for law
on the part of all states.”156 Prior to 1979, such passages157 comprise a
significant percentage of total uses that do not simply indicate disorder.
Earlier authors certainly did address issues that today are considered
to involve anarchy. They rarely, though, viewed them through the lens
(or as manifestations) of anarchy. And when “anarchy” was used, it was
in several very different, even conflicting, senses, almost all of which
144
(Hill 1911, 140, 173), (Walsh 1922, 123, 221), (Herz 1959, 59–60).
145
(Herz 1959, 59–60).
146
(Woolf 1916, 312).
147
(Niebuhr 1932, 16).
148
See also (Lawrence 1898 [1895], 19), (Hobson 1902, 174), (Mackinder 1919, 6),
(Hicks 1920, 117), (Mowat 1931, 13), (Simonds and Emeny 1935, 138), (Sharp and
Kirk 1940, 397), (Burton 1965, 45–46), (Osgood and Tucker 1967, 13).
149
(Wright 1964 [1942], 127, 63). See also (Follett 1920, 307).
150
(Kaplan 1957, 49). Anarchy, for Kaplan, is not an ordering principle but the absence
of order.
151
(Zimmern 1936, 40, 62), (Hinsley 1963, 220).
152
(Angell 1921, 98), (Woolf 1940, 76), (Morgenthau 1962, 181, 197).
153
(Niebuhr 1932, 18).
154
(Lippmann 1915, 127. Cf. 114).
155
(Follett 1920, 35. Cf. 305).
156
(Hicks 1920, 7).
157
See also nn. 178, 180.
Anarchy 121
differ from contemporary usage. In particular, anarchy neither defined

international relations nor explained behavior in international systems
in general.
6.4.3 The Rise of a Discourse of Anarchy

“Anarchy,” of course, did not spring, full-grown, from the head of Waltz.
Precursors in my sample includes Martin Wight’s Power Politics (1946),
Waltz’s Man, the State and War (1959), and Herbert Butterfield and
Martin Wight’s edited volume Diplomatic Investigations (1966) – along
with Robert Jervis’ Perception and Misperception in International Politics
(1976),158 Hedley Bull’s The Anarchical Society (1977),159 and Glenn
Snyder and Paul Diesing’s Conflict among Nations (1977).
These books suggest three sources of contemporary IR’s discourse
of anarchy: Waltz, social-scientific rationalism, and the English School.
What follows tells the American side of the story – partly for reasons of
space but also because of the rapid embrace, and the continuing pre-
dominance, of a particular discourse of anarchy in American IR.
Waltz, who (as we saw in Chapter 4) endorsed a vision of social-scientific
theory that was in the early stages of establishing its hegemony in the main-
stream of the American discipline, not only aspired to general theory (of
international politics) but employed anarchy at the heart of a seemingly
elegant and powerful substantive theory that appeared to identify and
explain some important features of international systems. That this theory
breathed new life into realism (and systems approaches) probably also was
significant. The spread of anarchy was further facilitated by the fact that
Waltz presented it not as a substantive assumption of neorealism but as an
analytically neutral demarcation criterion and structural ordering principle.
Rational choice analysts picked up on anarchy at roughly the same
time.160 The October 1985 special issue of World Politics, published in
158
(Jervis 1976, 20, 62, 63, 67, 68, 75, 76, 83, 273, 340) is the first book I know of by an
American author that makes central use of “anarchy” in the Waltzian sense. In private
correspondence, he recalled first encountering anarchy through the teaching of Glenn
Snyder at Berkeley (who was strongly influenced by Waltz, who had not yet moved to
Berkeley). Jervis was also the co-editor (with Robert Art) of the reader International
Politics: Anarchy, Force, Imperialism (1973), which stresses anarchy and includes readings
from Waltz and Bull. And his 1978 article “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma”
is a classic application of what would soon come to be described as the logic of anarchy.
159
This continues a line of work outlined in Diplomatic Investigations. As far as I am aware,
it was not influenced by Waltz.
160
(Taylor 1976) was influential, explicitly linking anarchy to the question of cooperation
(although not in the context of international relations). This trend, which built on
(Snyder and Diesing 1977) and (Jervis 1978), intensified following Robert Axelrod’s
1986 as Cooperation under Anarchy,161 placed the fusion of anarchy and

rationalism at the heart of the American discipline. Neoliberal institu-
tionalism, the other leading substantive research program of the era, also
adopted the Waltzian account of the anarchic structure of international
relations.162 And the publication in 1986 of Robert Keohane’s edited
volume Neorealism and Its Critics163 signaled a reorientation of American
IR Theory around a Waltzian discourse of anarchy.
These changes are evident in the spread of the language of “the effects
of anarchy.” A Google Scholar search in December 2020 for “effects of
anarchy” or “effects of international anarchy” and “international rela-
tions” yielded only four results from 1900 to 1974. There is one result
for 1975–1979: Jervis’ influential 1978 article “Cooperation under the
Security Dilemma.”164 In the 1980s, “effects of (international) anarchy”
appears in ten works, including major articles by John Ruggie, Harrison
Wagner, Michael Doyle, and Joseph Grieco.165 We then see nearly 150
results in the 1990s, over 300 in the 2000s, and more than more than
450 for 2010s.166
Early constructivists, who were focused on other issues, tended to
leave Waltz’s anarchy-centric conception of international relations
untouched even as they rejected his neorealist account of the effects of
anarchy. For example, Friedrich Kratochwil’s Rules, Norms, and Decisions
(1989) limits its criticism to the idea that anarchy implies the absence
of norms.167 And Alexander Wendt’s classic 1992 article “Anarchy is
What States Make of It,” rather than challenge anarchy’s central place,
argues only that enmity, not anarchy, does the explanatory work in the
Waltzian/Hobbesian account.168 Although some critics did take on anar-
chy more fully and more directly,169 Kratochwil and Wendt were typical
(1981, 1984) work on the Prisoners’ Dilemma. (Axelrod and Keohane 1985) is a clas-
sic neo-liberal institutionalist expression.
161
(Oye 1986).
162
For example, Keohane and Nye (1987, 745) explicitly adopt “the neorealist sense” of
structure.
163
(Keohane 1986a).
164
(Jervis 1978, 173).
165
(Ruggie 1983, 284), (Wagner 1983, 385), (Doyle 1983, 232), (Grieco 1988, 502).
166
To control for different sizes of the annual database, which can be significant when
comparing pre- and post-internet periods, I compared the ratio of uses of “effects
of anarchy” to all works that use both “international relations” and “anarchy.” In a
Google Scholar search in December 2020, the ratio jumped from one in a thousand (4
of 3,850) for the period before 1975 to more than fifty per thousand (900 of 46,000)
for the period 1990–2019.
167
(Kratochwil 1989, ch. 2).
168
(Wendt 1992).
169
See, for example, (Ashley 1988), (Onuf 1989, ch. 5), (Walker 1993, 33–43, 63–74,
150–152, 172–176).
Anarchy 123
in focusing on the (alleged) effects of anarchy rather than the anarchy-

centric conception of international systems and their structures.
By the mid-1990s, anarchy had become “normalized” across IR. And
this “naturalization” of anarchy – its taken-for-granted character – has
facilitated ignoring issues of conceptual clarity and causal mechanism.
With everyone agreeing that anarchy was central, the specifics of how
to define it and how it produces its effects could be treated as “mere
details” to be resolved by further analysis (if that ever really became nec-
essary or if someone really wanted to bother with such mundane concep-
tual housekeeping). This has not only facilitated the definitional disarray
that I documented above but, by focusing on (seemingly remediable)
problems in the details of the Waltzian account, has obscured the fun-
damental problems of an anarchy-centric conception of the structure of
international relations.
6.4.4 Words and Concepts

One might argue that I have focused on the word “anarchy” but ignored
“the concept.”170 Although the underlying account of the relationship
between words and concepts is suspect – anarchy is not a naturally
defined “thing” to which a variety of labels can be more or less arbitrarily
attached – this argument merits attention.
Searching (Electronically) for the Concept of Anarchy

We can begin by employing a modified version of my initial search strat-
egy. For the pre-1979 books that are available in full text,171 which is
necessary for such extensive searches, I searched for “government,” to
capture references to the lack of government that did not use the word
“absence.” To avoid an overly narrow focus on the word “government,”
I also searched for “central authority” and “higher authority.” Based
on the importance of state sovereignty in early works that did refer to
anarchy, I searched as well for “sovereign,” “sovereignty,” and “state.”
Finally, on hunches, I searched for “state of nature,” “lawless,” and
“lawlessness.”
This procedure, for all its limitations, should reveal any substantial
discourse of anarchy. The broad sweep of these searches, though, makes
170
(Lechner 2017) makes such an argument. Schmidt and others have also made this sug-
gestion in private conversations.
171
Although this includes only a little more than a third (52 of 146) of my pre-1979 books,
with two thirds of those being published before 1923 (see Appendices 6.1, 6.2), I know
of no argument that usage changed significantly anywhere between 1923 and 1978.
(1923 is an artifact of US copyright law when I performed these searches.)
simple counts of little interest. I can only report my qualitative assess-

ment of the results. Fortunately, a striking pattern is evident.
In books that do not make significant use of “anarchy,” searches for
government and central or higher authority produced only scattered
uses like contemporary IR’s account.172 Conversely, the few books that
do make significant reference to “anarchy” produced numerous hits.173
This strongly suggests that the concept of anarchy was not regularly ref-
erenced independent of the word.
Several authors did argue for the possibility or necessity of interna-
tional government.174 This, though, is no more evidence of a discourse
of anarchy than talk about the possibility or desirability of peace is a dis-
course of war. Furthermore, such arguments treat anarchy not as defin-
ing international relations but as a contingent and alterable feature of
some international systems.
Furthermore, several authors argue that twentieth-century interna-
tional relations is characterized by the presence of international govern-
ment.175 As Frederic Schuman puts it, “the net result of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries has been the emergence and development of
habits and institutions of cooperation between States to which it is now
customary to apply the terms ‘international organization’ or ‘interna-
tional government’.”176 In other words, even the “fact” of anarchy was
sometimes denied, even by some realists.
The other searches likewise provided no evidence of a concept of anar-
chy expressed in other terms. And it seems to me exceedingly unlikely
that other words were used but not these. I thus conclude that there is
no evidence of an analytically central concept of anarchy in pre-Waltzian
IR.177
172
See, for example, (Lawrence 1898 [1895], 159), (Leacock 1906, 103, 104), (Haas
1964, 69). And even those passages, on closer examination, involve uses very different
from those of contemporary IR.
173
For example, (Spykman 1942, 16, 18, 446), (Gulick 1943, 6, 12), (Wight 1978 [1946],
101, 105, 184), (Waltz 1959, 5, 11, 35, 96, 188), (Bull 1977, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 57,
59, 62, 69, 110, 125, 126, 129, 182).
174
In addition to the passages in the following two notes, see (Hicks 1920, 117), (Potter
1922, 12–14, 23, 269, 369, 381), (Kerr 1935).
175
(Trueblood 1899, 138, 142), (Hobson 1915), (Lippmann 1915, 130–131, 145),
(Woolf 1916, 141–143, 149, 153–155, 267, 312), (Smuts 1918), (Mitrany 1933).
176
(Schuman 1933, 231).
177
The one work in my pre-1946 sample that does use “anarchy” much as contemporary
IR does is, ironically, Philip Henry Kerr’s (Lord Lothian’s) Pacifism in Not Enough
(1935). Like Waltz, Lord Lothian sees anarchy and government as binary terms that
exhaust the range of political possibilities (Kerr 1935, 40–42). But he emphasizes the
connection of absence of international government with war, lawlessness, and disorder.
(Kerr 1935, 8, 10, 11, 18, 23, 24, 26, 34–35, 37–38, 41, 48–49). In fact, he uses the
Anarchy 125
An Early Political Discourse of Anarchy?

I come to the same conclusion by critically examining Schmidt’s The
Political Discourse of Anarchy, the leading example of an argument of con-
tinuity. Schmidt insists that “the concept of anarchy employed in this
book is not an externally or retrospectively imposed theme … but instead
represents an indigenous construct around which discussions about the
subject matter of international relations have continuously evolved.”178
But in his three principal chapters, which cover more than a hundred
pages, Schmidt quotes only eight passages from authors other than
G. Lowes Dickinson that employ the language of anarchy.179 He thus
must be implicitly advancing a concept-without-the-word argument.180
term “anarchy” largely for its negative connotations. Anarchy arises from the absence
of international government but means avertible violent disorder – a conception that
standard textbook discussions in contemporary IR usually go out of their way to reject.
178
(Schmidt 1998, 1–2. Cf. 16).
179
(Schmidt 1998, 94, 113, 172, 182, 186, 204, 208, 210). Dickinson is not only
Schmidt’s principal source but Mearsheimer (2006, 234) claims that Dickinson
“invented the concept of international anarchy” and Andreas Osiander (1998, 413)
notes that “whether or not [Dickinson] actually coined the term, he contributed greatly
to its popularity.” See also (Long 1995, 314), (Ashworth 2017, 312).
Dickinson, however, analyzes the “general situation” that results from “the juxtapo-
sition of a number of states, independent and armed. This was the condition of civiliza-
tion in the three periods of European history that are most studied – ancient Greece,
Renaissance Italy, and modern Europe; and under that condition war is not an accident”
(1926, 3–4 [emphasis added]). In other words, Dickinson addresses not international
relations in general but states systems – and, more particularly, “the European anarchy”
that produced World War I.
His book by that name begins “in the great and tragic history of Europe there is
a turning-point that marks … the definite acceptance of international anarchy. That
turning-point is the emergence of the sovereign State at the end of the fifteenth cen-
tury” (Dickinson 1917 [1916], 13). The final sentence concludes that “the European
anarchy is the real cause of European wars” (Dickinson 1917 [1916], 144). (Note the
definite article and the adjective.)
Especially problematic for the Mearsheimer-Schmidt reading is the fact that
Dickinson’s Causes of International War, published in 1920, between his two anarchy
books, does not identify anarchy as a cause of war. (There is only one passing reference
to “the long anarchy” following the collapse of Rome (Dickinson 1920b, 27).) And
all the causes of war that Dickinson does identify are, in Waltz’s terms, “unit level”:
patriotism, the pursuit of economic and military power, leaders who by training and
position “are incapacitated from believing in peace,” a coalition of social, military, and
economic elites, crowd dynamics, and secret diplomacy (1920b, 34–36, 17, 49–52,
67–68, 63–81, 82. See also 1917 [1916], 46). Dickinson even insists that “we cannot
deny the possibility of such a change in human motives as may put an end to interna-
tional war” (1920b, 62–63).
Anarchy, for Dickinson, is neither a general feature of international relations nor a
general cause of war. “The international anarchy” is but one very particular (and par-
ticularly perverse) type of international system.
180
Similarly, (Schmidt 2002) uses anarchy in its title but quotes only one passage using
the term.
For example, Schmidt argues that Stephen “Leacock articulated the

theoretical limits of the concept of sovereignty for examining the external
relations of states and, in doing so, outlined one of the main props of the
political discourse of anarchy” and that Westel Woodbury Willoughby’s
“reference to the international milieu as being analogous to a state of
nature is a major component of the political discourse of anarchy.”181
As Schmidt’s further discussions clearly indicate, though, Leacock and
Willoughby addressed not anarchy but sovereignty, independence,
authority, the state, and the state of nature182 – which have standard and
common meanings, significance, and uses independent of any connec-
tion to anarchy. (That a and b both refer to c does not indicate that a and
b have the same meaning – let alone that they mean c.)
Willoughby examines the nature of the state, with little attention to
international relations. When he does address international relations,
briefly, near the end of his book,183 he does not even note the absence
of international government (or any other marker of “anarchy”). Quite
the contrary, he begins by claiming that “the most obvious fact is the
increasing inter-nationality of interests that attends advancing civiliza-
tion” and argues that “the principles of international conduct that are
generally accepted by all civilized peoples already constitute a very con-
siderable body of procedure” and “in many cases common administra-
tive procedures have been established.”184
Leacock does devote a chapter to “Relation [sic] of States to One
Another,” which begins by noting that “theoretical isolation is the prime
condition of existence as a state” and that “viewed in a purely theoreti-
cal light, every state is an absolutely independent unit. Its sovereignty is
unlimited, and it renders political obedience to no outside authority.”
Immediately, though, he goes on to argue that “it is nevertheless the
case that in actual fact different states stand in close contact with one
another in a variety of ways … bring[ing] separate states into permanent
relations demanding some sort of regulation”185 and that “the action
of modern states shows an increasing tendency to conform to a gener-
ally recognized usage.”186 And Leacock explicitly presents Westphalia
as putting an end to “the anarchy of the state of nature” to which “the
181
(Schmidt 1998, 84, 90).
182
Each uses “anarchy” or “anarchic” six times, indicating disorder (except for two refer-
ences by Willoughby to anarchism). (Willoughby 1896, 71, 85, 90, 318, 320, 340),
(Leacock 1906, 93, 101, 112, 114–115, 289, 374).
183
(Willoughby 1896, 404–406ff).
184
(Willoughby 1896, 404).
185
(Leacock 1906, 89).
186
(Leacock 1906, 90).
Anarchy 127
savagery of the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries” had

reduced Europe.187
In other words, both Leacock and Willoughby actually draw atten-
tion away from a discourse of anarchy and toward nongovernmental
forms of law and regulation. The absence of an international govern-
ment is a background condition that sets a context for analyses that focus
on the presence of international governance. A discourse of anarchy is
Schmidt’s anachronistic imposition.
6.5 The Construction of Anarchy

I suspect that some readers remain unconvinced. Anarchy, they might
say – the absence of an international government – is not merely a fact
but an obvious and important, even defining, fact of international rela-
tions. Therefore, earlier authors must have engaged it, centrally – and so
must we today.
“Anarchy,” however, is not a pre-given “thing” lying “out there,”
waiting for us to stub our toe against or dis-cover and then come to grips
with. As Schmidt argues, “the concept of anarchy is more a function of
internal disciplinary debate than a self-referential empirical fact of the
external world.”188 And as Waltz noted, “even descriptive terms acquire
different meanings as theories change.”189
The “fact” of the absence of a government can just as plausibly be
understood as governance without a government, order in the absence
of an orderer, or a decentralized allocation of authority. “Something” is
out there that IR “must” grapple with. But anarchy is a very particular
construction of that “thing.” And there is a huge difference between,
for example, attempting to mitigate the effects of anarchy and providing
international governance.
Centering IR on anarchy defines international relations by some-
thing that states have but international societies lack. (Compare defin-
ing Physics as a science that deals with non-living stuff.) Governance in
the absence of government, by contrast, positively describes a particu-
lar kind (or kinds) of political order; distinctive (not defective) kinds of
political systems.
In addition, as we saw earlier in this chapter, many authors before
Waltz emphasized the advance of governance (rather than the persisting
187
(Leacock 1906, 93).
188
(Schmidt 1998b, 231).
189
absence of an international government). This is even more striking

in contemporary discussions of “global governance.” Whether such
accounts are factually correct or analytically fruitful should be addressed
as empirical questions – not ignored or pre-empted.
Or consider thinking not of anarchic international orders but of
states systems, as was the norm in IR prior to Waltz. States systems are
a particular kind of international system that prioritizes the autonomy
of its members by radically decentralizing authority. States, however,
also have many interests that can only be realized through coexistence,
coordination, or cooperation. International rules and institutions in this
understanding are neither a puzzle to be explained nor a mechanism to
mitigate the effects of anarchy. They are the expected result of a par-
ticular distribution of authority in an international system populated by
polities with mixed motives.
More broadly, de-centering anarchy shifts our attention to variability
and change in international systems.
Defining the structure of international systems primarily by anarchy
means that all international systems are fundamentally the same (they are
all (equally) anarchic) and that they change only in secondary ways – and
even then only rarely (in the Waltzian account, only when the number
of great powers changes between one, two, and a few). Such a construc-
tion, whatever analytical and practical purposes it might serve, is funda-
mentally misleading as a general account of international relations.
For example, in the standard (Waltzian) story, Eurocentric “interna-
tional relations” remained the same from, if not the fall of Rome, then,
say Charlemagne, until World War II. (The system remained anarchic
and multipolar.190) Then, in half a century, the structure of the system
changed twice (to bipolar and then back to multipolar). This reading is,
at best, stunningly obtuse.
Even if anarchy has singular determinate effects (which I have argued
it does not), we need to be able to capture no less fundamental (and,
in the ordinary-language sense of the term, no less structural) changes
such as the rise and fall of the papacy (and of the Holy Roman Empire),
the rise of kings (then national polities, then territorial polities), and the
changing scale and interaction capacity of the system – or, on some-
what more modest time frames, changes such as the abolition of overseas
colonial empires, the development of a global division of labor, and the
190
Almost as remarkable as the constancy of anarchy in the Waltzian construction is the
constancy of multipolarity – which, because it is defined as a distribution of capabilities
and operationalized as bipolar or multipolar, does not vary as the identities of the great
powers change (so long as they remain more than two). See further §11.4.1.
Anarchy 129
international renaissance of “nonstate actors.” Furthermore, we need

to acknowledge that stories of fundamental change and variety are, at
the very least, no less central to an insightful and useful discipline as
examples of “the striking sameness of the quality of international life
through the millennia” that, Waltz argued, “the anarchic character of
international politics accounts for.”191
Waltz, rather than investigate how international systems are struc-
tured, used a system-level variable to explain a few important transhis-
torical patterns across international systems. This simply is not systemic
theory or research. It abstracts from, rather than investigates, how parts
of a complex whole are arranged and how the operation of a system
explains certain features of the world. And IR has, most unfortunately,
taken Waltz’s false pretense as the epitome of systemic theory.
191
(Waltz 1979, 66)
Appendix 6.1
“Anarchy” in Early IR (1895–1945)

Occurrences of “anarchy” and “anarchic” in selected books published
between 1895 and 1945.
Book Uses Book Uses Book Uses
(Lawrence 1898 5 (Bryce 1922)*° 2 (Fenwick 1934)° 12

[1895])*°
(Willoughby 1896)*° 6 (Gibbons 13 (Ware 1934) 1
1922)*°
(Moore 1898) 3 (Hobson 4 (Lasswell 1935)° 0
1922)*°
(Trueblood 1899)*° 1 (Potter 1922)*° 13 (Kerr 1935)*° 26
(Reinsch 1900)*° 1 (Walsh 1922)*° 4 (Simonds and Emeny 14
1935)
(Hobson 1902)*° 2 (Zimmern 2 (Russell 1936) 14
1922)*°
(Leacock 1906)*° 6 (Brown 1923)° 2 (Zimmern 1936)° 2
(Hull 1908)* 0 (Hall 1924) 4 (Dunn 1937)° 0
(Angell 1910)*° 1 (Buell 1925)° 2 (Manning 1937) 0
(Hill 1911)*° 11 (Moon 1925) 1 (Bailey 1938) 0
(Reinsch 1911)* 0 (Dickinson 100+ (Friedrich 1938) 9
1926)
(Butler 1912)*° 0 (Moon 1926) 2 (de Madariaga 1938) 21
(Mahan 1912)*° 1 (Politis 1926) 3 (Carr 1964 [1946])° 2
(Angell 1914)*° 0 (Delaisi 1927) 2 (Maxwell 1939) 7
(Brailsford 1917 [1914]) 1 (Noel-Baker 1 (Whittlesey 1939) 0
1928)°
(Hobson 1915)*° 0 (Potter and West 2 (Davies 1940) 15
1927)
(Lippmann 1915)*° 4 (Mowat 1929)° 4 (Middlebush and Hill 6
1940)
(Dickinson 1917 100+ (Potter 1929) 2 (Sharp and Kirk 10
[1916])*° 1940)°
(Grant et al. 1916)*° 11 (Shotwell 1929) 14 (Wolfers 1940) 1
(Woolf 1916)*° 1 (Barnes 1930)° 20 (Woolf 1940) 8
(Smuts 1918)*° 2 (Bowman 1930) 0 (Kerr 1941) 12
(Heatley 1919) 0 (Wright 1930)° 2 (Mander 1941) 13
(Lawrence 1919)*° 2 (Hodges 1931)° 5 (Spykman 1942)*° 8
(Mackinder 1919)*° 2 (Mowat 1931) 4 (Strausz-Hupé 1942) 0
(Dickinson 1920b) 1 (Manning 1932) 0 (Wright 1964 18
[1942])*°
(Follett 1920)*° 11 (Muir 1932) 2 (Earle, Craig, and 3
Gilbert 1943)
Anarchy 131
(cont.)
(Hicks 1920)*° 2 (Niebuhr 16 (Gulick 1943)*° 8

1932)*°
(Keynes 1920)*° 1 (Lauterpacht 2 (Lippmann 1943) 0
1933)
(Angell 1921)*° 12 (Mitrany 1933)° 7 (Mitrany 1944)° 0
(Bowman 1921)*° 13 (Schuman 16 (Fox 1944)° 0
1933)°
(Laski 1921)*° 5 (Bernard and 0 (Sprout and Sprout 0
Bernard 1934) 1945)
*
= used in subset in §6.4.4.
°
= used in §9.1.2.
Appendix 6.2
“Anarchy” in Post-World War II IR (1946–1978)

Book Uses Book Uses
(Morgenthau 1946) 1 (Wolfers 1962) 4

(Wight 1978 [1946])*° 11 (Hinsley 1963)* 9
(Kirk 1947) 0 (Haas 1964)*° 0
(Morgenthau 1948) 10 (Burton 1965) 7
(Butterfield 1950)° 2 (Hoffmann 1965)° 2
(Dunn 1950) 0 (Sprout and Sprout 1965) 0
(Friedmann 1951) 3 (Aron 2003 [1966])*° 11
(Kennan 1951)° 2 (Butterfield and Wight 1966) 31
(Morgenthau 1951)° 2 (McClelland 1966) 0
(Perkins 1952)° 0 (Osgood and Tucker 1967)° 2
(Deutsch 1953) 0 (Singer 1968) 0
(Tannenbaum 1955) 0 (Morgenthau 1970)° 6
(Deutsch 1957)° 1 (Rosenau 1971)° 0
(Kaplan 1957)° 2 (Burton 1972)* 0
(Kissinger 1957)° 2 (Keohane and Nye 1972) 1
(Organski 1958)° 0 (Porter 1972) 13
(Brodie 1959) 0 (Brodie 1973)° 0
(Fox 1959) 4 (Weltman 1973) 1
(Herz 1959)° 11 (Falk 1975) 2
(Waltz 1959)* 39 (Gilpin 1975)° 0
(cont.)
Book Uses Book Uses
(Rapoport 1960)* 0 (Greenstein and Polsby 1975) 11

(Richardson 1960) 0 (Jervis 1976)*° 10
(Schelling 1960)* 1 (Wallerstein 2011 [1976])*° 3
(Rosenau 1961) 8 (Bull 1977)*° 100+
(Snyder 1961)° 0 (Keohane and Nye 1977) 0
(Boulding 1962) 1 (Snyder and Diesing 1977) 7
(Claude 1962)° 16 (Krasner 1978)*° 2
*
= used in subset in §6.4.4
°
= used in §9.1.2.
Appendix 6.3
“Anarchy” in Contemporary IR (1979–2020)

(Waltz 1979) 48 (Finnemore 1996) 7 (Wight 2006) 11

(Bueno de Mesquita 0 (Frankel 1996) 100+ (Booth 2007) 23
1981)
(Gilpin 1981) 13 (Huntington 1996) 5 (Deudney 2007) 100+
(Krasner 1983) 29 (Katzenstein 1996) 59 (Kaufman, Little, 57
and Wohlforth
2007)
(Keohane 1984) 6 (Jervis 1997) 12 (Little 2007) 53
(Keohane 1986a) 93 (Rosenau 1997) 17 (Lebow 2008) 27
(Oye 1986) 100+ (Snyder 1997) 39 (Reus-Smit and 100+
Snidal 2008)
(Walt 1987) 2 (Campbell 1998) 5 (Nexon 2009) 51
(Ferguson and 74 (Barnett 1998) 23 (Simmons 2009) 2
Mansbach 1988)
(Enloe 2001 [1989]) 0 (Buzan, Waever, and 25 (Avant, 4
Wilde 1998) Finnemore, and
Sell 2010)
(Kratochwil 1989) 27 (Dunne, Cox, and 39 (Glaser 2010) 54
Booth 1998)
(Onuf 1989) 48 (Keck and Sikkink 3 (Adler and Pouliot 4
1998) 2011)
(Jackson 1990) 3 (Ruggie 1998) 33 (Linklater 2011) 16
(Holsti 1991) 18 (Katzenstein, Keohane, 30 (Carlsnaes, Risse, 86
and Krasner 1999a) and Simmons
2013)
Anarchy 133
(cont.)
(Buzan, Jones, and 100+ (Krasner 1999) 12 (Tickner 2014) 10

Little 1993)
(Gill 1993) 18 (Reus-Smit 1999) 25 (Buzan and 6
Lawson 2015)
(Vasquez 1993) 21 (Wendt 1999) 97 (Albert 2016) 5
(Walker 1993) 39 (Ikenberry 2001) 17 (Dunne and Reus- 19
Smit 2017)
(Rosenberg 1994b) 45 (Mearsheimer 2001) 46 (Zarakol 2017a) 47
(Spruyt 1994) 15 (Carlsnaes, Risse, and 86 (Katzenstein and 2
Simmons 2002) Seybert 2018)
(Young 1994) 5 (Sterling-Folker 2002) 100+ (Gheciu and 42
Wohlforth 2018)
(Bartelson 1995a) 23 (Teschke 2003) 53 (Zürn 2018) 20
(Chayes and Chayes 5 (Barnett and Duvall 9 (Adler 2019) 5
1995) 2005)
(Alker 1996) 58 (Hui 2005) 19 (Davies and True 0
2019)
(Cox 1996) 2 (Schweller 2006) 11 (Spruyt 2020) 29
7 The Tripartite Conception of Structure
One of Waltz’s major contributions was the idea that political structures
can, in first approximation, be specified by ordering principle, functional
differentiation, and distribution of capabilities.1 I call this the tripartite
conception of the elements of political structures.
The tripartite conception was quickly adopted across most of IR.
Even today it grounds structural realism and is a starting point for both
neoclassical realists and neoliberals (who explore forces that alter “the
effects of anarchy”). And although constructivists (and others) often add
further features, such as norms, institutions, and identity, they typically
do so in an ad hoc fashion (rather than as elements of a general structural
framework).2 Other than historical materialism, which is largely ignored
by those working outside of that tradition, contemporary IR has no other
widely endorsed comprehensive account of the nature and content of
international political structures.
Waltz’s particular implementation of the tripartite conception also
remains influential. He argued that there are only two political order-
ing principles, anarchy and hierarchy,3 which order, respectively,
1
(Waltz 1979, ch. 5, esp. 88–99).
2
For example, Wendt’s famous discussion of cultures of anarchy (1992, 1999, ch. 6)
looks at “role structure” but (because it is not necessary for his purposes) never addresses
“structure” more generally. Similarly, Daniel Deudney’s model of “structural negarchy”
(a system that is “more than a confederation of states in anarchy, and less than a state
with extensive devolution” (1995, 208)) is tied to no clear conception of structure. (For
example, Deudney argues that the system’s “highly articulated structures combined
familiar forms of popular sovereignty, formal state equality, balance of power, and divi-
sion of power on the basis of a distinct structural principle [negarchy]” (1995, 193). And,
without any broader context, he refers to “another structural variable, hegemony” (1995,
213).) Consider also, Deudney and John Ikenberry’s (1999) insightful but ad hoc model
of liberal international order. See further n. 56 in §9.4. Although one need not root an
account of a particular structure or element in a general structural framework, develop-
ing a more adequate general framework seems to me an obviously worthwhile project
that has been largely ignored in IR.
3
(Waltz 1979, 88–93, 100, 114–116).
134
The Tripartite Conception of Structure 135
international and national political systems.4 In hierarchical/national

systems actors are functionally differentiated. In anarchic/international
systems, however, Waltz claimed that because all units are fundamen-
tally the same, functional differentiation “drops out.”5 The structures of
international political systems therefore vary only in their distributions
of capabilities.6
Although the tripartite conception can, in principle, be implemented
in other ways – for example, by identifying additional ordering princi-
ples7 – no alternative has been seriously pursued.8 Therefore, I often
focus on Waltz’s particular implementation. Most of my arguments,
however, apply to the tripartite conception in general. And my ultimate
aim is to show that the structures of most international political systems
cannot be adequately depicted in terms of a few combinations of a few
standard elements.
7.1 The Distinctiveness of the Waltzian Conception

Before working on this book, I had assumed that Waltz must have been
following, or at least combining elements from, prior accounts. For
example, Waltz noted that he “found the following works bearing on
systems theory and cybernetics especially useful: (Angyal 1939), (Ashby
1956), (Von Bertalanffy 1968), (Buckley 1968), (Nadel 1957), (Smith
1956, 1966), (Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson 1967), and (Wiener
1961).”9 But when I examined these sources I could find nothing even
close to the Waltzian tripartite conception – or even a single use of the
crucial term “ordering principle.”10
Waltz appears to have combined his novel notion of ordering prin-
ciples with polarity, which prior work had convinced him was of decisive
4
See §6.1.3.
5
(Waltz 1979, 93–97, 101 (“drops out”)).
6
(Waltz 1979, 97–99, 101).
7
See §§9.3, 9.4.
8
The partial exception is a recurrent unease, going back to Ruggie (1983, 273–274ff.),
with the idea that functional differentiation drops out. I know of no sustained
effort, though, to incorporate functional differentiation into a tripartite account of
international systems – largely, I suspect, because that would conflict with Waltz’s
understandings of “the unit level” (see §5.5) and structural/non-reductionist theory
(see §5.3).
9
(Waltz 1979, 40 n. * = 1975, 78 n. 40).
10
I searched electronically (separately) for “order,” “ordering,” and “principle” in all
these works. Some, though, were searchable on Google Books only in “snippet view,”
so I cannot be certain that I did not miss a few uses. I did, however, manually examine
paper copies of those books and was not able to find any uses.
structural significance in international systems,11 and vaguely Dur-

kheimian ideas about differentiation.12 The tripartite conception, in
other words, was largely without precedent.13
Furthermore, it has had no impact outside of IR. Early in my work
on this book I searched electronically for uses of the Waltzian concept.
I could find none in Sociology, Anthropology, Archaeology, or other
fields in Political Science. For example, in the first 300 results of a
Google Scholar search in September 2013 for “ordering principle” and
“structure,” ordering principle was presented as a defining component of
structure only in works by or citing Waltz. The same was true of the first
100 results of a search for “ordering principle” and “social structure.”
And semi-systematic JSTOR searches of all journals in these disciplines,
in both 2013 and 2021, were similarly fruitless. This, I will argue, is
because the Waltzian account is fundamentally misguided and, as I sug-
gest in §7.4, provides a plausible foundation for no substantive theory
other that structural realism.
7.2 Three Simple Anarchic Systems

This section assesses the tripartite conception by looking at the struc-
tures of three simple anarchic systems. To the well-known examples of
Hobbesian states of nature and great power states systems I add forager
societies (which I discussed in §6.3). IR’s standard Waltzian account
depicts these systems as having the same structure: they are anarchic
and multipolar. In fact, though, they are organized and operate in very
different ways.
11
See §8.2.2.
12
Waltz expressed his debt to Durkheim in (1979, 111 n. *; 1986, 323). See also (Waltz
2007, 107–108) and (Waltz and Kreisler 2003, p. 1 of 7). That influence, though, it
seems to me, came primarily through structural functionalism (e.g., (Nadel 1957) and
(Smith 1956, 1966)). (Goddard and Nexon 2005, 11–25) addresses Waltz’s relations
with structural functionalism.
13
I have, however, been convinced by Aaron Sampson’s clever argument (2002, 437–
440) that Waltz was inspired by S. F. Nadel’s The Theory of Social Structure (1957),
which he cited three times (1979, 40 n. *, 80, 120–121). Nadel’s terminology, how-
ever, is not even close to Waltz’s. Therefore, despite having read Nadel with Waltz
in mind, I did not see the parallels that Sampson elucidates by creatively re-reading
Nadel through Waltz. The parallels are further obscured by the fact that Waltz took
his account in a completely different direction. For example, Sampson observes (2002,
438) that Nadel’s “theory of structure depends on his theory of role. It is impossible to
have one without the other.” Waltz, however, created an asocial, role-less conception of
structure.
7.2.1 The Hobbesian State of Nature and Forager Societies

In Hobbes’ ideal-type state of nature, men live without government or
any other “common power to keep them all in awe.”14 There is no func-
tional differentiation. And capabilities are distributed equally.15
In forager societies as well, materially equal and minimally differenti-
ated actors interact in the absence of both government and hierarchy.16
Foragers, however, as we saw in §6.3.4, are warless societies. Hobbes’
world, in sharp contrast, is characterized by a “war of every man against
every man.”17
It would be a great surprise if systems that operate so differently had
the same structure.18 And in fact they don’t.
Hobbes draws attention to three additional features of his state of
nature. Actors are driven by competition, diffidence, and glory (which
generate conflict for gain, safety, and reputation).19 Conflict is intensi-
fied by an “equality of hope in the attaining of our ends”20 that is frus-
trated by scarcity, greed, and vanity. And “notions of right and wrong,
justice and injustice have there no place;”21 there are neither normative
constraints on nor justifications for behavior.
Hobbes’ war of all against all arises where equal, competitive, fearful,
and vain egoists with equal hopes of attaining their ends interact in a
world in which goods and respect are scarce and where rules do not exist
(and could not be enforced if they did). In forager societies, by contrast,
equal actors in a world of material sufficiency governed by egalitarian
customary practices enjoy sharing social relations.22
14
Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 13, par. 8.
15
16
See §6.3. Briefly, “foragers,” the simplest type of hunter-gatherers, live in bands com-
posed usually of dozens of individuals. Although their material life is extremely simple,
they experience abundance, in the sense that their needs and principal desires are rela-
tively easily satisfied. They have no social hierarchy and almost no functional differen-
tiation. Political decisions typically are made by open discussion leading to consensus
and are not subject to official coercive enforcement. But foragers do not balance or
pursue relative gains. They do not experience security dilemmas. And relations between
bands are warless.
17
18
Or, if they did, structure would be of little or no explanatory value. See also §6.1.5.
19
Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 13, par. 6, 7. Note that these are not contingent features of par-
ticular actors but a structural feature of the system. All actors are competitive, fearful,
and vain. (This also underscores the fact that characteristics of the parts are essential to
any systemic theory.)
20
21
Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 13, par. 12. See also ch. 14, par. 4.
22
§6.3.5 sketches the logic of what I call binding through sharing in forager societies.
If structure means the organization or arrangement of the parts of a

system, as it does both in ordinary language and in Waltz’s account,23
then these systems are structured differently. Different kinds of parts are
arranged and operate in different ways to produce different characteristic
behaviors and outcomes.
7.2.2 Great Power States Systems

Great power states systems, which also are anarchic and (usually) mul-
tipolar, are arranged/structured in still another fashion. They are com-
posed of unequal and functionally differentiated actors.24 States are
legally superior to and perform different functions than nonstate actors.
Furthermore, great powers are (at least unofficially) superior to lesser
states and, as Waltz himself put it, “take on special responsibilities” as
“specialists in managing system-wide affairs.”25
Great power states systems (like forager societies but unlike states
of nature) are rule-governed. For example, structural realists assume
that the “units” are sovereign states26 – which have different rights and
responsibilities than non-sovereign actors. Sovereignty is also essential
to the stratification of great power systems. And the normative and insti-
tutional resources of states are important elements of their capabilities.
All three types of systems are structured around a particular kind of
dominant actor. Great powers, however, are very different from both
Hobbesian individuals and forager bands – and thus behave in different
ways.
Finally, because different types of actors are differently situated,
there is no single behavioral logic in great power states systems. Great
powers balance among themselves, exercise sovereign rights and
prerogatives in relations with other states and nonstate actors, and
regularly establish (unofficial and sometimes even official) hierarchi-
cal privileges over lesser powers. Weak states bandwagon (or hide).
Nonstate actors have highly restricted options for self-help. (Most are
precluded from using force and have a limited (or no) international
legal personality.)
23
(Waltz 1979, 39).
24
In §7.2.4 I consider Waltz’s explicit denial of these structural facts about great power
states systems.
25
(Waltz 1979, 198, 197).
26
(Mearsheimer 2001, 30–31), (Waltz 1979, 95–96, 116). Waltz later (1990b, 37 n. 37)
refined his account, holding that units in anarchy are autonomous (and that sovereignty
is only one form that autonomy may take). Autonomy, however, is also a normative
status (not simply a matter of capabilities).
7.2.3 The Effects of Existential Fear

Because anarchy is the heart of Waltz’s account of international political
structures, it may be useful to return briefly to “the effects of anarchy”27
with these cases in mind.
Hobbes explicitly argues that anarchy (alone) does not have singular
effects.
Though there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condi-
tion of war one against another, yet in all times kings and persons of sovereign
authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the
state and posture of gladiators, having their weapons pointing, and their eyes
fixed on one another … which is a posture of war. But because they uphold
thereby the industry of their subjects, there does not follow from it that misery which
accompanies the liberty of particular men.28
Sovereigns and individuals behave differently “in anarchy,” which is
structured differently “internationally” and in the state of nature29 – as is
evident from the fact that in states systems the lives of neither individuals
nor states are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”30 The explana-
tory work in Hobbes’ account is done not by the mere absence of a gov-
ernment but by the “continual fear, and danger of violent death”31 that
results from the conjunction of actors of a particular type in the formless
void of the state of nature.
Foragers clearly show that it is not true, as Waltz claimed, that
“balance-of-power politics prevail wherever two, and only two, require-
ments are met: that the order be anarchic and that it be populated by
units wishing to survive.”32 Balancing in anarchy arises not from the
mere desire to survive but from an existential fear that largely pre-empts
other concerns – which is not a universal feature of anarchic systems.
Similarly, John Mearsheimer emphasizes “the importance of fear as a
motivating force in world politics”33 and argues that
three features of the international system combine to cause states to fear one
another: 1) the absence of a central authority that sits above states and can pro-
tect them from each other, 2) the fact that states always have some offensive
27
See §6.2.
28
Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 13, par. 12 [emphasis added].
29
Note that Wendt’s “Hobbesian” anarchy of enemies models not Hobbes’ state of nature
among individuals but “anarchy” among sovereigns – which has a very different struc-
ture and consequences. See also (Christov 2017).
30
31
32
(Waltz 1979, 121). Even here, anarchy alone explains nothing.
33
military capability, and 3) the fact that states can never be certain about other
states’ intentions. Given this fear – which can never be wholly eliminated – states
recognize that the more powerful they are relative to their rivals, the better their
chances of survival.34
Such fear, however, is entirely absent in (equally anarchic) forager soci-
eties. Foragers faced with “the same” anarchic situation behave com-
pletely differently – because binding through sharing pre-empts fear of
others by linking people’s lives to one another.35 Self-help balancing is
only one possible security strategy “in anarchy;” one of multiple ways
that societies have grappled with the problems posed by the absence of
an international government.36
Mearsheimer’s account does not, as he claims, arise simply from the
fact that states “are merely concerned with their survival.”37 (Foragers
too are concerned with their survival.) It just is not true that in anar-
chic systems “survival mandates aggressive behavior.”38 Neither is it true
that, defining structure as anarchy and distribution of capabilities, “the
structure of the international system forces states which seek only to be
secure nonetheless to act aggressively toward each other.”39
Finally, it is worth repeating that we cannot array Hobbes’ state of
nature, great power states systems, Wendt’s anarchy among rivals,
and forager societies across the top of Figure 6.1 (which charts differ-
ent kinds of consequences of anarchy). That would mistakenly suggest
that Hobbes captures the essence of anarchy, which is mitigated in great
power states systems (and Wendtian systems of rivals) and overcome in
forager societies (and systems of friends).
Balancing in great power states systems is not a moderated form of
the war of all against all. (It is an emergent property of a system of com-
petitive and fearful sovereign states operating in an institutionally thin
states system.) Anarchy among rivals is not a less extreme form of anar-
chy among enemies. And binding through sharing (or anarchy among
friends) is not a modified form of any of these (or any other) structures.
34
(Mearsheimer 2001, 3. See also 32: “three general patterns of behavior emerge: fear,
self-help, and power maximization”).
35
See §6.3.5.
36
See also §14.3.
37
38
39
(Mearsheimer 2001, 3). Although Mearsheimer does not define structure – oddly for
someone who relies so heavily on structural arguments – he gives no indication that he
understands it differently than Waltz. (If one argues that these claims are restricted to
states in a states system (not “units”) then anarchy alone is not doing the explanatory
work – and the account does not apply to international systems in general.)
7.2.4 The Failure of the Tripartite Conception

The tripartite conception does not explain the characteristic behaviors
of any of these anarchic societies. (That the same features are associated
with often opposed behaviors indicates that they (alone) explain none
of those behaviors.) It leaves out vital elements of the structure of all
three types of systems. And, most troublingly, Waltz’s depiction of the
structure of great power states systems, his implicit model of a generic
international system, is wildly inaccurate on all three of his dimensions
of structure.40
Anarchic/international orders, Waltz claimed, lack hierarchy.41 Great
power states systems, however, are defined by the double stratification of
states over nonstate actors and great powers over lesser states. (Waltz’s
error is like arguing that armies lack hierarchy because generals are
roughly equal in rank.)
Waltz also claimed that units in anarchic orders are functionally undif-
ferentiated.42 This confuses the similarity of the dominant actors with the
absence of functional differentiation in the system.43 States and nonstate
actors clearly perform different political functions. And Waltz devoted
Chapter 9 of Theory of International Politics to the managerial functions
of great powers.
Finally, treating the distribution of capabilities as a matter of polarity44
misdescribes the actual distribution of capabilities. Waltz considered
only great powers – which is as misguided as depicting the distribution
of wealth in a society by the number of billionaires.45
Waltz got everything wrong – and most of it backward – in depicting
the structure of his exemplary international system. It is hard to imagine
a more devastating indictment of the tripartite conception.46
Two explanations seem to me likely.47
First, Waltz implicitly incorporated taken-for-granted features of
contemporary international relations. For example, as we saw in §5.5,
40
On the importance of essential descriptive accuracy in structural models, see §4.9.
41
(Waltz 1979, 88). See also §6.1.1.
42
(Waltz 1979, 93, 97).
43
See §8.1.
44
(Waltz 1979, 98–99, 129–131).
45
See also §11.4.1.
46
This is an indictment of the tripartite conception in general, not just Waltz’s particular
implementation. The only other plausible tripartite interpretation – that great power
states systems are hierarchical and functionally differentiated – is, at best, uninformative.
47
When one identifies a gross and systematic analytical blunder in the work of a smart
and well-respected scholar, one should be reluctant to accept that reading if one cannot
specify why or how she ended up there.
rather than “abstract from every attribute of states except their capabili-
ties”48 he assumed particular attributes such as sovereignty, territorial-
ity, acquisitiveness, and an overriding desire for autonomy.49 And, as
we saw earlier in this section, he (falsely) assumed that anarchy (alone)
generates an overwhelming fear for survival. At best, Waltz (misre)pre-
sented one type of international system as the general form of interna-
tional relations.
Second, Waltz got the structure of great power states systems wrong
because he was not actually interested in structure. His goal was par-
simonious causal explanations of law-like regularities; theory of inter-
national politics.50 “Knowing” that great powers are the causally most
efficacious international actors, Waltz adopted a “simplifying” focus on
their actions.
For example, Waltz claimed that “concern with international politics
as a system requires concentration on the states that make the most dif-
ference.”51 This confuses what is necessary for a good “causal” expla-
nation with what is necessary to depict a structure.52 The structure of
a great power states system can no more be defined in terms of great
powers than the structure of a family can be defined in terms of parents
or the structure of a domestic political system can be defined by relations
among ruling elites.
The tripartite conception either is simply wrong – it misdescribes the
arrangement of the parts of international systems53 – or tells us almost
nothing of explanatory significance. The specified explanatia cannot
account for the effects in question.
In explaining the behavior of unequal and differentiated actors in
great power states systems, it is worse than irrelevant to say, as Waltz
did, that equal and undifferentiated actors “in anarchy” can be expected
to behave in certain ways. Compare “explaining” death from a brain
tumor by reference to a hemorrhagic stroke or a gunshot wound. Such
an “explanation” is either wrong or a non sequitur.
48
(Waltz 1979, 99).
49
Similarly, Waltz, despite acknowledging that in markets “the self-help principle applies
within governmentally contrived limits … [including] laws against shooting a competi-
tor” (1979, 91), claimed that “a market is not an institution” and that “the structure
of the market is defined by the number of firms competing” (1979, 90, 93). In other
words, he both took for granted the hierarchical institutions that structure markets and
denied that they shape the system’s structure. See also (1979, 77–78).
50
See §§4.1.1, 4.4.
51
(Waltz 1979, 94. See also 93, 73).
52
See also §6.1.5.
53
On the importance of fundamental descriptive accuracy in systemic/structural explana-
tions, see §4.9.
This point, I think, bears repeating. Because the actors in great power
states systems are differentiated and unequal, referring to how equal and
undifferentiated actors can be expected to behave “in anarchy” is either
the wrong explanation or no explanation at all.54 Even if behavior proves
to be “as predicted,” mis-specifying the cause leaves us with, at best, a
correlation that not only tells us nothing about how or why the outcome
arose but actively misdirects our attention.55
Finally, I would note that if all international systems are anarchic then
anarchy is correlated with any (all) behavioral patterns in international
systems – and thus (alone) explains none.
7.3 Looking Behind the Tripartite Conception

If the tripartite conception is anywhere close to as confused as I am sug-
gesting, why was it so widely accepted in IR? More importantly, why
does it remain the default understanding?
Part of the explanation is a tendency in IR to treat problems in the
Waltzian account of political structures as matters of detail that can be
corrected piecemeal, as needed. The tripartite conception thus is typi-
cally taken for granted – but not too seriously. And the fact that no actual
research in IR has restricted analysis to Waltzian structure alone has
meant that we have not been compelled to confront the profound inad-
equacies of the tripartite conception.
The acceptance of the tripartite conception has also been facilitated by
the fact that it was built on the obvious but nonetheless important insight
that both legal authority and material power are central to the structure
of political systems. Ordering principle and functional differentiation
seem to address authority. Distribution of capabilities seems to address
material power. The basic terms of reference thus seem “right.”
Furthermore, the tripartite conception appears to “work” in states
systems – if we are willing to set aside the (in fact essential) initial hier-
archical distribution of authority and political functions to states.56
Waltz starts his story with pre-given “units” that have supreme legal
authority within their territories and are free of obligations to any higher
authority. Variations in their material power thus may profitably be
54
Looking at great powers and their relations would analytically address only a part of the
system (not its structure) – or the great power subsystem (not the international political
system of which it is a part).
55
On the importance of fundamental descriptive accuracy in systemic and structural
explanations, see §4.9.
56
How these “states” could be constituted as states with neither authority nor differenti-
ated functions – or even what that might mean – is, to me at least, a mystery.
approached as sharply separated from their legal authority (which they

all have equally).
The tripartite conception collapses, though, when we introduce hier-
archy into the account, as in great power states systems.57 “Hierarchy”
tells us only that authority is not equally distributed. “Ordering prin-
ciple” therefore does not specify the distribution of authority.58 In addi-
tion, in hierarchies the interconnections between legal authority and
material power make some overall measure of the distribution of capabili-
ties of little interest.59
In depicting political structures, we should indeed give central atten-
tion to authorities, functions, and material capabilities. But ordering
principle, functional differentiation, and distribution of capabilities are,
superficial impressions to the contrary, utterly inadequate to this task –
especially when they are understood not as mutually co-constitutive
dimensions of structural differentiation but as separate elements of “the
structure” (that are to be deployed separately in structural explanations).
7.4 Structural Theory vs. Theory of International Politics

Waltz’s clearly announced project was “theory of international politics.”
A useful theory of international politics, however, cannot be a structural
theory (in the Waltzian sense of a theory that appeals solely to structural
(system-level) variables60).
A purely structural theory of international politics (in general) requires
reducing “structure” to the few features that (almost all) international
systems share. Waltz in effect suggested – not unreasonably – that this
includes little beyond the lack of a government and the presence of some
sort of distribution of capabilities (plus some limited functional differ-
entiation). As we have seen, though, these features cannot fruitfully
depict the structure of any international system. Waltz, in other words,
sacrificed systemic or structural explanation to “theory of international
politics.”
Furthermore, Waltz’s account of structure almost demands a theory
like structural realism. (It is hard to construct anything else out of anar-
chy and polarity alone.) But even most realists agree that structural the-
ory, thus understood, has only a small part to play in the discipline. As
57
I pursue this point in more detail in §§8.1 and 9.1.
58
“All have equal authority” does specify a particular type of distribution of authority.
“Different actors have different authorities” does not. (Although the absence of hierar-
chy may be an ordering principle, the presence of hierarchy is not.)
59
See §8.2.1.
60
See §5.3.
Waltz put it, structural realism (only) “tell[s] us a small number of big
and important things.”61 Or, in more deflationary terms, the only real
issue of contention is how much we should emphasize the fact that the
insights of Waltzian structural theory are few.
If, though, as I have argued, international structures are complex,
multidimensional, and varied then a more adequate conception of sys-
tems and their structures might reinvigorate systemic theory in IR. Part
III of this book suggests some steps in that direction.
First, though, I consider the individual elements of the tripartite con-
ception, to see if there is anything that might be worth salvaging.
61
(Waltz 1986, 329).
8 Functional Differentiation and
Distribution of Capabilities
Even if the tripartite conception as a whole is inadequate there may be

value in its individual elements. This very brief chapter looks at func-
tional differentiation and the distribution of capabilities. The next chap-
ter considers ordering principles.
8.1 International Systems Are Functionally Differentiated

Waltz claimed that although functional differentiation is inherently struc-
tural “the units of an anarchic system are functionally undifferentiated.”1
This misrepresents both functional differentiation and the structures of
international political systems.
“To call states ‘like units’ … is another way of saying that states
are sovereign.”2 This is also, though, another way to say that non-
state actors are not sovereign – and therefore perform different political
functions.
“States set the scene in which they, along with nonstate actors, stage
their dramas or carry on their humdrum affairs. … [states] set the terms
of the intercourse … [and] when the crunch comes, states remake the
rules by which other actors operate.”3 This too is an account of func-
tional differentiation (and superordination).
Furthermore, in great power states systems, the differentiation of great
powers is at least as important as the similarity of states. As Waltz put it,
with characteristic exaggeration, “students of international politics make
1
(Waltz 1979, 97). “National politics consists of differentiated units performing specified
functions. International politics consists of like units duplicating one another’s activities”
(Waltz 1979, 97).
2
(Waltz 1979, 95). This, of course, is not true. “Units” are not states. And similarity and
sovereignty are unrelated notions. “Each state, like every other state, is a sovereign politi-
cal entity” (Waltz 1979, 96) because they are sovereign states – not because they are “like
units.”
3
(Waltz 1979, 94).
146
Functional Differentiation and Distribution of Capabilities 147
distinctions between international-political systems only according to

the number of their great powers.”4
It would indeed be “ridiculous to construct a theory of international
politics based on Malaysia and Costa Rica.”5 It is no less ridiculous,
though, to insist, as Waltz did, that in the international political system the
United States and Malaysia are “like units” that perform similar func-
tions – and that the only structurally relevant fact about them is their
sovereign equality.6
Functional differentiation refers not (as Waltz would have it) to
whether actors are similar or different7 but to however functions are dif-
ferentiated and allocated to social positions. And which functions which
positioned actors (do and do not) perform is central to a system’s struc-
ture. For example, an economy in which most economic activity is in the
hands of largely unconstrained “private” actors is structured very differ-
ently than a command economy.
Functional differentiation is a feature of the system. Even where all
actors are of one type and perform the same functions, functional differ-
entiation is not absent but takes a particular form. These (and not other)
functions are allocated to those (rather than other) social positions or
actors. (Even if all As are x it is no less important that not all actors are
As and that As are not y or z.)
Waltz was also misled by focusing on differences between national and
international political systems (rather than trying to understand inter-
national systems). Even if it is true that “the division of labor across
nations … is slight in comparison with the highly articulated division of
labor within them,”8 a simpler differentiation of functions is precisely
that – not, as Waltz claimed, the absence of functional differentiation.
8.2 The Distribution of Capabilities

“Structures are defined … [also] by the distribution of capabilities across
units”9 – which, Waltz argued, in international relations means polarity;
4
(Waltz 1979, 97). However, I am aware of no student of international relations who
made such a claim before Waltz (who, characteristically, provided no supporting evi-
dence). See also n. 22.
5
(Waltz 1979, 72).
6
The capabilities of states (and differences in capabilities) are not, in Waltz’s account,
structural.
7
“Anarchy entails relations of coordination among a system’s units, and that implies their
sameness” (Waltz 1979, 93).
8
(Waltz 1979, 105).
9
(Waltz 1979, 101).
the number of poles of power (great powers) in the system. “Market

structure is defined by counting firms; international-political structure
by counting states.”10
Market structure, however, is not reducible to the number of firms.
In addition to the obvious fact that a market with five equal firms and a
market with one huge firm and four tiny firms have very different struc-
tures, even Waltz noted that markets are shaped by things like “pure
food and drug standards, antitrust laws, securities and exchange regu-
lations, laws against shooting a competitor, and rules forbidding false
claims in advertising.”11 And he went on to note that “international poli-
tics is structurally similar to a market economy insofar as the self-help prin-
ciple is allowed to operate in the latter”12 – underscoring that such features,
which restrict the operation of the self-help principle, alter the structure
of the market.13
In this section I ague that Waltz’s account of the distribution of capa-
bilities, although rarely questioned, is fatally flawed.
8.2.1 The Distribution of Capabilities in Domestic Political Systems

Here is Waltz’s entire theoretical discussion of “the distribution of capa-
bilities” in domestic political systems (which he considered before inter-
national political systems for ease of exposition14).
The placement of units in relation to one another is not fully defined by a sys-
tem’s ordering principle and by the formal differentiation of its parts. The stand-
ing of the units also changes with changes in their relative capabilities. In the
performance of their functions, agencies may gain capabilities or lose them. The
relation of Prime Minister to Parliament and of President to Congress depends
on, and varies with, their relative capabilities. The third part of the definition of
structure acknowledges that even while specified functions remain unchanged,
units come to stand in different relation to each other through changes in relative
capability.15
Waltz, as he clearly indicated, actually addressed the relative (dyadic)
capabilities of differentiated actors – not the distribution of capabilities in
the system. And neither the relative capabilities of actors nor the system-
wide distribution of capabilities proves to be an essential third element
of the structure of domestic political systems.
10
(Waltz 1979, 98–99).
11
(Waltz 1979, 91).
12
13
See also n. 49 in §7.2.4.
14
(Waltz 1979, 81).
15
In hierarchical political systems “capabilities” are a mix of official

and unofficial “power resources,” including (very prominently) legal
authority and the powers associated with offices. Legal authority in the
Waltzian scheme, however, is allocated through ordering principle and
functional differentiation. Therefore, “relative capabilities” is not (can-
not be) a separate third element of structure.
In addition, despite having addressed (only) relative dyadic capabili-
ties, Waltz went on to identify the third element of structure as “the dis-
tribution of capabilities across … units;”16 the system-wide (rather than
dyadic) distribution of absolute (rather than relative) capabilities. This is
both logically unfounded – the distribution of capabilities in the system is
not the average of (or any other mathematical operation performed on)
dyadic relative capabilities – and substantively misguided.
If “in anarchy” all units have both the same legal powers and the same
functions then differences in “capabilities” will be largely differences in
material power. But in hierarchical political systems, capabilities also dif-
fer qualitatively and provide different capabilities in different domains of
activity. This makes it hard to even comprehend the idea of a system-
wide distribution.
Not surprisingly, then, Waltz did not even attempt to illustrate what
“the distribution of capabilities” might look like in domestic political
systems. (To repeat, Waltz addressed dyadic relative capabilities not the
system-wide distribution.) In fact, in his extended comparison of the
American presidential and British parliamentary systems,17 to which he
devoted as much space as his entire discussion of ordering principles in
international systems,18 Waltz never even used the term “capabilities,”
let alone addressed their distribution19 – because, I am suggesting, in
hierarchical political systems the distribution of capabilities, even if we
could specify it, has no structural significance.
In developing his US–UK example Waltz did talk of “power” and
“powers.”20 This, however, referenced, as it must in hierarchical politi-
cal systems, a mixture of legal powers and material power, mediated
through systems of official and unofficial rights, responsibilities, and roles
associated with differentiated social positions – which are very different
“things” from, not alternative terms for, “the distribution of capabilities.”
16
(Waltz 1979, 82).
17
(Waltz 1979, 82–88).
18
(Waltz 1979, 88–93).
19
Nonetheless, “distribution of capabilities” is referred to both in the paragraph before
and the paragraph after this example (Waltz 1979, 82, 88), creating the (false) impres-
sion that it is addressed there. See also below at nn. 24, 25.
20
(Waltz 1979, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87).
At this point, readers might complain that I am missing the point.

“Raw power” certainly needs to be part of the account of the structure of
domestic political systems!
Certainly.
The way to capture that, though, is not through an abstract distribu-
tion of merely material “capabilities” that makes no reference to any
feature of the actors – not even their capabilities – and is understood
as separate from ordering principle (authority) and functional differ-
entiation (activities). And this unquestionably is not one of the few
things we need in order to understand the structure of domestic politi-
cal systems.
8.2.2 The Distribution of Capabilities in International Political Systems

Distribution of capabilities is not even an essential feature of interna-
tional political systems – as indicated by the fact that Waltz did not actu-
ally address the distribution of capabilities in international systems. He
instead examined polarity; the number of great powers (poles of power)
in the system21 – which, as I noted above, is no more a useful measure of
the distribution of capabilities than the number of billionaires is a useful
measure of the distribution of wealth.22
The distribution of some “thing” is a matter of how it is distributed –
not just where the largest quantities of it can be found. And because
power is inherently relative, the places where capabilities are not is of
great structural importance. Furthermore, from a systemic point of view,
what is essential is the relations between parts – which measures of con-
centration do not address.
21
See nn. 10 and 4.
22
Furthermore, Goedele De Keersmaeker (2017, 12) notes that “a striking feature of the
debate on Waltz’s legacy is that one of the most central concepts in his theory, namely,
the idea of polarity as such, is seldom questioned.” Most criticisms – (Mansfield 1993)
and (Wagner 1993) are partial exceptions – focus on problems in defining or operation-
alizing the notion, not its importance in general or Waltz’s use of polarity as a measure
of the distribution of capabilities.
De Keersmaeker (2017, 12) also notes that “describing international relations in
terms of polarity (i.e. the number of great powers) is a rather recent phenomenon,
with no earlier historical roots than the end of World War II.” More precisely, she
argues (2017, 13–14, 17–18) that Waltz, building on work by William T. R. Fox (under
whom Waltz studied) and Morton Kaplan, largely shaped contemporary IR’s discourse
of polarity. This parallels my argument about Waltz and anarchy in §6.4. (In private
communication, De Keersmaeker has noted that her dissertation (2014), in Flemish,
documents the limited use of polarity in pre-Waltzian IR.)
Waltz ended up in this confused place, it seems to me, out of his par-
ticipation in debates in the 1960s over the relative stability of bipolar and
multipolar systems.23 He “knew” that polarity was a structural feature of
great power states systems (his implicit model of international political
systems). But as we just saw, polarity in hierarchical political systems,
even if measurable, is structurally irrelevant.
Nonetheless, Waltz was committed to a conception of the elements of
political structure that applied to both national and international politi-
cal systems. He therefore in effect used “distribution of capabilities”
and “relative capabilities” as placeholders in his “preliminary” discus-
sion of domestic political systems. And when he turned to international
systems – which was his real interest, despite his pretense of providing
a general structural framework – he just jumped over the distribution of
capabilities, in which he had no interest, to polarity.
This repeated Waltz’s bait-and-switch treatment of ordering princi-
ples.24 In both cases, Waltz brought readers in with one thing (absence
of a government and the distribution of capabilities) then “sold” them
something different (absence of hierarchy and polarity). For both of
his elements of international political structure Waltz presented relatively
appealing introductions that he elaborated in very different and much
more problematic ways – shaped, I suggest, by the goal of ending up at
structural realism.25
Polarity is a structural feature of great power states systems. Waltz
put polarity to good use in discussing economic and military effects of
structure26 and great power management of international affairs.27 And,
combined with anarchy, polarity seemed to provide all that he needed for
structural realism; that is, not just any “theory of international politics”
but his preferred theory.
Our concern here, however, is with the (alleged) underlying con-
ception of structure. Knowing how normative powers and mate-
rial power are distributed is indeed essential to understanding the
structure of a political system. But Waltzian ordering principles and
23
See especially (Waltz 1964), (Deutsch and Singer 1964), (Rosecrance 1966).
24
See §6.1.1 at n. 14. See also n. 19 above.
25
See also §6.1.1 at n. 15. Although I am not suggesting that Waltz did this consciously, I
do think that his desire to end up with a structural theory that highlighted the virtues of
bipolarity did shape his account of these logically prior elements (in which he had little
intrinsic interest).
26
(Waltz 1979, 129–130ff., 163–176).
27
(Waltz 1979, 195, 197–198, 199–204).
functional differentiation do not even begin to depict the distribution

of normative powers – especially in Waltz’s understanding of inter-
national political systems as lacking authority. And polarity provides
a woefully inadequate account of the distribution of material power
resources.28
28
I think that this argument can be taken even a step further. Waltz never seriously con-
sidered the logic of unipolarity; did not distinguish tripolar systems, despite their obvi-
ously distinctive logic (see Schweller 1993; 1998); and failed to distinguish unpolarized
systems (systems with no great powers, such as Hobbes’ state of nature). This suggests
to me that Waltz was not even particularly interested in polarity as a general structural
feature. His goal was to establish “the virtues of bipolarity” (1979, 168. See also 161,
176).
9 Ordering Principles
Waltz regularly reduced structure to ordering principle. “Two, and only

two, types of structures are needed to cover societies of all sorts.”1 The
index of Theory of International Politics under “structure” included the
entry “anarchy and hierarchy as the only two types.” In a later work
Waltz described anarchy as “a distinct structure.”2 And in IR talk of the
“structure of anarchy”3 is surprisingly frequent.
If ordering principles are indeed the essence of political structures –
“once the system is understood, once its principle of organization is
grasped, the phenomena are explained”4 – then the core of the Waltzian
account might be salvageable. Therefore, we need to consider ordering
principles carefully.
Chapter 6 extensively critiqued IR’s Waltzian treatment of anarchy,
the (alleged) ordering principle of international systems. This chapter
begins by looking at Waltz’s other political ordering principle, h
ierarchy –
which, like anarchy, is not in fact an ordering principle. I then argue that
international political systems do not have ordering principles, as I illus-
trate by looking at two recent alternative conceptions.
9.1 Hierarchy
Hierarchy, like anarchy, neither is an ordering principle nor was an
established focus of IR before Waltz.
1
(Waltz 1979, 116).
2
(Waltz 1990b, 36).
3
For example, John Ruggie (1983, 281) talks of “the deep structure of anarchy” and
Robert Keohane (1986b, 27) refers to “the basic structure of anarchy.” A Google
Scholar search in May 2023 for “structure of anarchy” and “international” produced
more than 600 results, more than 500 since 2010. The more common framing “the
anarchic structure of international relations” indicates only that anarchy is one structural
feature to which attention is being drawn. I suspect, though, that this distinction often is
not appreciated.
4
(Waltz 1979, 9).
153
9.1.1 Hierarchy Is Not an Ordering Principle

Hierarchy, Waltz argued, involves structured relations of super- and sub-
ordination among differentiated actors. (“Hierarchy entails relations of
super- and subordination among a system’s parts, and that implies their
differentiation.”5) This tracks the ordinary-language conception of “a
system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above
the other according to status or authority.”6 In a social hierarchy, ranked
positions are associated with particular rights, responsibilities, and roles.
(Differently ranked actors do different things.) For example, “some are
entitled to command; others are required to obey.”7
Saying that a system “is hierarchical,” however, merely indicates that it
has some unspecified set of relations of stratification and functional dif-
ferentiation; that, in Waltzian terms, the system is not anarchic. “Hierar-
chy,” rather than a structural ordering principle, is a residual category of
non-anarchic orders (that, like most residuals, obscures the diversity of
the “things” lumped together).
Furthermore, as noted above, hierarchy – super- and subordination
combined with functional differentiation – is essential to many kinds of
international systems, including great power states systems, hegemonic
systems, and imperial systems. Papering over the centrality of inequali-
ties of power in international relations is both analytically and morally
perverse.
The Waltzian account cannot be rescued by acknowledging that most
international systems are both anarchic (lack a government) and hierar-
chic. (That would destroy the dichotomous opposition of anarchy and
hierarchy that is at the heart of Waltz’s account of political ordering prin-
ciples.8) Neither can the Waltzian account be rescued by turning the
dichotomy into a continuum. Setting aside the fact that Waltz explic-
itly rejected this move,9 anarchy and hierarchy are qualitatively differ-
ent things, not opposite ends of a series of points plotting quantitative
changes in the value of a single variable.
In ordinary language we may call systems with more levels or where
authority is concentrated at higher levels “more hierarchical.” Differently
hierarchical, however, is a more useful description. And the crucial struc-
tural question is not “how hierarchical” a system is but “how it is hierar-
chical” – how it differentiates and ranks actors, authorities, and activities.
5
(Waltz 1979, 93. See also 80, 97).
6
7
(Waltz 1979, 88).
8
(Waltz 1979, 115).
9
Waltz (1979, 114).
Ordering Principles 155
Table 9.1 Uses of “hierarchy” or “hierarchical” in selected books
1895–1978 1980–2015
(n = 79) (n = 65)
1.0 median 13.0
3.5 mean 17.6
1895–1945 1946–1978 use anarchy <10 use anarchy >10

(n = 51) (n = 28) times (n = 15) times (n = 50)
1.0 2.0 median 5.0 16.0
1.5 7.2* mean 6.8 21.4
*
xcluding one book (Kaplan 1957), which uses the terms more than 100 times
E
(or almost half of the total uses in the 28 books), the mean drops to 3.7.
9.1.2 The Discourse of Hierarchy in IR

Waltz is largely responsible for contemporary IR taking hierarchy to be a
political ordering principle.
Table 9.1 summarizes uses of “hierarchy” and “hierarchical” in a
selection of 79 books published between 1895 and 197810 and 65 books
published between 1980 and 2015.11 Before 1979, the median is 1 and
the mean is 3.5. After 1979, the median jumps to 13 and the mean to 18.
Furthermore, underscoring Waltz’s impact, post-1979 works that use
“anarchy” or “anarchic” ten or more times use “hierarchy” and “hierar-
chical” three times more frequently than those that refer to anarchy less
frequently.
A similar picture emerges from exemplary pre-Waltzian books. For
example, Dickinson’s The European Anarchy, Carr’s The Twenty Years’
Crisis, and Kennan’s American Diplomacy use neither “hierarchy” nor
“hierarchical.”12 Both Kissinger’s A World Restored and Morgenthau’s
In Defense of the National Interest use “hierarchical” once and “hierarchy”
not at all.13 Waltz in Man, the State and War used “hierarchy” only twice
10
This includes about half of the books in Appendices 6.1 and 6.2, selected based on their
availability in 2016 for full-text searches (Preview) in Google Books.
11
The 1980–2015 sample is drawn from Appendix 6.3. I stop at 2015 because my focus is
on Waltz’s impact. Adding more recent books would include works reflecting an inde-
pendent rise in interest in hierarchy in recent years.
12
(Dickinson 1917 [1916]), (Carr 1964 [1946]), (Kennan 1951).
13
(Kissinger 1957, 209) (in reference to a possible “hierarchical arrangement of the
Parliaments of different nations”). (Morgenthau 1951, 118) (in reference to “an order
of priorities”). Similarly, the first edition of Politics among Nations uses the terms twice
(in reference to “the hierarchy of human motivations” and “the hierar-

chy of the Chinese Communist Party”14).
The substance of pre-1979 usage is also interesting. In addition to
repeated references to “the social hierarchy,” the most common uses
refer to medieval, feudal, or ecclesiastical hierarchies,15 a hierarchy of
values or national interests,16 bureaucracies, offices, or officeholders,17
or the diplomatic hierarchy.18 I did not find a single passage that con-
trasted hierarchy to anarchy (or lack of government), used hierarchy to
define domestic politics,19 or treated hierarchy as anything like a struc-
tural ordering principle. And I found no passage that denied hierarchy
in international relations. Quite the contrary, several authors noted that
international relations often is hierarchically stratified.20 Morton Kaplan
even developed a model of “the hierarchical international system.”21
Pre-Waltzian IR did, of course, address phenomena such as inequal-
ity and stratification. They were not, though, seen as hierarchy (much as
before Waltz the absence of an international government usually was not
seen as anarchy22). Anarchy and hierarchy were not understood as incom-
patible. And hierarchy was not considered a political ordering principle.
9.2 Political Systems Do Not Have Ordering Principles

Waltz’s fundamental problem, however, was not erroneously identifying
anarchy and hierarchy as political ordering principles. It was the very
(Morgenthau 1948, 227, 220), referring to national governments and to the fact that
international law lacks a “hierarchy of judicial decisions.”
14
(Waltz 1959, 22, 112).
15
(Hill 1911, 16), (Potter 1922, 38, 47), (Walsh 1922, 64), (Barnes 1930, 15, 16),
(Mitrany 1933, 22), (Sharp and Kirk 1940, 17, 100), (Spykman 1942, 240), (Wright
1964 [1942], 26), (Herz 1959, 43), (Wallerstein 2011 [1976], 58, 90, 156, 161).
16
(Woolf 1916, 305), (Hobson 1922, 54), (Niebuhr 1932, 265), (Lasswell 1935, 36),
(Sharp and Kirk 1940, 105), (Wright 1964 [1942], 214, 245), (Morgenthau 1951,
118), (Aron 2003 [1966], 104, 236, 288, 323), (Brodie 1973, 481), (Gilpin 1975, 224),
(Bull 1977, 21, 74), (Krasner 1978, 286, 341).
17
(Reinsch 1900, 53), (Leacock 1906, 196, 197, 378), (Wright 1964 [1942], 357),
(Organski 1958, 167), (Haas 1964, 88, 105, 109, 110, 112, 534).
18
(Lawrence 1898 [1895], 263), (Potter 1922, 73), (Hodges 1931, 256, 533), (Schuman
1933, 181, 182), (Zimmern 1936, 481).
19
Harold Laski does observe (1921, 80, 217, 240, 241) that contemporary governments
are “hierarchical.” But rather than see this as a defining feature of domestic politics
in general, he argues (1921, 241) for the possibility and desirability of “coordinate”
national politics.
20
(Organski 1958, 90, 213, 349), (Aron 2003 [1966], 69, 441, 652), (Osgood and Tucker
1967, 48), (Gilpin 1975, 24), (Bull 1977, 31, 36).
21
(Kaplan 1957, 55–57).
22
See §§6.4, 6.5.
idea of structural ordering principles – which, it bears repeating, was

Waltz’s original creation.23
Once we stop pretending that vacuous generalities like absence of a
government or presence of a hierarchy are good first approximations of
the structure of political systems, it becomes obvious that all interna-
tional systems do not have the same ordering principle. In fact, there is
no good reason to believe that there are only a small number of political
ordering principles – or even that each system has one ordering principle.
Waltz’s intuition that most international systems take one of a few
forms, however, remains immensely appealing and continues to inspire
new taxonomies. The following two sections critically examine recent
efforts by Ryan Griffiths24 and Mathias Albert, Barry Buzan, and Michael
Zurn.25 (Those convinced that most political systems do not have one of
a few ordering principles may want to skim or skip these sections.)
9.3 Ryan Griffiths: Two-Dimensional Ordering Principles

Griffiths argues that “the Waltzian model can be expanded in a simple
and parsimonious way”26 by treating functional differentiation and anar-
chy/hierarchy as separate dimensions of (more robustly conceptualized)
“ordering principles.” His clever and clearly presented argument, how-
ever, does not rescue the idea of political ordering principles.
9.3.1 Anarchy, Hierarchy, Centralization, and Sovereignty

Griffiths’ first move is to transform Waltz’s anarchy–hierarchy dichotomy
into a continuum. Figure 9.1 (which is Griffiths’ Figure 1) charts “the con-
centration of power in a given space,”27 ranging from what he calls hierar-
chy, in which a single polity rules everything in the entire space,28 to what
he calls anarchy, in which “units exist in an uncentralized political space.”29
23
See §7.1.
24
(Griffiths 2018).
25
(Buzan and Albert 2010), (Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013), (Zurn, Buzan, and Albert
2013). I have chosen what I consider the strongest and most interesting recent alterna-
tives – both because this is good academic practice and because my argument that the
fundamental problem is the assumption that there are only a few types requires that I
not ignore any “strong” cases.
26
(Griffiths 2018, 134).
27
28
“Full hierarchy would be one completely centralized polity” (Griffiths 2018, 134). This
conception of hierarchy, which has no connection to ordinary language, was developed
by David Lake. See §15.1 at n.12 and the following paragraph.
29
Hierarchy (centralized)
Union
Federation
Confederation
Sovereignty Line
League
Anarchy (uncentralized)
Figure 9.1 Griffiths on political centralization
Source: (Griffiths 2018, Figure 1)
Hierarchy, however, is ordinarily understood not as the concentration/

centralization of power but as a structure of relations of super- and sub-
ordination. Hierarchy indicates not just where most power lies but who
has which rights and obligations with respect to whom.
Centralization is more like polarity than an ordering principle. And it
is structurally nowhere near as important as stratification (layered rela-
tions of super- and subordination).
In addition, there is no more-or-less-straight line between Hobbes’

right of every one to every thing and the complete monopolization of
all power over everything – let alone a line along which one moves by
incrementally adding “more centralization.” For example, a league,
rather than some percentage of the way to a federation (or hierarchy), is
a particular way for autonomous polities to jointly manage some of their
activities.
Griffiths then adds what he calls “the sovereignty line. Above that
line, a geographic space is composed of a single sovereign polity.”30 But
sovereignty is not a matter of a particular degree of centralization. (For
example, the United States was more centralized in the late twentieth
century than in the early nineteenth century but not more sovereign.)
And this conceptualization re-establishes the Waltzian binary,31 effec-
tively taking back the idea of an anarchy–hierarchy continuum.
These problems, it seems to me, arise because Griffiths addresses
“political associations;”32 more or less centralized aggregations of poli-
ties. He does not address centralization in international systems.33 And I
at least cannot conceive of what that would look like (or what we might
expect to learn from it).
9.3.2 Mechanical and Organic Solidarity

Griffiths’ second move is to reconceptualize Waltzian functional differ-
entiation as a matter of the balance between segmentary differentiation
(or mechanical solidarity) and functional differentiation (or organic soli-
darity). Figure 9.2 (Griffiths’ Figure 2) “depicts a continuum of social
differentiation separating the pure forms of mechanical and organic
solidarity,”34 which he illustrates with types of international economic
organizations.
As Griffiths explains it, “groups or units in a mechanical solidarity …
are distinctive but alike, segmentally differentiated, replications of one
another. In contrast, an organic solidarity is ‘constituted, not by the rep-
lication of similar homogenous elements, but by a system of different
organs, each one of which has a special role and which themselves are
30
31
“This is the theoretical line separating hierarchy from anarchy” (Griffiths 2018, 135).
32
33
He looks one level up from states, to associations of states, but not to the international
system that both states and political associations are parts of. See also §11.2.1.
34
(Griffiths 2018, 136). On its face, the shift from differentiation to solidarity is
problematic.
Free Trade Area Economic Union
Mechanical Organic
Customs Union
Figure 9.2 Griffiths on social differentiation

formed from differentiated parts’.”35 I cannot, however, comprehend

how this can be understood as a continuum.
Mechanical solidarity, in which all the units are fundamentally alike,36
is more a point than a range on a continuum.37 (For example, although
band societies, tribal societies, and unpolarized states systems have dif-
ferent types of mechanical solidarity, none has “more” than the others.)
Either all the segments are fundamentally the same or they are not. Dif-
ferent types differ in how they are segmented not how much segmenta-
tion they have.
Furthermore, “units” may be dissimilar in a great variety of ways.
There thus are many directions and paths away from mechanical soli-
darity. And there is no single point to which they are moving – let alone
moving by incremental additions of some “thing.”
Different societies are differentiated by the differential allocation of
different functions (and different authorities) to particular social posi-
tions – not by their percentages of mechanical and organic solidarity.
9.3.3 Two-Dimensional Ordering Principles

Whatever the separate problems with each scale, they might still prove
useful when combined. Figure 9.3 (Griffiths’ Figure 3) presents the
resulting typology, which he argues “reveals important patterns in inter-
national order.”38
Rather than four two-dimensional models of international orders,
though, only the bottom two are international.
35
(Griffiths 2018, 135, quoting Durkheim 1984 [The Division of Labor in Society], 132).
36
More precisely, a society is considered to be integrated mechanically if all the largest
or top-tier segments are fundamentally similar. (For example, families and bands are
different, but band societies are typically understood as segmentary.) Why we should
ignore differences between larger and smaller segments, though, is not clear to me
(especially in a layered world of systems of systems of systems).
37
Alternatively, it is a region of a space that does not vary continuously. See the second
paragraph of §9.3.4.
38
Hierarchy
Mechanical Organic
Hierarchy Hierarchy
Mechanical Organic
Mechanical Organic
Anarchy Anarchy
Anarchy
Figure 9.3 Two-dimensional ordering principles

“Mechanical anarchy,” in the bottom left corner, is “an uncentralized

system with no division of labour, where each unit is a replication of the
others.”39 Griffiths, however, immediately adds “this is an ideal-type and
it is therefore difficult to point to real-world examples.”40
But the purpose of an ideal type is to illuminate actual cases.41 Its ana-
lytical value depends almost entirely on its applicability. For example, a
biological ideal type of a jackalope has no application not because it is
an ideal type but because there are no jackalopes in nature. Conversely,
the Weberian ideal types of legal-rational bureaucracies and patrimonial
rule remain regularly employed because they do (in an idealized form)
illuminate cases of interest.
The lack of real-world examples means that a type has little analytic
utility. The only mechanically anarchic international systems that I know
39
40
41
For introductory literature on ideal types, see n. 18 in §6.1.1.
are in band and tribal societies – which have been, at best, a marginal
concern of IR.
“Organic anarchy,” Griffiths’ other type of international system, is “a
politically uncentralized society that is completely functionally differenti-
ated.”42 Griffiths, however, (rightly) observes that “it is unlikely for this
ideal-type to occur given that high levels of functional differentiation
ought to create pressure for political centralization.”43
Similarly, “mechanical hierarchy,” which involves hierarchy without
functional differentiation, is an empirically empty category. (Centraliza-
tion requires division of labor – at a minimum, some are in charge of those
who do (other) things – which the type precludes.) And I know of no
international system that approximates the model of “organic hierarchy.”
(For example, even if the contemporary EU falls above Griffiths’ “sover-
eignty line” it is only a regional and functional subsystem within a larger
system that is not at all close to “organic hierarchy.”)
9.3.4 “Ordering Principles” That Do Not Specify

Forms of International Order
Nearly all international systems thus lie somewhere toward the center
of Griffiths’ Figure 3. But these spaces are not defined. We only know how
they are not ordered. And Griffiths does not even attempt to investigate
such systems – which, to repeat, include nearly all actual international
systems.
That we can create ideal types at the corners of a two-by-two dia-
gram does not mean that the resulting types are of empirical interest.
And (as a systems perspective would emphasize) there is no reason to
presume that the resulting space is homogeneous or continuous. Move-
ment along each axis need not be linear. And it is quite possible that
emergent systems effects arise from particular combinations of partic-
ular amounts (or types) of “centralization” and “solidarity.” In fact,
rather than see each point as “part way” to one or more corners, we
should expect, as in the distinction between leagues and federations,
qualitative variation between systems in this central space – which is
not homogeneous.44
The structures of international systems cannot be specified by a few
simple types defined along a couple dimensions. The fundamental prob-
lems with the Waltzian conception of structure lie in the basic terms of
42
43
44
Figure 6.1 provides an example of a noncontinuous representation of a 2 x 2 space.
reference (not in Waltz’s particular implementation). No matter how

much one tweaks those terms, the result will be unfruitful for under-
standing the structures of international systems – or at least that is the
generalization I would encourage readers to draw from the examples of
Waltz and Griffiths.
9.4 Albert, Buzan, and Zurn: Three

Principles of Differentiation
Mathias Albert, Barry Buzan, and Michael Zurn, who I will refer to col-
lectively as ABZ,45 seek not to revise Waltz’s account of ordering princi-
ples but to replace it with a simple but comprehensive typology of forms
of differentiation.46
1. “Segmentary (or egalitarian) differentiation is where every social sub-
system is the equal of, and functionally similar to, every other social
subsystem.”
2. “Stratificatory differentiation is where some persons or groups raise
themselves above others, creating a hierarchical social order.”47
3. “Functional differentiation is where the subsystems are defined by the
coherence of particular types of activity and their differentiation from
other types of activity, and those differences do not stem simply from
rank.”48
Echoing Waltz, ABZ talk of “the ordering principles which go along
with” these types of differentiation,49 each of which, they claim, has a
distinct “structuring principle.”50 And, like Waltz, they present their
typology as exhaustive. “All other variants vary within these three
principles.”51
45
Although Zurn was not involved in Buzan and Albert’s initial (2010) statement,
their later accounts incorporate much of that article, including the basic framework.
Furthermore, it seems to me illuminating to see these three works as having been pro-
duced by an assembled collective author with a character different from its parts (and
their sum).
46
On differentiation see Chapter 11.
47
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 318). See also (Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 1–2).
48
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 318). See also (Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 2).
49
(Zurn, Buzan, and Albert 2013, 234. Cf. 233).
50
(Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 1, 2).
51
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 317). Although they do at one point say that “we can discrimi-
nate at least three forms” (Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 1), they treat center–periph-
ery differentiation, the only other form that they mention (Albert, Buzan, and Zurn
2013, 4 n. 4), as a subtype of stratificatory differentiation. And their clear focus is on
“the three basic types of differentiation” (Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 7 [emphasis
added]. See also 6).
9.4.1 Types of Societies and Dimensions of Differentiation

ABZ, however, use the terms “forms” or “types” of differentiation to
refer not only to types of society (or “types of social order”52) but also to
what I will call dimensions of differentiation. This distinction is crucial.
Understood as a type of society, “segmentary differentiation” iden-
tifies an egalitarian society composed of like units. Segmentation, how-
ever, creates social “segments,” which are a universal feature of societies.
Similarly, all societies are stratified53 (and functionally differentiated).
“Stratificatory differentiation,” however, understood as a type of society,
refers to a fundamentally hierarchical social order.
Both dimensions and types are useful and therefore commonly
employed.54 It can be confusing, though, when the same word is used
to identify both a type of society and a dimension of differentiation (as
ABZ do). Therefore, I will use quotes around types of societies (but not
dimensions of differentiation). For example, “functional differentiation”
refers to a type of society. Functional differentiation [no quotes] refers to
a particular dimension or process of differentiation.
I agree with ABZ that segmentation, stratification, and functional dif-
ferentiation help to structure all societies, including international soci-
eties.55 I only criticize their types and the associated idea of ordering
principles.56
9.4.2 Types Are Not Defined by a Dominant Dimension of Differentiation

“Segmentary differentiation” in ABZ’s account is not defined by segmen-
tation. All societies are segmented. Neither stratification nor functional
52
(Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 7. See also 10 (“forms of society”)), (Zurn, Buzan, and
Albert 2013, 229).
53
See n. 58.
54
For example, The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology identifies two senses of social differ-
entiation: “[1] the tendency of social systems to become increasingly complex as they
develop, in particular through specialization … [2] the general social process of distin-
guishing among people according to the social statuses they occupy’” (Johnson 2000,
88–89). ABZ’s types get at growing complexity. My dimensions decompose processes
of differentiation.
55
See §11.2.
56
Also, I do not mean to criticize either models of individual types or typologies that do
not claim to be (close to) comprehensive. Well-known examples include (Ikenberry
2001, 2011) and (Nexon and Wright 2007). See also n. 2 in Chapter 7. Such accounts,
which hold only that some cases more or less fit particular ideal types, do not make the
strong claims about ordering principles that are my concern here. I also do not mean to
criticize Buzan’s later work (e.g., Buzan and Schouenborg 2018), which employs not
types of differentiation but “models” of international societies that apply to (only) some
significant cases.
differentiation is possible without differentiated positions or actors (“seg-

ments”) to which rank and function are assigned. Conversely, no social
segments lack rank and function.
“Segmentary differentiation” as a type is defined by the equality and
the similarity of the segments. (“Every social subsystem is equal, and
functionally similar, to every other social subsystem.”57) And this arises
from particular forms of stratification and functional differentiation: all
segments have the same status (are equal)58 and perform the same func-
tions (are similar).59
In “functionally differentiated” and “stratificatory” societies as well, all
three dimensions are not merely present but essential. (Hierarchy almost
always involves functional differentiation. Functionally dissimilar actors rarely
are all equal. And authority and functions are assigned to social segments.)
Furthermore, despite appealing to ordering principles, all three of
ABZ’s types of societies are actually defined by two binary variables:
whether the components are equal or unequal and similar or different.
As they put it, the crucial question is “Are all the components essen-
tially the same, or are they distinguishable by status or function?”60 Each
“type” is in fact a diverse collection of social forms with very different
combinations of different kinds of (in)equalities and (dis)similarities.
ABZ’s (anti-systemic/actor-centric) definition of types in terms of the
character of the parts (rather than their arrangement) creates further
57
(Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 1). In fact, however, except in imaginary states of nature,
not every subsystem is (more or less) equal and (more or less) similar. For example, even
in highly egalitarian forager societies, bands are equal and similar but families, although
equal and similar to one another, have different functions and status than bands.
58
One might argue, consistent with ordinary language, that a single-layer society is not strati-
fied; that stratification involves multiple strata. Equality, however, means that each seg-
ment has the same authority. And that is not a natural default situation. (In a state of nature
there is no authority (not equal authority). It is a particular kind of constructed order.)
Thus we can also say – also consistent with ordinary language – that egalitarian soci-
eties are societies in which all the segments are ranked equally (have the same status).
In this sense, although “hierarchy” exists only when there are two or more levels, rank
and status can be assigned equally to all – creating what can usefully be described as a
flat, egalitarian, or single-level system of stratification. See also §15.3. (If one still rejects
this argument, the fact that stratification is not restricted to “stratificatory societies” is
sufficient for the broader point I am making here.)
59
To argue that the dimension of segmentation predominates in (the type of) “segmentary
differentiation” because these societies are neither stratified nor functionally differenti-
ated assumes that it is somehow “natural” for segments to be equal and similar – and
that inequality and dissimilarity are changes from that pre-given default condition. In
fact, however, equality and similarity are as much social constructs as inequality and dis-
similarity. Equal status is a status. The assignment of similar functions to all segments
is an assignment of functions.
60
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 315).
problems. Differentiation, ABZ argue, is “about how to distinguish and

analyse the components that make up any social whole;”61 how “the main
units within a social system (or subsystem) [are] defined and distinguished
from one another”62 – not how they are organized or arranged. And they
categorize their models by whether “all the components [are] essentially
the same” or are “distinguishable by status or function”63 – not by how
components are structured, organized, or arranged into (and within) a
system. Furthermore, underscoring the analytic (not systemic) character
of their approach, ABZ insist that differentiation is a “logic of division.”64
If “types” could be constructed by just adding together pieces then
ABZ’s approach might work (assuming that they identify the right kinds
of pieces). But types defined by the character of the components cannot
adequately depict the structure of a system (because they do not consider
its organization and operation).65
9.4.3 Fitting Types to the World

The test of a typology is how it illuminates the world. ABZ’s, like
Griffiths’, sheds little light on actual international systems.
ABZ present Waltzian states systems as examples of (the type of) “seg-
mentary differentiation:” “anarchic systems of states as ‘like units’.”66
But in few if any literate international societies has it been even close to
true that “every social subsystem is the equal of, and functionally similar
to, every other social subsystem.”67 Like Waltz, ABZ address the legal
equality of states but ignore the legal superiority and functional differ-
entiation of states in states systems. An odd decision to look only at the
(similar and equal) dominant actors hides from view the fundamental
stratification and functional differentiation of the system.
The type of “stratificatory differentiation,” ABZ argue, “in IR …
points to … conquest and empire, hegemony, a privileged position for
great powers,68 and a division of the world into core and periphery, or
61
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 316 [emphasis added]).
62
(Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 1 [emphasis added]).
63
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 315 [emphasis added]).
64
(Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 7), (Zurn, Buzan, and Albert 2013, 229).
65
See also §§5.9, 3.2.
66
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 318). See also (Albert and Buzan 2013, 12, 14). Waltz (1979,
76, 95 n. *) makes a similar suggestion.
67
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 318). See also (Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 1).
68
This means that to the extent that Waltz models great power systems – which, despite
the language of “units” is what he clearly has in mind – even Waltzian systems turn out
to be systems of “stratificatory differentiation” (not “segmentary differentiation”).
first and third worlds.”69 To this we must add a privileged position for
states (in states systems). Therefore, nearly all actual literate70 interna-
tional systems have been systems of “stratificatory differentiation.”
The problem here is not that actual systems only more or less closely
approximate these types. (That is true of all ideal types.) Rather, one
type applies to very few cases and the other to almost all. The typology
does not identify significant empirical variation. The conceptual contrast
between “segmentary differentiation” and “stratificatory differentiation”
just has little application in IR.
What, though, about “functional differentiation?” If, as ABZ argue,
medieval Europe was “both stratified (popes, emperors, the nobility),
and up to a point functionally differentiated (churches, guilds)”71 – that
is, primarily stratified and secondarily functionally differentiated – then
there have been few if any “functionally differentiated” international
societies (especially if we insist that every system has one dominant
principle of differentiation). Alternatively, if “functional differentiation”
“points, inter alia, to international political economy (IPE), international
law, world (or global civil) society, transnational actors and … deter-
ritorialization”72 – if the presence of a separate international political or
legal sector, significant transnational actors, or nonterritorial forms of
organization make a system one of “functional differentiation” – then
almost all historical international systems have been systems of “func-
tional differentiation.” This type too, because it applies to almost none
or to almost all literate international systems, contributes little or noth-
ing to understanding any particular system(s).
69
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 318). See also (Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 4 (“the stratifi-
catory differentiation of great powers and hegemons”)).
70
I am using literacy as a marker for societies that share a cluster of characteristics includ-
ing cities, writing, an extensive division of labor and associated social stratification,
and states (or at least differentiated governmental institutions) – which have emergent
systems effects that make such societies, in ABZ’s terms, “stratificatory” or “function-
ally differentiated.” Most “segmentary” societies, which have “segmentary” interna-
tional systems (e.g., relations between nomadic Mongol tribes/clans or confederations
before they were unified by Temujin (later Genghis Khan)), have not been literate. IR,
however, typically focuses on literate “stratified” or “functionally differentiated” societ-
ies not oral “segmentary” societies.
71
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 332. Cf. 318, 334 n. 3). I admit to a certain unease in relying
here entirely on Buzan and Albert’s initial (2010) presentation. However, I suspect that
ABZ accept Lora Viola’s claim (2013, 112), in her chapter in their edited volume, that
“it is conventionally accepted that the major development of the modern international
system is that the unity and hierarchy of medieval Europe was replaced with a system
characterized by, in Luhmann’s terms, segmentary differentiation.” They also (2013,
231) favorably cite Stephan Stetter’s (2013, 134–136, 139) similar reading.
72
(Buzan and Albert 2010, 318). See also (Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 4, 5).
9.4.4 Combining “Forms” of Differentiation

The solution to this problem is not to pretend that real world cases are
combinations of these types. An ad hoc combination of “ordering prin-
ciples” (or types) is not an ordering principle (or type). Rather, it under-
scores the absence of an ordering principle (or type).
ABZ’s approach essentializes or reifies types, pretends that a multidi-
mensional whole is a hybrid73 of types, and, because hybrids come in a
great variety of forms, tells us little of significance.
Consider an analogy. A group of tall people is composed of tall people.
A group of short people is composed of short people. A group of tall and
short people, however, is not a combination of a group of tall people and
a group of short people. It is a group composed of both tall and short
people.
In any case, ABZ do not in fact combine types of societies. “Segmen-
tary” society cannot combine with the other types of societies because
the presence of substantial stratification or functional differentiation
makes any resulting society not-“segmentary.” (“The whole notion of
segmentary differentiation between states is undermined if they stand in
a stratificatory relationship.”74) And, as we saw above, “stratificatory”
and “functionally differentiated” societies themselves combine essential
elements of the other dimensions of differentiation. In addition, because
there are a great variety of ways to be unequal or dissimilar (as well as a
great variety of ways in which “secondary” dimensions can be included)
such combinations come in a myriad of forms.
Rather than imagine simple combinations of simple types of struc-
tures, we need to get down to the serious work of determining how a
society is segmented, stratified, and functionally differentiated. And then
we need to consider how the resulting social positions are arranged into
wholes of particular types; the particular forms that (the dimensions of)
segmentation, stratification, and functional differentiation take.
For example, it is not very illuminating to say that globalization
involves “more” (and “more important”) functional differentiation –
both because there are so many different forms that “more” might
take and because differently structured combinations of similar com-
ponents might produce fundamentally different results (“systems
73
Although ABZ do not use the language of hybrids, this seems to me implied by formu-
lations such as “the coexistence and interaction of different types of differentiation”
(Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 22. See also 4) and “the interplay of different forms of
differentiation” (Zurn, Buzan, and Albert 2013, 233, Fig. 11.1). And combinations of
types, it seems to me, are well described as hybrids.
74
(Zurn, Buzan, and Albert 2013, 234).
effects”). At minimum, we need to know what kinds of segments have

which functions and authorities – and how these parts are structured into
wholes.
Or consider ABZ’s claim that today “while no one would dispute that
segmentation continues to play a very important role … [w]orld politics
is stratified … [and also] is functionally differentiated.”75 Virtually all his-
torical international systems, however, have been segmented, stratified,
and functionally differentiated – making this profoundly uninteresting.
Only if we (mistakenly) assume that the preceding great power states sys-
tem lacked substantial stratification and functional differentiation would
these facts even be worth noting.76 And in any case, ABZ’s account says
nothing about how contemporary international society is differentiated –
how particular sets of social positions are related to form a whole of a
particular type.
I thus conclude that ordering principles, in the hands of Waltz,
Griffiths, and ABZ alike, give us little understanding of the kind of order
that exists within a system. And, I suggest, we should expect the same
result from other schemes.
Systems approaches in IR should not aim to identify a few types defined
by a few elements. We need instead models of how international systems
are structured – which almost always will involve multiple dimensions of
differentiation combined in particular ways.
9.5 Causal Depth and Generative Structures

Waltzian structural ordering principles are sometimes presented as rest-
ing on a conception of social and political structures as hierarchically
layered. A “deep structure,” provided by an ordering principle, sets basic
relations and general parameters within which successively “shallower”
layers (that have increasingly constrained causal powers) further struc-
ture the system. Although Waltz never used these terms, his emphasis
on ordering principles77 can reasonably be understood in this way. And
such a reading has been adopted both by John Ruggie78 and by Buzan,
Charles Jones, and Richard Little79 in their insightful efforts to refine
Waltz’s account.
Ruggie was the first, as far as I am aware, to advance this interpretation.
75
(Albert, Buzan, and Zurn 2013, 6).
76
Even ABZ explicitly identify great power systems as stratificatory. See n. 69.
77
See the first paragraph of §9.1.
78
(Ruggie 1983, 266).
79
(Buzan, Jones, and Little 1993, 36–37ff.).
Waltz strives for a “generative” formulation of structure. He means for the three
(or, internationally, two) components of structure to be thought of as succes-
sive causal depth levels. Ordering principles constitute the “deep structure” of
a system, shaping its fundamental social quality. … [Functional d]ifferentia-
tion, where it exists as a structural property, mediates the social effects of the
deep structure, but within a context that has already been circumscribed by the
deep structure. … The distribution of capabilities comes closest to the surface
level of visible phenomena, but its impact on outcomes is simply to magnify or
modify the opportunities and constraints generated by the other (two) structural
level(s).80
A distribution of authority sets the basic shape of a political system and
establishes the parameters within which a distribution of functions devel-
ops. The distribution of capabilities then modifies or magnifies outcomes
that are largely shaped at deeper levels.
There are several serious problems with this (levels of analysis rather
than levels of organization) account.
First, understanding depth as a matter of causal priority – “the deeper
structural levels have causal priority”81 – produces analytic, rather than
systemic, explanations. Variable 1 (ordering principle) exerts its effects.
Then, variable 2 (functional differentiation). Then variable 3 (distribu-
tion of capabilities). There is no interaction between variables, which
are treated as independent.82 Causation is linear and restricted to
independent-variable “causes.”
Second, rather than a depth account of structure, this is an account of
the differential causal impact of separate elements of “the structure.”
Third, although Waltz did at one point claim that “in systems theory,
structure is a generative notion,”83 in practice he treated structure as
generated. The passage that I just quoted continues “and the structure of
a system is generated by the interactions of its principal parts.”84
In the Waltzian account, “deeper” elements do not generate more
superficial structural features. And structure does not generate units.
It merely influences their behavior.85 In fact, as we saw in §§5.2 and
5.7, Waltz argued that we should think of structure “as simply a
constraint.”86
80
(Ruggie 1983, 266). See also (Buzan, Jones, and Little 1993, 36–37ff.).
81
(Ruggie 1983, 283).
82
On the problems this poses for systemic theory, see §4.4.
83
(Waltz 1979, 72).
84
(Waltz 1979, 72). And, as we saw above, Waltz argued (1979, 91. See also 76, 79, 90,
93, 94, 132) that “international-political systems, like economic markets, are individu-
alist in origin, spontaneously generated, and unintended.”
85
See also §§5.7–5.9.
86
(Waltz 1979, 100).
Fourth, the claim of causal priority for ordering principles inappropri-

ately treats as theoretical the empirical question of how authority, func-
tions, and capabilities are produced, reproduced, and transformed. (For
example, a distribution of capabilities often transforms, and sometimes
generates, a distribution of authority.) And it is an odd kind of legal for-
malism that insists that the distribution of authority (ordering principle)
is not only causally (and thus chronologically) prior but the unproblem-
atic self-generating starting point for structural explanations. (Structures
are thought of as operating on entities that have already been constituted
(in some unspecified way).)
Fifth, authority cannot exist independent of, let alone before, its sub-
jects and objects. (Authority involves particular rights and responsibilities
over particular activities with respect to particular actors.) An ordering
principle (distribution of authority) is only analytically separable from
the differentiation of actors and activities – which are “equally deep”
features of hierarchical social and political structures.
Sixth, Waltz’s minimalist conception of structure makes “deep” and
“shallow” misleading, both where (as in his original formulation) func-
tional differentiation “drops out”87 and in Buzan, Jones, and Little’s
modified version in which ordering principle and functional differentia-
tion together make up the deep structure of the system.88 The tripartite
conception becomes almost a monistic vision of structure – which the
passages quoted at the outset of this chapter suggest was indeed Waltz’s
understanding. And anarchy becomes less an ordering principle than a
master independent variable – which, as we saw in Chapter 6, is how
contemporary IR, following Waltz, treats it.
Finally, this account misdescribes the structure of states systems.
Political authority in states systems is allocated both “vertically” to states
and “horizontally” among them.89 An anarchy-as-ordering-principle
account ignores the hierarchy (stratification and functional differentia-
tion) that structures the system – which is at least as “deep” a feature as
the absence of an international government.
9.6 From Structure to the Structuring of Systems

We have always known that national political systems come in many
different forms with different structures that are not at all described
by “hierarchy” (indeterminate differences of rank and function) and
87
(Waltz 1979, 101).
88
89
See §§7.2.2, 7.2.4. See also §15.5.
distribution of capabilities. (No one who studies domestic political sys-

tems uses anything even vaguely like the tripartite conception.) Here we
have seen that international systems also do not have just one, or even
only a few, basic structures. Therefore, we need to stop talking about
“the structure” of international systems and focus instead on different
types of international systems, in the plural, and how they are (differ-
ently) structured.
What that might look like is the subject of the remainder of this book.
9.7 Postscript: The Dead End of Waltzian Structuralism

In an earlier draft I framed Waltzian structuralism as a dead end. An
insightful and helpful anonymous reviewer, however, argued that this
depiction was (a) disrespectful, (b) difficult to justify, given the epistemic
and substantive diversity of the discipline, and (c) likely to needlessly put
off some readers. Taking (c) to heart, I reframed the discussion.
In concluding this Part, however, I want to argue that that the dead
end metaphor is accurate and illuminating.
Waltzian structuralism, as a basis for systemic international theory, has in
fact proved a dead end. Rather than generate a variety of robust research
programs, it has led only to structural realism.90 And no student of inter-
national relations, including Waltz, has in fact explained anything of sig-
nificance by reference to anarchy and polarity alone91 – because, as I
have argued,92 alone they explain nothing.
Despite widespread acknowledgment of the need for modifica-
tions,93 there have been few attempts to refine Waltz’s account.94
And no revised understanding of systems and structures has received
significant endorsement – because almost all substantively fruitful
modifications are incompatible with systemic/structural theory as
Waltz formulated it.
This has left “systemic” theory in IR in a worst-of-both-worlds situa-
tion. Ad hoc modifications are regularly made, because they are necessary
to actually explain anything of interest. But the resulting explanations are
not structural/systemic in the Waltz sense. And the ad hoc, case-specific
90
I am not arguing here that structural realism (“Waltz’s theory”) is a dead end. My argu-
ment is that Waltzian structuralism is a dead end for systemic theory and research. And
part of the evidence for that is that only one very narrow research program has emerged
from it.
91
See §§5.5 and 11.3.1 and n. 2 in Chapter 10.
92
See §§7.2, 6.2, 6.3.
93
See the third paragraph of the introduction to Part II.
94
(Buzan, Jones, and Little 1993, ch. 2, 3) is the leading, but very limited, exception.
nature of the modifications make these explanations look suspiciously

like we are dealing with a theory that is “devised ‘in the wake of facts’
and that lack[s] the power to anticipate other facts”95 – which Waltz
rightly criticized.
Furthermore, by confusing systemic explanations (which explain by
the organization and operation of complex wholes) with explanations
that employ only systems-level variables, Waltzian structuralism has
actively obscured the character of systemic research and explanation –
and thus misdirected and retarded its development in IR (or, at best, left
it in the hands of relational theorists and researchers that often under-
stand their work as anti-systemic).
Therefore, rather than continue down this path, pretending that Walt-
zian structuralism is a sound foundation for systemic theory that requires
only minor modifications, we need to turn ourselves around and work
our way back out into the world of complex adaptive systems and rela-
tional social science.
Although stinging, this assessment is no more severe than Waltz’s
assessment of earlier systems theories.96 And rather than disrespectful, it
seems to me a huge sign of respect to examine a forty-year-old work in
the belief that its ideas are of central importance today.97
In fact, given the impact of Theory of International Politics I think that it
would be disrespectful not to approach it with the same sort of unflinch-
ing critical eye that Waltz brought to the theorists who preceded him.
Taking a scientific theory seriously requires submitting it to intensive crit-
ical rational scrutiny.98 And there is no shame or disrespect in rejecting a
promising conjecture after further consideration. This simply is the way
that science ought to work.
As Waltz did with his predecessors, I have engaged Theory of Inter-
national Politics extensively and in detail. I have used the same criterion
of evaluation: compatibility with systemic theory and research, properly
95
(Waltz 1979, 29, quoting Lakatos 1970, 175–176).
96
For example, he argued that “by pushing neocolonial theory to its logical end, Galtung
unwittingly exposes its absurdity” (1979, 31) and that in Hoffmann’s work “all distinct
meaning is lost” and “any glimmerings of theory remain crude and confused” (1979,
43, 49).
97
For what it is worth, I would note that I was a student of Waltz’s – he was not on my
dissertation committee but I took three courses from him – and that I believe that while
Ken undoubtedly would have rejected nearly all of my arguments he would have found
some of them engaging and none disrespectful.
98
I am implicitly endorsing Karl Popper’s (1963) method of conjectures and refutations.
See also n. 4 in Chapter 4. (I want to be clear, though, that I reject falsificationism in any
form as a demarcation criterion for science – which, as I argued in Chapter 4, should be
understood in multidimensional and pluralistic terms.)
understood.99 And I have come to a similar conclusion, namely, that it is

time to move on in radically different ways.
I suspect, though, that many readers with a less argumentative nature
will continue to remain uncomfortable with the dead end depiction.
Therefore, let me close by reformulating my argument as a criticism of
the narrowness of the Waltzian approach. This shifts the metaphor to
seeing Waltzian structuralism as having confined systemic theory and
research to going up and down a single street in a large town.
Waltz set systemic international theory onto a path that has led –
because it only can lead – to just one very limited kind of research
program. (There is not much you can do with anarchy and polarity
alone.)100 The following chapters attempt to redirect the attention of the
discipline to the wide range of possibilities for systemic/relational IR that
(re)appear when we (re)turn our focus to bounded sets of components of
particular types, arranged in definite ways, operating in a specific fashion
to produce characteristic outcomes, some of which are emergent.
99
I have, it is true, used a different definition of what makes an approach systemic. But
Waltz’s criticisms of Hoffmann and Kaplan depended on his idiosyncratic redefinition
of systems theory as theory that explains by reference to systems-level variables alone.
And I have employed an understanding of systems that not only is widely shared in
both the natural and social sciences but was Waltz’s starting point as well.
100
See §7.4.
Part III
Systems, Relations, and Processes

Reframing Systemic International Theory
We are now ready – finally – to lay out some preliminary ideas about
moving towards truly systemic understandings of international societ-
ies. The chapters in this Part, taken together, aim to provide “proof of
concept” for a multidimensional relational conception of international
systems. They are divided into two sub-parts.
Chapters 10–13 continue the work of Part I of laying out terms of
reference and begin to offer substantive orienting framings. Chapter 10
returns to the intersection of systemism and relationalism and adds an
emphasis on processes. Chapter 11 introduces the idea of social differ-
entiation and begins to stock a toolkit of dimensions of differentiation.
Chapters 12 and 13 introduce a relational processual perspective on
social continuity and social change.
Chapters 14–17 offer illustrative substantive applications of the value
of relational/systemic perspectives. Chapter 14 emphasizes the impor-
tance of normative-institutional differentiation; the rights, liberties, obli-
gations, and expectations of positioned social actors and the practices
that structure and sustain their relations and govern their actions and
interactions. Chapter 15 discusses stratification, an especially important
formal dimension of social differentiation. Chapter 16 uses the idea of
levels of organization to address what I call spatio-political structure and
develops a simple typology of polities and systems of polities. Chapter 17
applies that typology, along with the frame of continuous (trans)forma-
tion, to the Eurocentric political world of the past eight centuries.
“Chapter” 18 briefly returns to the distinctive character of systemic/
relational research and its place in a pluralistic IR.
175
Part III (A)
DIFFERENTIATION AND CONTINUOUS

(TRANS)FORMATION
The four chapters in this sub-part highlight two fundamental differences

between a relational/systemic approach and IR’s dominant Waltzian
structural approach.
First, rather than imagine that international systems come in only a
few types, defined by a few elements, I argue that international systems
are multilevel multicomponent complex systems with a wide range of
dimensions of differentiation. Models of types of systems thus must
focus on a few selected dimensions of the system’s structure – not the
structure (which, even if it were not too complex to comprehend in a
single model, would not be of much epistemic or pragmatic value).
Second, rather than look for a few transhistorical patterns across inter-
national systems, I focus on developing tools to grasp ongoing, inter-
linked processes of production, reproduction, and transformation. Social
systems are constantly adapting – modularly. Across relatively short time
periods, most of the system remains “the same.” But there are always
some parts that are changing. Therefore, over time frames of a human
generation or two, international systems usually reveal complex combi-
nations of continuities and transformations.
Chapter 10 restates the linkage between systemism and relationalism
and draws attention to processes, which often are not adequately com-
prehended in relational and systemic approaches. It also suggests think-
ing about the structures of social systems as configuring configurations
that configure.
Chapter 11 sketches some alternatives to the Waltzian tripartite con-
ception of the elements of international political structures, focusing on
the overarching idea of social differentiation, “the process by which the
different roles and functions of the members of a society become insti-
tutionalized.”1 International systems are differentiated on a wide range
of dimensions. This chapter draws attention to several dimensions and
argues for developing a disciplined but wide-ranging checklist or toolbox
1
177
178 Part III: Systems, Relations, and Processes
of dimensions of differentiation from which we can construct (partial but

insightful) models of the structures of international societies.
Chapters 12 and 13 look at the complex relations between continuity
and change, both of which, in the living and social worlds, are produced.
Chapter 12 introduces the framings of continuous (trans)formation
and transposition and re-functionality, which are rooted in the fact that
social systems are multilevel multicomponent complex adaptive systems.
Chapter 13 looks at how reproduction and change are handled in Devel-
opmental Biology and Evolutionary Biology, which I argue ought to
serve as models for relational/systemic social science.
Because I am the kind of person who likes to be immersed in theory
before taking on applications, I have put these chapters first. But if you
feel as if Part I was enough metatheory for now, or if you just want to
get to applications, you might want to skim all or parts of these chapters
(or even jump to the next sub-part and come back to these chapters as
you see fit). I encourage you to trust your instincts and take advantage
of the fact that each chapter can be read separately and in pretty much
any order.
10 Relations, Processes, and Systems
Configuring Configurations That Configure
Systemic theory in IR is in the doldrums. Structural realism is now seen,

even by most realists, as played out.1 Liberal institutionalist arguments
about mitigating the effects of anarchy have largely lost their interest.
(Institutions do so much more that is so much more interesting!) And
most of the rest of the discipline operates with little more than passing
references to systems and structures.
This may be all that there is; systemic international theory may have
run up against its (quite severe) inherent limits. I have argued, however,
that the problem lies instead in IR’s mistaken Waltzian understandings –
and that seeing international systems as multidimensional networks of
social positions and processes promises a productive new approach to
international theory and research.
This very brief chapter highlights the importance of processes and
argues for understanding social systems as configuring configurations that
configure.
10.1 Relations and Processes: Toward Relational

Processualism
Most systemic work in IR today, as noted in §1.4, employs either the
frame of relationalism or a particular systemic/relational frame such as
networks or fields. Relationalists reject “substantialism,” the view that
“the ontological primitives of analysis are ‘things’ or entities,” in favor of
1
Even Waltz (see §§5.5 and 11.3.1) employed nonstructural amendments. Balance of
power then quickly became balance of threat (Walt 1987), in which the crucial explana-
tory variable is perceptual and “unit-level.” And structural realism has yielded nothing
new in at least thirty years. Today neoclassical realism, which focuses on nonstructural
variables (see, for example, (Schweller 2003), (Rathbun 2008), (Kitchen 2010), (Toje
and Kunz 2012), (Ripsman, Taliaferro, and Lobell 2016), (Sears 2017), (Götz 2021),
(Meibauer et al. 2021)) has, in practice, replaced structural realism – which usually is
pursued in what Patrick James (2002) aptly calls “elaborated” forms. Realists actually
explain nothing by anarchy and polarity alone because (as we saw in Part II) alone –
really alone – they explain nothing.
179
“treat[ing] configurations of ties … between social aggregates of various

sorts and their component parts as the building blocks of social analy-
sis.”2 Relationalists see the world as made up more of configurations (of
things) than of things (that stand in various relations).
IR’s “standard” conception of relationalism is rooted in Patrick Jack-
son and Daniel Nexon’s prescient call, more than two decades ago, for
a relational IR.3 Their understanding has predominated because it is
admirably catholic, encompassing the wide range of self-consciously
relational work. Although they come out of the “New York School”
of relational Sociology, which that developed in the 1990s around the
works and networks of Harrison White and Charles Tilly,4 their concep-
tion encompasses both Pierre Bourdieu’s relational Sociology, which has
been immensely influential across the social sciences, and Norbert Elias’
(con)figurational Sociology.5 And in both Sociology and IR, these (and
other) strands have not merely comfortably coexisted but enriched one
another.6
Here I want to focus on the place of processes in “relationalism” –
which is obscure in most accounts, including Jackson and Nexon’s.
Processes are so central to “relationalism” that Jackson and Nexon
not only initially labeled their perspective “processual relationalism”7
but claimed that “relationalism … takes processes of social transactions
as the basic building blocks of theory”8 and that a “a p/r [processual/rela-
tional] approach holds that processes are the most fundamental e lements
of reality.”9
This, it seems to me, is, if not correct, then at least a fruitful fram-
ing for relational/systemic work. But it clearly calls for an overarching
frame of processualism. Processes, not relations, are primary – and thus
2
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 291–292).
3
(Jackson and Nexon 1999). (Jackson and Nexon 2019) revisits relationalism in light of
the substantial body of relational research over the intervening two decades.
4
(Mische 2011, 80–85).
5
See n. 39 in §1.4.
6
For example, (Paulle, van Heerikhuizen, and Emirbayer 2012) discusses affinities
and complementarities in the work of Bourdieu and Elias. See also (Dépelteau 2013).
White (2008, xvi, 114, 145, 241–242) draws attention to affinities between his work
and Bourdieu’s. (Elder-Vass 2007b) seeks to combine Bourdieu with Margaret Archer’s
critical-realist relationalism.
7
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 292, 301, 318). Likewise, Emirbayer (1997, 282, 281) ini-
tially formulated “the choice between substantialism and relationalism” as a choice
between “conceiv[ing] of the social world as consisting primarily in substances or in pro-
cesses” and regularly reverts to this contrast (e.g., 1997, 290, 295, 301, 304). Similarly,
Andrew Abbott (2007 [1996], 3, 2) refers to “the processual/relational tradition” that
“focuses on the processual and relational character of social life.”
8
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 291).
9
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 314 [emphasis in original]).
Relations, Processes, and Systems 181
should be the noun.10 Therefore, I suggest that we should understand

the broad relational/systemic enterprise as “relational processualism;”
processual research with a relational emphasis. Or, at the very least, we
must not confuse processes and relations. And we should give central
and independent attention to processes – which are rarely addressed in
mainstream IR.11
Processes, as we saw in §1.6, are “integrated series of connected devel-
opments unfolding in programmatic coordination.”12 Many “things”
(e.g., waterfalls, laser beams, and tornadoes) are processes. Many
“things” that appear stable (e.g., animals, lakes, and stars) are stabilized
by extensive regenerative and reproductive processes. And every “thing”
is subject to processes of decay and “death” (although at extraordinarily
varying rates and time frames).
Even strong ontological processualists, however, may have good
empirical, theoretical, or methodological reasons to focus on relations
narrowly conceived. (For example, we often black-box mechanisms and
processes, sometimes out of ignorance, sometimes as a fruitful simplifi-
cation.) “Relationalists” thus will continue to talk about both processes
and relations. Therefore, it is important to appreciate their differences.
Relations (connections) and processes (“goings on”) clearly are differ-
ent. For example, Jackson and Nexon note that social network analysis
has often been “relational but not processual.”13
Nevertheless, despite repeatedly using variants of the formula
“processes and relations,”14 Jackson and Nexon never clarify how they
differ. Their shorthand formula “p/r”15 suggests that “processual” and
10
Similarly, Christopher Powell (2013, 188, 194–195), in advocating “radical relational-
ism,” argues that we should “treat relations as processes” – which clearly suggests radi-
cal processualism.
11
Standard research design texts give no attention to processes as objects of investiga-
tion. (For example, (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994), (Brady and Collier 2010), and
(Goertz 2017) do not have index entries for “process(es).”) And “process tracing” typi-
cally looks at single cases of a causal relation between independent and dependent vari-
ables (rather than cases of the operation of a process). As Daniel Steel (2004, 68) notes,
process tracing is “often found in regions of social science in which one is interested in
questions about what causes what [not how a result is produced] but in which good statisti-
cal data are unavailable.” The goal is not to understand a process but to provide support
from outside the dataset being used for a claimed causal relation between independent
and dependent variables.
12
(Rescher 2000, 22). See also (Glennan 2017, 26).
13
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 305). I am skeptical, though, of their claim (1999, 319 n. 3)
that “it is logically possible to be a processualist without being a relationalist.” I cannot
think of a social process that is not about organized relations (operating over time).
14
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 298, 299, 300, 301, 304, 306).
15
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 292, 297, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306, 307, 308, 312, 314, 316,
317, 318).
“relational” are largely substitutable terms16 – which they are not. And
the formulation “processual-relational”17 is either obscure or, reading
the hyphen as “and/or,” unhelpful (because the two terms have not been
clearly distinguished).
Recently, Jackson and Nexon have distinguished “positional” and
“processual” approaches within relationalism.18 A process, however, is
something different from (not a type of) a relation. All processes involve
relations. But not all relations involve or are parts of processes. And no
process is merely a matter of relations.19
Processes involve activity over time. Stuart Glennan may exaggerate in
claiming that “the language of relations is a static language.”20 Relations,
however, are not necessarily dynamic.
In this sense, relations are more like substances than processes. Both
substance-ism and relation-ism suffer from “entity bias.”21 Like materi-
alists and idealists, both substantialists and relationalists focus on what
“things” are made of. Neither directly addresses what they do – or the
productive nature of structured activities. And the unfolding of entities
and activities over time (“becoming”) is not readily comprehended by
studying either relations or substances (“being”).
If relationalism is a progressive negation of substantialism then proces-
sualism is their synthesis. Processes integrate substances and relations
with activities.
No matter how intensively we investigate the connections between or
the arrangements of “things” we will never understand how the world
works. Relation-ism, like substance-ism, provides “what” or “why,” not
“how,” explanations.22
16
That, it seems to me, is the “natural” reading of the slash/virgule. See also n. 8 above.
17
(Jackson and Nexon 2019, 9). (Goddard, MacDonald, and Nexon 2019, 304, 306,
311) use the formula “relational-processual” (which they seem to take as equivalent
to “processual-relational”). Similarly obscure is Emirbayer’s (1997, 309) reference to
“a processual, relational view of the world.” (I can’t figure out how to interpret the
comma.) These formulas point toward the importance of both relations and processes
but do not address their similarities, differences, and interconnections. And the insistent
use of both terms clearly indicates that they are not equivalent or substitutable.
18
(Jackson and Nexon 2019, 582 [abstract], 584, 592–595).
19
The distinction between static (“positional”) and dynamic (“processual”) representa-
tions of systems is indeed important. I am arguing, though, that it is not effectively
addressed as a matter of different kinds of relations – and that this also obscures the
relationship between processes and relations.
20
(Glennan 2017, 50).
21
I take this phrase from (Illari and Williamson 2012, 126–127). A variant of this problem,
which Glennan (2017, 53) calls “property bias,” is evident in contemporary quantita-
tive social science, which focuses on properties of “things” understood as independent
variables.
22
See also §§4.5ff.
Most relationalists do not intend entity bias. Quite the contrary, they
regularly conflate (possibly static) relations and (dynamic) processes.23
For example, Jackson and Nexon claim that “ties are not static ‘things’,
but ongoing processes.”24 In fact, though, ties need not be dynamic.
Social entities arise not simply from the “configurations of ties”25 but
also from the activities of configured/related “things.” And to the extent
that by ties we mean processes – for example, Jackson and Nexon argue
that “relational approaches to world politics specify processes and mecha-
nisms”26 – we should call them that and study them as processes not as
relations (which they are not).
10.2 Configuring Configurations That Configure

Taking a cue from Bourdieu’s famous account of habitus as “structured
structures predisposed to function as structuring structures,”27 I suggest
that we think of systems as configuring configurations that configure (or
structuring structures that structure28). And we should understand such
configurations as always “in process.”
Verbs (and adverbs and verbal nouns) usually capture processes better
than nouns.29 For example, above I argued that social scientists should,
in addition to looking for causes, study causation30 (the productive pro-
cesses of causally efficacious entities and activities) and see social action
not as constrained by “structures” but as “structured”31 (by structuring
structures that structure). I also argued32 that rather than thinking of per-
sonal identity as an essential set of defining attributes we should explore
the varied identification processes that produce “persons,” understood
as contingently stabilized, multiplex configurations of identifying rela-
tions and histories.
23
Similarly, Amaya Querejazu (2022, 877. See also 880, 889) writes “by relations relat-
ing I mean the constant and ongoing interaction of co-constitutive and transformative
processes that create realities.” See also (Kurki 2022), who like Jackson and Nexon,
sometimes pairs “relations” and “processes,” suggesting that they are different, and
sometimes uses them interchangeably.
24
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 291–292).
25
(Jackson and Nexon 1999, 291 [emphasis added]).
26
(Jackson and Nexon 2019, 584–585). Similarly, David McCourt (2016, 475) claims
that “relationalism sees them [entities] as constituted by ongoing processes ….”
27
(Bourdieu 1977 [1972], 72).
28
I prefer “configurations” to “structures” because of the Waltzian tendencies in IR to
reify structures and to separate structure and agency.
29
See also (Rescher 1996, 29), (Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000, 4), (Glennan
2017, 20).
30
See §4.3.
31
See §§5.2, 5.9.
32
See §§3.5–3.10.
The noun configuration, especially when used alone, draws attention

away from the flow of configuring and reconfiguring processes – much as
the noun relations draws attention away from the processes that create,
sustain, and transform them. Tellingly, Norbert Elias, the father of (con)
figurational Sociology, “grew to dislike the term ‘figurational sociology’
and ended up preferring ‘process sociology’ as a label.”33
Therefore, even when we do talk about relations or configurations, we
should understand them as both the results and sources of configuring
processes. Social configurations are productive processes that configure.
Things hang together in configurations34 because they have been con-
figured (into that configuration); they have been made to hang together.
And that making typically (re)configures the things configured. For
example, in the configuration states-in-a-states-system, “states” and
“states systems” are neither separate “things” nor “things” (units) and
“relations” (structures) but intertwined dimensions, causes, and conse-
quences of ongoing configuring processes.
None of this is intended to criticize studying static relations – or sub-
stances, entities, or properties. Such research, however, is not conceptu-
ally, logically, ontologically, or scientifically privileged. And processes,
which the label relationalism encompass awkwardly, need to be an essen-
tial part of relational/systemic IR.
10.3 The Attractions of a Relational Processual Frame

A relational processual approach to international systems has at least
three major attractions.
Seeing relations “as preeminently dynamic in nature, as unfolding,
ongoing processes”35 can help to guard against both reification and mis-
placed essentialism. In IR, consider the “Copenhagen School” of secu-
rity studies, which rejects the idea of fixed or given security interests,
stressing instead processes of securitization, which create the objects of
security policy.36
By taking history and context seriously, relational processualism draws
attention to the contingent conditions within which “causal” “law-like
regularities” operate. It also shifts the burden of argument to those who
33
(Van Krieken 2001, 353–354).
34
Recall Waltz’s (1979, 8) question “How does it all hang together?” See §4.1.2.
35
(Emirbayer 1997, 289). See also (Powell 2013, 194).
36
(Buzan, Wæver, and Wilde 1998), (Waever 1998), (McDonald 2008), (Hansen 2012).
Although not originally formulated in explicitly relational terms, a relational framing
is becoming more common. See, e.g., (Balzacq 2011, 2, 22, 28; 2019), (Cavelty and
Jaeger 2015), (Bueger 2016b).
claim transhistorical law-like knowledge. And it can help to guard against

smuggling unspecified background conditions into a theory (as, for
example, Waltz does by treating “units” as sovereign territorial states).
Relational processualism also focuses attention on structured agency
exercised within webs of social institutions and practices. As Christopher
Powell puts it, programmatically, “Treat the concepts of ‘structure’ and
‘agency’ as opposed but equivalent…. Treat all structures as generated
through agency. … Treat all agential action as produced through the
operation of structures.”37 Or, to requote John Padgett and Walter Pow-
ell’s formulation, “in the short run, actors create relations; in the long
run, relations create actors.”38
10.4 Relational Processualism

But even if “the whole story” is one of (relational) processual things, there
often are good epistemic or pragmatic reasons to tell different parts of the
story at different times and for different purposes. For example, arrange-
ment (relations) often is of considerable importance in itself. And relations
are sometimes easier to identify, study, or generalize about than processes.39
In relational/systemic research, however, processes need to be under-
stood as not merely lurking in the background or unseen beneath. Atten-
tion to processes should both shape the research and be a standard for
evaluating it. We should be suspicious of a systemic/relational account
that cannot be tied to a likely (not merely possible or even just probable)
productive process. And discovering and depicting structurally impor-
tant relations should be taken not as an explanatory end but as a call for
investigating the processes that produce and are associated with them.40
We ultimately need to know not only what happened, why, but how.
10.5 International Systems as Hierarchically

Layered Assemblages
A relational/systemic/processual framing is particularly attractive when
combined with the framings of assemblages and levels of organization.
37
(Powell 2013, 188). See also §4.9.
38
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 2). See also (Archer 1982; 1995), (Archer 2013).
Alternatively, we might say that in the short run both actors and relations usually appear
as largely given but in the long run both actors and relations are variable and mutually
co-constituted. (See Chapter 12 and §§3.5–3.10.)
39
Compare my argument at the end of §4.8.3 about the value of even black-boxed depic-
tions of mechanisms.
40
The same is true, I would argue, of “causal” explanations. Identifying causal effects
should trigger research on causal processes and mechanisms. See §§4.3–4.5.
As this book is written so that it can be read à la carte, though, I need to

briefly reintroduce these notions.
Levels of organization, as I use that term, are (to the best of our knowl-
edge) “in the world.” That world is understood as composed of smaller
or less complex “things” that make up larger or more complex “things” –
that make up even larger or more complex “things” …41 And each level
of organization contains emergent phenomena that cannot be fully
explained by entities and activities on lower levels.
In assembled systems, the parts are related extrinsically, in the sense
that they remain at least partially separate or separable42 (as in artistic,
archeological, and paleontological assemblages). The assembled parts
are more or less tightly linked into a still heterogeneous and only contin-
gently stabilized entity. And the fact of assemblage, as well as the possi-
bility of disassembly or re-assembly, highlights the continuing processual
nature of assemblages.43
This framing, which highlights the partial (in)separability of indi-
viduals and social groups, seems to me an immensely fruitful way
to approach social systems, including international systems. Social
groups, as systems, are not reducible to their individual parts. As
assemblages, though, they do not reduce individuals to parts of social
wholes.44
We are who we are and act as we act as parts of changing and
intersecting networks of social assemblages. Those assemblages are
composed of, among other things, individual persons. But “personal
identity” is an assemblage of identifications generated in multiple
social assemblages. And identity is inescapably and recursively related
to social action.
An assemblage frame also presents social systems as more or less
coherently nested (rather than tightly integrated). This, it seems to me, is
not only descriptively accurate but suggests a penetrating u nderstanding
of change.
41
See §§1.3, 3.3.
42
See §1.8.
43
If there is a basic level beneath which we cannot penetrate, it would appear to be quan-
tum fields, in which the very idea of “stuff” would seem to disappear into process.
Quantum IR – see (Wendt 2015), (Der Derian and Wendt 2020), (Pan 2020) – thus
might be seen as a style of relational/systemic theory and research. (Albert and Bathon
2020) considers this framing from a “modern systems theory” perspective.
44
And thus, as I argued in §§3.5–3.10, the holism-individualism debates that have long
bedeviled social theory are preempted or transcended. “Individual human beings” do
not exist independent of the social and natural wholes of which they are part – nor do
social groups exist apart from the “individual human beings” that compose them.
Often, as I will argue in Chapters 12, 13, and 17, there is no master
driver of change – which usually involves re-assembly and re-purposing
of existing elements. Relatively modest alterations work through net-
works of relations in complex adaptive systems to produce large, even
qualitative, transformations (systems effects). And the mutual adjust-
ment of parts over time changes both parts and whole (and both new
and old).
11 Multiple Dimensions of Differentiation
in Assembled International Systems
This chapter begins to sketch alternatives to the Waltzian tripartite (order-

ing principle, functional differentiation, distribution of capabilities) con-
ception of political structures, emphasizing that international systems are
differentiated along multiple dimensions. I briefly introduce a number
of different framings in order to suggest some of the breadth and variety
of systemic/relational theory and research. (Part III(B) looks in greater
depth and detail at some particular dimensions of differentiation.)
11.1 Differentiation
Differentiation is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “the process
by which the different roles and functions of the members of a society
become institutionalized.” As S. N. Eisenstadt puts it, through differ-
entiation “the main social functions or the major institutional spheres
of society become disassociated from one another, attached to special-
ized collectivities and roles, and organized in relatively specific and
autonomous symbolic and organizational frameworks.”1 This section
looks at three highly abstract framings for studying social and political
differentiation.
11.1.1 Checklists, Toolkits, and Building Blocks

Waltz sought a small number of ideal-type structural models composed
of a few elements. In Part II I argued that there is no privileged account
of the nature of “the structure” (or even the structures) of international
systems. Here I suggest that we should aim instead for a checklist of
dimensions of differentiation that we have reason to believe illuminate
some recurrently important features that structure some social and polit-
ical systems of interest. Or, changing metaphors, we should stock a tool-
box of dimensions of differentiation for studying international systems.
1
(Eisenstadt 1964, 376).
188
Differentiation in Assembled International Systems 189
Or, changing metaphors again, we can hope to use these building blocks
to construct models that comprehend some important features of some
multilayer, multiactor, multidimensional international systems.
Rather than seek law-like regularities of the form “Most A’s are x”
(e.g., states in anarchy balance) I want to enable explanations of the form
“These A’s (but not those) are x, y, and z (but not a, b, or c) in these par-
ticular ways – and this characteristically has r, t, or s (but not g, h, and i)
consequences.” I am seeking useful sets of modular elements that provide
a scaffolding2 for relatively rich structural models. And I am arguing that
we not only can but should cut into studying the organization and opera-
tion of international systems in different ways that in different instances
may be complementary, competing, or unrelated.
11.1.2 Vertical and Horizontal Differentiation

“Vertical differentiation” places “segments” into relations of super-,
sub-, and co-ordination.3 Social stratification is, in these terms, a matter
of vertical differentiation.
“Horizontal differentiation” creates and populates (types of) social
positions and entities that are different from, but not necessarily supe-
rior or inferior to, other differentiated (types of) entities and positions.
Functional differentiation, for example, is on its face “horizontal.” Usu-
ally, though, it becomes interlinked with hierarchical “vertical differen-
tiation,” as typically occurs with gender and occupation.
This highly abstract framing seems to me sufficiently obvious and clear
that I will make only one further comment here. Horizontal and vertical
differentiation are analytic categories. We may fruitfully study them sep-
arately. In the social world, however, they are almost always intertwined.
(For example, as I emphasize in §§9.1 and 15.1, hierarchies are systems
of relations of stratification (vertical differentiation) and functional (hori-
zontal) differentiation.4) And social roles are defined by both vertical and
horizontal differentiation.
2
The framing of scaffolds, which has recently begun to gain some traction in the philoso-
phy of Biology (e.g., (Caporael, Griesemer, and Wimsatt 2014), (Griesemer 2021), (Veit
2022)), seems to me worth consideration in the social sciences – although I have neither
the confidence in my ability to cash out that intuition nor the space to try.
3
Equal, like superior and inferior, is a rank. And social relations of equality are no less
important (and no less socially constructed) than relations of superiority and inferiority.
See nn. 58, 59 in §9.4.2.
4
In the framing that I will use in the next section, different authorities are associated with
different activities.
11.1.3 Formal and Substantive Differentiation

Features such as the pattern of stratification or the number of poles of
power refer to abstract structural “forms.” Purely formal models of sys-
tems are especially attractive if we think of explanation as a matter of pro-
viding generalized accounts of lawlike regularities. Thus Waltz stressed
the formal dimensions of distribution of capabilities and levels of analysis
and understood political ordering principles (anarchy and hierarchy) in
a way that was as close to contentless as possible. And there is a well-
established sociological tradition of formal structural analysis, rooted in
Georg Simmel and extensively practiced today in social network analy-
sis.5 The models that I present in Chapter 15 and 16 are largely formal.
Other structural features of social and political systems, however, are
“substantive,” such as the character of dominant actors, the functions
they perform, and the authorities that they possess. In fact, social and
political systems “are” in large measure organized systems of substantive
institutions and norms. Chapter 14 looks at normative-institutional dif-
ferentiation, which I employ (along with models of forms) in Chapter 17.
11.2 Differentiating Actors, Activities, and Authorities

Social differentiation – the processes by which social positions are pro-
duced, related, populated, reproduced, and transformed – has myriad
forms and dimensions. Here I suggest that it is often fruitful to focus on
the differentiation of actors, activities, and authorities; on determining
who has what authority over whom with respect to what.
11.2.1 Segmentation (Actors) and Terminal Peer Polities

“Segmentation” – delineating types of social segments; differentiating
types of “units”6 or actors – is essential to differentiation. Because sys-
tems are composed of parts of particular types (arranged in particular
ways) the character of those parts is essential to the structuring of any
society. And the language of segments emphasizes that they are parts of
larger wholes.
Which type of actor predominates often is central to the structuring of
a social system. Anthropology, Archaeology, and Sociology sometimes
define societal types by their characteristic top-tier unit (e.g., band,
5
(Papilloud 2018) and (Canto-Milà 2018) are useful introductions. For a powerful con-
temporary expression, see (Martin 2009).
6
In (Donnelly 2009, 73–74) I called this “unit differentiation.” But as soon as they are
differentiated they are no longer (abstract, characterless) “units.”
tribal, chiefdom, and state societies).7 In IR, Robert Gilpin argues that
“the character of the international system is largely determined by the
type of state-actor.”8 Even Waltz claimed that “international political
structures are defined in terms of the primary political units of an era, be
they city states, empires, or nations”9 and acknowledged that “systems
populated by units of different sorts in some ways perform differently,
even though they share the same organizing principle.”10
This suggests introducing a concept such as “terminal peer polities.”11
Top-tier polities are “terminal” in the sense that no polity is above
them, only an “international system.” This usefully distinguishes inter-
national systems by level of organization12 (rather than ordering prin-
ciple). It also, I think, better captures the insight underlying Waltz’s
anarchy–hierarchy binary. (There is a fundamental difference between
political systems that are polities capable of action in a larger political
system and those that are not.)
These terminal polities are “peers” in the sense of being “person[s]
of high rank”13 that, like “member[s] of a rank of hereditary nobility,”14
do not all have the same rank. (Georg Schwarzenberger nicely describes
states as the aristocrats of states systems and great powers as the oli-
garchs among those aristocrats.15) And as important as that there are
top-tier actors is what they are (e.g., states, empires, societies, ethnic
groups, tribes, religions, civilizations).
Also crucial is how terminal entities are related to other entities (on
both the same and other levels). For example, in recent decades we have
seen not only the relative decline of states but also the absolute and rela-
tive rise of many types of transnational and supranational actors. This
has produced a more heterogeneous set of higher-level actors.16 And
7
In none of these disciplines, though, is the structure of a system seen as reducible to the
situation of the predominant groups. That understanding, which confuses demarcation
with structure (see §6.1.5), is distinctively Waltz’s. See also §10.1.
8
(Gilpin 1981, 26). We will return to this point in §11.2.1.
9
(Waltz 1979, 91).
10
(Waltz 1990b, 37; See also Waltz 2000, 10). The subsection on functional
differentiation in Theory of International Politics is titled “The Character of the Units”
(Waltz 1979, 93).
11
I take the term from Colin Renfrew and John Cherry’s Peer Polity Interaction and
Socio-Political Change (1986), a work in the comparative archaeology of early complex
societies.
12
See §§1.3, 3.3.
13
14
15
(Schwarzenberger 1951, ch. 6, 7).
16
Sections 14.2 and 14.3 and Chapters 15 and 16 provide models that can be used to
provide comparative-static depictions of such changes.
I see no indication either that top-tier “nonstate actors” are likely to

become states or that a new dominant type of top-tier polity is emerging.
Segmentation, like other dimensions of differentiation, neither exists
nor operates independently. Social segments have activities, authorities,
obligations, and resources associated with them. They stand in particular
kinds of relations to one another. And those relations make social sys-
tems systems.
11.2.2 Functional Differentiation (Activities)

There also is little dispute that how “functions” (activities) are delineated
and allocated to social “segments” is of central structural significance.
For example, the rise of early modern European states largely involved
transferring existing functions to different actors. The twentieth-century
rise of welfare states involved existing states doing new things. Now,
with globalization, we are seeing the (partial) reallocation of existing
functions to increasingly varied types of (subnational, transnational, and
supranational) actors. In addition, new functions (e.g., regulating the
global commons) are being created and allocated in varied ways.
We thus should focus on both the diversity of forms of functional dif-
ferentiation and the particular substance of different differentiations –
in sharp contrast to Waltz’s emphasis on the sameness of states (both
within and across states systems).
For example, Waltz argued that nonstate “supranational agents able
to act effectively … either themselves acquire some of the attributes and
capabilities of states, as did the medieval papacy in the era of Innocent III
[1198–1216], or they soon reveal their inability to act in important ways
except with the support, or at least the acquiescence, of the principal
states concerned with the matters at hand.”17 This arbitrarily designates
certain attributes and capabilities as essentially those of states – and not
of other kinds of actors. And it claims that states, in some sort of thick
sense of that term, are, at least in the long run, always and necessarily the
predominant terminal peer polities in international systems.
In fact, however, as we will see in Chapter 17, medieval Europe did
not have “states” in this sense. And at all levels, some medieval poli-
ties were secular and others were ecclesiastical. “Religion” and “politics”
were not, as in modern societies, separate domains, only one of which
was truly or fully “political.” (Medieval Christendom simply was not
differentiated in that way.) Medieval politics had essential ecclesiastical
17
(Waltz 1979, 88).
and secular dimensions.18 The balance between religious and secular

authorities thus was crucial to the political structuring of Western Chris-
tian society.
During the Carolingian (800–888) and Ottonian (919–1024) dynas-
ties, religious authorities generally were subordinate to, and typically
appointed to ecclesiastical office by, secular rulers.19 In the early twelfth
century, however, the Pope obtained the right to appoint (“invest”)
archbishops.20 And for much of the next three or four centuries, through
ups and downs, the Rome-based “papal monarchy” was arguably the
most important political actor in Christendom.21
The early modern rise of kings involved subordinating not just pro-
vincial secular authorities but also clerical authorities. Even in Catholic
countries, churches became increasingly national.22 And clerics, who
made up the bulk of late-medieval royal bureaucracies, were increas-
ingly displaced by secular “clerks” in royal administrations. Political and
religious domains were increasingly sharply differentiated, laying the
foundation for the separation of church and state, which restricted the
authority of churches to a non-political religious domain.
Who does (and does not do) what is unquestionably central to the
structuring of a social system.
11.2.3 Stratification (Authorities)

Differentiated social or political actors typically perform (some of)
their differentiated activities with some degree of (official or unofficial)
authority or obligation. Waltz’s pretense that international systems have
no authority – “Nationally, relations of authority are established. Inter-
nationally, only relations of strength result”23 – is not a fruitful simplifi-
cation. It is just plain wrong.
It simply is not true that “in the absence of agents with system-wide
authority, formal relations of super- and subordination fail to develop.”24
18
See §17.1.
19
(McKitterick 1999), (Reuter 2006, ch. 19). At the parish level this remained true
throughout the medieval period.
20
See (Blumenthal 1988 [1982]), (Miller 2005), (Tellenbach 1959), and, more briefly,
(Fuhrmann 1986 [1983], 81–87, 97–109). (Haldén 2017) discusses the Investiture
Controversy in the context of IR theory.
21
On the high-medieval papacy see (Ullmann 1972, ch. 9, 10), (Blumenthal 2004),
(Robinson 2004), (Watt 1999), (Meyer 2007), and, most briefly, (Watts 2009, 49–59).
(Tierney 1961) discusses high-medieval church-“state” relations more generally.
22
See §17.2 at nn. 24–26.
23
(Waltz 1979, 112).
24
(Waltz 1979, 80).
In states systems, states are officially superordinate to nonstate actors,

states mutually recognize one another’s sovereign authority, and hori-
zontally generated authority develops through bilateral agreements and
international regimes. In addition, unofficial relations of super- and sub-
ordination often are quite important.
There is no real disagreement that who has which powers over whom –
how a system is stratified; arranged in layered relations of super-, sub-,
and co-ordination – is essential to the structuring of social and political
systems. And once we abandon the Waltzian conceit that international
systems are not stratified there can be no dispute that patterns of inter-
national stratification vary with time and place.
Social stratification often is thought of as a matter of differences in
power, which is usually seen as having both material (“hard”) and non-
material (“soft”) dimensions. This common framing, though, inap-
propriately prioritizes the material, by defining material “power” and
treating everything else as a residual.
Power, in the ordinary language sense of control over outcomes, can
be more profitably understood as having material, normative, and insti-
tutional dimensions.25 In addition to the power that comes from might
and the power that comes from being right there is the power that comes
from being able to operate efficaciously within institutionalized settings.
And the differences in the sources and mixes of these three types of
power, as well as the ways in which they are related, are central to how
a society is stratified.
We will return to stratification in international systems in some detail
in Chapter 15 (and to the importance of norms and institutions in
Chapter 14).
11.3 Material Differentiation: Geotechnics and Scarcity

Segmentation, functional differentiation, and stratification are only a
first step. Building on the comparison in Chapter 7 of forager societ-
ies, Hobbesian states of nature, and great power states systems, we can
identify two additional “substantive” dimensions of differentiation:
normative-institutional differentiation, which we will look at in some detail
in Chapter 14, and material differentiation, which I briefly consider here.
25
Institutional and normative power are no more fruitfully understood as “types of non-
material power” than material power is fruitfully understood as a “type of nonnormative
power.” We need to define all the important types of power, not just one. And this initial
list needs to be expanded (at minimum by disaggregating normative power and material
power).
11.3.1 Material Factors in Structural Realism

Waltz’s exclusion of normative and institutional factors from his account
of structure is notorious. Much less appreciated, but no less troubling, is
his exclusion of material factors.
It is often claimed that structural realism in particular and Waltzian
structural theory in general is materialist.26 This, however, cannot be true
given Waltz’s account of structure. The distribution of capabilities, even
where all capabilities are material, is a purely formal property of a sys-
tem. Capabilities – and material factors more generally – are just another
thing that Waltz claimed structural theories must abstract from.27 Thus
he explicitly denied that technological advances and changes in weap-
onry are structural changes.28 And the rise and fall of great powers does
not, in Waltz’s account, change the structure of the system (as long as
the number of great powers remains more than two).
But just as self-identified structural realists smuggle back in normative
and institutional features such as sovereignty and great power manage-
ment – because we can’t really talk about international relations without
them – they smuggle back in material factors. For example, Mearsheimer
has a chapter in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics on “The Primacy of
Land Power,” which addresses the stopping power of water.29
Most strikingly, Waltz argued that “the longest peace yet known
rested on two pillars: bipolarity and nuclear weapons.”30 It is hard to see,
though, why (bi)polarity but not nuclear weapons should be considered
structural. If “among states armed with nuclear weapons peace prevails
whatever the structure of the system may be,”31 I cannot imagine why
we would not try to encompass the obviously structuring role of nuclear
weapons32 – especially because their presence (or absence) in a system
is no more an attribute of the actors than polarity. And in practice Waltz
seemed to agree.
26
See, for example, (Wendt 1999, 2, 5, 6, 19), (Buzan and Albert 2010, 322), (Wohlforth
2011, 503).
27
Waltz did at one point (1979, 99) argue that “we abstract from every attribute of states
except their capabilities.” But that is a single passing reference. And at the core of his
conception of the elements of structure is the insistence on abstracting from capabilities
(in order to look only at the overall system-wide distribution of capabilities).
28
(Waltz 1979, 67).
29
(Mearsheimer 2001, ch. 4).
30
(Waltz 1993, 44). See also (Waltz 1981, 2).
31
(Waltz 2004, 5). See also (Waltz 1993, 74): “the probability of major war among states
having nuclear weapons approaches zero.”
32
A large part of the explanation in Waltz’s case, I suspect, was his mistaken notion of “the
unit level.” See §§3.2, 3.3, 5.2–5.5.
In his first major published piece after Theory of International Poli-

tics, Waltz claimed to “deduc[e] expectations from the structure of the
international political system.”33 The section in question, however,
included a subsection titled “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.”34
And in later works Waltz acknowledged that “multipolarity abolishes
the stark symmetry and pleasing simplicity of bipolarity, but nuclear
weapons restore both of those qualities to a considerable extent”35 and
noted that military and industrial technology “may change the charac-
ter of systems.”36
Glenn Snyder takes a step in the right direction when he argues that
technology is a “structural modifier,” which he defines as something
“structural in [its] inherent nature” but “not potent enough internation-
ally to warrant that designation.”37 But we should not confuse causal
potency with structural significance. Even if nuclear weapons are unusual
(or even unique) in the magnitude of their causal impact that only means
that technology usually explains less of what we are interested in than
other dimensions of structure – not that it is not really (or not fully)
structural.38 Technology is structural – it positions actors in particular
ways – whatever its relative causal efficacy.
11.3.2 Geotechnics and Scarcity

I suggest conceptualizing material differentiation in terms of geography
and technology, which are analytically distinct but usually complexly
related. I think that we would do well to adopt Daniel Deudney’s formu-
lation of geotechnics39 – and then explore the many forms it takes. This
would allow us to acknowledge the structural nature of features such as
the offense–defense balance40 and would open up considering how capa-
bilities, and other material factors, structure relations in international
systems.
This, though, is an area where I am at a comparative disadvantage.
Therefore, I simply throw out a few pretty obvious ideas.
33
(Waltz 1981, 2).
34
This is still another instance of Waltz ignoring his theory when it proved obviously inad-
equate. However admirable this might be for a policy analyst, it is a telling indictment
of the Waltzian conception of systemic/structural theory.
35
(Waltz 1993, 74).
36
(Waltz, 1990b, 37).
37
(Snyder 1996, 169).
38
Snyder, in other words, repeats Waltz’s error (see §6.4) of confusing structure and
explanation.
39
(Deudney 2007, 39 and passim).
40
(Glaser and Kaufmann 1998) is a good introduction.
Geotechnics makes a place for geopolitics41 and for the substantial

body of work in Geography and IR on the construction and organization
of social space, including the modern notion of territoriality (and its fate
in a globalizing world).42
The substance of both productive and destructive technologies, as
the nuclear weapons example illustrates, is of obvious structural import.
Consider the agricultural and industrial revolutions and the gunpow-
der revolution (and the Ottoman, Safavid, and Moghul “gunpowder
empires”).
Scale and level/type of technological development are relatively
abstract formal material features that would seem to be both separately
central and interrelated. For example, forager societies are low-tech
small-scale societies. Globalization is associated with large-scale high-
tech systems of relations.
The three simple anarchical societies considered in Chapter 7 also
suggest attention to scarcity – which is a variable, not a constant.43
For example, the abundance of forager societies is central to their
warlessness.44 Forager abundance, though, depends on simple desires
matched to the environment and on radical sharing (and the associated
lack of private property). Scarcity, in other words, is (in part) socially
constructed.
Or consider what we might call sufficiency, which I think nicely
describes material conditions in many OECD countries. Politics under
conditions of sufficiency, it seems to me, is fundamentally different from
politics under conditions of scarcity. For example, the infrequency of war
among relatively wealthy democracies may be linked with sufficiency.
41
See, for example, (Agnew 2003), (Cohen 2009), (Dodds 2014), (Guzzini 2012a),
(Jervis 2010), (Moisio and Paasi 2013), (Starr 2016 [2013]), (Tuathail 1996).
42
For a sampling of work in geography centrally relevant to IR, see, for example, (Agnew,
Mitchell, and Tuathail 2003), (Cox, Low, and Robinson 2009), (Crang and Thrift
2000), (Harvey 2006), (Murdoch 2005). On the specificity of the idea of territory (and
territoriality), see, for example, (Elden 2013), (Sassen 2008 [2006]). See also (Storey
2020).
43
In IR, however, scarcity usually is assumed – unthinkingly. Randall Schweller (1999,
147) is rare in even noting the importance of scarcity to the standard realist story:
“States exist under conditions of material and social scarcity with no sovereign
arbiter ….”
44
See §6.3. Briefly, “foragers,” the simplest type of hunter-gathers, live in bands composed
usually of dozens of individuals. Although their material life is extremely simple, they
experience abundance, in the sense that their needs and principal desires are relatively
easily satisfied. They have no social hierarchy and almost no functional differentiation.
Political decisions typically are made by open discussion leading to consensus and are
not subject to official coercive enforcement. But foragers do not balance or pursue rela-
tive gains. They do not experience security dilemmas. And relations between bands are
warless.
More broadly, we might suggest that sufficiency decreases the range

of issues over which states are willing to go to war – or, perhaps more
precisely, scarcity (and especially deprivation) increases the likelihood
of war “all other things being equal.” And fear for “survival,” which I
argued does much of the actual explanatory work in structural realist
explanations,45 may be as much a function of scarcity as of “anarchy.”
11.4 Additional Dimensions of Differentiation

We could go on for quite a while adding forms of differentiation that
often structure relations in international systems. Here I will briefly note
just three.
11.4.1 Polarity
Polarity is not a universal feature of political or international systems.46 It
is, however, a significant structuring feature of systems organized around
similar and largely autonomous territorial “units.” In states systems,
where concentrations of capabilities do tend to create distinct poles of
power, we need to distinguish unipolar, bipolar, tripolar, and multipolar
(more than three but less than about ten great powers) systems.47
Even “systems of states,” though, may have no great powers – or,
what is functionally equivalent, so many “great powers” (say, a dozen or
more) that the polarization of power is of little structural or explanatory
significance. I call these systems unpolarized. The distinction is impor-
tant because the wide dispersal of capabilities for violence in unpolarized
systems pushes in the direction of Hobbes’ terrifying war of all against
all (as in the parts of eleventh-century Europe where politics was largely
dominated by local lords (castellans)48).
Polarity, however, is one of many dimensions of differentiation, not an
independent variable. For example, although moves toward unipolarity
produced anti-hegemonic balancing in the modern European states sys-
tem, in China for more than two millennia rising powers were often met
45
See §7,2,3.
46
See §8.2. When divided functionally, powers differ qualitatively. Therefore, different
concentrations of power often cannot be aggregated into the quantitative distinctions
that underlie conventional notions of polarity. (This is especially true in systems with
tangled/heterarchic hierarchies. See §§15.2, 15.9).
47
Waltz’s distinction between bipolar and multipolar systems is obviously inadequate.
Even worse was his contrasting of bipolarity to all other forms of polarity. (1979, 161,
168, 176). (This fits Waltz’s pattern of identifying something of interest to him (e.g.,
anarchy or the system level) and then treating everything else as a residual.)
48
See, for example, (Barthélemy 2009 [1997]), (Bonnassie 2009 [1985]).
with bandwagoning. And the Cold War-era debate over the relative sta-
bility of bipolar and multipolar orders49 was, I would argue, fundamen-
tally misformulated as a question of independent-variable causal effects.
(Nuclear bipolarity was very different from the bipolarity of Thucydides’
world.)
11.4.2 Levels of Organization

Levels of organization, which we looked at in §§1.3 and 3.3, is another
important structural feature of international systems. For example, in
the past half century we have seen the emergence of a supranational but
sub-global level of organization (populated by transnational actors and
international and regional organizations and regimes of varied sorts).
Chapter 16 illustrates one way in which spatial levels of organization can
be deployed at the heart of structural models of polities and systems of
polities.
11.4.3 Interaction Capacity

An additional dimension of structural differentiation has been identified
by two of Waltz’s most astute sympathetic critics: what John Ruggie,
following Durkheim, calls dynamic density50 and what Barry Buzan and
Richard Little, in what I think is more descriptive language, call “inter-
action capacity.”51 The underlying idea is that the type and volume of
transactions that a system can sustain (“is designed to support”) is a
crucial structural feature. (For example, low interaction capacity is an
important aspect of forager societies.)
Interaction capacity is complexly related to other dimensions of differ-
entiation, including, most obviously, “the division of labor” (functional
differentiation) and geotechnics. Nonetheless, it is an emergent property
of social systems worth considering in its own right. (For example, both
“modernity” and “postmodernity”/globalization involved qualitative
jumps in interaction capacity.) Who can interact with whom with respect
to what is, as network approaches underscore, a central structural feature
of social and political systems.
49
(Deutsch and Singer 1964), (Waltz 1964), and (Rosecrance 1966) are classics.
50
(Ruggie 1983, 281ff.). See also (Barkdull 1995, 671–672). (Meijer and Jensen 2018) is
an interesting recent application of the concept.
51
(Buzan and Little 2000, 8–9, 80–84, 92–93, 190–215, 276–299, 382–383, 378–
379). See also (Buzan and Lawson 2015, ch. 3), (Buzan, Jones, and Little 1993,
ch. 4). For other uses of the concept, see, for example, (Butcher and Griffiths
2021), (Herrera 2003), (Phillips and Sharman 2015a, 438, 440; 2015b, 28–29, 49),
(Thies 2010).
11.5 Positioned Social Persons

Thinking in terms of differentiation shifts our attention from abstract
“units” or “actors” to social positions and their associated roles.
Waltz at one point claimed to present “a purely positional picture of
society.”52 Although no adequate account of the structuring of a society
can be purely positional,53 it often is fruitful to think of social systems as
composed of social positions (not “units”) – and social systems as “mul-
tidimensional space[s] of different social positions.”54 Furthermore, sys-
temic accounts, even when discussing actors, usually should emphasize
positioned actors whose interests, identities, and actions are shaped and
shoved by their placements in the system.
Unfortunately, though, Waltz identified not structured positions but
privileged actors.55 And by denying functional differentiation he effec-
tively denied the possibility of social positions – which I am arguing
should be the focus of systemic/relational research.
Both individual and group actors in the social world often can be prof-
itably understood as persons, in the sense of “a role or character assumed
in real life, or in a play, etc.; a part, function, or office; a persona.”56
They are social entities that have been constituted as capable of social
action. I would even suggest that “individual human beings” not only are
socially constructed but are social institutions.57
A focus on social positions also draws attention to the roles associated
with positions. In enacting roles, “actors” act as parts of a system, bring
agency and structuring together in practice.58
Consider, for example, the idea of polities as “powers,” which Edward
Keene shows emerged in early modern Europe and was intimately con-
nected with various gradings of the powers.59 Most obviously, “great
power” has long been understood as a social role with rights, responsi-
bilities, and status.60 And although great material power usually is asso-
ciated with this role, it is neither sufficient (consider China in the 2010s)
nor essential (consider the UK after World War II).61
52
(Waltz 1979, 80).
53
See §11.1.3.
54
(Blau 1977, 4). In IR, see, for example, (Nedal and Nexon 2019, 172–173).
55
He then compounded the problem by both pretending that they were not privileged and
treating them as the only structurally relevant actors.
56
57
See also §3.10.
58
On the inseparability of agency and structuring in social systems, see §3.5.
59
(Keene 2013, esp. 273–276).
60
See, for example, (Simpson 2004), (Lowenheim 2007), (Cui and Buzan 2016),
(McCormack 2019). Even Waltz (1979, ch. 9) shares this understanding.
61
To take a pre-modern, non-Western example, consider the shifting roles and statuses of
emperor, hegemon (ba), and “state” in China during the Eastern Zhou (770–221 bce )
dynasty. See, briefly, (Hsu 1999).
Thinking in terms of different types of “powers,” “states,” “sover-

eigns,” etc. – and the differences between these (and other) framings –
pushes our attention beyond abstract actors defined by one or a few
of their attributes (e.g., material resources or legal status) to consider
historically contingent sets of rights, responsibilities, expectations, and
dispositions that are related as parts of a larger whole (system). We are
encouraged to look at real positioned social persons.
This perspective also encourages us to appreciate and emphasize that
social actors at every level of social organization occupy multiple social
positions. For example, the biological entity that is writing these words
was constituted as a social person by birth in a particular place and
time, which gave him particular familial, ethnic, religious, and national
identities/personalities. Now, many decades later, he also (among other
things) is – that it, regularly enacts the roles of – a scholar and teacher, a
spouse and father, and a tennis player. He holds a particular professorial
position at a particular university and is a member of a particular nuclear
family and a particular tennis club. And “he” is the complex whole that
emerges from the assemblage of these (and other) positioned persons.
The “actors” in the social world are contingently stabilized multiplex
configurations of identifications, personalities, and roles for which we
often use substantialist shorthands such as “person,” “individual human
being,” “church,” “multinational corporation,” and “state.”
11.6 International Systems as Ecosystems

I want to close this introductory discussion of differentiation by suggest-
ing that social positions can profitably be seen as like ecological niches –
and international systems as like ecosystems.
Ecosystems – communities of living organisms of different types
linked with one another and with certain abiotic elements into systemic
wholes – are “societies” composed of communities of different species
living in differentiated niches. For example, at a high level of abstraction,
focusing on flows of energy and nutrients, ecosystems are composed of
autotrophs (especially plants and phytoplankton) that produce their own
food from inorganic materials, herbivores that are the primary consum-
ers of autotrophs, carnivores that consume herbivores (and other carni-
vores), and detritovores that live off of decomposing plant and animal
material.62 Types of ecosystems can be distinguished by the kinds, num-
bers, and distributions of (and relations between) niches, by the kinds of
creatures that occupy these niches, and by the system’s abiotic elements.
62
For a textbook account of the flow of energy and matter through ecosystems, see (Begon
and Townsend 2021, ch. 20, 21).
An ecosystems metaphor reminds us that systemic theory and research

focuses on relations between differentiated parts of a whole. For exam-
ple, where Waltzian individualistic statism focuses on selective pressures
on individuals within a niche that lead to their similarity63 an ecosystems
analogy draws our attention to selective pressures on populations and
how differences in niches produce diversity in the system (e.g., states and
nonstate actors – and various subtypes of each).
A substantial biological literature addresses “niche construction”64
and “ecosystems engineering.”65 Organisms not only adapt to their envi-
ronments but also (re)construct environments to better suit their needs.
(Consider beavers, African termites (Macrotermes), and earthworms –
not to mention Homo sapiens.) More generally, “all living creatures,
through their metabolism, their activities, and their choices, partly create
and partly destroy their own niches, on scales ranging from the extremely
local to the global.”66 And this can have significant evolutionary implica-
tions. “The selective environments of organisms are themselves partly
built by the niche constructing activities of the organisms that they are
selecting for.”67
In the case of human beings, social positions are neither fixed nor
entirely external to the organisms that occupy them. They are, to a
greater or lesser extent, created (and continuously transformed) by the
actions, interactions, and relations of the entities that occupy and act
within those positions/niches.
To return to states-in-a-states-system, Europe in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries was populated by a great variety of types of polities
occupying varied niches: kingdoms, duchies, counties, and various lesser
principalities; city-states, free cities, and urban corporations; villages and
parishes; margravates and marcher lordships; (arch)bishoprics; and sui
generis entities (such as the Papal States and the domains of the imperial
knights). Although kings and the Emperor had special statuses, in power
they were not even always first among equals. For example, when the
Burgundian Wars (1474–1477) began, it was not clear that the Duke
of Burgundy would lose to the alliance of the Swiss and the Emperor –
or that on the death of Charles the Bold (r. 1467–1477) France would
acquire Burgundy.
63
See §5.7.
64
See especially (Odling-Smee, Laland, and Feldman 1996; 2003). See also (Barker and
Odling-Smee 2014), (Connelly et al. 2016), (Loudon et al. 2016), (Odling-Smee et al.
2013), (Sultan 2015), (Turner 2016).
65
See especially (Jones, Lawton, and Shachak 1994), (Wright and Jones 2006). See also
(Barker and Odling-Smee 2014), (Erwin 2008), (Jones et al. 2010).
66
(Odling-Smee, Laland, and Feldman 2003, 1).
67
(Odling-Smee, Laland, and Feldman 2003, 17).
In the sixteenth century, leading royal polities (especially Valois

“France,” Hapsburg Castile/“Spain,” and, operating in the protected
niche of the British Isles, Tudor England) increasingly differentiated
themselves from other polities – which over the following centuries
slowly came to be subordinated, eliminated, or restricted to increasingly
marginal niches. By the mid-nineteenth century, “modern states” had
largely eliminated their competitors in the European core of the system.
Viewed in this light, globalization involves a fundamental ecological
change, from a system dominated by top predators (great powers) to
a much more complicated and biodiverse system that looks more like
fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Europe. (We will return to this argument
in §17.14.)
An ecosystems metaphor also usefully highlights the material dimen-
sion of social positions, which is almost entirely ignored in mainstream
discussions of structure. A niche is defined not simply by the kind of
organisms that occupy it and what they do but also by its material char-
acteristics (e.g., aquatic or terrestrial, desert or tundra). Similarly, the
characters and activities of occupants of social niches often are both
strongly shaped by and regularly contribute to (re)shaping the material
world.
11.7 Summary
Political structures do not come in just a few forms. And because there
are so many different “important” elements that combine in so many
ways, it is impossible to make many (if any) fruitful generalizations about
“the structure” of “international systems.” This chapter has, however,
identified several features that are recurrently significant in structuring
political systems and several framings that can help us to understand the
organization and operation of international political systems.
12 Continuous (Trans)formation
Producing Social Continuity and Social Change
In a world of pre-given substances (or static relations) change needs to

be explained. (“For a thing the default is persistence.”1) In a proces-
sual world, though, “change, not stasis, is the default state.”2 Persistence
demands explanation.3
Consider cancer. Much can be learned by studying pathological pat-
terns of cell growth. But normal cell growth is not unproblematically
given. It is produced and regulated in complex ways that demand atten-
tion (both in their own right and for understanding cancer).4 More
broadly, “health is not … the default condition of an organism until
something comes along to deflect it … It is a state that is maintained
by countless interconnected activities occurring throughout, and even
beyond, the organism.”5
In this chapter I argue that social continuity and social change are
socially produced, “equally important,” and usually inextricably interre-
lated – which makes the social world a world of continuous (trans)formation.
12.1 Systems Far from Thermodynamic Equilibrium

Focusing on processes of continuity and transformation draws attention
to the Second Law of Thermodynamics,6 which states that in “closed”
1
(Bertolaso and Dupré 2018, 321).
2
(Meincke 2018, 373). See also (Dupré 2021, §8.2), (Rescher 1996, 91).
3
(Anjum and Mumford 2018a, 71), (Arnellos 2018, 200), (Dupré and Nicholson 2018, 14).
4
(Bertolaso and Dupré 2018) develops this argument. (Bertolaso 2017) makes a similar
argument in the language of systems, subtitled “From Things to Relations.” (Plotynski
2019) provides a fascinating introduction to the philosophy of cancer, emphasizing (at
the end of §1) that “cancer” “is” “a heterogeneous class of disease processes, with few
definitive properties or unique causes.” (Strauss et al. 2021) advocates a complex sys-
tems approach to the study of cancer and its treatment.
5
(Dupré 2021, §8.2).
6
(Prigogine and Stengers 1984, esp. ch. 4, 5) is a classic popular account of the rise of ther-
modynamics as the basis for what are often called the sciences of complexity. (Goldstein
and Goldstein 1995) is another good semi-popular introduction. On the centrality of
time and irreversible processes (in contrast to time-reversible universal physical laws) see
204
Continuous (Trans)formation 205
systems – systems that do not take in matter, energy, or information7 from

their environments – entropy usually increases (and never decreases).8
Roughly, the disorder/randomness of a closed system always increases
(or remains constant). Systems tend, inexorably, over a long enough
time, toward a state of internal thermodynamic equilibrium, with uni-
form temperature and no macroscopic change.9 The standard textbook
example is a sealed chamber with separate quantities of warm and cold
gas that move toward a uniform gas of a single temperature.
Some “open” systems, however – systems that take in energy or
matter10 – can achieve and sustain states far from thermodynamic
equilibrium. There are “critical points beyond which the system may
present macroscopic phenomena of self-organization in space and
time.”11 As Erwin Schrödinger, who did some of the basic math, puts it
metaphorically, “organization [is] maintained by extracting ‘order’ from
the environment” as the system “feeds upon negative entropy.”12
A simple physical example is the patterned bubbling (Rayleigh–Bénard
convection cells) in a pot of water heated evenly from below. Typhoons
(Prigogine and Stengers 1984, ch. 7–9). More briefly, although more technically, see
Prigogine’s Nobel lecture (1978). (Kondepudi and Prigogine 2015) is a relatively acces-
sible college textbook introduction to this view of thermodynamics, understood as the
scientific theory of irreversible processes. (Buckley 1968, Pt. IV.A) contains leading
examples of early (and relatively accessible) work linking the ideas of entropy and systems.
7
I will hereafter ignore information. But see (Maroney 2009). In much more detail, for
those who can handle the Math and Physics (a group that I am not a part of), see (Gray
1990). In trying to get a handle on this topic, I found (Brillouin 1950; 1951; 1953;
1962, ch. 9) useful for brief, relatively accessible accounts of the similarities between
information and negentropy (as expressed in the nearly identical formulas for entropy
and “Shannon information”). I am confident, though, that I do not fully grasp what is
going on. Therefore, I have abstracted from information in the account that follows.
8
See, for example, (Prigogine and Stengers 1984, 14–18, 117–122, 137–139, ch. 8, ch.
9, 295–297), (Goldstein and Goldstein 1995, ch. 7–9). (Lemons 2013) is a useful intro-
duction at the level of freshman Physics. In IR, Randall Schweller (2010, 2014) has
drawn attention to entropy – although for very different purposes.
9
Stuart Kauffman (2000, 58–60) offers a brief, nonmathematical account. Roughly,
because “orderly” distributions (“macrostates”) are far more improbable than disor-
derly ones, “the increase of entropy in the second law is nothing but the tendency of
systems to flow from less probable to more probable macrostates” (2000, 60).
10
All systems have a considerable degree of operational closure. (Operations within the sys-
tem are qualitatively different from operations in or with the environment.) “Open” sys-
tems, however, are energetically open – and the exchange of energy (and matter) with the
environment is essential to the operational closure of the system. See (Von Bertalanffy
1950), (Luhmann 2013 [2002], 27–29ff., 64–70). It is important, though, not to exag-
gerate the operational closure of social systems. Social systems are structurally coupled
with other systems. Adaptation arises from interactions with the environment. And this
and the following chapters will give central attention to “multiple networks and flows
that intersect, interpenetrate, and collide through each other” (Padgett 2012a, 56–57).
11
(Prigogine 1975, 445). On self-organization as an essential feature of complex adaptive
systems, see §2.3.3.
12
(Schrödinger 2012 [1944], 73 [ch. 6]).
are sustained in far-from-thermodynamic-equilibrium states by massive

inputs of energy from warm water – until new inputs prove insufficient
and the system decays and then disappears. Living organisms are also
self-organizing13 far-from-equilibrium systems – as are the entities of the
social world.
Such “dissipative”14 systems or structures, however, can retain their
internal order only by increasing the disorder in their environment.
(Entropy increases in the larger system defined by the dissipative system
and its environment.) Order is always “paid for” by disorder elsewhere.
(The system sustains a far-from-thermodynamic-equilibrium state by, as
it were, displacing entropy into its environment.)
Most importantly for our purposes here, in open systems (which
includes all living and social systems) the “things” of the world are not
simply there. They are constantly being made into what they are. Per-
sistence is sustained only through change, both in the autocatalytic and
“metabolic” processes of the system and in the environment (from which
that system draws matter and energy and into which it discharges waste
byproducts). Social actors, institutions, practices, and structures, as well
as individual human beings, are temporary stabilizations of productive
processes in far-from-thermodynamic-equilibrium conditions.15
What something “is” is constantly being (re-)made. (A state, for
example, can be kept in the far-from-thermodynamic-equilibrium state
of statehood only through extensive and complex processes of (re)pro-
duction.) And in the social world, (re)productive processes are relatively
malleable and variable, in both their operation and their outcomes,
because they are neither determined by natural laws nor “coded” in a
biochemical medium of reproduction.
The persistence of social entities, practices, and relations thus is much
more problematic than it usually is taken to be (because of an unthink-
ing substantialist entity-bias that tends to treat things as given).16 At the
very least, persistence needs to be no less subject to investigation than
change.
13
See §2.3.3.
14
This terminology is due to Prigogine. See, for example, (Prigogine and Nicolis 1967),
(Prigogine 1975), and, in a much more accessible form (in a much broader context),
(Prigogine and Stengers 1984, 13–14, 143, 146, 171, 189).
15
See also §3.9.
16
In IR, despite growing recognition of the importance of constitutive relations, there is
still little attention to the processes that sustain social entities – and to the transforma-
tive implications of (re)productive processes. For example, despite increasing attention
to the construction of states through processes of state formation, it remains typical to
talk about, say, “the modern state” as an entity of a singular sort with an essential char-
acter – note the definite article – rather than, as we will see in Chapter 17, a continu-
ously transforming kind of thing.
The irreversibility of processes in far-from-equilibrium systems – a

simple physical example is the mixing of coffee and cream, which pro-
duces a more disordered system that cannot be restored to its former
state17 – also has important implications for the social world. There is
always a prominent dimension of what social scientists call path depen-
dence. As Prigogine puts it, in reference to the physical world, “the
stable states of the system are a function of its history, and not only of
the boundary conditions.”18 Therefore, although generalizations across
cases regularly are possible, it often will be problematic to ignore the pro-
cesses operating irreversibly across time that make the “thing” in ques-
tion what it “is.”19
12.2 Continuous (Trans)formation

Social continuities no less than social transformations are produced. The
(far-from-thermodynamic-equilibrium) “things” of the social world
are always being (re)formed into what they “are.” Without continuing
(re)formation/(re)production they decay and die. And if some part of
the social world is as it was at some point in the past, that is because of
contingent processes of re-production.
Processes of (re)production, however, regularly vary in their details.
(“Sameness” in social systems is a matter of more or less, within a
certain range of variation.) (Re)productive processes sometimes
misfire. Social actors regularly do old things in new ways and use old
things for new purposes. Occasionally they even create radically novel
entities, activities, or purposes. Furthermore, the environment for
action regularly changes, sometimes dramatically, provoking adaptive
responses.
Whatever their genesis and consequences, though, processes of social
formation are continuous. And both social continuities and social
changes arise from similar, sometimes even the same, processes.
17
Some chemical reactions, by contrast, are reversible. For example, you can dissolve salt
in water and then evaporate it back out. (The contrast is between complex and aggrega-
tive systems and effects. See §2.2.1.)
18
(Prigogine 1987, 100).
19
Any “laws” in the living and social worlds thus are, at best, what are sometimes called
ceteris paribus laws; laws that have more or less extensive “scope conditions,” as social
scientists say. The laws of fundamental Physics, by contrast, have traditionally been
understood to be “true, logically contingent, universal statements that support coun-
terfactual claims” (Reutlinger et al. 2019); that is, they hold everywhere, always (at
least since a very early point in the history of our universe). Whether there are in fact
such laws in the physical world is a matter of considerable debate. (See n. 65 in §4.6.1.)
Unquestionably, though, there are few if any in the living and social worlds. See also
(Craver and Kaiser 2013), (Giere 1999), (Mitchell 1997).
The modularity, multifunctionality, and redundancy characteristic of

multicomponent, multilevel, self-organizing complex adaptive systems20
typically results in the interpenetration of continuities and transforma-
tions. Little in the social world is exactly what or as it was a decade (or
even a year) ago. But little is entirely new.
“New” “things” usually are created through transposing, trans-
forming, reconfiguring, repurposing, or reprocessing old things. Even
“radical” social change usually arises from the long accumulation of
interconnected repurposings and rearrangements. And even truly novel
inventions usually become (more or less quickly and more or less com-
pletely) enmeshed in established entities and practices, often significantly
reshaping old and new alike.
Social systems are constantly adapting – in response to changes in the
environment, actors finding themselves in new situations, experiments
in doing old things in new ways, and, occasionally, even attempts to do
new things. And in competitive environments, adaptive change may be
required just to “stay the same.”
Adaptation, however, almost always is undertaken piecemeal (modu-
larly) and with resources already at hand: making it up as you go; tinker-
ing with small parts of a large and complicated system; moving practices
or resources from one domain to another.21 (Here the fact that social
actors perform many different roles in multiple subsystems is crucial.)
For example, workers often find themselves with opportunities or
demands to do their jobs differently. This usually involves discrete alter-
ations to particular practices. But even minor changes can cumulate or
migrate, so that after a time a group or organization (or even a sector)
finds itself doing “the same thing” differently. (Consider changes over
the past hundred years to house building, automobile manufacture,
medicine, and making dinner.)
Even when a decisive invention, such as steam power, fundamentally
transforms how people work across a wide range of domains, the trans-
formations are irregular, both in time and in space, usually slow (taking
generations not years), and complexly enmeshed with other practices
(both within and across organizations and domains). And those interre-
lated practices often are adapting on their own (also irregularly, slowly,
and in their own ways) and co-evolving with other transformed and
transformative practices.
This is not a superficially clever plus ça change story. Rather, it is a challenge
to thinking of constancy and change as fundamentally different, opposed, or
20
See §2.3.
21
On modularity in biological evolution, see §13.1.4.
unrelated. Once we abandon substantialism and focus on the making of

social continuities and social transformations, the similarities between pro-
ductive, re-productive, and transformative processes become as striking as
the differences. Both social continuities and social changes, I am arguing,
are manifestations of ongoing processes of continuous (trans)formation.
12.3 The Continuous (Trans)formation

of Early Modern Militaries
Consider an historical example: the transition from medieval to “mod-
ern” armies.
12.3.1 The Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Historians often speak of “the military revolution” in early modern
Europe.22 In Michael Roberts’ seminal account, European warfare was
fundamentally transformed between roughly 1560 (the end of the Ital-
ian Wars) and roughly 1660 (the end of the Franco-Spanish War) by
changes in infantry and cavalry tactics, associated changes in strategy,
and a massive growth in the size of armies.23
This “revolution,” however, took a century. And it involved the piece-
meal and stop-and-go accumulation and integration of relatively modest
changes in tactics and strategy – which were not static either before or
after “the revolution.”
Geoffrey Parker presents “the military revolution” as taking place over
three centuries (1500–1800),24 with roots going back a further two cen-
turies. Although Parker sees the “rapid” spread of firearms as at the heart
of the revolution25 he acknowledges that small caliber firearms were first
used on European battlefields in the early fourteenth century26 and that
powerful siege guns were introduced at the beginning of the fifteenth
century.27 In other words, the process was not a bit revolutionary. And it
is not even clear that change was obviously more prominent during “the
revolution” than before or after it.
22
In addition to the works cited in the following notes, see, for example, (Duffy 1980),
(Parrott 1985), (Adams 1990), (Black 1991; 2011), (Downing 1992), (Kingra 1993),
(Eltis 1995), (Storrs and Scott 1996), (Paul 2004), (Rodger 2011), (Jacob and Visoni-
Alonzo 2016), (Conca Messina 2019 [2016], ch. 3), (Storrs 2019), (Costa 2021).
23
(Roberts 1956) = (Roberts 1967, 195–225), reprinted in (Rogers 1995). See also
(Parker 1976), which is also reprinted in (Rogers 1995).
24
(Parker 1996). Parker defends the use of the label “revolution” at pp. 157–158.
25
(Parker 1996, 4).
26
(Parker 1996, 16–17).
27
(Parker 1996, 7).
For example, the decisive innovation, at the end of the sixteenth cen-
tury, of volley fire from men arrayed in ranks28 was literally a matter
of rearranging existing resources. It had a transformative impact only
gradually, as it became interlinked with changes in strategy, tactics, and
training that, in order to be realized, required (and provoked) changes
in military finance (and through that the state29). And “the revolu-
tion” spread very irregularly (with irregular effects). As Parker notes,
“throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, numerous
encounters occurred in which troops equipped with all the tools of the
military revolution were put to flight by the headlong charge of a horde
of [Scots] clansmen armed only with traditional weapons.”30
On top of all of this, there were comparable “military revolutions”
both before and after this one. Clifford Rogers argues for a military revo-
lution during the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453).31 If Napoleon did
not trigger another military revolution, there certainly was at least one
industrial-era military revolution – followed by a nuclear revolution. And
even if we are reluctant to call “the revolution in military affairs” of the
post-Cold War era32 a true revolution, it significantly transformed the
organization and operation of American armed forces (which are con-
tinuing to be transformed in our globalizing world). Thus MacGregor
Knox and Williamson Murray edited a volume titled The Dynamics of
Military Revolution, 1300–205033 – or, as I would put it, continuous
(trans)formation in military affairs.
12.3.2 The Military Revolution in Early Modern France

Late-medieval armies (composed of heavily armored cavalry combined
with infantry armed with pikes or bows, raised largely through feudal
levies) were not in any simple way “replaced” by a new kind of modern
armed force. “Modern armies” emerged very slowly through a series of
significant but relatively modest modifications. I illustrate this here by
looking at two snapshots of France (the only first-tier military power
across the whole of the early modern period) in the mid-sixteenth cen-
tury and the late-seventeenth century.
28
(Parker 1996, 19ff.). Parker also emphasizes changes in fortifications and siege tech-
nologies and tactics. For simplicity here, though, I focus on infantries, which are central
to both Roberts’ and Parker’s accounts.
29
See §17.10.2.
30
(Parker 1996, 35).
31
(Rogers 1993). See also (Querengässer 2021).
32
See (O’Hanlon 2000, 2018), (Bousquet 2017), (Raska 2021).
33
(Knox and Murray 2001).
During the first three wars (1562–1563, 1567–1568, 1568–1570) of the

Wars of Religion (1562–1598)34 – which pitted King Charles IX (r. 1560–
1574) and his (largely Catholic) noble allies against varying alliances of
(largely Protestant) nobles and cities – only between a quarter and a third
of the king’s army was composed of standing royal forces. The bulk came,
in roughly equal proportions, from mercenaries35 and feudal levies.36
The limits of the king’s control over foreign mercenaries is obvious.
No less importantly, though, “royal” forces under the king’s command
“were little more than the armed clients of their noble commanders.”37
They provided their own arms (which they took back home with them
after the fighting). They served largely at their own discretion. And they
usually had crosscutting (and often primary) allegiances to their com-
manders and to provincial and local nobles where they lived.
To get a sense of the hodgepodge that made up the king’s army, con-
sider the following description of reinforcements during the third war.
In September, 1568, at Saumur Montpensier with some companies of gendarmes
and a Poitvin infantry regiment under Richelieu was joined by a Breton infantry
regiment and cavalry contingent under Martigues. By October, at Châtellerault,
Montpensier had been reinforced by … veteran French infantry under Brissac
and Strossi, and two advance groups of gendarmes under Guise and Longueville.
In early November … [Henry, Duke of] Anjou [the king’s brother and the future
King Henry III] arrived at Châtellerault to take command … At Dissay in mid-
December … Brissac and Strossi were joined by another three French infantry
regiments and large contingents of infantry and cavalry raised in Languedoc by
Sarlaboz and Joyeuse. … [I]n late January, 1569 … the count of Tende had
arrived from Dauphiny and Provence with another infantry regiment and more
cavalry. … In June, at Saint-Benoit, the worn-out but still substantial elements
of Aumale’s eastern army added to the total … [and] Jehan de Monluc joined the
army with his regiment of Gascon infantry.38
We see here two immediate members of the Guise family,39 the lead-
ing supporters of the king, plus several members of the Guise network:
34
(Holt 2005) is the standard English-language history.
35
“Foreign” forces were essential to both sides. See, for example, (Salmon 1975, 147,
170, 174, 198, 237), (Knecht 1996, 36), (Holt 2005, 65, 69, 105), (Wood 1996, 7, 12,
13, 17, 20–22, 35, 56–59, 73, 123, 185, 208, 232–234). And in the later wars, they were
often decisive. For example, in 1576, when 20,000 Germans joined the Protestants,
“the crown’s authority and military power had so disintegrated that peace was virtually
dictated to it by a Huguenot-led German mercenary army camped unopposed in the
center of the kingdom” (Wood 1996, 7).
36
(Wood 1996, 44–66, 71–72, 233, Table 9.2).
37
(Collins 1995, 14).
38
(Wood 1996, 232).
39
In addition to (Henry I, [the third] Duke of) Guise, “Aumale” is Claude II, [the second]
Duke of Aumale, the third son of Claude of Lorraine (and Antoinette of Bourbon), the
first Duke of Guise.
Louis of Bourbon, duke of Montpensier,40 Leonor of Orleans, Duke

of Longueville and soon-to-become governor of Picardy, Sebastian of
Luxembourg-Martigues, governor of Brittany, Corbeyran de C ardaillac
de Sarlaboz, governor of Le Havre, Philippe Strossi [Filippo Strozzi],
a noble soldier of fortune,41 and William, viscount of Joyeuse.42 We
also see several clients of the Valois king: Francois du Plessis, seigneur
of Richelieu,43 Timoleon de Cossé, count of Brissac, and Léonor of
Orleans, Duke of Longueville.44 And Jehan de Monluc had family ties to
both the Guises and the Valois.45
The “French” component of the king’s army thus was in large
measure a Valois-Guise military alliance that mobilized the patronage
networks of these two leading families.46 And as the campaign dragged
on, foreign forces came to play an increasingly significant role, making
up the majority of the force by the summer of 1569.47 The king’s army
“was in most respects an ad hoc and temporary conglomeration.”48 And
the opposing army was entirely an ad hoc assemblage.49
These armies were “but a small step forward from the feudal levies
of the middle ages.”50 Even in the mid-seventeenth century the French
army, as Ronald Asch put it, was “almost a republic of semi-independent
warlords.”51 For example, at the siege of La Rochelle in 1627, the Duke
of Rochefoucald, the governor of a relatively small province, arrived with
1,500 mounted men – on four days’ notice!52
The king persuaded, cajoled, and coerced the high nobility more than
he commanded them. He allied with, rather than ruled over, the leading
nobles – when he was not struggling with or fighting against them.
40
Two years later he married Catherine of Lorraine, the sister of Henry [I, the third],
Duke of Guise.
41
Martigues, Sarlaboz, and Strozzi had a few years earlier fought in Scotland for Mary of
Guise, regent for her daughter Mary Stuart.
42
His son Anne was a favorite of King Charles’ brother, Henry, who arranged for his
sister-in-law (the daughter of the Duke of Mercoeur, a strong Guise ally) to marry Anne.
43
The famous seventeenth-century Cardinal was his son.
44
His son, Henry, was governor of Picardy and later fought for King Henry III against the
Catholic League and for Henry IV.
45
I have been unable to determine how the Count of Tende was tied into these networks.
46
On early modern families and patronage see §17.5.2.
47
(Wood 1996, 233, Table 9.2).
48
(Wood 1996, 42).
49
Furthermore, the walled towns that proved essential to the Protestant cause had con-
siderable military autonomy. Royal garrisons were small and often influenced by local
loyalties. Conversely, town militias could be significant forces. (For example, in 1597
Amiens had a force of 3,000 men. (Major 1994, 33).) And well-fortified towns usually
could outlast any siege the king was able to (afford to) muster.
50
(Major 1962, 119).
51
(Asch 2014, 110).
52
(Collins 1995, 28).
A century later, under Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), royal armies were
immensely larger53 and considerably more centralized. In addition, most
nobles could no longer raise forces independently.54 But Louis fielded
not “modern armies,” as we understand them, but what John Lynn
nicely calls state commission armies.55 Although armies of the crown
(rather than an agglomeration of royal, noble, and mercenary forces)
they relied centrally on private commissioning.56
The crown contracted with (noble) colonels, who recruited soldiers
(usually through local and patronage networks) and then equipped,
trained, and paid them.57 The crown also contracted with (usually
noble) “enterprisers,” as David Parrott calls them,58 who supplied the
troops (at a profit). (More than half of a French private’s pay in the late
seventeenth century went back to his commander and enterprisers to
purchase his uniform and food.59 The government only began to provide
arms directly to soldiers in 172760 and bread in 1799.61) This system
was largely a “modernized” version of the late-medieval practice of “the
enlistment of magnates as tax-funded recruiters of armies over which
they could expect to exercise a fair measure of informal control.”62
In addition, Louis institutionalized the practice of venality in military
office.63 Colonels “were officially allowed to sell the captaincies to suit-
able candidates. In their turn the captains sold lieutenancies … until
each commission from the lowest to the highest came to be regarded as
53
Louis’ largest army, of about 350,000, was more than double the largest French force
during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) – which itself was three times the largest
French army during the Italian Wars (1494–1559). See (Downing 1992, 69), (Parrott
2012a, 65), and, in greater depth, (Lynn 1997, ch. 2).
54
(Rowlands 2002, 354–361), (Lynn 1997, 347). Nonetheless, Louis XIV’s resort to feu-
dal levies in 1674, 1685, and 1695 (Storrs and Scott 1996, 5. See also (Corvisier 1979
[1976], 25–27)), although of limited success, indicates the persistence of (local) armed
forces not under the control of the king.
55
(Lynn 1997, 9; 2001, 52).
56
For a brief overview of French armed forces during the ancien régime, see (Parrott
2012a).
57
Even this reflected some “progress” in royal control from the Thirty Years’ War, when
entire armies were raised by entrepreneur-generals like Wallenstein. (Anderson 1998
[1988], Pt. 1) is a good overview of military entrepreneurship in the half century before
Louis XIV assumed personal rule.
58
(Parrott 2001, 549; 2012b, 18, 20–22, and passim).
59
(Childs 1982, 62).
60
(Anderson 1998 [1988], 106).
61
(Corvisier 1979 [1976], 93).
62
(Watts 2009, 223).
63
(Parrott 2012b, 69, 291, 292–294), (Rowlands 2002, 166–171, 343–353), (Lynn 1997,
230–231), (Potter 2003b). Even Britain sold army offices – in 1720, the government
published an official pricelist (Guy 1985, 138) – although not naval offices. (Brewer
1990 [1988], 44–45), (Bruce 1980).
a piece of property.”64 The best the king and his ministers could do was
to try “as far as possible to keep major military commands in the hands
of family, clients and allies.”65
During the eighteenth century, the king continued to increase his con-
trol over “his” armed forces. But it wasn’t until Napoleon, at the earliest,
that France had anything resembling a “modern army.”66
12.4 The Inseparability of Continuities and Transformations

This, I want to suggest, is the standard pattern in the social world. Snap-
shot comparisons across centuries often suggest radical breaks. On time
frames of a couple decades, though, sharp changes are rarely evident.
And even when they are, the modularity of change means that continu-
ities usually are as striking to many equally astute observers.
Furthermore, when we consider processes of reproduction and transfor-
mation, we usually see neither radical change nor stasis but continuous
(trans)formation. Both old and new typically both transform and are
transformed by each other. And often there is no neutral perspective
from which to determine which is “more important.”
Distinct types and chronological divisions thus are largely conventional;
that is, more or less illuminating and more or less misleading. For exam-
ple, the common distinction, drawn by Waltz and regularly employed in
the regimes literature, between change of a system and change within a
system67 is, at best, overdrawn. As I argued above, international systems
have neither ordering principles nor essences.68 For certain analytical
purposes we might say that around time x accumulated changes can prof-
itably be considered to have produced a change of system (e.g., a military
revolution). But from another perspective, looking at other dimensions
and elements of the system, continuity may be more striking.
64
(Childs 1982, 78–79). In Prussia, officers in times of peace not only continued to be
paid for their regiment but were allowed to have their soldiers work for them as peasants
or artisans (Kindleberger 1984, 173). On the sale of office more broadly in Bourbon
France, see §17.7.2.
65
(Harding 1978, 284).
66
In another context, I would emphasize that what an “army” “is” changed with these
processes. For example, armies understood as the armed forces of a state/polity did
not exist before the eighteenth or nineteenth century. Even understanding armies as
the armed forces of a ruler, in Europe this was, as the example of France suggests, a
seventeenth- or eighteenth-century invention. Or consider the well-known demise of
mercenarism (and the associated rise of citizen-soldier armies) – and then its twenty-
first-century revival (for example, half of US forces in the Iraq war, and two-thirds in
Afghanistan, were, at the height of those conflicts, “civilian contractors”).
67
(Waltz 1979, 92, 145, 201), (Krasner 1982, 189).
68
See §9.2.
Even directional change usually appears directional only after the

operation of extensive and extended (usually self-organized69) processes
of continuous (trans)formation – Richelieu, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV
had not the slightest idea of the modern state that they, with the benefit
of hindsight, are usually seen as having helped to build – and usually only
if we arbitrarily break the flow by specifying a conventional ideal type or
terminus ad quem.70
Dynamic productive processes are essential to both social continu
ities and social changes. And the distinctions between production,
reproduction, and transformation are, in time frames of years and
decades, often obscure at best. The social world is a world of continuous
(trans)formation.
12.5 Transposition and Re-functionality

The framing of continuous (trans)formation is mine. It draws heavily,
though, on work by John Padgett and Walter Powell, discussed in this
section, and William Sewell, discussed in the next section.
Padgett and Powell’s edited volume The Emergence of Organizations
and Markets71 presents a framework for thinking about the emergence of
economic and political “organizations,” broadly understood, that they and
their collaborators test in a dozen case studies of market and state forma-
tion in medieval and modern Europe, communist and p ost-communist
transitions, and the development of a new kind of b io-tech firm and
industry in the 1970s and 1980s. I focus here on their conceptualization
of interrelated processes of reproduction and transformation in terms
of transposition and re-functionality. (For expositional convenience I will
refer to everything in this volume, which was conceived of and functions
as a collective project, as “Padgett and Powell.” Footnotes indicate the
particular author(s) and chapter(s) referenced.)
69
On the importance of self-organization in complex adaptive systems, see §2.3.3. See also
§§13.3.1, 13.3.2.
70
The exceptions that come to my mind involve collapse (e.g., Minoan and Mayan
civilization) or decay (e.g., the late Roman Empire) rather than construction of a

new order – which, it seems to me, also underscores the productive, transformational
(i.e., anti-entropic) nature of continuity.
71
(Padgett and Powell 2012b). This, in my view, is one of the two most exciting works
(along with the second edition of Harrison White’s Identity and Control (2008)) in
twenty-first-century relational/systemic social science. While writing this book I repeat-
edly taught Padgett and Powell’s book in my PhD seminar on relational approaches in
IR. The similarities between my account and theirs thus is a hard-to-untangle mix of the
convergence of independent lines of thought (that originated in rather different places
but came to be linked through the idea of complex adaptive systems) and (intentional
and unintentional) appropriations.
Emphasizing self-organizing72 “autocatalytic”73 processes – that is,

“the self-sustaining flows of ideas and resources that constitute and
reproduce actors and activities”74 – Padgett and Powell argue that “all
new organizational forms, no matter how radically new, are combina-
tions and permutations of what was there before.”75 New institutional
forms typically arise through “cross-network processes of transposition,
refunctionality, and catalysis.”76 “Parts of life from one domain find
a commonality, utility, or simply a resonance in a different and unex-
pected domain”77 – and in doing so, transform that domain.
This sort of change is rooted in the multiple intersecting networks that
are a universal feature of the multilevel, multicomponent complex adap-
tive systems that populate the living and social worlds.78 “Multiple over-
lapping domains emerge in autocatalytic models because shared rules
and products create synergistic feedbacks – both positive for stimulation
and negative for regulation – between individual autocatalytic produc-
tion networks.”79 When people who participate in many networks use
skills or practices that are typically employed in one domain atypically in
another domain, such transpositions can be transformative when “new
interactions feed back to alter the way existing relations reproduce.”80
Padgett and Powell suggest that the label recombination “is too atom-
istic.”81 “The elements being recombined are not atomic entities, decou-
pled from their context, but rather nodes or ties in some network or other.
For that reason, network folding more accurately describe[s] the phenom-
ena we observe.”82 I would say that both framings have their uses. (For
example, recombination emphasizes the modularity of complex systems83
72
See §2.3.3.
73
See n. 81 in §2.3.3.
74
(Powell and Sandholtz 2012, 400).
75
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 2). “New things trace their lineages back through earlier
incarnations and to the careers of individuals involved in their construction” (Powell
and Sandholtz 2012, 379).
76
(Padgett 2012b, 170). See also (Padgett and Powell 2012d, 377).
77
(Padgett and Powell 2012a, 567).
78
See §§2.3.1, 2.3.4.
79
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 9. See also 7 n. 20). (This passage continues: “Because of
such synergies, multiple networks that self-organize are reproductively more resilient
than any one autocatalytic network alone.”) See also (Padgett, McMahan, and Zhong
2012, 85) and §2.3.5.
80
(Padgett 2012b, 170).
81
82
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 6 n. 18).
83
See §2.3.4. Furthermore, in practice Padgett and Powell (2012e, 6 n. 18) “stick with the
word recombination because that is so prevalent in the literature.” And they focus “on
components of new things and identifying the sources of separable parts, which can be
moved, recombined, and translated by inventive humans” (Powell and Sandholtz 2012,
379).
and suggests assemblages.84) But I think that their most descriptive frame
is transposition and re-functionality85 – “the movement of a relational prac-
tice from one domain to another and its reuse for a different function or
purpose in the new domain.”86
Padgett and Powell’s case studies not only illustrate transposition and
re-functionality but identify several particular mechanisms.87 For exam-
ple, Powell and Kurt Sandholtz show how a new type of “dedicated bio-
tech firm” emerged from reconfiguring the boundaries between academic
science and commerce and introducing new forms of finance.88 Powell,
Kelley Packalen, and Kjersten Whittington show how the mechanism
of “anchoring diversity” – “the mediating role of community-oriented
organizations”89 that provide “a scaffolding that, either intentionally or
unexpectedly, assists subsequent connections and field formation”90 –
led to the concentration of this new industry in the Bay Area, Boston,
and northern San Diego county.91 Padgett traces the emergence mer-
chant banks in the thirteenth century to innovations made by Pope
Urban IV to fund his crusade against the Emperor, which created posi-
tive feedback loops in Tuscany.92 In another chapter he explains the rise
of the Dutch Republic by the spread of mechanisms of lateral control
and federalist ties operating homologously in government, the Church,
84
See §1.8.
85
Padgett and Powell speak of “the generality of cross-network refunctionality” (2012d,
377) and often use “transposition and refunctionality” as a general description of
“the dynamics of reproduction of multiple networks” (Padgett 2012d, 170). See also
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 7, 11), (Padgett 2012a, 46, 60), (Padgett 2012c, 122),
(Padgett 2012b, 222), (Obert and Padgett 2012, 257), (Padgett and Powell 2012d,
376, 377), (Powell and Sandholtz 2012, 383, 386, 400, 406, 408), (Powell, Packalen,
and Whittington 2012, 437–440, 449, 459–461), (Colyvas and Maroulis 2012, 496),
(Padgett and Powell 2012a, 569). They also, though, present “transposition and refunc-
tionality” as one particular mechanism by which network folding takes place. (Padgett
and Powell 2012e, 12–15; Padgett 2012d). Here I follow the broader usage, which
treats mechanisms such as “incorporation and detachment” and “migration and homol-
ogy” (Padgett and Powell 2012e, 14–17) as types of, rather than alternatives to, trans-
position and re-functionality.
86
87
The mechanisms that they identify are summarized at (Padgett and Powell 2012e,
11–26).
88
(Powell and Sandholtz 2012, 380, 400–406). See also (Powell and Owen-Smith 2012,
492).
89
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 15–16).
90
(Powell, Packalen, and Whittington 2012, 439). They draw an analogy (Powell,
Packalen, and Whittington 2012, 439 n. 6) to keystone species (e.g., beavers) and pres-
ent anchor tenants as “pollinators that create an open platform that others can build on
for community-wide benefit.”
91
“The core factors are (1) a diversity of organizational forms and (2) the presence of an
anchor tenant, and the mechanism is cross-realm transposition” (Powell, Packalen, and
Whittington 2012, 438).
92
(Padgett 2012c).
and the economy.93 Jonathan Obert and Padgett look at Bismarck’s uni-
fication of Germany as a process of “dual inclusion,” symbolized in the
slogan “Prussia is in Germany and Germany is in Prussia,” which pro-
duced a distinctive hybrid of democracy and autocracy that was able to
knit together rural and urban elites and left and right political parties in
a new constitutional and bureaucratic structure.94
Padgett and Powell employ an open-ended relational processual
understanding of actors similar to my account in §§3.5–3.10.95 Actors
are understood as “clusters of relational ties”96 or “cross-domain com-
posites of roles.”97 “Network reproduction generates people as social
actors by shaping and composing the roles that act through them.”98
And these socially constructed social actors are the “vehicles through
which autocatalytic life self-organizes.”99
Social actors are both the creations and the creators of structured
social relations. And in this deeply processual account, both agents and
structures are “vortexes in the flow of social life.”100
Organizational structure is the blending, transformation, and reproduction, on-
site, of networks and interaction rules transported by people into the site from
numerous sources. People, conversely, are the hybridized residues of past net-
works and rules acquired through interaction at their previous organizational
sites. In other words, both organizations and people are shaped … by the history
of each flowing through the other.101
Actors are sets of skills and relational ties that produce not only “prod-
ucts” but also relational structures and their very selves.
“Autocatalytic networks are networks of transformations, not net-
works of mere transmission. … social networks don’t just pass things;
they do transformational work.”102 “Individuals construct organiza-
tions with the social and technical tools they have at hand, fashion-
ing the future with the available tools of the past and present.”103 And
93
(Padgett 2012b).
94
(Obert and Padgett 2012).
95
I would say the same thing of my book that they say of theirs: “This volume carries on
[Harrison White’s] tradition of deriving social actors from concatenated social rela-
tions” (Padgett 2012a, 58).
96
(Padgett 2012b, 170).
97
(Padgett 2012b, 170). “Network reproduction generates people as social actors by
shaping and composing the roles that act through them” (Padgett 2012b, 170).
98
(Padgett 2012b, 170).
99
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 3). On autocatalysis, see n. 79 in §2.3.3.
100
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 8). See also §3.5.
101
(Padgett 2012b, 171).
102
(Padgett 2017, 67).
103
(Powell, Packalen, and Whittington 2012, 434).
“within constraints, component parts are transformed and molded into

ongoing streams of action.”104
Continuous (trans)formation.
12.6 Eventful History

William Sewell presents another complementary account of social conti-
nuity and social change, focusing on “events,” understood as “sequences
of occurrences that result in transformations of structures.”105
Structured social action tends to reproduce structured social relations.
As Sewell puts it, “most happenings … reproduce social and cultural struc-
tures without significant changes.”106 But “events,” “although they are
shaped by structures, transform the structures that shaped them.”107 And
“social change, no less than social stasis, can be generated by the enactment
of structures in social life”108 – as a result of the multiplicity of structure,
the operation of social agency, and the resistance of “a balky world, which
is under no obligation to behave as our categories tell us it should.”109
Sewell argues that “a plural rather than a singular conception of struc-
ture is absolutely crucial for a plausible theory of events.”110 “Structures
need to be seen as multiple in the … sense that different institutional
realms, operating at varying social and geographical scales, operate
according to different … logics.”111
Social systems – especially large-scale systems such as national and
international societies – “should be conceptualized as the sites of a mul-
titude of overlapping and interlocking cultural [and material] struc-
tures.”112 “Societies are based on practices that derive from many
104
(Padgett and Powell 2012e, 8). “Individuals construct organizations with the social
and technical tools they have at hand, fashioning the future with the available tools of
the past and present” (Powell, Packalen, and Whittington 2012, 434).
105
(Sewell 2005, 227. See also 8, 100, 199, 218, 225, 228). Padgett and Powell (see
2012a, 60–61) also draw on Sewell.
106
(Sewell 2005, 100). “Most social practices … tend to be reproduced with considerable
consistency over relatively extended periods of time” (Sewell 2005, 226).
107
(Sewell 2005, 204).
108
(Sewell 2005, 143).
109
(Sewell 2005, 204).
110
(Sewell 2005, 205).
111
(Sewell 2005, 208). Note the striking similarity of Sewell’s account, Harrison White’s
emphasis on the multiplicity of “netdoms” (see §3.10), Padgett and Powell’s stress on
multiple intersecting networks (see §12.5), and my emphasis (see ch. 11) on multiple
dimensions of differentiation. The plurality of structuring relations and process, oper-
ating in different institutional domains, at different levels of organization, and at differ-
ent scales is a central feature of a systemic/relational approach developed in this book.
112
(Sewell 2005, 209. See also 143). The social “is constituted by overlapping and inter-
connected streams of semiotic [and material] practices.” (Sewell 2005, 21). (For
distinct structures, which exist at different levels, operate in different

modalities, and are themselves based on widely varying types and quan-
tities of resources.”113 “Social space [is] made up of multiple, uneven,
overlapping, and non-isomorphic networks.”114
“Given that structures overlap, cultural meanings and identities
derived from one structure or institutional sphere can be transposed to
others.”115 And people participating in multiple institutional domains
regularly encounter situations where they are able, or even encouraged,
to make such transpositions.
Eventful change, Sewell argues, typically arises from “the necessary
but risky application of existing cultural categories to novel circum-
stances.”116 Such innovations create “ruptures.” Although the reproduc-
tive power of systems leads to most disruptions being “neutralized and
reabsorbed into the preexisting structures in one way or another,”117
some spread and become transformative.
Social processes are both structured and “inherently contingent,
discontinuous, and open-ended.”118 Therefore, much as agency and
structuring are interdependent temporal and analytical perspectives on
the flow of social processes,119 structure and event, rather than “hostile
and mutually incomprehensible” categories, are i nterdependent. “Each
category implies and requires the other.”120 “Events … are trans-
formations of structure, and structure is the cumulative outcome of
past events.”121
In fact, as Marshall Sahlins puts it, “the transformation of a culture
is a mode of its reproduction.”122 The transformed system is “the same
system” in a new form; the particular way that the system has (re)pro-
duced itself (which, like all social construction/(re)production, is based
on and derived from but not identical to what came before). Structured
Sewell’s emphasis on the material dimensions of social structure and practice, see (esp.
2005, 356–369).) Society is a site/system where multiple sets of relations overlap and
interpenetrate.
113
(Sewell 2005, 140).
114
(Sewell 2005, 121).
115
(Sewell 2005, 209 [emphasis added]. See also 140).
116
(Sewell 2005, 291).
117
(Sewell 2005, 227).
118
(Sewell 2005, 110).
119
See §3.5.
120
(Sewell 2005, 199). “It is the powerfully recurrent or structured character of social
existence, the strong tendency of social relations to be reproduced, that makes the
event an interesting and problematic category in the first place” (Sewell 2005, 199).
Therefore, “the key to an adequate theory of the event is a robust theory of structure”
(Sewell 2005, 219. See also 226).
121
(Sewell 2005, 199).
122
(Sahlins 1985, 138), quoted in (Sewell 2005, 200).
action (re)produces structured relations that, whether their form is the

same or changed, structure future action.
Change, because it is modular and accomplished largely with the
resources at hand, usually appears relatively rapidly in particular sub-
populations or subsystems. As Sewell puts it, “when changes do take
place, they are rarely smooth and linear in character; instead, changes
tend to be clustered into relatively intense bursts. … Lumpiness, rather
than smoothness, is the normal texture of historical temporality.”123 And
then, if a change catches on, it radiates or percolates – sometimes slowly,
sometimes rapidly, usually at different rates in different institutional and
spatial domains – through the interconnected networks of relations in
and between systems.
Even “eventful” (structurally transformative) social change is deeply
embedded in existing structures and networks. It is always re-making
(not starting over). And its transformative effects usually lie in how these
innovations play out through, and trigger other changes in, other parts of
complicated, complex, multiactor, multilevel systems.
12.7 Conclusion
The framings of continuous (trans)formation, transposition and
re-functionality, and eventful history share several understandings that
are central to relational/systemic analysis as I understand it. I summarize
them here while drawing connections with the discussions of systems,
agency, structure, and persons in Chapters 2 and 3.
• The structuring of a social system is both the result of streams of social
action and an emergent (irreducible) property of the system.
• Structure is not a thing but a property. Therefore, rather than speak of
a structure or the structure – framings that are too easily reified – we
should think of structured structuring relations (and configured con-
figuring processes).
• Social structuring is multidimensional; complex combinations of webs
of relations, in multiple institutional domains, operate at varied orga-
nizational levels and spatial scales.
• Different analytical and pragmatic purposes generate different
fruitful depictions of selected structuring elements of a system.

There is no privileged perspective on “the structure” of a social or
political system.
123
The parallel with punctuated equilibrium in Evolutionary Biology (Eldredge and
Gould 1972; Gould 2007) is striking. Padgett and Powell also repeatedly note the
parallel (2012b, 7, 9, 44–46, 119, 168, 173, 187–188, 309, 466–467).
• Agency, like structure, is a property (not a thing). And it is possessed

by social actors at multiple levels of social organization, from individu-
als to international organizations and global corporations.
• Social agency involves positioned social action, which is possible only
in structured social situations.
• The actors in international relations are not pregiven entities with an
essential character but evolving assemblages of identities generated
across time in multiple institutional domains, on multiple levels of
social organization.
• Agency and structuring are not opposed processes but inescapably
interrelated perspectives on social systems. In the short run, agents
create structuring configurations of relations and processes. In the
long run, structured actions make agents.
• Social continuities are no less socially produced than social change –
usually by the same kinds of mechanisms and processes. Dynamic
productive processes are essential to both continuities and transfor-
mations in the social world.
• The modularity, multifunctionality, and redundancy characteristic of
multicomponent multilevel self-organizing complex adaptive systems
typically results in the interpenetration of continuities and transforma-
tions. In social systems, the distinctions between processes of produc-
tion, reproduction, and transformation often are obscure and depend
centrally on where in the system one looks.
• Social change typically occurs modularly and relatively rapidly,
through transposition and re-functionality, in a sub-population or
sub-system, and then radiates or percolates through interpenetrating
and overlapping networks.
• Social processes, although structured, are also open-ended, as a result
of the multiplicity and interpenetration of networks of structuring
relations, the productive power of social agency, and the resistance of
the world.
13 Life Sciences and Social Sciences
Studying Co-evolving Complex Adaptive Systems
This chapter extends the argument of the preceding chapter by looking

at how biologists approach issues of continuities and transformations.
Mainstream social science, when it looks for parallels with the natu-
ral sciences, tends to look to classical Physics, which stresses laws and
theories. I am suggesting that we look instead to Biology, which explains
principally with models and mechanisms.1 Like John Padgett and Walter
Powell, I see “the biology, not the physics, view of science”2 as essen-
tial to progress in the social sciences, because it not merely enables but
demands relational/systemic research and explanations.3 Developmental
Biology (which studies the (re)production of organisms) and Evolution-
ary Biology (which studies heritable changes in populations) seem to me
of special interest for systemic/relational IR for at least three reasons.
• These disciplines address (complex adaptive) living systems in ways
very similar to the ways that I am arguing that social scientists should
address (complex adaptive) social systems.
• Systemic approaches have proved productive – while eliminative
reductionist explanatory programs have failed, dramatically (and rela-
tively recently).
• There are robust substantive analogies between the production of con-
tinuities (development) and transformations (evolution) in the living
and social worlds.
I have made this a separate chapter (rather than the second half of
the preceding chapter) partly because of length but also because some
1
I introduced this distinction in §4.8.2.
2
3
The obvious reply is to challenge the analogy with Biology, arguing that the social world
requires fundamentally different epistemic practices. For example, one might argue that
social systems are more complicated than living systems (although on its face that is not
obvious) or that ethical considerations preclude the full and effective use of experimental
methods. Such arguments, however, still require rejecting King, Keohane, and Verba’s
claim (see the second paragraph of Chapter 4) that scientific explanation is causal infer-
ence. And they make Physics even more irrelevant to the social sciences.
223
readers will find it tedious or too far afield to be worth their effort. But
even if you find the substance uninteresting, the parallels with systemic/
relational social science seem to me sufficiently striking to make these
excursions useful. And I immediately follow each dip into biology with a
discussion of its relevance to the social sciences.
13.1 Evolution
Many social scientists avoid evolutionary arguments in (an entirely justi-
fied) reaction against racist progressivist Social Darwinism, just-so-story
sociobiology, and politicized misappropriations of notions of fitness and
selection. But both continuous (trans)formation and transposition and
re-functionality are strikingly similar to the understanding of evolution
in contemporary Biology.4 And, I will argue, social scientists can learn
much from Evolutionary Biology about how to study the world.
13.1.1 Units and Levels of Evolution

Evolutionary Biology during the second half of the twentieth century
was dominated by “the modern synthesis,”5 which holds (roughly) that
inheritance is “particulate”/Mendelian – that is, that traits are passed on
by discrete particles (genes) – and that only variations in genetic material
produce traits that are subject to natural selection. Evolution thus “is”
change over time in the proportions of particular “alleles” [alternative
sequences at a particular genetic locus] in a population, produced pri-
marily by natural selection (and secondarily by “genetic drift” and gene
flow between (sub)populations).
Especially after the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, many
aspired to reductionist gene-based explanations.6 Richard Dawkins’ The
Selfish Gene exuberantly placed a reductive genic explanation of evolu-
tion at the center of both scientific and popular discussions. The failure
4
For ease of exposition, I treat Paleontology as a branch of or style of research in
Evolutionary Biology.
5
The term was coined by Julian Huxley (1942). (Dobzhansky 1951 [1937]), (Mayr
1942), (Simpson 1944), and (Stebbins 1950) were seminal works. The Wikipedia entry
“Modern synthesis (20th century)” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_synthesis_
(20th_century) last accessed October 20, 2022) provides a good brief overview. (Mayr
and Provine 1998 [1980]) looks at the synthesis, near the peak of its powers, in operation
in several disciplines and in several countries. (Gould 2002, ch. 7) is a respectful critical
overview from a leading advocate for extending the synthesis.
6
George Williams’ Adaptation and Natural Selection (1966) introduced a tentative and
hedged argument for restricting the use of the idea of adaptation to processes involving
selection for genes. (Gould 2001, 230–232) presents a brief critique of Williams’ argu-
ment (and notes his effective abandonment of gene-only selection in (Williams 1992)).
Life Sciences and Social Sciences 225
of that project – and the successes of systemic alternatives – has, I am

arguing, much to teach the social sciences.
Dawkins argued that organisms, the traditional Darwinian unit
of selection, are merely “vehicles” that carry the genes that evolution
selects7 – a biochemical analogue to extreme forms of more-than-merely-
methodological individualism in the social sciences.8 For the past quar-
ter century, however, this view has been rejected by most (and today by
almost all) evolutionary biologists.9
Building on arguments developed by, among others, Richard Lewon-
tin,10 Stephen Jay Gould,11 Elisabeth Vrba,12 and Niles Eldredge,13 it is
now accepted that evolution takes place through “hierarchical selection”
or “multilevel selection.”14 Natural selection occurs at many levels of
biological organization, including, in Gould’s formulation, genes, cells,
organisms, demes [local breeding groups], species, and clades [group of
types of organisms that have a common ancestor].15 In addition, “selec-
tion on one level may enhance, counteract, or just be orthogonal to
selection at any adjacent level”16 – which can create potentially complex
feedback processes. And “each hierarchical level differs from all others in
substantial and interesting ways, both in the style and frequency of pat-
terns of change and causal modes.”17 (All of this sounds very much like
adaptation in the complex multilevel social world.18)
Genes are, of course, the heritable basis of variations in “pheno-
types” [sets of observable characteristics of an organism]. Natural selec-
tion, however, cannot “see” genes. Rather, it works on traits, many of
which (unlike the color and skin texture of Mendel’s peas) do not map
one-to-one onto genes. For example, epistasis (genetic units interact
7
(Dawkins 1976, 19, 24–25, 264–265).
8
See (Okasha 2018).
9
(Gould 2002, 613–644) presents a resume of the logical and empirical inadequacies of
genic selectionism.
10
Lewontin’s paper “The Units of Selection” (1970) was seminal. (Lewontin 1974) was
also particularly influential.
11
(Gould 1977), (Gould and Lewontin 1979), (Lloyd and Gould 1993), (Gould and
Lloyd 1999).
12
(Vrba and Eldredge 1984), (Vrba and Gould 1986), (Lieberman and Vrba 1995).
13
(Eldredge 1985). See also (Eldredge 1996).
14
See also (Brandon 1982, 1999), (Wilson and Sober 1994), (Griesemer 2000; 2001),
(Okasha 2005; 2011; 2020), (Tëmkin and Eldredge 2015), (Eldredge et al. 2016).
(Bourrat 2021) is a good recent overview.
15
(Gould 2002, 681–713). On the multiplicity of types of individuals in the living world,
see §§3.6, 3.9.
16
(Gould 2002, 677).
17
(Gould 2002, 680).
18
Sewell (2005, 112–113) argues that Paleontology provides a good model for a histori-
cally informed social science.
nonlinearly to produce a trait),19 genetic linkage (genes are tied to one

another on chromosomes, and thus cannot be separately selected), and
pleiotropy (a single gene has effects on multiple traits) are common.20
And many traits that nature selects for, such as swiftness, dexterity, and
visual acuity, have complex genetic bases that make reductive genetic
analysis inconceivable. (Again, the parallels to the social world seem to
me striking.)
13.1.2 The Process and Progress of Evolution

Most “evolution involves continual fine-scale change” made possible by
the high level of genetic variation within species, most of which “are
collections of genetically differentiated populations.”21 Therefore, much
evolutionary change “occur[s] through modification of genes and traits
that already have [long] been subject to selection.”22 Evolution, in other
words, often arises not from genetic changes but from changes in the
selective environment (or how populations interact in or with it).
In addition, “much of adaptive evolution does not lead anywhere, yet
these small changes are crucially important. These continual microevo-
lutionary changes keep populations in the evolutionary game.”23 “Popu-
lations and species persist partly because they are constantly evolving
in small ways”24 and “continual adjustments in adaptation are often
surprisingly important to the persistence of populations.”25 An extreme
example is Red Queen evolution26 in which species, like the Red Queen
in Alice in Wonderland, needing to run [evolve] as fast as they can just to
stay where they are.
Evolution is thus “progressive” in the narrow sense that the whole
evolved entity, in so far as it reflects the results of natural selection, is more
fit for that particular environment, relative to its competitors, at that time.27
19
(Carlborg and Haley 2004), (Cheverud and Routman 1995), (Cordell 2002), (De
Visser, Cooper, and Elena 2011), (Domingo, Baeza-Centurion, and Lehner 2019),
(Stearns 2010), (Weinreich, Watson, and Chao 2005), (Wolf et al. 2000). (Cheverud
2000) discusses both pleiotropy and epistasis.
20
(Cheverud 1996), (Paaby and Rockman 2013), (Solovieff et al. 2013), (Wang, Liao,
and Zhang 2010), (Watanabe et al. 2019). For a brief discussion of the implications of
epistasis, linkage, and pleiotropy, see (Brandon 1999, 168–169).
21
(Thompson 2005, 6). “Polymorphisms are highly dynamic within and among popula-
tions” (Thompson 2013, 5. See also 143, 212, 376).
22
(Thompson 2013, 5. See also 123).
23
(Thompson 2013, 6).
24
(Thompson 2013, 376).
25
(Thompson 2013, 5).
26
(Van Valen 1977) coined the term. See also (Bourgeois et al. 2021), (Brockhurst et al.
2014), (Morran et al. 2011), (Rabajante et al. 2015), (Vrba 1993).
27
(Thompson 2013, 377, 380).
Conditions and competitors, however, change. Fitness, therefore, always

is local, relative, and temporary.28
Furthermore, not all the changes produced by natural selection are
adaptive improvements in fitness. (Not everything that is selected is
selected for.29) For example, sickle cell disease is prevalent in popula-
tions where malaria is endemic because the mutation that causes the
disease is protective against malaria. Similarly, genes that enhanced
resistance to the plague increased susceptibility to some autoimmune
disorders.30 In addition to epistasis, genetic linkage, and pleiotropy,31
there are higher-level “constraints of development,32 architecture,33 and
inherited morphology.”34
Much of what happens in evolution thus involves “exaptations;”35
evolved changes that are not necessarily functional (let alone optimal).
They are just changes, not adaptations in any strong or interesting sense
of that term. And they persist more because they exist than anything
else. (Looking for “the purpose/function” of a trait thus often is a fool’s
errand – both because there may never have been a function and because
even if there once was it may no longer be relevant.)
13.1.3 Co-evolution
We move even further from a gene-centric story when we consider co-
evolution; “reciprocal evolutionary change among interacting species
28
Fitness also is, as Elliott Sober (1993 [1984], 88) nicely puts it, “causally inert.” It is
an abstract description of the result of a historical process of selection. To the extent
that fitness explains, it explains functionally (it enhances the reproductive success of a
particular population in a particular place at a particular time).
29
(Sober 1993 [1984], §3.2).
30
(Klunk et al. 2022)
31
See above at nn. 21–23.
32
Developmental constraints on evolution are “biases on the production of variant
phenotypes or limitations on phenotypic variability caused by the structure,

character, composition, or dynamics of the developmental system.” (Maynard

Smith et al. 1985, 265 [abstract]). For a recent overview see (Galis and Metz 2021).
Wallace Arthur (2004, 11) speaks of “‘developmental bias,’ meaning the tendency
of developmental systems to vary in some ways more readily than others.” See also
(Uller et al. 2018).
33
There are physical and mechanical constraints to how things can be arranged and
constructed. And certain outcomes may depend significantly on the fact that they are
physically easier to produce.
34
(Gould 1980, 41). See also (Gould and Vrba 1982), (Gould 1997), (Lloyd and Gould
2017).
35
(Gould 1997), extending the argument of (Gould and Lewontin 1979). ((Padgett
2012a, 45–46) and (Powell, Packalen, and Whittington 2012, 461) draw explicit
analogies to exaptation.) On the notion of developmental exaptation see (Chipman
2021, 29).
driven by natural selection.”36 Co-evolution can only be seen systemi-

cally and can only be understood relationally and processually.
Two or more species often exert selective pressure on one another,
either in antagonistic relations, such as predator–prey and host–parasite
relations,37 or in mutualistic relations, as between clownfish (“Nemo”)
and anemones.38 Most dramatically, mitochondria began as bacteria but
co-evolved with their hosts to become the intracellular organelles that
power most plants and animals. Or consider the essential role of commu-
nities of gut microflora to the survival of animals as varied as humans,39
cows, termites, and tubeworms.
“Symbiosis is the rule rather than the exception in the biologi-
cal realm.”40 Pairs, sets, and webs of populations and species thus are
important units of selection, producing “a dynamic world of continu-
ally coevolving mutualistic and antagonistic interactions shifting about
on the changing physical templates of land and sea.”41 And as “evo-
lutionary changes in life histories ripple throughout webs of interact-
ing species, fostering yet more evolutionary change within and among
ecosystems,”42 we often see “highly dynamic, ongoing reciprocal change
across landscapes.”43
John N. Thompson goes so far as to argue that “species in pure isola-
tion simply do not make sense.”44 Because natural selection always takes
place in a particular context that includes other competing or cooperat-
ing species, species are “inherently dependent upon other species.”45
36
(Thompson 2009, 247). Co-evolution has been a topic in the study of evolution at least
since Darwin’s work on orchids and their pollinators. A major revival began after the
publication in 1964 of Paul Ehrlich and Peter Raven’s paper on the co-evolution of but-
terflies and their food plants. Their approach was explicitly a reaction against specialized
analytic approaches in which “one group of organisms is all too often viewed as a kind
of physical constant” or species are seen as “invariant entities” (1964, 586).
37
“The most common form of life on Earth is parasitism. There are more known species
of parasites than there are all other kinds of species.” (Thompson 2009, 248).
38
(Thompson 2005, pt. 2) looks at co-evolution in both antagonistic and mutualistic rela-
tions. Scientific uses of the term symbiosis previously were restricted – and in ordinary
language often still are – to mutualistic relations. Today, however, symbiosis is more
often used in the literal sense of living together. (Begon and Townsend 2021), a stan-
dard Ecology textbook, addresses predation and parasitism in ch. 9, 10, 12. (Chapter
13 addresses “commensalism,” in which one party benefits while the other is neither
harmed nor benefited – which is unlikely to involve co-evolution.)
39
On the human microbiome see n. 59 in §3.6.
40
(Dupré and Nicholson 2018, 20). See also (Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 988).
41
(Thompson 2013, 385).
42
(Thompson 2013, 20). Ehrlich and Raven (1964, 586) introduced co-evolution as a
starting point for broader investigations of more complex “community evolution.”
43
(Thompson 2005, 101).
44
(Thompson 1999, 2116).
45
(Thompson 2005, 6). They depend as well on a particular abiotic environment.
Even for those generally skeptical of analogies between biological evo-

lution and social change, co-evolution seems to me a powerful fram-
ing for the social sciences.46 (Transposition and re-functionality is, as
Padgett and Powell emphasize, a matter of co-evolution.47) In both
the living and the social worlds, individuals and groups at various lev-
els of organization typically exist, persist, and change interdependently.
Therefore, their natures, and how they change, can only be adequately
understood by giving central attention to systems effects and employing
relational processual explanatory strategies.
13.1.4 Evolution as Modular Tinkering

Most of evolution involves, in François Jacob’s often-quoted formula-
tion, “tinkering.” A tinkerer
does not know exactly what he is going to produce but uses whatever he finds
around him … to produce some kind of workable object. … None of the materi-
als at the tinkerer’s disposal has a precise and definite function. Each can be used
in a number of different ways. … The tinkerer gives his materials unexpected
functions to produce a new object … [that is] mainly a reorganization of what
already existed.48
Evolution thus is fundamentally modular and combinatorial. (Note the
strong parallels to continuous (trans)formation, transposition and re-
functionality, and eventful history.)
Adaptive change (evolution) in complex living systems almost has to
be modular, in order to “permit[] change while the organismic machine
is running.”49 And given the limited materials at hand, re-purposing
and re-functionality must be the principal mechanisms of change. For
example, bird wings and mammal forelimbs have the same bones (in
different proportions) and nearly all mammals, from gerbils to giraffes,
46
For social scientists wishing to read more, (Thompson 2009) and (Thompson,
Segraves, and Althoff 2021) are useful brief introductions. At book length, (Thompson
2005) is quite accessible. See also (Agrawal and Zhang 2021), (George and Levine
2021), (Levin 2005), (Piel et al. 2022), (Rubenstein et al. 2019). On co-evolution in
economic systems, see (Almudi and Fatas-Villafranca 2021), (Bergh and Stagl 2003),
(Gowdy 2013), (Winder, McIntosh, and Jeffrey 2005). For varied applications out-
side of Biology, see (Garnsey and McGlade 2006), (Herrmann-Pillath, Hiedanpää, and
Soini 2022), (Leonardi, Bailey, and Pierce 2019), (Mastrobuono-Battisti et al. 2019),
(Oliver and Myers 2003), (Porter 2006), (Stiner 2021), (Teubner 2002), (Yin et al.
2021).
47
See §12.5 and (Padgett and Powell 2012b, 2–4, 7, 37, 38, 70, 89, 118, 171, 173,
267–268, 271–272, 295–296, 309). For a more skeptical take on organizational co-
evolution, see (Abatecola, Breslin, and Kask 2020).
48
(Jacob 1977, 1163).
49
(West-Eberhard 2003, 164).
have seven (similarly shaped) cervical vertebrae (“neck bones”). (Mana-

tees and sloths are the exceptions.) At the cellular level, a relatively small
“toolkit” of genes, which have been conserved over hundreds of millions
of years, plays a central role in the early development of most animals.50
The striking similarities to the account of social change sketched in
the preceding chapter are rooted in the fact that both living organisms
and social groups are self-organizing complex adaptive systems. For self-
organizing systems there almost is no way other than modular tinkering
to produce change, given the limited resources available and the likeli-
hood that attempts at radical reconstruction would destroy the system.
That does not mean that there have not been fundamental changes
in the nature of life. Quite the contrary. But the “major transitions” in
evolution,51 such as the development of eukaryotes (organisms that have
cells with a nucleus) and of multicellular organisms (animals, plants, and
fungi), have involved combining smaller elements into larger wholes that
open up vast opportunities for change.
As Padgett and Powell put it, “invention never eliminates the past; it
rewires it.”52 And evolution, to requote a passage from the preceding
chapter, is a process in which “within constraints, component parts are
transformed and molded into ongoing streams of action.”53
13.2 “Evolution” in the Social World

The similarities between structural social change and biological evolu-
tion, I want to suggest, are more than merely metaphorical. Often there
is at least a close analogy. Complex adaptive systems in the living and
social worlds often operate through “the same” mechanisms, if we state
those mechanisms at a high level of abstraction (e.g., modular adapta-
tion through re-purposing elements). In some cases, I want to argue,
social systems evolve in the same sense that biological systems do.
Natural selection can operate wherever there are heritable variations
in individuals that are associated with differential fitness. As Lewontin
50
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 1010–1020). More broadly, “development within all lin-
eages uses the same types of molecules. The transcription factors, paracrine factors,
adhesion molecules, and signal transduction cascades are remarkably similar from one
phylum to another” (2020, 1010).
51
(Maynard Smith and Szathmáry 1995) introduced this framing. (Szathmáry and
Maynard Smith 1995) is a brief resume of the argument and (Maynard Smith and
Szathmáry 1999) is a version for the general reader. See also (Calcott and Sterelny
2011), (Szathmáry 2015), and, with special reference to multilevel selection, (Okasha
2005).
52
(Padgett 2012a, 61).
53
puts it, “any entities in nature that have variation, reproduction, and
heritability may evolve.”54
Social groups certainly vary. The turnover of members over time
reproduces the group. And structured group practices are a mechanism
of heritability (through socialization). Furthermore, social entities oper-
ate in competitive environments that exert selective pressures. Therefore,
although the mechanisms of social change differ from those of biological
evolution, both involve processes of selection in which units (at various
levels of organization) enjoy differential reproductive success as a result
of competitive and cooperative interactions with the biotic and abiotic
(and social) systems of which they are parts and the environments in
which they interact.55
As Stefan Thurner, Rudolf Hanel, and Peter Klimek put it, from a
complex systems perspective, “evolution is a dynamical process that
changes the composition of large sets of interconnected elements, enti-
ties, or species over time. The essence of evolutionary processes is that,
through the interaction of existing entities with each other and with their
environment, they give rise to an open-ended process of creation and
destruction of new entities.”56 Such processes clearly are not restricted
to the biological world.
Padgett and Powell go so far as to argue that “social systems are one form
of ‘life’.”57 Social systems are “alive” if the essential elements of life58 are
entropy-reducing thermodynamic throughput of energy in self-organized
and self-reproductive systems with cellular enclosure.59 And even if we
add the capacity for evolution as a criterion of life, social systems evolve
(unless we arbitrarily restrict evolution to a process involving DNA).
54
(Lewontin 1970, 1). See also (West-Eberhard 2003, 143). For overviews of the roles of
variation, heredity, and selection in evolution, see (Heams et al. 2015, ch. 2–4).
55
For example, “evolutionary economics” studies the evolution of markets and other eco-
nomic systems. See, for example, (Cordes 2006), (Debray 2015), (Dosi and Nelson
1994). Although I have doubts and concerns about many of the arguments in this litera-
ture, it seems to me an interesting line of work.
56
(Thurner, Hanel, and Klimek 2018, 224).
57
(Padgett 2012d, 168). “Organizations are one form of life” (Padgett and Powell
2012c, 31).
58
Among the immense literature on the nature of life, in addition to Schrödinger’s classic
What Is Life? (2012 [1944]), I found (Kauffman 2000) especially engaging (not coin-
cidentally, I am sure, because of its emphasis on self-organization in complex adaptive
systems). See also (Capra and Luisi 2014), (Damiano and Luisi 2010), (Dyson 2004
[1999]), (Gómez-Márquez 2021), (Jonas 2001 [1966]), (Koshland 2002), (Margulis
and Sagan 1995), (Nealson and Conrad 1999), (Penny 2005), (Pross 2016), (Rosen
1991), (Tirard 2015), (Weber 2010).
59
(Padgett 2012a, 34ff.). As Stuart Kauffman (2000, 39. See also 68, 72, 85) puts it, draw-
ing a tight analogy between agency and life, “an autonomous agent must be an autocata-
lytic system able to reproduce and able to perform one or more thermodynamic work
If this seems too extreme, much the same point can be made by say-
ing that adaptation is central to both social systems and living systems,
both of which are characterized by “reproduction, death, and feedback
within and among multiple intertwined networks of transformation.”60
In both, much adaptation results from (the cumulated consequences of)
a system’s activities within larger systems and encounters with its envi-
ronment, involving attempts to extract resources, usually in competition
with other systems trying to utilize those resources. Whatever we call
this, it sounds strikingly like evolution through natural selection.
I stress the similarities between biological evolution and social change
to emphasize
• The relational and historical character of the “things” of the living and
social worlds. Storks and states are not like silver and sulfur, which
have essential characters rooted in physical laws. They are contingent
historical products subject to continuing modifications.
• The shaping role of structured relations of “agents” with the systems
of which they are part and the environments of those systems.
• The importance of thinking about structural change not as intentional,
teleological, or driven by a master cause but as contingently emer-
gent over time. Structuring social relations and processes change not
so much volitionally, as a result of an unfolding essence or inherent
logic, or by being pushed or pulled by a small number of causes but
because particular changes produced through particular mechanisms
and processes operating contingently across time in complex multidi-
mensional networks of relations happen to produce those (rather than
other possible) changes.
• The central importance of mechanisms and processes. Universal natu-
ral laws and this-is-a-cause-of-that regularities are relatively peripheral
parts of the story – or, more precisely, usually are central only at lower
levels of organization.
• The embeddedness of change in the results of past change. The past
sets the parameters for the future which, after it is realized, sets the
parameters for what follows. Everything in the social and living worlds
is path dependent (evolved).
• The close connection of change to patterns of competition and coop-
eration in a specific environment. Change often comes not only from
within agents and in direct response to environmental pressure but
cycles.” Or, a bit more robustly, “an autonomous agent, or a collection of them in an envi-
ronment, is a nonequilibrium system that propagates some new union of matter, energy,
constraint construction, measurement, record, information, and work” (2000, 107).
60
(Padgett 2017, 59).
also, centrally, through competitive and cooperative interactions, with

both similar and dissimilar actors, in a shared space of action and
appropriation. (Add or remove particular competitors or cooperators
and outcomes can change dramatically.)
Finally, even if you see any mention of social evolution as merely meta-
phorical, I encourage you to take the complexity of biological evolution,
and the revolution in its study that was required by appreciating that complex-
ity, as an inspiration for relational/systemic IR. As Gould puts it,
the conceptual problems presented by theories based on causes operating at
several levels simultaneously, of effects propagated up and down, of properties
emerging (or not) at higher levels, of the interaction of random and deterministic
processes, and of predictable and contingent influences, have proven to be so
complex, and so unfamiliar to people trained in the simpler models of causal
flows that have served us well for centuries … that we had to reach out to col-
leagues explicitly trained in rigorous ways of thinking about such things.61
IR, it seems to me, is finally beginning to confront the same kinds of
problems – which can be addressed successfully only by reaching out to
and learning from the perspectives and practices of relational/systemic
approaches across the sciences (and in the life sciences in particular).
13.3 Development
We now turn to “development,” the processes “by which an organism
goes from genotype [genetic code] to phenotype [traits],”62 with a spe-
cial focus on producing an embryo (and sending it out into the world).
If your eyes begin to glaze over, or you just find this discussion boring or
irrelevant, feel free to jump ahead. I encourage you, though, not to skip
the following section (§13.4), which extends the argument for Biology as
a model for the social sciences.
13.3.1 Cell Differentiation

Twenty-first-century Developmental Biology has decisively rejected the
old (reduction-friendly) idea that DNA directs a largely mechanical,
bottom-up process in which gene-determined protein synthesis drives
processes by which cells are differentiated and then assembled into
61
(Gould 2002, 28).
62
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 36). Of all the areas that I reach into in this book, this is the
one where I feel most incompetent. I have, at best, a textbook grasp of some rudiments
of the field – as reflected by my heavy reliance in the following footnotes on the Barresi
and Gilbert textbook.
tissues and organs following something like a blueprint. In fact, “gene

expression” [the process by which information in DNA is used to make
the proteins that are essential to life] is neither like printing nor like exe-
cuting a coded program. Protein production depends as much on how
genetic material is manipulated and transformed as on the information
that it contains. And cells develop properly only within multiple self-
organizing regulatory networks.
In any living animal, the nucleus of every “somatic cell” [cells other
than reproductive cells] “has the same chromosomes – and therefore
the same set of genes.”63 Particular types of activities and cells require
only small but precise parts of that information. To get the right infor-
mation to the right place at the right time, “an enormous repertoire of
traits are turned off and on during development.”64 Therefore, “the
predictable effects of genes depend as much on … local conditions
within a preexisting structure as they do on the specificity of the genes
themselves.”65
At the heart of these processes is “transcribing” [copying] DNA, the
molecule that contains the genetic code but which always remains in the
cell nucleus, into various forms of RNA,66 which engage in productive
work in the cytoplasm [the contents of the cell other than the nucleus and
cellular membrane]. Messenger RNA (mRNA) is central: it is “trans-
lated” into templates for synthesizing the proteins out of which organ-
isms are built.67 Other kinds of RNA play important supporting roles.
For example, transfer RNA provides a physical link between mRNA and
the protein synthesis mechanism.68 “Ribozymes,” another type of RNA,
catalyze biochemical reactions, including gene splicing.69
In the progress from gene to protein, genetic material is both manipu-
lated physically – cut, rearranged, and folded in very precise ways70 – and
chemically modified. And all of this is done in self-organizing autocata-
lytic systems – most prominently, “gene regulatory networks”71 – that are
not coded in DNA (or otherwise centrally planned or directed).
63
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 103).
64
65
(West-Eberhard 2003, 93–94).
66
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 117–132).
67
68
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_RNA.
69
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribozyme.
70
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 104–106, 133–136, 157–158, 279–283, 301, 307).
71
(Salazar-Ciudad 2021) is an interesting brief account focusing on what gene prod-
ucts and cells “do” and how they are combined into hierarchies of mechanisms. For
more nuts and bolts approaches see (Levine and Davidson 2006) and, at much greater
length, (Davidson 2001; 2006). (Difrisco and Jaeger 2019) emphasize mechanisms and
processes.
Much of development, in other words, is “epigenetic;” “acting upon,”

“in addition to,” or “outside of” the gene. It involves “modifying how
a gene is expressed, rather than modifying the DNA sequence itself.”72
For example, “chromatin” [the material of which chromosomes are com-
posed] is chemically modified by “histones” [proteins that provide struc-
tural support for chromosomes]. Very broadly, histone methylation [adding
a methyl group (CH3)] tends to suppress transcription [copying DNA into
RNA]; that is, “turns off” a gene. Histone acetylation”[adding an acetyl
group (COCH3)] tends to permit transcription; “turns on” the gene.73
Or consider “transcription factors,” which bind to a specific DNA
sequence adjacent to the genes that they regulate, so that the right genes
are expressed in the right place at the right time.74 For example, Hox
genes encode transcription factors that help to specify the body plan
along the anterior-posterior (head-to-tail) axis.75 Pax genes encode tran-
scription factors that are similarly central to the development of nerves
and eyes.76
Spatial placement is also essential to cell differentiation. This is espe-
cially striking in the “gastrulation” phase in animals, during which the
single layer of identical cells of the blastula [the ball of cells formed by
division/cleavage of the cells of the zygote] becomes a three-layered
structure composed of different types of cells.77
Inter-cellular signaling is also indispensable for proper development.
This involves many forms of both “juxtracrine signaling” between adja-
cent cells and “paracrine signaling” in the extra-cellular matrix.78 “Cell
interaction is critical for normal development.”79
13.3.2 Performing Processes of Development

“Each organism represents a unique ‘performance’ coordinated by [auto-
catalytic] interactions that tell the individual cells which genes are to be
expressed and which are to remain silent.”80 Although all the information
72
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 117). (Carey 2012) and (Francis 2011) are useful popu-
lar science overviews. (Hallgrimsson and Hall 2011) surveys epigenetic mechanisms.
(Baedke 2018) is a broad philosophical discussion.
73
74
75
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 139, 502, 550–552, 563, 626, 719–722, 736–737), https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hox_gene.
76
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_genes.
77
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 46–47, 54–57, 71, 168–170, 173–174), https://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/Gastrulation.
78
79
80
needed to make a mouse is in mouse DNA, that information is not in a

form that can make a mouse (or anything else). Only in very particular
contexts, which are not coded in DNA, can genetic information be used
to produce the cells that, through other self-organizing processes, are
transformed into the tissues and organs that, through still other self-
organizing processes, are assembled and integrated into a mouse.
Michael Barresi and Scott Gilbert suggest that “differential gene
expression is more like interpreting a musical score than decoding a code
script.”81 This is a step in the right direction. But it still suggests central
direction and a plan.
No thing interprets any thing. Rather, as Barresi and Gilbert go on
to note, “there are numerous events that have to take place, and each
event has its own numerous interactions among component parts.”82
These events take place modularly, with limited, largely local coordina-
tion – and yet, because of how they are (self-)organized, they produce
spectacular emergent results (which are only more stunning when we
understand that these systems result not from programming or design
but the evolution of complex adaptive systems).
13.3.3 Phenotypic Plasticity and Environmental Influences

on Development
Reductionist gene-based accounts are further undermined by the fact
that “the ability to change developmental course when confronted by
or anticipating inhospitable environments is featured across all reaches
of multicellular life.”83 As a result, “most traits of human interest vary
among individuals within a population due to a combination of genetic
and environmental factors, meaning individuals’ phenotypes will depend
on both their genotypes and environments.”84
“The environment not only select[s] variations, it help[s] produce
them.”85 Mary Jane West-Eberhard even argues that “the most impor-
tant initiator of evolutionary novelties is environmental induction”86 –
although the relative contributions of genetic change and environmental
inducement remains a matter of controversy.
“The inherited genome generates a developmental system that can
respond to numerous environmental factors.”87 In most animals, many
81
82
83
(Ledón-Rettig and Ragsdale 2021, 117).
84
(Goldstein and Erenreich 2021, 91).
85
(Baedke and Gilbert 2020, §3).
86
87
traits (e.g., height and weight) have a range of possible realizations; a

“norm of reaction.” Therefore, any particular phenotype, as well as the
range of phenotypes in a population, is the result of the interaction of
genes, organisms, and environment. (Note that I did not say “nature”
and “nurture.” The biotic and abiotic (and social) environments of an
organism are no less a part of nature than its genetic endowment – and
no less essential to its nature/character.)
Some forms of “phenotype plasticity” – “the ability of an organism to
react to an environmental input with a change in form, state, movement,
or rate of activity;”88 “the ability of a given genotype to express different
phenotypes in different environmental circumstances”89 – are discon-
tinuous, producing “polyphenisms.”90 For example, temperature deter-
mines the sex of the embryo in turtles, alligators, and crocodiles91 and
wing color in some butterflies.92 Diet determines whether adult female
honeybees become workers or a queen, whether male dung beetles have
horns (and guard the tunnels of their mates), and the shape of Nemoria
arizonaria caterpillars.93 Frog tadpoles and water flea larvae often take
different forms in the presence and absence of predators.94
More broadly, there is an “astonishing diversity of mechanisms” that
produce “phenotypic heterogeneity without creating genetic variation,”95
including stochastic gene expression (gene expression “noise”), errors in
protein synthesis, epigenetic modifications, and “promiscuous proteins
[that] have one primary adaptive function and other secondary latent
functions.”96 And such changes may enhance fitness. Some even are
heritable.97
In many animals, “chemical signals from symbionts, usually bacteria
or fungi, are needed for normal development. … In mammals, the gut
microbiome is acquired at birth and is critical for the development of
the gut, the capillary network, and the immune system. It may even be
needed for normal development of the brain.”98
88
89
(Sultan 2021, 5).
90
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 974–977ff.). See also (Cheverud 1996, 2000), (Paaby and
Rockman 2013), (Solovieff et al. 2013), (Stearns 2010), (Wang, Liao, and Zhang
2010), (Watanabe et al. 2019).
91
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 195–196, 983).
92
93
94
95
(Payne and Wagner 2019, 25).
96
(Payne and Wagner 2019, 25–29, quote at 28).
97
On heritable acquired epigenetic variations, see (Jablonka and Lamb 1989; 2014),
(Jablonka 2017).
98
(Barresi and Gilbert 2020, 975. See also 996–1001).
Diet can affect methylation (which, as we saw above, turns off genes).
In one strain of mice, mothers that receive folate supplements produce
“normal” brown and sleek offspring but those that do not produce obese
yellow offspring.99 Similarly, folic acid is added to enriched grain products
in the United States to prevent neural tube defects in human children.
The relations between development, environments, and evolution
becomes even more complex when we consider environmental engi-
neering, niche construction, and extended organisms (which we briefly
noted above100) as well as the interactions of multiple units and levels of
development and evolution. This has led to the emergence of the field of
Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo Devo)101 and calls for a field
of Eco Evo Devo102 as well.
13.4 Systems Biology and Relational/Systemic

Social Science
Whatever interest the nuts and bolts of evolution and development may
(or may not) have for social scientists, Developmental Biology and Evo-
lutionary Biology, I want to suggest, should be an inspiration in their
focus on multilevel, multicomponent complex adaptive systems. We too
in IR, I am arguing, need, as Gould and Elizabeth Lloyd put it, “serious
engagement with complexity, interaction, multiple levels of causation,
multidirectional flows of influence, and pluralistic approaches to expla-
nation in general.”103
In the living and social worlds, almost nothing of interest exists, per-
sists, or changes in isolation. The things of the living and social worlds
are the things that they are and act as they act in significant measure as
a result of their connections to other living and social things. And these
interconnected things change in interrelated sets, not separately. We live
in a world of not only hierarchically layered but also complicated and
complexly connected systems of systems of systems.
13.4.1 Systems Biology: A Model for the Social Sciences

The transformation of Biology in recent decades is evident in the explo-
sive rise of “systems biology,” which “considers biological entities as
99
100
See §§11.6, 3.6.
101
(Nuño de la Rosa and Müller 2021) is a wide-ranging, weighty recent overview.
102
See, for example, (Abouheif et al. 2014), (Gilbert, Bosch, and Ledón-Rettig 2015),
(Roux et al. 2020), (Beldade and Monteiro 2021).
103
(Gould and Lloyd 1999, 31).
complex holistic structures whose behaviour cannot be reduced to the

linear sum of the functions of their parts.”104 For example, a Google
Scholar search in October 2022 for “systems biology” returned under
8,000 results for the period 1900[sic]–1999 but over 1.5 million for
2000–2022!
All the features of systems that I highlighted in Part I of this book are
centrally present in contemporary Developmental Biology and Evolu-
tionary Biology. I want to draw special attention here, though, to the
centrality of top-down causation.
As Denis Noble puts it, looking at the intersection of evolution and
development, “order originates at higher levels, which constrain the
components at lower levels. … The origin of functional variation is not
at the molecular level.”105 Causation in the living world – and, I am sug-
gesting, in the social world as well – is in large measure the result of the
organized operation of complex wholes.
The failure of strong reductive programs in Biology, I want to sug-
gest, makes it counter-productive not only to continue to pursue similar
strategies in the social sciences but even to privilege (partially reductive)
causal explanations. Conversely, the successes of mechanismic, proces-
sual, and systems approaches ought to be an inspiration for systemic and
relational approaches in the social sciences.
13.4.2 Beyond Causes and Theories: How (Not

What or Why) Explanations
Mainstream social scientists typically ask “What are the causes of?” –
war, human rights violations, poverty, economic growth, democratiza-
tion, whatever. Students are trained to identify a dependent variable,
which is understood as representing a more or less given kind of phe-
nomenon, and to seek to explain as much of the variance in the values of
that variable as they can with selected independent variables.
Biologists instead typically ask “What are the mechanisms by
which?” They try to determine the organized ensemble of entities and
activities that produce an outcome – not the separate causes that con-
tribute to it. In discussing causation, biologists rarely refer to “causes”
understood as independent variables. They almost never address (the
values of) variables. (Quite the contrary, their focus is on more or less
104
(Bardini et al. 2017, 396). (Kitano 2002a, b) are classic, very brief, introductory over-
views. See also (Tavassoly, Goldfarb, and Iyengar 2018), (Green 2022b), and, at
greater length, (Green 2017).
105
(Noble 2017, abstract).
invariant structured productive processes.) And they are sensitive to

the fact that “the same” outcome may be produced by many different
mechanisms.106
This-is-a-cause-of-that explanations107 are in no way privileged in
Biology. And while lower-level “causes” operate in systems/mechanisms,
those “causes” are neither central nor foundational to systemic/mecha-
nismic explanations.
King, Keohane, and Verba, who, as we saw above consider “causal
inferences” of “causal effects” the essence of scientific explanation,108
treat mechanisms as intrinsically uninteresting things that are “posited
to exist between cause and effect”109 and are largely reducible to causal
effects. “Identifying the causal mechanisms requires causal inference …
[T]o demonstrate the causal status of each potential linkage in such a
posited mechanism, the investigator would have to define and then esti-
mate the causal effect underlying it.”110 Only when the full set of causal
effects is specified, they argue, do we have a real scientific explanation.
And a good explanation, in this account, involves nothing more (or less)
than specifying a string of causal effects.
In Evolutionary Biology and Developmental Biology, by contrast,
mechanisms are the heart and soul of explanations. For example, natu-
ral selection is an explanation – not something to be further explained
by a series of cause–effect relations that produce adaptations. (I c annot
even imagine what kind of strings of “causes” one might imagine could
explain, for example, an instance of speciation by natural selection – or
why one would imagine that that would be a “better” (or even coherent)
explanation.) Similarly, the operation of gene regulatory networks is an
explanation.111 (As I noted above, biologists explain why by showing
how.112)
106
This means that in this-is-a-cause-of-that explanations, the dependent variable can-
not be properly specified without knowledge of the mechanism by which the outcome
of interest is produced. For example, we cannot study “the causes of death” because
death by a gunshot, death by lung cancer, and death by malaria are different “things.”
(Death is a coding category, not some thing in the world (that has independent-variable
causes).) See also n. 51 in §6.1.5.
107
See §§4.3–4.5.
108
See §4.5 at n. 56.
109
(King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 85). Note the odd suggestion that causes and effects
are real things but mechanisms are merely posited to exist.
110
(King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 86). In fact, though, we can identify a mechanism
without knowing all the causes that operate within it. Note also the peculiarly reduc-
tionist perspective implied by saying that causal effects underlie (rather than are pro-
duced by) mechanisms.
111
(Craver 2016) looks at some of the varied ways in which network models explain.
112
(Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2005, 422. See also 421, 439).
13.4.3 Models and Theories

Another striking feature of the biological study of evolution and develop-
ment is that theories are largely peripheral, underscoring the argument
about models-and-mechanisms science that I introduced in §4.8.
Evolutionary biologists usually talk not of a theory or competing the-
ories of evolution but of “the modern synthesis” – and are currently
debating the need for and the character of an “extended synthesis.”113
These shared, orienting visions of fundamental features of the
world and how to go about studying them are similar to Lakatosian
research programs114 or Kuhnian paradigms115 – not substan-
tive explanatory accounts, such as structural realism and quantum
chromodynamics.
When “theory” is addressed, it typically refers either to such orienting
frameworks or to a model of a mechanism.
For example, Gould’s magnum opus The Structure of Evolutionary
Theory addresses “the building of evolutionary theory since Darwin’s
Origins.”116 Its topic is “the intellectual structure of evolutionary theory
within Darwinian traditions [plural] and their alternatives;”117 “Darwin-
ian logic and its substantial improvements and changes.”118 And Gould
describes its structure as like a coral.119 Evolutionary theory is not a
theory (in the sense of a particular substantive explanatory account).
It is a shared set of principles and practices that biologists use to study
heritable changes in populations.
Similarly, what in popular discourse is often called “the theory
of evolution” amounts to the claim that species (or clades) are the
results of evolution, which operates primarily through the mecha-
nism of natural selection. The explanatory claim is nothing more or
less than that this is how the world works; that natural selection is
the principal mechanism by which heritable changes in populations
are produced.
113
See, for example, (Pigliucci 2001), (Müller 2007), (Pigliucci and Müller 2010),
(Laland et al. 2015) and Volume 7, Issue 5 (2017) of the journal Interface Focus, on
“New Trends in Evolutionary Biology.”
114
(Lakatos 1978). In IR, see, for example, (Vasquez 1997), (Elman and Elman 1997),
(Elman and Elman 2003).
115
Very briefly, see (Bird 2018, §3). Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970
[1962], esp ch. 2–5) first presented the idea. (Masterman 1970) canvasses the multiple
senses in which the term is used. Kuhn’s more refined ideas are presented in the post-
script to the second edition (1970 [1962], 174–190).
116
(Gould 2002, 4).
117
(Gould 2002, 10).
118
(Gould 2002, 11).
119
(Gould 2002, 19).
At a lower level of abstraction, consider Thompson’s geographic mosaic

theory of co-evolution,120 which emphasizes local (biotic and abiotic) con-
texts. “Most species are collections of genetically differentiated popula-
tions”121 and “most interacting species do not have identical geographic
ranges.”122 Therefore, much co-evolution arises among interacting local
populations123 and sub-populations. These local variations create co-
evolutionary “hot spots” and “cold spots.”124 Add the fact that “selection
is usually episodic, with occasional bouts of strong selection over time
scales of decades”125 and we often get surprisingly rapid, “punctuated,”126
evolution in a particular sub-population. (“Interactions between species
can evolve and coevolve within decades.”127) Adaptations in particular
populations and communities then radiate through the species and their
environments to the extent that they enhance fitness in other locations.128
This “theory” is a fairly abstract model of a mechanism – not a specifi-
cation of particular causes that are important drivers of outcomes. It tells
us how – not what or why.129
Even more strikingly, in Developmental Biology “theory” is almost
entirely absent. As Alan Love puts it, “although it is common in philoso-
phy to associate sciences with theories … it is uncommon to find pre-
sentations of developmental biology that make reference to a theory of
development.”130 “It was once thought that each science must have laws
in order to offer explanations … but now this is seen as unnecessary …
The expectation that a science have a theory to accomplish the task of
organizing and guiding inquiry is of similar vintage.”131
120
(Thompson 2005). See also (Caldera et al. 2019), (Gomulkiewicz et al. 2007),
(Medeiros et al. 2018).
121
(Thompson 2005, 6). See also (Thompson 2013, 212).
122
(Thompson 2005, 6).
123
In standard ecological terminology, a population is a locally, genetically, or demo-
graphically distinct subset of a species – or, at a higher level of organization (“meta-
populations”) a set of interacting populations.
124
(Gomulkiewicz et al. 2000).
125
(Thompson 2013, 35).
126
(Eldredge and Gould 1972), (Gould 2007). Punctuated equilibrium, of course, is not
restricted to co-evolution. But co-evolution does seem to be one powerful mechanism
by which it is produced.
127
(Thompson 2005, 4). See also (Thompson 2013, 7–13ff.).
128
(Ehrlich and Raven 1964) initially proposed adaptive radiation as a mechanism. See
also (Lunau 2004).
129
Thompson does repeatedly use the term theory. But there is no special value attached
to it. (The title of his book is The Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution.) He much more
frequently refers to “coevolutionary dynamics.” And he sees his work as situated within
and contributing to “the developing framework for coevolutionary research” (2005, 6).
130
(Love 2020, §2.1).
131
(Love 2020, §2.1).
Models, not theories, drive cutting edge research in both Evolutionary

Biology and Developmental Biology, which employ multiple different
(and sometimes even competing) models of different parts of complex,
multilevel, multicomponent processes. (Physicists may reasonably strive
for a single unified “theory of everything” only because what counts as
everything at their focal level of organization includes little if any of what
the rest of us deal with at our focal levels.132) And, to repeat, explanation
in the life sciences, at every level of organization, has an essential dimen-
sion that is systemic, processual, or mechanismic.
To requote the passage from Gould and Lloyd that I used at the outset
of this section, we need “serious engagement with complexity, interac-
tion, multiple levels of causation, multidirectional flows of influence, and
pluralistic approaches to explanation in general.”133 The following chap-
ters present my (very limited) efforts to offer a few examples of what that
might look like in IR.
132
François Jacob (1977, 1162) goes so far as to suggest that “as a general rule, the state-
ments of greatest importance at one level are of no interest at the more complex ones.”
133
(Gould and Lloyd 1999, 31).
Part III (B)
FOUR EXCURSIONS IN RELATIONAL/SYSTEMIC IR
The four chapters in this sub-part present substantive applications of a

relational/systemic understanding of international systems.
Chapter 14, building on the distinction between formal and substan-
tive dimensions of differentiation, takes up normative-institutional dif-
ferentiation. I offer three illustrations of the importance of norms and
institutions to the structures of international societies, presenting (a) a
general model of what I call constitutional structures of international
societies, (b) a typology of types of security systems, and (c) an account
of the norm-driven abolition of aggressive territorial war and overseas
colonial empires in the decades following World War II.
Chapter 15 addresses hierarchy, which the Waltzian account perversely
denies is a central feature of the structures of international systems. The
bulk of the chapter presents models of nearly a dozen types of stratifica-
tion that have helped to structure historical international systems.
Chapter 16 use the frames of levels of organization and center-
periphery differentiation to create models of what I call spatio-political
structure.
Chapter 17 combines the frames of continuous (trans)formation and
spatio-political differentiation to consider the evolution of politics in the
Eurocentric world from the High Middle Ages to today, with special
attention to early modern Europe and to the utility of a relational/sys-
temic approach for understanding globalization.
For all their shortcomings, I hope that these chapters, taken together,
at least point in the direction of a proof of concept for relational/
systemic IR.
245
14 Normative-Institutional Differentiation
Waltz rightly notes that states are “differently placed by their power and
differences in placement help to explain both their behavior and their
fates.”1 International actors, however, are also differently placed (and
shaped) by their authority, status, and roles, by the principles, norms,
and rules that govern their actions, and by the institutions and prac-
tices in which they participate. In fact, social systems produce patterned
behavior in large measure through norms and institutions that require,
prohibit, encourage, enable, constrain, and ignore actions.
In IR, though, the grip of the Waltzian tripartite (ordering principle,
functional differentiation, distribution of capabilities) conception of
political structure is so strong that even neoliberals, who focus substan-
tively on institutions, treat them as nonstructural. For example, Robert
Axelrod and Robert Keohane, in their classic article “Achieving Coop-
eration under Anarchy,” write that “world politics includes a rich variety
of contexts” that actors “seek to alter … through building institutions.”2
“Establishing hierarchies, setting up international regimes, and attempt-
ing to gain acceptance for new norms are all attempts to change the con-
text.”3 They even write of “deliberate efforts to change the very structure
of the situation by changing the context.”4
But systems and their structures are not (mere) “contexts.” And the
“structure of the situation” is not the structure of a system.
Although neoliberals claim to “find the neorealist conception of struc-
ture too narrow and confining,”5 they provide no alternative – and thus
fail to do justice to the real (systemic/structural) significance of institu-
tions. They typically either adopt “the neorealist sense” of structure6 or
use “structure” in an ordinary-language sense in which situations are
1
(Waltz 1990b, 31).
2
(Axelrod and Keohane 1985, 228).
3
4
5
(Keohane 1989, 8).
6
(Keohane and Nye 1987, 745).
247
structured by many things other than the structure of the system. For
example, in an overview of liberal institutionalism, Keohane writes of
“structures of power and interests,” “power structures,” and “structures
of power” without even hinting at what these are made up of.7 And his
reference (in a section heading) to “changes in structure” gives no indi-
cation of the nature of such changes.8
Constructivists frequently do see norms and institutions as structural.
Their discussions, though, have been ad hoc, historical, or focused on
particular issues, cases, or types.9 And constructivists rarely use “struc-
ture” in a precise professional sense – further underscoring the Waltzian
monopolization of the term.
This chapter begins to try to give norms and institutions their due in
an open-ended multidimensional framework for thinking about the con-
figuring configurations that configure international systems.
14.1 Institutions and Practices

Social institutions, as I will use that term, are persistent patterns of
social practice and their enactments. This, I want to immediately
emphasize, is broader than Keohane’s well-known definition of “per-
sistent and connected sets of formal and informal rules.”10 My account,
which conforms with ordinary language – “an established law, custom,
usage, practice, organization, or other element in the political or social
life of a people”11 – includes other socially structured sources of pattern-
ing12 and emphasizes the processes by which those persistent patterns
of social practice are produced and sustained. Patterned institutional-
ized practices typically are much more than a reflection or expression
of rules.13
7
(Keohane 2012, 125, 133, 134; 128, 133, 144; 129, 136; 133). Similarly, (Abbott,
Green, and Keohane 2016) use structure to refer to pretty much anything in an actor’s
environment (2016, 249, 250), at the system level (2016, 258, 259), or that is not an
attribute of agents (2016, 249). (This seems to me the natural result of an anti-systemic
individualist/rationalist orientation that mirrors Waltz’s (see §§5.5–5.8).)
8
(Keohane 2012, 133).
9
See n. 2 in Chapter 10 and (Nexon and Wright 2007), (Nexon 2009), (MacDonald
2014).
10
(Keohane 2001, 2 [emphasis added]).
11
12
From within a liberal-institutionalist frame, (Green 2022a, 10–11) similarly critiques
the regime complex literature for its narrow focus on rules.
13
Even where it is (not un)true that “institutions reflect norms” (Holsti 2004, 22) such
a formulation is too easily read to suggest some sort of causal or conceptual priority
for norms. And the influence runs in the other direction as well. Norms often reflect
institutions.
Normative-Institutional Differentiation 249
I use “norm” in the ordinary-language sense of “that which is a model

or a pattern; a type, a standard” and in particular “a standard or pattern
of social behaviour that is accepted in or expected of a group.”14 “Norm”
has both statistical and prescriptive senses, which in social and political
systems typically are interlinked, often with neither having conceptual or
causal priority.
“Norms” and “institutions” overlap considerably. I use both terms,
though, not only to avoid a material–non-material binary that obscures
the variety of the “non-material” world but also to oppose overly idealist
or rationalist accounts of action.15 Institutions often are as much a cause as
an effect of ideas and beliefs – or, more precisely, as with agents and struc-
tures, ideas and institutionalized practices usually are recursively related.
Practices understood as ways of “being” and “doing” associated with
structured dispositions in particular fields of action, are the heart of insti-
tutions. And a focus on practices, in addition to emphasizing the active
and noncognitive dimensions of structured social action, draws attention to
institutionalization; “the process[es] by which a given set of units and a pat-
tern of activities come to be normatively and cognitively held in place, and
practically taken for granted.”16 It also focuses on positioned action (rather
than causal influences on more or less autonomous actors); the inseparably
of actors and the structured contexts that make “doings” actions.
Little, though, can be said in general about the institutionalized prac-
tices of social life. And there are far too many particular things to be said
to even attempt anything like a systematic discussion. This chapter there-
fore offers three largely unconnected illustrations of the importance of
normative-institutional17 differentiation in structuring international systems.
14.2 Constitutional Structures

Flowing out of the work of Barry Buzan, a fairly substantial literature
within the English School addresses primary or fundamental institu-
tions,18 understood as “durable and recognised patterns of shared
14
15
It simply is not true that institutions are “patterned practices … based, usually, on
coherent sets of ideas and/or beliefs” (Holsti 2004, 21–22). The relation between
institutions, ideas, actions, and material forces is variable. The persistent patterning
of practice defines an institution (whatever its mode of production, reproduction, or
transformation).
16
(Meyer, Boli, and Thomas 1987, 13).
17
The hyphen in this formula is intended to mean something like “and/or but usually
and.”
18
(Buzan 2004, ch. 6) is seminal. See also (Buzan and Schouenborg 2018), (Colas 2016),
(Costa-Buranelli 2015), (Falkner and Buzan 2019), (Gonzalez-Pelaez 2009), (Knudsen
practices.”19 They are primary, fundamental, or foundational in the sense

that they “are constitutive of actors and their patterns of legitimate activ-
ity in relation to each other.”20 Primary institutions, however, also regu-
late actions and interactions. And although constitution and regulation
are analytically distinct, in practice they are inescapably intertwined.21
Figure 14.1 suggests that international systems typically combine cer-
tain kinds of fundamental institutions into what I call “constitutional
structures.”22
14.2.1 Principles and Practices of International Legitimacy

Daniel Philpott usefully identifies “three faces of authority” in interna-
tional systems: “Who are the legitimate polities? What are the rules for
becoming one of these polities? And, what are the basic prerogatives of
these polities?”23 My principles and practices of international legitimacy
in effect combine Philpott’s first two faces and divide his third.
Membership criteria may extend no further than the capacity to impose
one’s presence. Usually, though, full participants in an international
society are expected or required to meet some substantive standards. For
example, states in modern international society were24 expected to con-
trol a territory and a population and be willing to enter into and respect
obligations in international law.
I have distinguished principles and practices that assign status and
allocate jurisdiction from the particular rights and obligations of mem-
bers. Each significantly shapes the character of an international society.
Consider, for example, the status competition in high- and late-medieval
Europe between the Emperor, the Pope, and kings. The rise of a practice
of humanitarian intervention against genocide in the 1990s illustrates the
importance of jurisdiction, as do ongoing disputes over regulating the
activities of transnational corporations. And the particular rights of mem-
bers are obviously central to the substantive structuring of international
and Navari 2019), (Nantermoz 2020), (Navari 2020), (Schouenborg 2013), (Spandler
2015), (Wilson 2012).
19
(Buzan 2004, 181).
20
(Buzan 2004, 167. See also 181).
21
(Buzan 2004, 176–181).
22
I take the term from Christian Reus-Smit (1997, 1999) but give it quite a different
interpretation.
23
(Philpott 2001, 12).
24
I use the past tense to suggest that we are now in the era of postmodern international
society, understanding modern international society as a states-in-a-state-system gover-
nance structure. (Evidence supportive of this reading is scattered through the following
chapters.)
Hegemonic
Cultural Values
Principles and Practices of

Principles and Practices of
International Legitimacy
Domestic Legitimacy Membership
Status and Jurisdiction
Rights, Obligations, and Prerogatives
Foundational
Functional Practices
Making “Rules,” Regulating Conflict, Regulating Force,
Regulating Ownership and Exchange, Communicating,
Aggregating Interests, Other
Figure 14.1 Constitutional structure of international societies

systems. (In §14.4.1 we will look at changes in the rights of states to use
force in the post-World War II era.)
14.2.2 Principles and Practices of Domestic Legitimacy

The internal character of the participants also usually is central to the
structuring of an international society.25 For example, classical liberal
states and welfare states have systematically different international eco-
nomic preferences.
We are concerned here not with the peculiarities of particular polities
but with (domestic) principles and practices that are shared widely across
an international society. There may be no patterns, competing patterns
(e.g., monarchy vs. republics during Metternich’s era), or similarities
among most or major polities.26 Whatever the case, though, conceptions
of domestic political legitimacy are likely to help to shape the character
of an international society.
And vice versa.
Politics rarely segregates neatly into unrelated international and
domestic domains. For example, one explanation of “democratic peace”
is that deeply embedded domestic practices of peaceful conflict resolu-
tion spill over into relations between democratic polities. Conversely, the
corrupting influence of empire on democracy is a story that goes back at
least to Thucydides.
14.2.3 Foundational Functional Practices

Figure 14.1 identifies six types of functional institutions, rooted in
“things” that any political system “needs to do.” The character of an
international society, I am suggesting, usually is shaped by how it makes
and implements “rules,” organizes communications, aggregates interests
and power, and regulates force, conflict, and ownership and exchange.
Making “rules” (broadly understood to include norms, practices, and
institutions). In the absence of an international government, practices
governing making (and implementing) agreements are especially impor-
tant. Twentieth-century international society principally employed the
25
Reus-Smit (1997, 1999) treats “the moral purpose of the state” as the foundation of
constitutional structure. I see principles and practices of domestic legitimacy as only one
of several interrelated elements of a complex whole.
26
For example, at a very high level of abstraction, Reus-Smit (1999, 9) identifies “the
augmentation of individuals’ purposes and potentialities” as the moral purpose of the
state in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century international system.
institution of international law in a largely positive and contractual form.

Customary, religious, and “natural law” principles and practices are
familiar historical alternatives. International standard setting is a distinc-
tive type of rule making that is of growing significance today.
Regulating the use of force. Any society must regulate the use of force.
Determining who may legitimately use force is especially important.
(Consider the differences between restricting the legitimate use of force
to the armed forces of states, those of noble birth, and an armed people
(e.g., citizens of a Greek polis, Germanic tribes, and Mongol bands).)
Also central are “just war” regulations on when force can be used, why,
and how.
Regulating conflicts. Any social order requires practices to regulate
and resolve conflicts. War and “treaties” (contracts, oaths, and other
authoritative agreements) are common international mechanisms, as are
negotiation, adjudication, arbitration, mediation, conciliation, and the
provision of good offices.
Regulating ownership and exchange. International societies usually regu-
late possession and exchange of valued objects. In contemporary inter-
national society, “property rights” are a fundamental institution. We also
have rather elaborate international regulatory regimes for trade (centered
around the World Trade Organization) and finance (more diffusely cen-
tered on the International Monetary Fund). Mercantilism, laissez faire,
and the gold standard are modern European alternatives.
Communicating and interacting. How an international society orga-
nizes communications helps to shape its character and functioning.
Modern international society relied principally on diplomacy – which,
understood as relations carried out by accredited permanently resident
agents, is historically rare, if not unique.27 Alternatives have included
the use of heralds and messengers (the norm in the ancient Near East),
ad hoc agents, and the ancient Greek practice of proxeny (by which a
citizen of one polis acted as an agent for another). More broadly – and
underscoring the connection between material and institutional struc-
turing – advances in transportation and communications technologies
(e.g., long-distance sailing ships, telegraph, aircraft, and the Internet)
have regularly reshaped international systems.
Aggregating interests and power. Members of an international society
frequently want to act jointly or collectively. Modern international soci-
ety has employed institutions including treaties, alliances, spheres of
influence, and international organizations. Hegemonic leagues were an
27
(Mattingly 1955) is a standard source on the invention of the practice in Renaissance
Italy. More broadly see (Anderson 1993), (Black 2010).
important mechanism in Classical Greece. Medieval Europe relied heav-

ily on feudal obligations.
Other. The above list is not comprehensive. There may be other (nearly)
“universal” functional features of international systems. And many inter-
national systems have particular primary functions of central importance.
For example, the regulation of religious belief and practice has been
important to many Christian and Muslim international societies.
14.2.4 Hegemonic Cultural Values

The other elements of constitutional structure operate within broader
normative complexes that, for lack of a better term, I call “cultural.”28
For example, politics during the Song and Ming dynasties was inextri-
cably intertwined with neo-Confucianism. And we cannot understand
Greek international society without attending to widely shared concep-
tions of virtue (arete ̄), honor, and glory.
Norms and institutions do not float freely. They are embedded not
only in material structures but also in broader normative and institutional
(“cultural”) structures that enable, constrain, and otherwise channel the
development and articulation of particular norms and institutions.
14.3 Types of Security Systems

For a second (entirely unconnected) illustration, this section looks at
variations in the international organization of security. Table 14.1, which
is a modified version of a typology developed by Bruce Cronin,29 delin-
eates security systems by their constitutive norms, dominant identities,
and master institutions. Although all these systems are “anarchic” – they
lack a single central government – they are (institutionally) structured in
different ways and have very different characteristic behaviors.
The Hobbesian state of nature is an asocial system without rules or insti-
tutions. Actors are, in Wendt’s terms, enemies that recognize neither the
right of others to exist nor internal restrictions on the use of violence.30 The
resulting war of all against all, however, is a condition that has existed in no
actual international system (or even the most violent domestic society31).
28
The lack of subcategories seems to me not particularly troubling. This probably ought
to remain something of a place holder for “other” values.
29
(Cronin 1999, 13).
30
(Wendt 1999, 259–263ff.).
31
For example, in a system of warlords, warlords (and their followers) fight warlords (and
their followers).
Table 14.1 Types of international security systems
Security System Constitutive Norms Dominant Identity Master Institutions Characteristic Behavior
State of Nature None Enemy None War of all against all

Multiple-independency systems
Balance of Power Sovereign in dependence State/great power Self-help (especially alliances) Balancing, bandwagoning
Protection/Guarantee Restricted sovereignty State Protection/guarantee, intervention Intervention
Concert Multilateral management Great power Congresses and summits Consultation and joint action
Collective Security Indivisibility of peace Cosmopolitan Collective security organization Collective defense
Systems of hierarchical subordination
Hegemony Hegemonic leadership Hegemon Hegemonic alliance Hegemonic leadership
Dominion Restricted autonomy Empire Subservience/suzerainty Subordination (e.g., tribute)
Empire Empire Empire Imperial governance Imperial decision-making
Transnational security communities
Pluralistic Security No war “Friend” Regional security regime Demilitarization
Common Security Solidarity Ideological community Transnational association Mutual support
Amalgamated Security Divided/pooled sovereignty Shared (e.g., Confederation Political integration
pan-nationalism)
Source: Based on (Cronin 1999, 13).

The next four systems are structured around multiple independent

polities; “states systems.”
A balance of power system emphasizes the sovereign independence of
states in general and of great powers in particular. It is an institutionally
thin32 self-help system that characteristically involves balancing by the
strong and bandwagoning by the weak.
Thus understood, a balance of power system involves a relatively
egalitarian principle of sovereign equality. In the eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Eurocentric international system, by contrast, prac-
tices of restricted or semi-sovereignty were primary institutions.33 In
Europe and North Africa, these often took the form of treaties of protec-
tion or guarantee, in which a weaker power was required to do or not
do something that ordinarily would be a matter of sovereign prerogative
(e.g., allow or not allow troops of a particular foreign power to cross its
territory).34 The “standard of civilization” similarly restricted but did
not eliminate the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, China, Japan,
and Siam.35 Treaty relations between the United States and indigenous
Tribal peoples typically took a similar form. In such systems, which
typically are bilateral and embedded within a larger (in the European
case, a balance of power) system, intervention is the characteristic form
of behavior.36
32
In Bull’s terms (1977, 69–70), it has rules of coexistence (involving mutual recognition
of sovereignty and limited mechanisms for making agreements) but few practices of
cooperation.
33
Classical international law speaks of “semi-sovereign” (Martens 1986 [1795], I.1.1,
I.2.4), (Wheaton 1866, §§34–38), (Bluntschli 1874, §92)), “part-sovereign” (Lawrence
1898 [1895], §§49, 71), “not-full sovereign” (Oppenheim 1955, §65), “half sovereign”
(McNair 1927, 138), (Oppenheim 1955, §126), and “conditionally independent”
(Twiss 1861, §§24–26) states. These inequalities were not considered violations of sov-
ereignty. Quite the contrary, they were formally recognized both by the state in question
and by the society of states. See also (Learoyd 2018).
34
(Phillimore 1854, II §§56–63, 77–79), (Oppenheim 1955, §§574–577), (Dickinson
1920a, 240–252), (Headlam-Morley 1927), (McNair 1961, 239–254), (Verzijl 1968,
412–428, 457–459), (Ress 1984a, b), (Hoffmann 1987).
35
(Schwarzenberger 1955), (Roling 1960, ch. 4), (Gong 1984), (Keene 2002, ch.
4; 2005; 2014), (Koskenniemi 2002), (Horowitz 2004), (Suzuki 2005; 2009),
(Bowden 2009, ch. 5), (Costa Buranelli 2020), (Tzouvala 2020). See also (Salter
2002). (Donnelly 1998) draws an analogy to the contemporary global human rights
regime.
36
Rather than a sharp distinction between these two types, one might instead think of
a continuum of more or less inegalitarian balance of power systems. All balance of
power systems create inequalities between states by privileging power. Some systems,
though, give relatively great emphasis to the formal legal equality of states (as has been
the case in international society over the past half century). But other systems (like
nineteenth-century Eurocentric international society) give a prominent place to more
or less extensive official legal inequalities.
In concert systems, as in the eponymous Concert of Europe,37 great

powers multilaterally manage selected issues of joint concern. (In the
classic nineteenth-century implementation, other issues were dealt with
through self-help balancing and intervention.) Summits and conferences,
which support practices of consultation and joint action, are the master
institutions. The Group of Seven can be seen as a limited economic con-
cert38 (although a secondary, not primary, institution of contemporary
international society).
In collective security systems39 – the one system in this set that has
never been fully implemented – defense against aggression is transferred
to an organization that is authorized to take collective action against any
breach of the peace anywhere in the system. The underlying constitu-
tive norm is often expressed as the indivisibility of peace; war anywhere
is understood as an attack on everyone. This reflects a cosmopolitan
identity with respect to peace. The overall system, however, remains
“anarchic” – a collective security organization is not an international
government – and other issues are dealt with differently. The authority
of the United Nations Security Council to use force against breaches of
the peace reflects a collective security orientation. The “veto” power of
the permanent members, however, reflects a concert logic.
What I call systems of hierarchical subordination – “imperial” inter-
national systems, in a loose sense of that term – are systems of separate
polities in which subordination is more central than autonomy.
Hegemony, in one standard definition in IR,40 is a system in which
semi-sovereign hegemonized polities control their internal politics but
have their foreign policy directed or dictated by a hegemon, typically
through a league. Athens and Sparta during the Peloponnesian War is
37
(Holbraad 1970), (Elrod 1976), (Jervis 1985, 1992), (Kupchan and Kupchan 1991),
(Daugherty 1993), (Kagan 1997/98), (Cronin 1999, ch. 3), (Rendall 2006), (Mitzen
2013), (Humphreys 2017), (Schulz 2017), (Aall, Crocker, and Hampson 2020).
38
(Penttila 2003). See also (Merlini 1984). (Slaughter 2019, 49–53) argues for seeing the
Group of Twenty as an informal concert. See also (Viola 2020). Figure 15.7 models
stratification in concert systems.
39
The classic depiction is (Claude 1962, ch.4). See also (Schwarzenberger 1951, ch. 27),
(Kupchan and Kupchan 1991).
40
(Doyle 1986a, 12, 40, 55–60), (Watson 1992, 15–16, 27–28, 122–128), (Watson
2007), (Nexon and Wright 2007, 256–258), (Musgrave and Nexon 2018, 595). (Clark
2011) is perhaps the best general discussion. (Dutkiewicz, Casier, and Scholte 2021)
is a recent edited collection that also emphasizes the legitimacy – or, in the terms used
here, the institutionalization – of hegemony. The standard translation of the Classical
Chinese ba as hegemon – referring to struggle for predominance in the Spring and
Autumn period between the effective rule of the Zhou Emperor and the states system of
the Warring States period – reflects a similar understanding, emphasizing institutional-
ized hierarchy but not empire. See (Hsu 1999, 551–566), (Yan 2011, ch. 3, 6, App. 1).
a classic example of a dual hegemony. Relations between the United

States and much of Central America throughout much of the twentieth
century can reasonably be described as hegemonic.41
An empire, understood as an international system, has an imperial
polity at its core. As one moves away from the center, though, imperial-
ized polities retain separate identities and have varied degrees of effective
autonomy.42 The Roman Empire in the first and second centuries is a
good example.
“Dominion”43 lies between hegemony and empire. Relations between
various Chinese emperors and some marginal or peripheral parts of their
realm often took such a form.44 The Soviet Bloc during the Cold War
can be fruitfully seen as having had this more-than-hegemony-but-less-
than-empire form.
The final three types involve relatively strong political communities –
rather than systems that emphasize the independence of separate poli-
ties – that are not organized hierarchically by dominant powers.
Pluralistic security communities45 are based on the abolition of war
within the community; friendship in Wendt’s sense that the actors prac-
tice nonviolence and mutual aid.46 (Ole Waever uses the label “non-war
community.”47) The USA–Canada relation and the Nordic countries
are classic examples. Today we can also talk fruitfully of North Atlantic
and Western European pluralistic security communities.
Common security communities, which are based on ideological
community and solidarity, involve practices of mutual support that go
substantially beyond alliances rooted in calculations of interest. In the
mid-1990s, there was some (not uninteresting) talk of a community of
market economies. The Soviet Bloc in post-World War II Eastern Europe
might be seen as a coerced common security community.48
41
We return to stratification in hegemonies in §15.7.2.
42
See also §16.4.2.
43
These labels are taken from Adam Watson (1992, 15–16).
44
On tributary states systems in the Chinese context, see (Womack 2012), (Zhang and
Buzan 2012), (MacKay 2014), (Perdue 2015), (Kwan 2016), (Lee 2016), (Oh 2019),
(Kang 2020). (Baldanza 2016) explores the case of Ming China and Vietnam. (Bang
and Bayly 2011) takes a comparative perspective. On the Ottoman system, see (Kármán
and Kunčević 2013), (Panaite 2019, pt. 5), (Kármán 2020). (Monson 2020) is an
interesting account of Alexander the Great’s tributary empire.
45
(Deutsch 1957) and (Adler and Barnett 1998) are the crucial works. See also (Acharya
2014), (Adler 2008), (Adler and Greve 2009), (Duarte Villa 2017), (Hajizada 2018),
(Putra, Darwis, and Burhanuddin 2019), (Simão 2017).
46
(Wendt 1999, 298ff.).
47
(Waever 1998).
48
Note that I have used the Soviet Bloc as an example of both dominion and a com-
mon security community. The boundaries between types are not sharp, especially when
types are used for different analytical purposes. For example, Charlemagne may have
Amalgamated security communities involve a partial pooling of sov-

ereignty rooted in a shared identity. Consider Nasser’s pan-Arabism,
which led briefly to the United Arab Republic (joining Egypt and Syria).
The United States into the 1820s was in many ways a confederal amal-
gamated security system.49 The European Union, however, seems to
me not to fit this category (although it might be considered an amal-
gamated economic community).
These types of security systems illustrate both the variety of interna-
tional systems and the decisive importance of normative-institutional
structuring to their character and functioning.
14.4 Transforming Post-World War II International Society

My final illustration of the importance of normative-institutional differ-
entiation looks at the effective abolition of aggressive territorial war and
overseas empires in the decades following World War II. I also use this
example, returning to a theme from Chapter 4, to illustrate some differ-
ences between “causal” and systemic explanations.
14.4.1 Abolishing Territorial Acquisition by War

In the heyday of “classical” positive international law, sovereign states had
a largely unlimited right of war. Few international lawyers went as far as
Oppenheim in defining war as “the contention between two or more States
through their armed forces for the purpose of overpowering each other
and imposing such conditions of peace as the victor pleases.”50 But even
those who accepted Vattel’s natural law definition of war as “that state
in which we prosecute our rights by force”51 acknowledged that interna-
tional law “leaves states, which think themselves aggrieved, and which have
exhausted all peaceable methods of obtaining satisfaction, to exact redress
for themselves by force. It thus recognises war as a permitted mode of giv-
ing effect to its decisions.”52 For example, Wheaton listed first among the
“absolute international rights of states” what he called the “right of self-
preservation”53 – which each state was free to interpret largely as it saw fit.
conceived of his empire as a polity but, especially under his successors, it was more a
system of dominion or hegemony (and on the peripheries often barely that).
49
(Deudney 1995) develops this argument.
50
(Oppenheim 1906, 56).
51
(Vattel 1916 [1758], II, I, §1, p. 235).
52
(Hall 1917, 61). This passage (in Ch. III, §16) goes back unchanged to the first (1880)
edition.
53
(Wheaton 1866, 89 [§§60ff.]). See also Vattel, II, iv, §§49–52 (recognizing rights to self-
protection, resistance, redress, and punishing) and III, i, §§1–4.
The 1928 General Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an Instru-

ment of National Policy (Kellogg–Briand Pact) preceded World War II
by barely a decade. Therefore, skepticism, even cynicism, may have been
in order when in 1945 the Charter of the United Nations proclaimed in
Article 2(4) “All Members shall refrain in their international relations
from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political
independence of any state.” With respect to territorial integrity, how-
ever, this seemingly idealistic pledge has been almost universally imple-
mented. Territorial acquisition by war, which had previously appeared
to be a fixed feature of international life, has been almost entirely elimi-
nated – a stunning political (and human) achievement.
Since 1950, when Tibet was formally incorporated into China, the
only state eliminated by force has been South Vietnam.54 Even attempted
conquests (e.g., Iraq’s attack on Kuwait in 1990) have been few. And
almost all wars of partition have been unsuccessful55 – Russia’s seizure
of Crimea being the glaring exception that proves the rule. Most strik-
ingly, there have been no major forced territorial changes in sub-Saharan
Africa, despite the creation over three decades of more than forty weak
states with boundaries that reflect little more than long-past temporary
balances of forces between colonial armies.
The prohibition of aggressive territorial war, compared to, say,
domestic laws against murder, has been wildly successful. (Note the
crucial distinction between effective legal prohibition and completely
effective elimination – which no national or international legal or politi-
cal systems can ever achieve.) This has, in Wendt’s terms, replaced a
Hobbesian anarchy of enemies with a Lockean anarchy of rivals,56 with
profound implications for the organization and operations of interna-
tional life.57
14.4.2 Abolishing Overseas Colonial Empires

Overseas colonial empires were also abolished in the decades following
World War II. Although often talked about as self-determination, the
54
East Timor was seized by Indonesia in 1975 before its declaration of independence
could have any effect. (I thus read it as a contested decolonization, rather than the con-
quest of a state.) And Timor Leste did ultimately achieve independence in 2002.
55
The Israeli-occupied territories and Northern Cyprus illustrate the typical inability of
acquiring states to turn even long-term successful control into widespread international
recognition.
56
(Wendt 1999, 279ff.). States now recognize the rights of other states to exist.
57
At the level of IR theory, it has made realism largely obsolescent. It is not even close
to true that, as Mearsheimer (2001, 31) puts it, “survival dominates other motives” –
because (for nearly all states nearly all the time) survival is not at stake.
actual practice was decolonization of (Western) overseas empires.58 Poli-

ties such as the United States that grew though the conquest of contigu-
ous territories were not affected. And peoples (e.g., the Kurds) who did
not have the “good fortune” of being contained within a single Western
colony were not entitled to self-determination – nor were those (e.g., the
Ibo in Nigeria) who were only one of multiple peoples in a colony.
The 1960 UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colo-
nial Countries and Peoples (General Assembly Resolution 1514), which
received abstentions (not negative votes) from Belgium, France, Portugal,
Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, effectively acknowl-
edged the end of the era of colonialism – not as a result of conquest or
collapse but because of new understandings of political legitimacy and
new practices for establishing membership in international society.59
Decolonization was governed by an order-based territorial logic. The
subordinate entities of overseas empires were entitled to independence
with exactly the same artificial boundaries they had as colonies, following
the Roman law principle uti possidetis, ita possidetis (as you possessed, so
shall you possess) – not because this was just but because anything else
was a recipe for war.60
The abolition of aggressive territorial war then protected these new
(and usually weak) states from predation. With few exceptions, survival
came to depend not on the material power a state could marshal (either
directly or through allies) but on international recognition – a huge
change in the character of international relations.
These changes, of course, required a permissive material context. For
example, it certainly was important that technological advances allowed
economic and political influence to be exercised without direct territorial
control. The fact that by the 1950s few colonies were greatly profitable
also was significant. Nonetheless, decolonization was in considerable
measure norm driven. And it significantly restructured international rela-
tions in the last third of the twentieth century.
58
Of the immense (and growing) literature on decolonization, useful studies with an
international political focus include (Birmingham 1995), (Burke 2010), (Chafer 2002),
(Clayton 2014 [1996]), (Crawford 2002), (Hargreaves 2014 [1996]), (Jansen and
Osterhammel 2017), (Kennedy 2016), (Rothermund 2006), (Strang 1991), (Thomas,
Moore, and Butler 2015).
59
The process also largely erased the racial hierarchy of the preceding era. Sovereign
equality came to be interpreted in increasingly egalitarian terms, emphasizing the legal
equality of all states (rather than the superior status of states to nonstate actors).
60
This uti possidetis model of decolonization was sufficiently appealing that it was in effect
applied to the post-Cold War breakup of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Federal
republics were entitled to sovereignty (with the identical boundaries that they had as
federal republics) but other entities were treated as integral parts of the successor states.
14.4.3 Norms, Causes, and Changing Social Practices

Dan Altman has recently challenged the factual basis of the above
account of territorial war, criticizing constructivist61 arguments that
changing norms have constrained the resort to territorial war and argu-
ing that “more than it declined, conquest evolved.”62
My argument here, however, has a very different form. Rather than
ask “Has conquest declined – and if so why?” I ask whether the practices
of international society with respect to aggressive territorial war (and
overseas colonial empires) changed – with what consequences. My con-
cern is not with “causes”63 (and causal effects) but with systems (and
systems effects).64 What follows therefore should be seen not as a contest
between competing explanations but as a comparison of systemic and
“causal” understandings of “the same thing” (territorial warfare).
Altman, much like Waltz, sees states as otherwise autonomous actors
subject to independent-variable causal forces in the environments in
which they interact. I, by contrast, depict states as parts of a states sys-
tem, shaped and shoved by, among other things, the changing norms
and practices of international society.
I argue not that states previously were largely at liberty to conquer
territory if they could get away with it. Rather, a well-established body
of law and practice authorized territorial acquisition by force, making ter-
ritorial war and colonialism primary institutions of modern Eurocentric
international society. Those structured practices both validated overseas
colonial empires and regularly led to internationally recognized state
death – the number of independent polities in Europe declined from
several hundred in the fifteenth century to roughly two dozen at the turn
of the twentieth century – and dismemberment.
After 1945, states stopped getting dismembered or killed not because
new “causes” began to operate or old “causes” were weakened or
eliminated. Rather, intertwining material, normative, and institutional
61
Careful readers may have noted that I avoid the framing “constructivist,” which usually
not only adds nothing to our understanding but obscures the distinctive characters of
systemic and relationalist theory and research. The standard rationalist–constructivist
dichotomy defines rationalism and treats constructivism as a residual; not rationalist
(i.e., does not take actors and their attributes as given and does not assume that they
employ a universal instrumental rationality). Like most residuals, this lumps together
many disparate things that share little or nothing beyond not being x. (In IR, see also
“realism and its critics” and “hard and soft power.”)
62
(Altman 2020, 491).
63
I continue my practice (see §§4.3ff.) of using “cause” in scare quotes to indicate an
independent-variable cause that is understood to have causal effects on a dependent
variable.
64
See §4.4.
changes altered the basic parameters of normal, permitted, and prohib-

ited behavior. As a result, a previously well-established practice withered
and died, surprisingly quickly.
For centuries, legal and political rules, norms, and practices had
authorized forced territorial acquisition. Therefore, states contemplat-
ing territorial war typically considered only material constraints. Over a
relatively short period of time, however, changing beliefs and practices
delegitimated forced territorial acquisition. And most states, for a com-
plex combination of principled and instrumental reasons, came to com-
ply with the new regime.
States in 1945 and in 1995 were arranged differently in systems that
operated differently. They were differently positioned, normatively and
institutionally. The structuring of the system changed. And states, as a
result, acted (systematically) differently.
Similarly, both expectations and practices concerning overseas
colonialism changed, among colonizers, the colonized, and observers
alike. A new structured system of practice governed the unwinding of
Western colonialism. And even contemporary Russian aggression and
“neo-colonialism” has been decisively (re-)shaped by the (now deeply
embedded) prohibition of territorial acquisition by force – which, I
would argue, is the only way to understand why Ukraine remains the
rare exception.
14.4.4 The Forcible Acquisition of Territory since 1945

But is Ukraine an exception? A large part of the answer depends on how
one understands that question.
Altman asks “whether some constraint – such as a territorial integrity
norm or an alternative constraint against war initiation – has shaped con-
quest’s evolution.”65 He takes conquest to be some “thing” that, at least
for the period 1918 to 2018 (for which he has developed a comprehen-
sive dataset), persists but takes different forms. And his data shows that
prior to 1945, aspiring conquerors used what Altman calls the “brute
force” strategy.66 “The sequence of events often went: initiate war, then
try to take territory. Today, the predominant sequence has become: seize
a small piece of territory, then try to avoid war. The fait accompli has
become the primary strategy of conquest.”67
65
(Altman 2020, 492).
66
(Altman 2020, 497).
67
(Altman 2020, 491).
I do not disagree.68 But I am making a very different point.

I focus on the fact that a polity no longer defeats another polity in war
and then incorporates all or part of it.69 Altman does not disagree. He
just does not give this much attention – because he is focused not on
the changing practices of the society of states but on the variations over
time in “conquest,” understood as a dependent variable that changes in
response to the effects of independent-variable “causes.”
Because of that focus, Altman gives central attention to conquest
attempts. From a systemic perspective, though, this is at best odd. If we
want to know if conquest is prohibited, with what consequences, we
should focus instead on the successes and failures of, and especially the
responses to, conquest attempts. (If you want to know whether there are
property rights you don’t count bicycle thefts.) And in fact even forced
partitions have been few. For the period 1976–2006, Altman lists nine
wars begun by conquest attempts,70 four other territorial wars,71 and five
entirely non-territorial wars. Of these 13 territorial wars, only the Kosovo
War of 1999 resulted in significant recognized territorial changes. And
Kosovo was not a conquest (i.e., a forced territorial acquisition).
A systemic perspective also provides an explanation for why things
changed after 1945 – which escapes Altman’s reach. Although Altman
rightly questions the idea that a territorial integrity norm (or some other
cause) led to the demise of “war initiation” for territorial gain, he does
not identify another cause. That, I would argue, is because there was no
other “cause.” What changed was the practices of the society of states
with respect to territorial acquisition by force – which forced states to
abandon the brute force strategy.
Until 1945, victorious states could, with a bit of good fortune, reason-
ably aspire to acquire territory (especially non-metropolitan territory).
By the mid-1970s, the ability of states to acquire territory by force was
68
I would not, however, describe these cases as conquests – which I see as a practice that
has been abolished in contemporary international society. Russia, in my reading, has
conquered Crimea (although that conquest remains largely unrecognized) but not other
areas in eastern Ukraine. And South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria fall into still
another category. In other words, I would emphasize the various forms that (different
kinds of) forced control take (rather than lump them all under “conquest”). Compare
n.111 in §13.4.2.
69
“No longer” does not mean “not ever” – which, like always, never happens when we are
dealing with institutions, norms, and social practices. I mean that there is no longer an
established, expected, or even regularly tolerated practice of doing so.
70
Ogaden (1977), Uganda–Tanzania (1978), Cambodia–Vietnam (1979), Iran–Iraq
(1980), Falklands (1982), Gulf War (1990), Cenepa [Ecuador-Peru] (1995), Badme
[Ethiopia–Eritrea] (1998), Kargil [India–Pakistan] (1999).
71
Chad–Libya (1986), Nagorno-Karabakh (1992), Bosnia (1992), Kosovo (1999).
largely eliminated. States were no longer able to do something that previ-

ously had been normally done – in large measure because of normative-
institutional changes.
Altman makes the important point that Russia has repeatedly employed
the fait accompli strategy.72 I instead emphasize that other states have
not been able to employ this strategy successfully73 – and that the strat-
egy itself attests to the power of the prohibition of aggressive territorial
war. Furthermore, it is of immense political importance that such quasi-
acquisitions remain largely unrecognized by the broader international
community, in sharp contrast to pre-1945 practice.
Altman draws our attention to the fact that some kinds of (more or
less successful attempts at) forced territorial control are likely to remain a
feature of international relations in the coming years. My account instead
emphasizes that even Russia’s “successes” have been incomplete, con-
tested, or defective (and usually of relatively minor significance, Crimea
being the signal exception). Furthermore, this is the only form of territo-
rial acquisition that has not been effectively prevented. And even that has
occurred almost exclusively on the borders of Russia.
14.4.5 The 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine

The preceding paragraphs were written before Russia’s February 2022
invasion of Ukraine. I have left them unchanged, including references
to “Ukraine” that refer to the 2014 seizure of Crimea. Writing in Sep-
tember 2022 (and doing the final copyediting revisions in May 2023) I
want to argue that international responses have, at least so far, largely
supported my account.
Social practices are not causes; they do not have determinate (invari-
ant or probabilistic) effects. Rather, they shape, direct, and regulate
behavior, more or less strongly and more or less effectively.
Laws are regularly violated, norms are regularly flouted, and prac-
tices are regularly defied. That does not mean that they do not operate
with effect. Rather, their effects are not “causal.” The effects of law and
norms are seen both in (unthinking and intentional) acts of compliance
and in responses to infringements.
Consider property rights, a striking domestic analogue to sovereign ter-
ritoriality. Successful theft is exactly that – successful theft. The practice
72
(Altman 2020, 510–518).
73
This is not exactly correct. But instances such as Ethiopian’s refusal to withdraw from
Badme for twenty years, even had it continued indefinitely, seem to me clearly excep-
tions that prove the rule.
of property rights remains established and effective as long as theft

remains relatively rare and generally understood as theft, most potential
thieves are deterred, and some thieves are sometimes punished. And the
relative rarity of theft, given the pervasive temptation to take things that
are not yours, is evidence of the effective operation of the practice.
A governing practice, of course, can unravel, crumble, or break. But
violations are part of the practice. (They are evidence that we are dealing
with laws rather than laws of nature.) And in international and domestic
law alike, the powerful sometimes “get away with murder.”
Russia’s invasion was a blatant violation of well-established and gener-
ally effective international norms and practices – as is evident in the near-
universal ridicule heaped on Putin’s shifting justifications and excuses.
Furthermore, genuinely punishing sanctions have been imposed and are
likely to persist well into the future. Russia almost certainly will come out
of this adventure weaker, both absolutely and relatively, than it went in.
And few if any states are likely to see Ukraine as suggesting that territo-
rial aggression pays.
I would not be surprised if in the end Russia acquired control over,
or even annexed, some new pieces of territory.74 But I see no evidence
either that Russian control will be widely acknowledged or that the pro-
hibition of territorial aggression will be significantly weakened. Ukraine,
it seems to me, will come to be seen as an exception that proves the rule
(rather than a step down a slippery slope).75
None of this is accessible to an account (such as Altman’s) that focuses
on the “causes” of “conquest” and countervailing conquest-impeding
“causes.” If one wants to understand the “causes” of change in the value
of a dependent variable then one proceeds in one way. But one proceeds
differently if trying to understand how the structuring of relations within
a system influences actions and outcomes. And now, at the end of the
discussion, abandoning my attempt to neutrally compare explanatory
strategies, I want to suggest that my normative-institutional relational/
systemic story is “more revealing” and addresses a “more important”
part of the picture of the place of force in maintaining and acquiring
control over territory in contemporary international society.
74
I wrote this a couple weeks before Russia’s “annexation” of additional Ukrainian ter-
ritory in October 2022. And I continue to believe this as we wait for the anticipated
Ukrainian counter-offensive of the summer of 2023.
75
All eyes, of course, now turn to China. My account suggests that whatever happens with
Taiwan – which is a sui generis case because it has never been recognized as a sovereign
member of international society – China will not turn to Russia’s fait accompli strategy
along its borders, partly because of low material gains but also because of normative
constraints and the possibility of sanctions.
Without denigrating causal knowledge, I am insisting that there is

significant value in knowledge of how the normative-institutional struc-
turing of a system shapes and shoves international actions – and that
systemic/relational research, properly executed, has a considerable but
largely untapped potential to contribute to a more insightful and effec-
tive IR.
14.5 Regulative Regimes and International Governance

I want to conclude this chapter by emphasizing that systemic norms,
institutions, and practices define the parameters of the (ab)normal, (im)
permissible, and (un)desirable. The construction of territorial war and
overseas empires as normal and permitted were central features of the
structuring of international relations in the centuries before 1945. But
these institutions and practices changed – with dramatic and profound
consequences for what states could and could not do.76 And being able
to comprehend such changes, I am arguing, is a crucial contribution of
relational/systemic approaches to a pluralistic IR.
More broadly, a growing range of regulative regimes are becoming
increasingly important features of contemporary international society.
And these regimes – and, increasingly, regime complexes77 – provide
international governance (in the absence of an international government).
Finally, emphasizing the systemic nature of my discussion, I want to
repeat that I have not focused on rules, which, like “causes,” are too
easily (and too frequently) seen as discrete things that act on otherwise
autonomous agents. Regulative regimes, understood as structuring sys-
tems of norms, institutions, and practices, provide rule – in the absence
of a ruler, by structured mechanisms that involve much more than rules.
76
As these cases suggest, the normative-institutional parameters of international relations
often change less by instituting new practices of justice than by rejecting old practices
as unjust. For example, the list of internationally recognized human rights offers not so
much a positive conception of social justice as a compendium of well-established past
practices that we no longer consider permissible. Even where norm entrepreneurs speak
of lofty positive goals such as peace and self-determination, change usually is less a mat-
ter of realizing a good than avoiding harms such as territorial war or overseas colonial-
ism. Ethan Nadelman (1990) thus usefully talks of global prohibition regimes, through
which an activity that previously had been regarded as acceptable, or even desirable,
is redefined as evil and, if not entirely abolished, at least forced into the margins and
shadows. See also (Getz 2006), (Sanchéz-Avilés and Ditrych 2018), (Jung 2021).
77
See, for example, (Keohane and Victor 2011), (Pratt 2018), (Faude and Groβe-Kreul
2020), (Gómez-Mera, Morin, and Van de Graaf 2020), (Henning and Pratt 2021),
(Green 2022a).
15 Vertical Differentiation
Stratification and Hierarchy in International Systems
How international (and other social) systems are stratified – how social
positions are arranged in ranked relations of super-, sub-, and co-ordination –
is obviously central to their structure and functioning. This chapter looks
at two broad types of vertical differentiation: single (or convergent) hier-
archies and heterarchies (or multiply ranked orders). Along with the next
chapter, it attempts to develop sets of models, some of which are applied
in Chapter 17, that can ground theoretically disciplined comparative work
on the structuring of international systems with immediate relevance to
understanding patterns of continuity and change in our globalizing world.
15.1 Stratification, Hierarchy, and Inequality

Contemporary IR, in large part because of Waltzian anarchy-centrism
and the associated neglect of hierarchy, has no standard language for
addressing vertical differentiation. I thus begin with terminology, focus-
ing on the framings of hierarchy, stratification, and inequality.
Hierarchy, as Waltz nicely put it, “entails relations of super- and sub-
ordination among a system’s parts, and that implies their differentia-
tion.”1 “Actors are formally differentiated according to the degrees of
their authority, and their distinct functions are specified.”2 Following
this definition, which closely tracks ordinary language,3 I will use “hier-
archy” to mean systems of relations of super-, sub-, and co-ordination
and functional differentiation.4 A similar definition is adopted by Ayse
Zarakol in her introduction to her edited volume Hierarchies in World
Politics, which was a milestone in reintroducing the concept of hierarchy
into contemporary IR.5
1
(Waltz 1979, 93).
2
(Waltz 1979, 81. See also 80, 97, 114).
3
“A body of persons or things ranked in grades, orders, or classes, one above another.”
4
See also §9.1.
5
(Zarakol 2017b). See also (Ikenberry 2011, 11), (Macdonald 2018, 134).
268
Vertical Differentiation 269
Hierarchy has both a formal dimension (“ranking”) and a substan-

tive dimension (“roles”). The substances of hierarchies, however, are
immensely variable and thus resist being encompassed in the typologies
that are my focus here. Therefore, I concentrate on models of forms of
hierarchy – and in particular on forms of stratification.6
The Latin stratum indicates something spread or laid down; a layer
or coat, especially one of a series of layers. Sociologically, stratification
refers to “the formation and establishment of social or cultural levels.”7
Stratum in this sense indicates “a level or grade in social position or cul-
ture.”8 I will use this ordinary-language sociological sense here.9
Some stratified structures, such as geological strata, are arrayed in
“ranks,” in the sense of “a row, line, or series of things”10 but are not
“ranked” in the sense of “hav[ing] a specified place or status within a
hierarchy.”11 Social stratification, however, involves hierarchical ranking.
Occupants of vertically differentiated positions have differential access to
goods, services, opportunities, and protections.
In IR, however, many scholars have adopted David Lake’s concep-
tion. Lake treats anarchy as the ordering principle of international sys-
tems and hierarchy as a nonstructural feature of bilateral relations;12 “a
dyadic relationship between two polities.”13 If, following Waltz, we insist
that anarchy both is the ordering principle of international systems and
excludes systematic relations of super- and sub-ordination then this is
about the only possible space for international political hierarchy.
This bilateral understanding, however, is inconsistent with ordinary
language. (For example, great power states systems, international orga-
nizations, and international regimes would not be hierarchical, because
they involve systemic, not bilateral, relations.) And it leaves us with no
language to address the structured relations of stratification that are
6
By way of self-criticism, I note that these models are relational but not processual (see
§10.4) – not, unfortunately, for principled epistemic reasons but for limitations in
my interests and talents. Nonetheless, I suggest that comparative analysis with static
relational models, both across cases and across time, can be valuable, producing a
sometimes useful “second-best” kind of knowledge that also may point toward more
comprehensive work on mechanisms and processes.
7
8
9
The Waltzian tripartite conception is largely about stratification – although it awkwardly
considers official stratification as “ordering principle” and unofficial stratification as
“distribution of capabilities” (which it then misrepresents as “polarity”) and fails to
appreciate the interrelationship between authority, functions, and capabilities.
10
11
12
(Lake 2009, 17, 60–62. See also x, 133, 136, 174, 177).
13
(Lake 2009, 61).
central to the differentiation of international systems. In fact, this (actor-

centric) definition obscures the systemic structured relations of super-,
sub-, and co-ordination that are central to international (and other
social) systems.
There has also been a tendency – tied, I think, to a reaction against
Waltz – to use “hierarchy” for inequalities that are ad hoc or interactional
(rather than relational14). For example, Ann Towns, another pioneer in
reintroducing hierarchy to IR, uses “social hierarchy … synonymously
with social inequality, stratification, or rank.”15 Similarly, Paul Mus-
grave and Daniel Nexon define hierarchy as “any pattern of super- and
subordination”16 and Jesse Dillon Savage, in slightly more statist terms,
defines hierarchy (in general) as “where a state asserts authority or con-
trol over another.”17 Such usage, in addition to wasting a useful term (by
turning “hierarchy” into a fancy label for inequality) distracts attention
from the structured relations of stratification that are central to interna-
tional systems.
I therefore suggest understanding hierarchy, following Michael Bar-
nett,18 as enduring relations of inequality and roles of superiority, inferior-
ity, and equality expressed in structured systems of ranks and positions.
Ranked positions are associated with particular rights, responsibili-
ties, and roles that may be official (legal or similarly sanctioned) or
unofficial.19
15.2 Forms of Hierarchy

Figure 15.1 presents a simple typology, distinguishing (a) hierarchies
restricted to a single issue or institution (e.g., the ecclesiastical hierarchy
of the Catholic church) and those that span multiple issues, activities, or
functions (e.g., “the social hierarchy”) and (b) hierarchies with a single
axis of stratification and those with multiple axes.
• In “simple” hierarchies, one axis of stratification orders one issue or
institution (as in the official hierarchy of offices in a bureaucracy).
14
On this distinction between actions and interactions on the one hand and relations on
the other hand, see §5.2 at nn. 24, 25.
15
(Towns 2010, 44).
16
(Musgrave and Nexon 2018, 594). The reference to any pattern seems intentional,
being used also in (McConaughey, Musgrave, and Nexon 2018, 181).
17
(Dillon Savage 2021, 712).
18
(Barnett 2017, 91, 67).
19
I use “official” rather than “formal,” which I have already used to refer to the form
(rather than the substance) of a dimension of differentiation (see §11.1.3). “Official”
also may usefully suggest a connection with offices in the sense of social positions.
Single Axis Multiple Axes
Simple Contested
Single Issue
or Institution
Multiple Issues
or Institutions
Convergent Tangled/Divergent
Figure 15.1 A typology of hierarchical stratification
• “Contested” hierarchies have two or more axes of stratification oper-

ating within a single domain. For example, an institution’s official
hierarchy of authority often diverges from its unofficial hierarchy of
influence.
• In “convergent” hierarchies, something like a single axis of stratifica-
tion runs through a multifunctional group or multicomponent domain
of activity. Analytically distinct hierarchies converge into a more or
less singular hierarchy that pervades the system. For example, in the
first half of the twentieth century most European states had largely
overlapping and substantially convergent legal, political, economic,
and status hierarchies.
• “Tangled”20 or “divergent” hierarchies have different patterns of strat-
ification in different places or issue areas. For example, the American
Congress, President, and federal courts comprise a structured body of
authorities that are not arranged “one above the other.” Each is super-
ordinate in specific domains, subordinate in others, and coordinate in
still others.
The distinction between convergent and divergent hierarchies is espe-
cially important. There is nothing “natural” or “normal” about mul-
tiple hierarchies converging (as in the modern states-in-a-states-system
20
I take the term from (Hofstadter 1979, 10, ch. 20).
assemblage). Quite the contrary, divergent political hierarchies, as we

will see in the Chapter 17, have been the norm in the Eurocentric world
over most of the past millennium. And globalization is producing hierar-
chies that are becoming increasingly tangled.
At the outset I also want to note a distinction that is central to think-
ing about globalization. Convergent hierarchies tend to be associated
with territorial rule. (Hierarchies converge within a territory.) Functional
rule, by contrast, tends to be associated with divergent hierarchies; a
single place is subject to multiple authorities.
15.3 Single-Layer Systems: Unstratified

and Autarchic Orders
We can imagine a system without vertical differentiation; an order
that is “unstratified.” For example, in the pre-social (or immediately
post-social) condition of a Hobbesian state of nature, where all indi-
viduals have effectively equal resources21 and are equal in author-
ity (because no one has any22) there is no stratification – because
there are no social mechanisms to create social strata (which are social
products).23
The simplest societies, however, are not merely “flat” but “egalitarian.”
For example, in forager band societies,24 actors with equal capabilities
have the same (rather than no) authority. The “no rule” of the state of
nature is replaced by “self-rule” or autarchy. Social practices that dis-
courage the development of socially salient inequalities and foster shar-
ing and equality create a single-tiered system of stratification.25 This
important difference is represented in Figure 15.2.
Autarchy, however, requires strong egalitarian values and supporting
practices, which have been rare in international orders.
21
This is the first feature that Hobbes notes (Leviathan, ch. 13, par. 1). And it is no less
important than the absence of a “power able to overawe them all” (Leviathan, ch. 13,
par. 5).
22
Hobbes’ “right of every man to every thing” (Leviathan, ch. 14, par. 4) is equivalent to a
right of no one to anything; “the notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have
there no place” (Leviathan, ch. 13, par. 13).
23
If there is stratification, it is only in the geological sense of something laid down (by
non-social processes) in a (in this case single) layer.
24
See §6.3 and, much more briefly, n. 16 in §7.2.1. Of most immediate relevance here,
although all individuals are members of bands, bands have no authority over their mem-
bers. And bands are the only collective actors in forager “international” systems – which
are largely isolated from systematic relations with non-forager peoples.
25
See nn. 57, 58 in §9.4.2.
Unstratified:
The Hobbesian State of Nature
Single- Layer Stratification:

Autarchy
Figure 15.2 “Flat” orders

15.4 Multilayered (Hierarchical) Orders

Nearly all international systems are multilayered. They have official and
unofficial hierarchies and inequalities between levels as well as equali-
ties within levels. Some parts of the system are placed in relations of
super- and sub-ordination. Others, however, stand in relations of coor-
dination. And most actors typically participate in both types of relations.
For example, sovereign states are both legally equal to one another and
legally superior to nonstate actors.
The remainder of this chapter presents highly abstracted models of
forms of stratification26 in two broad types of multilayered orders (cor-
responding to the two columns in Figure 15.1). Single (or convergent)
hierarchies have one axis of stratification that runs through the entire sys-
tem. In multiply ranked (heterarchic) orders stratification operates along
two or more axes.
A more comprehensive account would add further formal dimensions
of differentiation (e.g., the permeability of layers or the possibility of
actors moving between levels). And any actual hierarchy will have cru-
cial substantive, especially normative-institutional, dimensions. My goal
here, however, is (only) to develop one set of models focused on a few
formal dimensions of hierarchical stratification.
15.5 Single (Convergent) Hierarchies I: States Systems

The “obvious” starting point is systems of sovereign states, defined by the
official differentiation of states from nonstate actors, the hierarchical superi-
ority of states over nonstate actors, and the general predominance of states.
Figures 15.3–15.7 model increasingly complicated types of states systems.
In the following figures, horizontal lines mark layers, wide/hollow
arrows mark relations of authority, and thin/solid arrows indicate rela-
tions of control based on capabilities. And “higher” actors have some
sort of superior authority or control over some lower-level actors.
15.5.1 Types of States Systems

Figure 15.3 is the simplest sort of states system.
States are distinguished from nonstate actors (pictorially, by the use of
ovals for states and other shapes for nonstate actors). States are legally
26
Hierarchy involves both stratification and functional differentiation. The following
models, though, while they clearly identify patterns of stratification, only begin to hint
at functional differentiation. They imply that there is functional differentiation but say
little about its substance.
Figure 15.3 Stratification in an unpolarized states system
superior to nonstate actors (represented by both the horizontal line and

the vertical arrow).27 As sovereigns, however, states are officially equal
(represented by the horizontal arrow).
In this simplest case, differences in state capabilities do not cre-
ate significantly privileged or disadvantaged positions. (The system is
unpolarized.28)
Figure 15.4 introduces qualitative differences in state capabilities, cre-
ating a multipolar system. The most powerful states enjoy some element
of unofficial control (represented by small solid arrows).
Authority and capabilities produce different kinds of super- and sub-
ordination (which I think can profitably be described as command and
control). Nonetheless, there is a single axis of stratification.
27
There thus is an implicit substantive (functional) distinction here. But, to repeat, my
models are highly abstract and formal, indicating (implicitly) only that there are func-
tional differences (not what those differences are).
28
See §11.4.1.
Figure 15.4 Stratification in a multipolar states system
In Figure 15.4 two nonstate actors have sufficient capabilities to put

them “over the line” separating states from nonstate actors. That, how-
ever, is exceptional. If a substantial portion of nonstate actors were to
rise “into the ranks of states” then capabilities might best be represented
as a separate axis of stratification. And if some nonstate actors were able
to rise to the level of great powers, there would be two different ladders
to the top. Here, though, there is only one. And it is available only to
states.
IR’s standard implicit model seems to me closer to Figure 15.5. Great
powers have quasi-consensual authority (superior status) to which most
other states regularly acquiesce – represented by another rung on the
ladder and the use of hybrid arrows to suggest quasi-authority exercised
by great powers.
Figure 15.5 Stratification in a great power states system
Figure 15.6 adds two institutions of hierarchical subordination

(depicted in highly abstract formal terms): semi-official spheres of influ-
ence29 (represented by the dark blobs and solid dark arrows connected
to the two outside great powers) and relations of subordination (repre-
sented by the small unfilled arrows connected to the two inside/top great
powers), such as treaties of protection or guarantee.30
29
(Hast 2016 [2014]) and (Jackson 2020) provide useful introductions to the theory and
practice of spheres of influence.
30
See §14.3 at n. 33.
Figure 15.6 Spheres of influence and protectorates
This system, although complicated, is still fundamentally a single/con-

vergent hierarchy. Multiple types of superordination converge around a
single axis of stratification.
It also remains a states system. Only states are officially superordinate.
And states largely monopolize unofficial control. States (alone) predomi-
nate, categorically.
Figure 15.7 represents still another type of states system: a concert.31
Great powers act not only individually but collectively, as members of
a concert. Figure 15.7 represents this both in the curved arrows feeding
into a new vector of hierarchy and in a more pronounced distinction
between great and lesser powers.
31
See §14.3 at n. 37.
Figure 15.7 Stratification in a concert system
A concert system, though, is still singly ranked.32 Great powers have

not transferred (“pooled”) any authority to the concert (which operates
through congresses and summits of the powers, not as an even partially
32
In an earlier presentation (Donnelly 2009, 68–69) I treated concerts as multiply ranked.
Ian Clark (2011, 7, 8, ch. 4) presents a similar reading. I think, though, that this attends
too much to the transformation from unofficial to quasi-official control and not enough
to the fact that there is still but one ladder of superordination that only states can climb.
In other words, here I understand members of the concert as powerful states with spe-
cial rights (rather than a different type of actor).
autonomous entity). They have only agreed to exercise some of their

power jointly. And each member retains full authority to act unilaterally
when, where, and as it sees fit (including on matters of concern to other
members of the concert).33
15.5.2 Hierarchy in States Systems

At the risk of overkill, I want to emphasize that the bottom parts of
Figures 15.3–15.7 are neither superfluous nor too obvious to bother to
represent. The systematic subordination of nonstate actors is a distinc-
tive feature of states systems. In fact, the very idea of nonstate actors –
treating everything except states as a residual – is an artifact of a system
in which states predominate. (Only in a states system is the category
nonstate likely to be of interest.)
Ignoring (as Waltz does) the systemic subordination of nonstate actors
at best sacrifices structure to “causal” explanation.34 In states systems,
outcomes may be shaped disproportionately by great powers, which, as
Waltz emphasized, stand in relations of coordination.35 But to stop the
story here (as Waltz did) ignores the structurally-no-less-essential hier-
archy of states over nonstate actors – and, in Figures 15.4–15.7, of great
powers over lesser powers.
Depicting the stratification of international systems requires encom-
passing the full range of ranks. (Ranking, being relative and relational,
cannot be understood, or even seen, by looking only at those at the top
of a hierarchy.) In addition to the privileged we must also consider the
disadvantaged and deprived. For example, three societies with ten rich
people but ten poor people, ten thousand poor people, and ten million
poor people are structured very differently.
15.6 Single (Convergent) Hierarchies II:

Imperial International Systems
Figure 15.8 represents a very different type of single hierarchy: an impe-
rial system. Although this figure is meant to depict an imperial inter-
national system (e.g., the Roman Empire), “empire states” in a states
33
A collective security system (see §14.3 at n. 39), however, is a multiply ranked system.
There is another level in the hierarchy occupied by a new type of actor with authority
over issues of war and peace.
34
See §6.1.5.
35
(Waltz 1979, 88, 93).
Figure 15.8 Stratification in an imperial system
system (e.g., the late-nineteenth-century British Empire) have a similar

structure.
The imperial center, represented here by the crown-like shape in the
top center, predominates over the empire and dwarfs neighboring unin-
corporated polities. The fundamental distinction is between the empire
and everyone else.
Note the fundamentally different structuring of imperial systems and
unipolar great power systems, as represented in Figure 15.9.
Figure 15.9 Stratification in a unipolar states system
15.7 Multiply Ranked Orders: Heterarchies

Capabilities and authority may also be hierarchically distributed along
multiple axes, creating different hierarchies in different spatial, func-
tional, or relational domains.
15.7.1 Heterarchy
Such multiply ranked orders are, I think, best described as “heterarchic,”
a phrase that combines the root arkhe ̄ (rule) or arkhon (ruler) with the
prefix hetero, indicating difference or variety. Heterarchy involves “dif-
ferential rule” or “multiple rule” – in contrast to the “higher” rule of
single hierarchy, the “self rule” of autarchy, and the “no rule” of states
of nature.
The concept originated in cybernetics.36 In heterarchic systems, “phe-

nomena at one level influence phenomena at putatively higher … lower
… or the same level of description.”37 It has also been long used in busi-
ness studies to describe firms in which authority relations vary with time,
place, unit, or issue area.38
Heterarchy, as I use the term, involves multiple ranking associated
with differentially divided activities, authorities, or capabilities.39 “In the
case of hierarchy, there is only one top; heterarchy, on the other hand,
has several tops”40 – and, continuing the series, autarchy has no top
(or bottom). Units are autonomous in autarchies, embedded in single
hierarchies, and variously related in heterarchies. Single hierarchies are
centralized. Autarchic orders are decentralized. Heterarchic orders are
“neither and both centralized and decentralized.”41
Heterarchy, although relatively new to IR,42 has affinities with various
earlier insights. For example, John Ruggie describes medieval Europe’s
“lattice-like network of authority relations,” following Friedrich Mei-
necke, as “heteronymous”43 – although without tying “heteronomy” to
any broader conceptualization of structure. Hedley Bull’s prescient con-
sideration of a “neo-medieval” future44 has certain similarities but draws
36
(Blackmore 2021) is a useful recent overview.
37
(Findlay and Lumsden 1988, Fig. 4).
38
(Hedlund 1986; Hedlund and Rolander 1996), (Maccoby 1991), (Stark 1999),
(Schwaninger 2000: 165), (Spickard 2004), (Schoellhammer 2020).
39
Archaeology, the one social science where the concept has become semi-standard,
usually employs Carole Crumley’s definition: heterarchic systems are either unranked
or multiply ranked. (Crumley 1987; 2005), (Ehrenreich, Crumley, and Levy 1995).
See also (Ray and Fernández-Götz 2019). This unfortunately lumps everything that
is not singly hierarchical into a heterarchic residual category that obscures the fact
that unranked (or equally ranked) actors stand in very different structural relations
than actors (heterarchically) linked by contextually variable relations of super- and
subordination.
40
(Tokoro and Mogi 2007, 135).
41
(Michael 1983, 260).
42
(Donnelly 2009) was an early published application. Colin Wight (2006, 223) in pass-
ing tantalizingly calls heterarchy structural. Volker Rittberger in an unpublished paper
(2008, 22ff.) presents heterarchy as a third ordering principle in addition to anarchy and
hierarchy. I also have found a doctoral dissertation (Singh 1996) with just one (1997)
Google Scholar citation and two versions of a paper by Satoshi Miura (2003, 2004), also
with just one Google Scholar citation.
43
(Ruggie 1983, 274 n. 30). See also (Hall 1997, 604), (Hall 2004), (Miura 2004),
(Butcher and Griffiths 2022). Following Waltz, though, Ruggie (1983, 274, 279; 1993,
150–151, 161) presents heteronomy as a matter of functional differentiation. Because
only anarchy and hierarchy are ordering principles in the Waltzian account, heteron-
omy “must” be a matter of functional differentiation (horizontal differentiation) – even
though it is at least as much a matter of stratification (vertical differentiation).
44
(Bull 1977, 264–276). But cf. §17.15 at n. 235. Fred Riggs’ (1961) notion of a “pris-
matic system,” although developed from a very different perspective, also has certain
similarities.
attention to the coexistence of multiple types of actors (rather than mul-

tiple ranking). Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye’s well-known model of
complex interdependence45 has hints of heterarchy. They do not, how-
ever, connect it to a broader account of types of international systems.
The literature on multilevel governance, following Bob Jessop,46 does
use the term heterarchy – but to indicate a new kind of actor or gover-
nance mechanism, not a type of stratification.47 The literature on hier-
archy “under,” “amidst,” or “in” anarchy48 grapples with some of the
phenomena to which heterarchy turns our attention – but suggests not
a distinctive type of stratification but an awkward combination of oppo-
sites or the space on a continuum between “anarchy” and “hierarchy.”49
It also ignores multiple axes of ranking.
Heterarchy allows us to capture and incorporate these scattered
insights within a general account of stratification that extends the reach
and penetration of systemic/relational theory research and explanation.50
15.7.2 Hegemony as Heterarchy

Hegemony is perhaps IR’s best-known heterarchic international form. A
hegemon, in one standard definition, directs the foreign policy of lesser
powers that remain substantially in control of their domestic policy.51
Power is thus differentially divided by subject matter (external and inter-
nal relations), creating two dimensions of superordination.
45
(Keohane and Nye 1977, 24–25ff.).
46
(Jessop 1998). See also (Lipschutz 1998).
47
For example, Jürgen Neyer (2003, 242) uses heterarchy to conceptualize the fact that
the EU is less than a state but more than a regime. And the typical language of sharing,
pooling, or re-scaling sovereignty or jurisdiction (e.g., Neyer 2003, 243, 255; Jessop
2005, 54, 63; Curry 2006, 79, 81, 85) underscores the focus on Westphalian states
and contemporary alternatives – rather than a systematic examination of differentially
divided power or multidimensional stratification.
48
See, for example, (Wendt and Friedheim 1995), (Weber 1997, 2000), (Hobson and
Sharman 2005), (Donnelly 2006), (Lake 2009), (Clapton 2014), (Macdonald 2018),
(Learoyd 2018), (McConaughey, Musgrave, and Nexon 2018), (Fehl and Freistein
2020).
49
See also (Milner 1998, 774), (Lowenheim 2007, 22).
50
A Google Scholar search in November 2022 produced over 2,000 results for “het-
erarchy” or “heterarchic” and “international relations.” See, for example, (MacKay
2013), (Jackson 2014), (Sperling and Webber 2014), (Baumann and Dingwerth 2015),
(Zwolski 2016), (Aggestam and Johansson 2017), (Spruyt 2017), (Hynek 2018),
(Hanau Santini and Moro 2019), (Belmonte and Cerny 2021), (Deitelhoff and Daase
2021), (Onditi et al. 2021, ch. 2), (Sakwa 2021).
51
(Doyle 1986a, 12, 40, 55–60), (Watson 1992, 15–16, 27–28, 122–128), (Nexon and
Wright 2007, 256–258), (Musgrave and Nexon 2018, 595). (Dutkiewicz, Casier, and
Scholte 2021, Pt. 1) offers a good recent discussion of conceptualizing hegemony. See
also §14.3.
Figure 15.10 Stratification in a dual hegemony system
Figure 15.10 illustrates a system with two hegemons (e.g., Athens and
Sparta in the last third of the fifth century bce ).
The hegemons are qualitatively distinguished from other units
(depicted by the differently shaped figures on their own level). These
are not just great powers, in the sense of the strongest among official
equals, but hegemons, with special rights to lead based on a mix of com-
mand and control. Furthermore, a distinctive type of subordination
operates within each league. The system thus has two more or less inde-
pendent dimensions of stratification, represented by the addition of a
top-right to bottom-left arrow of hegemonic subordination orthogonal
to the state–nonstate axis (represented here as running from top-left to
bottom-right).52
Figure 15.11 presents a system dominated by a single hegemon.
52
The spheres of influence in Figure 15.6 seem to me not heterarchic because they are not
central to the structure of the system and thus do not introduce a fundamentally differ-
ent axis of stratification. I suspect, though, that hegemony and spheres of influence are
best understood as bleeding into one another.
Figure 15.11 Stratification in a single hegemony system
This still is a states system (not an imperial international system) and

thus has two axes of stratification. Hegemonized states still have some
limited autonomy. Some states are outside the hegemonic league. And
the state–nonstate divide remains important. I suspect that something
like this is what some in and around the George W. Bush Administration
hoped for before the debacle in Iraq.
We have thus identified three different types of hierarchy in “unipolar”
systems: empire (Figure 15.8), single hegemony (Figure 15.11), and a
unipolar great power system (Figure 15.9). Hegemony, however, is not
“between” empire and a unipolar great power system – nor is unipolar-
ity some sort of “incomplete” empire.53 The parts of these systems are
53
Discussions of hegemony in mainstream IR are often confused by the Waltzian anarchy-
plus-polarity conception of international political structure.
For example, Robert Gilpin claims (1981, 144) that hegemony was “the fundamen-
tal ordering principle of international relations” in nineteenth- and twentieth-century
Eurocentric international relations. Gilpin also, however, presents international rela-
tions as “a recurring struggle for wealth and power among independent actors in a
state of anarchy” (1981, 7) and draws explicitly on Waltz’ account of “an anarchic
order of sovereign states” (1981, 85). This makes sense only if, contrary to the standard
organized and operate in fundamentally different ways. If we want to

plot them in two-dimensional space, they are three points of a triangle,
lying in different directions from one another.
15.7.3 Heterarchy at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Globalization and medieval Europe, “obvious” historical examples of
heterarchy, are beyond my ability to depict in a way parallel to the types
considered above.54 Figure 15.12 instead represents the turn-of-the-
twentieth-century international system. This striking example of a multi-
ply ranked order, however, is rarely understood as such in contemporary
IR (because of the discipline’s narrow focus on anarchy and sovereign
great powers).
The great power, lesser power, nonstate actor layering here is paired
with a hierarchical division between “civilized” (white and Christian)
states and “savage,” “barbarian,” and “backward” states (marked by
both the top-right to bottom-left arrow and the central line).
Most of the polities of Africa and Asia (and some in the Americas)
were incorporated into overseas empires (represented by encompassing
irregular shapes). In the resulting “empire-states,” previously indepen-
dent polities had their autonomy extinguished and were incorporated
as administrative units of the empire-state – but not in the same way as
metropolitan units.55
China, the Ottoman Empire, and Siam, however, had their sover-
eignty restricted rather than eliminated by “unequal treaties” justified by
understanding in IR, hegemony, but not anarchy, is an ordering principle or type of

system/structure – which is exactly the case in my account.
Or consider Mearsheimer’s definition of a hegemon as “a state that is so powerful that
it dominates all the other states in the system” (2001, 40). This is inconsistent with both
etymology and the standard dictionary definition. (Hegemony: “political, economic, or
military predominance or leadership, esp. by one member of a confederacy or union
over other states” (Oxford English Dictionary) from ἡγεμών (leader) or ἡγεῖσθαι (to lead).)
Predominance or leadership need not involve domination. And if it does, it need not be
over all others in the system.) Furthermore, this makes Spartan hegemony in the fifth
century bce – and American hegemony after World War II – not hegemonic (because
these hegemons did not dominate the entire system). Mearsheimer’s account also erases
the difference between empire and hegemony. And it leaves us unable to comprehend
the heterarchic form(s) referenced here. But if (following Waltz) structure is reduced
to anarchy and polarity, and if hegemony is seen as a structured international system,
then there would seem to be no alternative to this unfortunate conflation of hegemony
and unipolarity.
54
We will, however, look at these examples, without graphical aids, at the beginning and
end of Chapter 17.
55
I emphasize the structural importance of differential incorporation of peripheries in
§§16.4.2 and 17.4.
Russia
France Britain Austria Germany
Italy
USA
Netherlands Belgium
Portugal
Japan
Ottoman
China Empire Ethopia
India
Siam
Persia
Figure 15.12 Stratification in turn-of-the-twentieth-century interna-

tional society
a “standard of civilization.”56 Japan had by this time “graduated” from

tutelage under the standard of civilization and was emerging as a more
“regular” (and rising) regional power. (It held multiple Chinese conces-
sions and would soon defeat Russia in war.) Nonetheless, it was still
subject to race-based discrimination, which persisted through (and after)
the Versailles conference. Ethiopia and Persia enjoyed official indepen-
dence but also labored under a race- and culture-based reduced status.
An American sphere of influence is represented by an encompassing
bubble. I have not, however, included relations of protection or guaran-
tee,57 which, although significant in north Africa, southeast Europe, and
the Persian Gulf, had by this point been largely eliminated from the core
of the system (with the notable exception of the permanent neutrality
and demilitarization of Belgium).
56
See §14.3 at n. 35.
57
See §14.3 at n. 34.
I have not included solid arrows indicating capabilities-based control –

more for substantive than graphical reasons. The number of independent
polities in the world in 1900 – about fifty – was an historic low, which
substantially decreased the significance of a capabilities-based hierarchy
of states.
The essence of the structure of this system was (multiple) hierarchy.
Sovereign inequality was the dominant norm.58 There was also a game of
great power politics played among relative equals. The Waltzian effort to
reduce the system’s structure to this, however, is not a justifiable analyti-
cal simplification. It simply misrepresents the structuring (arrangement
of the parts) of the system.
15.8 Conceptual Comments on Hierarchy and Heterarchy

My account of multiple types of hierarchy treats political systems not as
more (or less) hierarchical but as differently hierarchical.59
For example, states systems are not “part way” to empires or states.
They are a different type of single hierarchy. Likewise, although the great
power systems of Figure 15.5 have more dimensions of stratification and
more layers than the unpolarized systems of Figure 15.3, they are dif-
ferently, not more, hierarchical. And the relatively complicated states
systems of Figures 15.7 and 15.12 are neither more nor less hierarchical
than the relatively simple imperial system of Figure 15.9.
When thinking of stratification as the formal dimension of vertical dif-
ferentiation, our focus should be on features such as the number, orien-
tation, and range of axes of stratification and the distribution of actors
among the resulting social layers and positions. As I put it above,60 the cru-
cial question is not how hierarchical a system is but how it is hierarchical.
Heterarchy thus identifies a distinct type – or, rather, set of types. Norman
Yoffee’s complaint that heterarchy “simply refers to the existence of many
hierarchies in the same society”61 focuses on the mere fact of hierarchy while
ignoring the structurally essential issue of how units are ranked. Tangled
hierarchies and convergent hierarchies produce different characteristic pat-
terns of social relations. The form (not just the fact) of ranking is crucial.
58
In other words, “sovereign equality” continued to distinguish states from nonstate
actors. But “full” sovereignty – in contrast to institutionalized semi-sovereignty – was
enjoyed only by those able or fortunate enough not to have inequalities imposed on
them. (See also n. 33 in §14.3.) And, as the Treaty of Versailles would strikingly illus-
trate, substantial inequalities could be imposed even on (defeated) great powers.
59
See also §12.1.1.
60
See the end of §9.1.1.
61
(Yoffee 2005, 179).
Neither is heterarchy what lies “between” autarchy (“anarchy”) and

single-hierarchy (“hierarchy”). Orders that divide authority and capa-
bilities in different ways in different contexts are qualitatively different
from – not approximations to, deviations from, or combinations of –
those that concentrate power along a single axis of subordination and
those organized around unit autonomy and equality.62
Heterarchy, however, presents a conceptual danger. Most actual
autarchic orders include limited elements of superordination. Few single
hierarchies are completely one-dimensional. It would be a pyrrhic vic-
tory, though, to replace the notion that almost all international systems
are anarchic with the notion that almost all international systems are
heterarchic. Even if not untrue, that would be deeply unfruitful. Only
where there is substantial divergence between hierarchies is it likely to be
profitable to describe a system as heterarchic.
My construal of heterarchy also is too close to a residual; whatever is
not either equally ranked or singly ranked. Although I can suggest some
further dimensions of difference – for example, the extent to which hierar-
chies are cross-cutting (or parallel) and whether they involve few or many
dimensions of ranking – I am afraid that I have nothing to suggest that
might point toward a useful typology of forms of heterarchic stratification.
The above, in other words, is only a step along one path toward devel-
oping the analytical resources necessary to understand forms of vertical
differentiation in international societies. Nonetheless, it does seem to me
a huge improvement over the Waltzian pretense that international orders
lack not only government but also hierarchy.63
15.9 Typologies and Model-Based Explanation

I close this chapter by stepping back to metatheory and returning to the
idea of explaining with mechanisms and models (rather than laws/causes
and theories) and the epistemic functions of typologies.
15.9.1 Model-Based Explanation

The figures presented above (and in the next chapter) are intended to be
explanatory. They depict arrangement of the parts of a system in order to
provide understanding or intelligibility.
62
Single-layer (autarchic) orders and single hierarchies are also qualitatively distinct types.
Seeing “anarchy” and “hierarchy” as endpoints of a continuum of superordination in
effect plots a percentage of “empire” or “statehood” – which misrepresents most of the
international systems modeled in this chapter.
63
See §6.1.1.
These models, however, are presented at a high level of abstraction.

I have already noted that they primarily identify forms (not the sub-
stance) of hierarchy. They also largely abstract from mechanisms and
processes.64 Although such incomplete and static models can be useful,
especially for comparative analysis, they should be seen, as I argued in
§10.4, not as ends but as steps on the way to more adequate explana-
tions that address how these relations work to produce particular kinds
of outcomes.
There are hints of that here. For example, the distinction between
states and nonstate actors and between small solid arrows of control and
large hollow arrows of authority hint at substance and mechanism – and
call out for further elaboration, especially as such models are applied to
cases. The institutions of spheres of influence, protectorates, and con-
certs also point toward process and substance, as do both the hybrid
arrows of influence in Figure 15.5 and the different types of polities iden-
tified in Figure 15.12.
These models, then, are as much heuristic as immediately explana-
tory. They should be seen as useful but limited tools that point toward
richer and more satisfying explanations.
15.9.2 Thinking about Change with Typologies

Typologies explain in distinctive ways. Here I want to suggest that simple
typologies are especially useful for triangulating possible paths of change
in parts of the structures of particular (sets of) international systems.
Consider Figure 15.13, which continues my emphasis on different
forms of representation of “the same thing” to serve different purposes.
Distinguishing systems in which the principal segments are similar and
dissimilar and equal and unequal,65 I identify three broad types of
international systems – states systems, imperial systems, and interde-
pendent systems – that seem to me useful as a set for thinking about
change in contemporary international society. Nothing more. But nothing
less.
States systems, in the bottom left quadrant, are structured around the
independence of the predominant polities in the systems. But different
64
In the language introduced in §4.8.3, they are at best “sketches” (which represent igno-
rance about some crucial parts of the mechanism) – or, more likely, “perspectives”
(from which mechanism sketches might be developed) or even depictions of “causal
thickets.”
65
This typology, in addition its substantive interest, seems to me to cover the common
ground in my account, Waltz’s, and those of Griffiths and Albert, Buzan, and Zurn
(which I addressed in §§9.3 and 9.4).
Similar Dissimilar
Unequal
Imperial Systems
Hegemonic Systems
Unipolar States Systems

Interdependent
Great Power States Systems
Systems
Unpolarized States Systems*
Equal
Figure 15.13 A typology of international systems

*Differences in power do not create qualitative differences between
states. See §11.4.1.
states systems have different types of hierarchical stratification. Here I

have distinguished unpolarized, great power, and unipolar systems.
“Imperial” international systems, by contrast, are structured around
a single hierarchical center that provides (or at least manages) interna-
tional governance (as in, say, the Roman Empire of the second century).
We might also introduce gradations in systems of hierarchical domina-
tion (e.g., relations of suzerainty).66 And I have included hegemonic sys-
tems, between states systems and “imperial” systems, to indicate that the
distinctions between types are not sharp.
What I have called interdependent (or functionally differenti-
ated) international systems are composed of diverse actors linked in
a relatively complex division of labor. Clearly, there are a great vari-
ety of possible types – which are of obvious interest in thinking about
globalization.
The space in Figure 15.13, I want to emphasize, should not be
understood as homogeneous and linear. There are four ideal types at
the corners of the figure. But the differences between types that I have
identified are fundamentally qualitative (despite the fact that they arise
66
On suzerainty and vassalage in classical European international law, see (Phillimore
1854, §§87–101), (Dickinson 1920a, 236–240), (Oppenheim 1955, §§90–91), (Verzijl
1968, 339–398). Martin Wight (Wight 1977, 24–25) briefly discusses what he calls
suzerain states systems. On suzerainty in imperial China, see (Zhang 2006) and (Zhang
2014).
from particular combinations of “quantities” of equality and similarity).

Although there is a continuum along each axis, the spaces defined by the
conjunction of those two (continuous) variables vary discontinuously.
The identified spaces on the figure map emergent systems effects; nonlinear
changes in configurations. (Although these types bleed into one another,
their qualitative differences are more important than their quantitative
similarities.)
For example, as noted above, a hegemonic system is a distinct type
that is neither a great power states system nor an imperial system – nor
a combination of the two. It “lies between” but does not more or less
approximate those types. It is a qualitatively distinctive type in its own
right.67
This typology clearly does not provide anything close to adequate
depictions of the structuring of any type of system. And it does not come
close to exhausting the possibilities within this space. Nonetheless, it can
help us think about globalization, understood as growth in the breadth,
depth, and complexity of the international division of labor – contrasted
to two broad types of systems that have been historically prominent and
seem to have special contemporary relevance.
For example, from the destruction of the Berlin Wall until the United
States became bogged down in Iraq in 2004–2005, many commenta-
tors worried (or hoped) that we were moving from a great power sys-
tem toward a hegemonic or imperial system. Others argued that growing
economic, political, and social interdependencies were pulling the sys-
tem in quite a different (“globalizing”) direction. Still others argued for
the robustness of the system of sovereign states. These positions express
visions of international order that are usefully encapsulated in the mod-
els of Figure 15.13.
Today this typology, it seems to me, has value in thinking about
the rise of China. For example, if China acts principally as a power-
maximizing offensive realist great power, this might provoke strong and
sustained counterbalancing that might stop or even reverse the trend
over recent decades toward a more interdependent international system.
If counterbalancing fails, though, the direction of movement may be
toward a more imperial system (or perhaps a dual hegemony, if Ameri-
can “decline” proves to be only relative and primarily regional rather
than absolute and global). But if China becomes increasingly embed-
ded in international institutions, building on its centrality in the global
economy and its desire for status/recognition, then movement toward
67
See also the second paragraph of §9.3.4.
increasing functional differentiation might be not only maintained but

intensified.
In other words, the typology as a whole facilitates (a limited range of)
comparisons by (a) delineating a range of possibilities that seems espe-
cially relevant for a particular time, place, and purpose; (b) allowing us
to locate cases in that space of possibilities; and (c) encouraging certain
kinds of comparative thinking. It reflects a particular perspective that
highlights some structural elements and dimensions (and obscures oth-
ers), directing our attention in particular ways that, we hope, generate
insights into and understandings of some important features of the world.
This, I am arguing, generally is the case. Not only are international
systems structured in greatly varied ways but any particular structure can
be fruitfully addressed in multiple ways. Therefore, we should abandon
talk not only about “the” structure of international systems in general
but also about “the” structure of particular systems. Our aim should be
not a complete account of all the ways in which a particular system or
type of systems is structured but useful depictions of some important
ways in which a particular system or type of system is organized and
operates.
16 Levels, Centers, and Peripheries
Spatio-Political Differentiation
This chapter develops models of spatio-political structuring, rooted in

the differentiation of centers and peripheries. (The next chapter applies
this typology to Eurocentric political systems from the High Middle Ages
to today.) Lurking behind this discussion is the intuition that spatio-
political differentiation provides a penetrating picture of globalization.
16.1 Three Conceptions of Political Centralization

Underscoring the theme of diverse perspectives on a multidimensional
reality, I begin by identifying three conceptions of political centralization.
16.1.1 Centralization as the Concentration of Power

A standard ordinary-language sense of “centralization” is “the action or
process of concentrating governmental or administrative power and con-
trol in a central place or authority.”1
Centralization thus understood varies both in range and in depth.
A political system is “more centralized” both when the center controls
more activities and when it has greater or deeper power, authority, or
control. These dimensions, however, do not share a common metric.
For example, Louis XIV claimed a divine right to rule over everything
in his realm but had very little effective control over much of anything.
Contemporary France has a much more limited range of authority but
far more effective control. Which is “more centralized”? Reasonable
arguments, it seems to me, can be made for both.
This sense of centralization seems to me useful when talking com-
paratively about polities or forms of association (as in Ryan Griffiths’
depiction of confederations as more centralized than leagues, which are
more centralized than alliances2). When addressing international systems,
1
Oxford English Dictionary. (I used this sense in the preceding chapter at n. 42.)
2
(Griffiths 2018, 134–135), discussed briefly in §9.3.
295
Figure 16.1 Centralized (spokes-and-hub) empires
however, measures of concentration, such as polarity,3 are of limited

interest. Or, at the very least, there is much to be learned by considering
how systems are centralized (in addition to how centralized they are).
16.1.2 Centralization as the Centering of Power

Centralization also presents an alternative form (or way to understand
the shape) of political authority and control: center and periphery.4
Power in this sense radiates out from a center (rather than flows down
from the top). This is how many empires have understood themselves.
(China as the Middle Kingdom. All roads lead to Rome.)
We thus might represent an empire as in Figure 16.1 – which is quite
different from the stratified representation in Figure 15.8.
Using this framing, we might also re-present a simple states system as
in Figure 16.2.
This depiction nicely captures the “anarchy” of the system (in the
empty space in the middle) and the autonomy of states (which are repre-
sented as ruling over peripheral entities within their territorial domains).
It also draws attention to the equality of states (rather than their supe-
riority over nonstate actors). And it gets at much that Waltz wanted to
highlight in great power states systems (without the confusions of his
conceptions of structure, levels, and theory).
Authority is not always higher authority. Rule is not always from above.
Centers, in addition to radiating influence, attract (and are attractive),
exerting a “gravitational” pull on their peripheries. This mix of attractive
3
See §11.4.1.
4
Front and back – the head of the class; the back of the line – is still another representation.
Levels, Centers, and Peripheries 297
Figure 16.2 Centralization in a states system
and radiating powers exercised by central authorities differs fundamen-

tally from the penetrating power of higher authorities.
Even where center and periphery can be translated into top and bot-
tom, something is usually lost in the translation. And the reverse transla-
tion regularly fails. Some tops are not centers.
We thus might want to combine top-down and center-out accounts.
Figure 16.3 attempts (somewhat awkwardly) such a representation of an
imperial system.
A single center (the pentagon) predominates. Power, however, flows
both out from the center and down from the top. And it both grades off
as one moves away from the center5 and extends out beyond the frontiers
of the empire (for example, creating “tributary” relations over subordi-
nate polities that retain some degree of autonomy,6 as in the top left).
16.1.3 Center–Periphery Differentiation

Here I will use a slightly narrower frame of center–periphery differentia-
tion to present a more explicitly relational take on centralization.
5
Adam Watson (1992, 15–16, 27–28, 122–128) depicts this feature with concentric cir-
cles, which seems to me overly elegant (especially given the agglomerative construction
of most historical empires).
6
See n. 44 in §14.3.
Figure 16.3 Centered hierarchy in an imperial system
I represent social and political systems as structured around specially

valued “places;” centers. As Edward Shils puts it “there is a central zone
in the structure of society … Membership in the society, in more than
the ecological sense of being located in a bounded territory and of adapt-
ing to an environment affected or made up by other persons located in
the same territory, is constituted by relationship to this central zone.”7
Centrality has many dimensions (e.g., political, religious, cultural,
and economic). Those dimensions may or may not overlap or converge.
Centers may stand in varied relations to one another and to their periph-
eries. Whatever the details, though, how centers are related to people,
places, groups, institutions, and values is essential to the structuring of
social and political systems.8
7
(Shils 1975, 3).
8
Uses of center (or core) and periphery to refer to the global economy – (Wallerstein 2011
[1976]) is the classic example; (Denemark 2021) is a recent survey – involve a particular
appropriation of concepts used regularly in Archaeology and Anthropology as I employ
them here.
As I use the term, center–periphery differentiation creates interlinked

central and peripheral polities. “Centralization” and “peripheralization”
are intertwined social processes that construct centers, peripheries, and
their relations.
Peripheries, as I will use that term, are defined not just by distance
from but also by subordination to a center. “Peripheralization” trans-
forms formerly autonomous peoples, polities, or places (or peripheries
of another center) into peripheries of a specific center. (I call distant but
unperipheralized polities “marginal,” “frontier,” or “outlying.”)
Conversely, a powerful polity that merely sits on top of and dominates
other polities is not “central.” A conquering power becomes an imperial
center by peripheralizing peoples, places, or polities (which are trans-
formed in the process).
I therefore would describe twentieth-century France and the Roman
Empire as differently (not more or less) centralized. Power was more
concentrated in France and more dispersed in Rome. Both, though,
were structured by processes of centralization and peripheralization.9
16.2 Spatio-Political Differentiation

I now introduce what I call spatio-political differentiation.
Imagine a layered political space in which lower levels represent greater
spatial detail. Higher-level entities spatially encompass those on lower lev-
els, creating a compositional hierarchy of relative size.
Figure 16.4 models such an abstract political space.
The entire space on the top level is (arbitrarily) divided into four
pieces on the second level, which are (arbitrarily) divided in four on the
third level. But in this and the following figures, “higher” levels do not
indicate greater authority or capabilities. The layering or nesting
is spatial, with no implication of command or control. (Levels are con-
nected by (undirected) lines, not arrows.)
The following sections populate such spaces with “polities” (corpo-
rate political entities capable of at least semi-autonomous action10) to
9
The distinction between “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” relations (see §1.8) can be use-
fully employed here. Centers and peripheries, as I have defined them, are intrinsically
related. (No centers without peripheries and no peripheries that are not peripheries
of a center.) The incorporated polities, however, are extrinsically related (assembled).
Although parts of a system, they also retain a separate, or at least partially separable,
identity.
10
This corresponds to both ordinary language (“an organized society; the state as a
political entity,” Oxford English Dictionary) and standard disciplinary usage (rooted in
(Ferguson and Mansbach 1996)).
Figure 16.4 A three-level spatial grid
develop models of compositional levels of political organization.11 Dis-

tinguishing between (a) the number of top-level political centers, (b) the
homogeneity or heterogeneity of centers, peripheries, and their relations,
and (c) the relative autonomy of centers and peripheries, I identify three
principal types of political systems, both of which have “international”
and “national” forms.
• systems of single-level governance (e.g., states systems);
• systems of single-center governance (e.g., empires); and
• systems of multilevel multiactor governance (e.g., medieval Europe).
In sharp contrast to IR’s standard (Waltzian) structural framing, in
which pre-defined units (individuals and states), on (three) pre-defined
11
See §§1.3, 3.3.
levels, combine into pre-defined types of (national and international)

political systems, I treat as empirical questions the types of polities that
exist within a space, their distribution and relations, and the resulting
kinds of systems.
More elaborated models would, for example, add directed flows of
authority or control (transforming the connecting lines into arrows),
map relations on (not just between) levels, and incorporate normative-
institutional differentiation. My highly abstract and formal account is
seriously incomplete – but, I am suggesting, illuminating.
16.3 Systems of Single-Level Governance (States Systems)

Figure 16.5 depicts IR’s standard (Waltzian) model of an “international
political system” – a states system.
The top level is unoccupied. (In Waltz’s terms, the system is anar-
chic.) The middle level is occupied by a relatively few centers (states/
units). The bottom level is occupied by a relatively large number of poli-
ties (e.g., provinces) that are peripheries of a second-tier center. (The
units/states are internally hierarchical.)
Figure 16.5 A Waltzian states system

I call this a system of single-level governance by terminal peer polities.12

The system is arranged around “terminal polities;” the most encom-
passing polities in the space; polities that are parts of a larger political
system that is not itself a polity.13 These terminal polities are located
on a single level. They are peers in an international society. And they
provide most of the governance in the system, “nationally” (“hierarchi-
cally”/vertically) and “inter-nationally” (horizontally, both bilaterally
and multilaterally).
This account differs from Waltz’s in at least five important ways.
• This is only one type of international system (not a privileged or
default model).
• I define states systems by their governance structure – not by the fact
that they are “not national” (lack a single central government).
• Authority in the system is allocated to the terminal polities – not, as
Waltz claimed, absent.14 Multiple centers on a single level provide
vertical rule within their polities and (limited) horizontal governance
of the broader system of which they are parts.
• “Structure” refers to the arrangement of the parts of a system15 –
not something on a higher “system level.” Neither the system nor its
structure is on a (spatial or organizational) level separate from the
“units.”
• The top-level political system in Figure 16.5 is on the second (inter-
state) level – not the (empty) top level.
This last feature suggests re-presenting states systems as two-level
systems as in Figure 16.6.16
This chapter’s minimalist framing of spatio-political differentiation
does not permit creating interesting variants on this model. The pre-
ceding chapter, however, as well as the discussion of security regimes
12
Although this jargon adds both content and precision, I usually use the familiar term
“states system” (although always insisting on the plural states – rather than the much
more common “state system,” which obscures the centrality of multiple states in defin-
ing the system).
13
See §11.2.1. The distinction here is between political systems that are corporate groups
capable of (at least semi-) autonomous action – polities – and those that are not (in this
case, a states system).
14
(Waltz 1979, 88, 104, 112).
15
“The arrangement and organization of mutually connected and dependent elements in
a system” Oxford English Dictionary. “A structure is defined by the arrangement of its
[the system’s] parts” (Waltz 1979, 80. See also 81, 88, 99).
16
I have also redrawn the shapes of the states to leave open the possibility of heterogeneity
among the units – even if Waltz (1979, 74–77, 96–97, 104, 114, 127–128) is right that
states in a states system tend to become similar.
Figure 16.6 Single-level governance by terminal peer polities (a states

system)
in §14.3, suggest some ways to incorporate the character of the centers

and their relations with one another. For example, the institution of
“great powers” introduces hierarchical stratification on the spatial level
of states.
16.4 Systems of Single-Center Governance

(States and Empires)
What I call systems of single-center governance have one top-tier center.
I distinguish two types, based on the relations between the center and
its peripheries.
16.4.1 Integrated Polities (States)

In integrated polities, represented in Figures 16.7 and 16.8, relatively
homogeneous peripheries stand in fundamentally similar relations to the
center. Modern states are examples, in both their unitary (e.g., French)
and federal (e.g., American and German) forms.
All German Länder stand in similar relations to the federal center.
Unlike French départements, though, they are not merely subordinate
administrative units. In addition to being peripheries of the top-level
center, they are (second-level) centers.
Figure 16.7 Single-center governance of a unitary integrated polity (a

unitary state)
Figure 16.8 Single-center governance of a federal integrated polity
I represent this difference with “fills.” The top-level center in both

figures is dark and opaque. Merely administrative units (on the bottom
level) are unfilled. The second-tier polities in the federal polity in Figure
16.8, however, are partially opaque and lightly filled, reflecting both their
limited autonomy and the fact that they are both centers and peripheries.
I call both types States, with a capital S. (Most readers, I suspect,
will find this less jarring jargon than (the more informative) “integrated
single-center polities.”) “The modern state” is, in these terms, a type of
State characterized by legal-rational bureaucratic rule.
Figure 16.9 Single-center governance of an aggregated political system

(empire)
16.4.2 Aggregated Polities (Empires)

In aggregated polities, illustrated in Figure 16.9, heterogeneous peripher-
ies stand in varied relations to a governing center.
Lower-level polities differ not just in size but in character and political
function, as indicated by both their varied shapes and their differing fills
(which represent different degrees of autonomy/centrality). I call such a
system an empire, in the ordinary-language sense of “an extensive territory
… often consisting of an aggregate of many separate states or territories.”17
Empires that are polities in a larger system (e.g., nineteenth-century
France) I call “empire-states,” using “state” in the broad sense of pol-
ity. Empires that encompass all of a space (or a regional sub-space) I
call “imperial international (or regional) systems.” (The Roman Empire
was an imperial international system with an empire-state at its core.) In
the following chapter I argue that early modern states were (aggregated)
empire-states, not (integrated) States.
16.4.3 Integrated and Aggregated Systems of Single-Center Rule

Both “States” and “empires” – “integrated” and “aggregated” “single-
center” polities – typically expand through agglomerative processes such
17
Oxford English Dictionary. Most scholarly definitions similarly see “empire as a territori-
ally expansive and incorporative kind of state” (Sinopoli 1994, 160).
as war, marriage, inheritance, purchase, or voluntary union. “States”

(with a capital S) re-integrate their peripheries into relatively similar parts
of a relatively unified whole. “Empires” remain closer to their origins,
“choosing” to rule their peripheries differentially; as parts of an aggre-
gated (rather than an integrated) system.
For example, late-medieval Florence acquired the surrounding com-
munities through a series of ad hoc “bilateral accords [with] a large num-
ber of single entities.” “The plurality of asymmetrical relationships gave
shape to a politico-territorial system in which a mosaic of unintegrated
clusters was arranged about Florence as a central pole, each defined by
separate autonomies and privileges.”18
In Classical Athens, by contrast, the reforms of Cleisthenes in 508/7
bce created a unitary political-juridical structure. “The Athenians” were
spread across the whole territory of the polis. Those in physically or
socially peripheral districts (demes) were no less citizens than those living
in the city. (Classical Greek distinguished astu (“city” as urban space)
from polis (“city” as polity or “city-state”).) And, as the system matured,
a single system of law governed all citizens equally (isonomia).
Note my loose use of “single-center” in reference to empires and fed-
eral States, which have peripheries that are also lower-level centers. By
“single-center” I mean a system with only one top-tier center. Whether
a system has one or more top-level centers is a crucial feature of spatio-
political differentiation, as I understand it.
16.5 Systems of Multilevel Multiactor

Governance (Heterarchies)
In Figure 16.10, which I constructed with contemporary Europe in
mind, multiple heterogeneous centers on multiple levels stand in varied
relations to one another and to their peripheries.
I describe this as a system of multilevel multiactor governance and use
the label heterarchy.19 Heterarchic systems may be polities in a larger
system or “international” (or regional) systems.
Governance in heterarchies is organized in significant measure func-
tionally. Different authorities regulate different issues, making most
places subject to multiple and varied centers that share governance.
Different kinds of centers exercise different authorities in overlapping
spaces.
18
(Zorzi 2000, 23, 30).
19
See §15.7.1.
Figure 16.10 Multilevel multiactor governance (heterarchy)
In states systems, by contrast, political functions are concentrated in

terminal polities, making governance fundamentally territorial, as sug-
gested by the vertical lines of authority. In Figure 16.10, however, the
lines on the top two levels are cross-cutting, reflecting the fact that dif-
ferent top-tier polities (in the European case, different regional organiza-
tions) have different functions (and different memberships).
Another important feature of Figure 16.10 is that the top-tier poli-
ties are not the predominant centers in this space – which is structured
around the second-tier polities (in the European case, sovereign states).
(Recall that in these models higher-level polities are only spatially more
encompassing. Larger does not mean more powerful. Top-level does not
mean sovereign.)20
The largest top-tier polity in Figure 16.10, however, is approximating
a co-equal center. (It is only one shade lighter and just 20 percent less
20
That my models do not represent “upward” authority relations presents an obvious
(although readily remedied) problem, which also arises in federal (and especially con-
federal) polities.
Figure 16.11 Heterarchic stratification in contemporary Europe
opaque than the second-tier polities.) Further (re)allocations of author-

ity to top-tier polities would at some point require representing the par-
tial peripheralization of second-tier polities by reducing their shade or
opacity.
This framing allows us to map relations in complicated multilevel and
multidimensional systems of polities. The Waltzian framing, by con-
trast, works well only in the simple case of States-in-a-states-system – a
type of international system that merits neither conceptual nor historical
privilege.
Finally, to underscore the difference between center–periphery and
stratification framings, consider Figure 16.11, which represents stratifi-
cation in contemporary Europe with a model similar to those used in the
preceding chapter.
Figure 16.11 maps layered authority (rather than the spatial levels
that I have addressed in this chapter). Therefore, both leading European
states and leading regional organizations are “at the top” (on the left
and on the right, respectively). The system is structured along two axes
of stratification: states (top left to bottom right) and regional organiza-
tions (top right to bottom left). And the middle layer is populated by
(small) states, (large) nonstate actors, and (middling) regional organiza-
tions alike, indicating that the eroding predominance of a states-system
structuring.
16.6 Summary: Types of Polities and International Systems

Focusing on the differences between systems with one and more than
one top-level center and with homogeneous and heterogeneous centers
and peripheries, I have identified three broad types of governance sys-
tems: single-center governance, single-level governance, and multilevel
multiactor governance, each of which can take both “national” (types of
polities) and “international” (systems of terminal polities) forms.
• States (with a capital S): systems with a single top-tier center that stands
in similar relations to similar peripheries (Figures 16.7 and 16.8).
• Empire-states: systems with a single top-tier center that stands in varied
relations to heterogeneous peripheries (Figure 16.9).
• Heterarchy-states: polities composed of multiple heterogeneous centers
that operate on different scales and stand in varied relations to one
another and their peripheries21 (Figure 16.10).
• States systems: systems of single-level governance by terminal peer poli-
ties. (Figure 16.6).
• Heterarchic international systems: systems of multilevel multiactor gov-
ernance. (Figure 16.10).
• Imperial international systems: one actor predominates in a system that
is more an “international” system than a “national” empire (Figure
16.9).
My distinction between systems with one top-tier polity and those with
more than one has similarities to Waltz’s division of hierarchic/national
and anarchic/international systems. In addition, my focus on homogene-
ity and heterogeneity has resonances with Waltz’s conception of func-
tional differentiation.
I argue, however, that political spaces do not typically have a simple
two-level national–international structure. And, extending the argument
of §9.2, I have shown that political systems need not have a singular
ordering principle. International political systems, no less than national
political systems, are structured in varied ways. And, as illustrated by the
differences between the stratification framing of the preceding chapter
and the spatio-political framings of this chapter, there usually are mul-
tiple illuminating ways to understand the organization and operation of
national and international political systems.
21
Section 17.4.3 presents the early modern Holy Roman Empire as a heterarchy-state.
17 Continuous (Trans)formation of Eurocentric
Political Systems (c. 1225 – c. 2025)
This chapter, which is by far the longest in the book, looks at the Euro-
centric political world over the past eight centuries employing the spatio-
political typology sketched in the preceding chapter and the frame of
continuous (trans)formation presented in Chapter 12.
The Waltzian conception holds that there has been almost no struc-
tural change in the Eurocentric international system from the central/
high medieval period to today. (It has remained anarchic and, except for
half a century, multipolar.) This is patently ludicrous on any plausible
conception of structure.
More interesting is the common narrative of a singular modern transi-
tion (somewhere between 1500 and 1650). I am aware, though, of no
criteria that could justify depicting a decisive modern break with three or
four centuries of fundamental continuity on either side. And in fact we
see a series of relatively modest innovations that result in major changes
but not radical breaks – a pattern of continuous (trans)formation that I
argue has important implications for how we think about globalization.
Covering eight centuries in a single chapter means that most of what
follows is wildly oversimplified. As a partial remedy, almost three-quarters
of the chapter considers the early modern period. Readers interested
principally in the contemporary analytical payoff may prefer to look first
(or only) at §§17.14 and 17.15, which address globalization.
17.1 High Medieval Heterarchy

I begin at the end of the “high” or “central” medieval period, suppressing
great spatial variation to depict political structures in western and central
Europe in the 1220s (early in the reigns of Louis IX (r. 1226–1270) in
France and Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220–1250)).
Political authority was divided functionally (heterarchically) into sacer-
dotium (supreme spiritual authority; priesthood) and imperium (supreme
secular authority; empire) or regnum (secular rule; government). And,
in sharp contrast to today, spiritual authority was not only a branch of
310
Continuous (Trans)formation of Eurocentric Systems 311
political authority but the most important branch. The preeminent politi-
cal task in medieval Europe was the regulation of religious belief and
practice – the path to eternal salvation.1
Two parallel political hierarchies jointly governed high-medieval
(Western) Christendom,2 reflecting the “two powers” or “two swords”
doctrine.3 And in both “acceptance of some level of [hierarchy]” was
“accompanied by informal measures to preserve as much independence
or influence for different layers as possible.”4
Each functional domain had four levels.
At the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy5 was the Pope, the Bishop of
Rome; the successor to Peter, to whom Jesus gave the keys to heaven.6
Sacerdotal authority was exercised by archbishops, bishops, and parish
priests, governing loosely nested communities of decreasing scale. As the
hierarchical or physical distance from Rome increased, though, papal
control declined, usually precipitously. And secular authorities every-
where regularly exerted substantial influence (although, at the highest
levels, not as much as two or three centuries earlier7).
The top secular level was occupied by the Emperor, the successor to
the emperor of Rome.8 Propagandistic protestations of universal impe-
rium aside, though, he had little power beyond the boundaries of the
Empire (Germany, northern Italy, south-eastern France, and the low
countries) – which itself was a disparate collection of more than two
hundred secular and ecclesiastical polities of diverse sizes, shapes, and
powers standing in varied relations to the Emperor.
I call the second secular level regnal, using a neologism created by
Susan Reynolds9 to indicate a separate secular polity (regnum; realm,
government) without suggesting anything else about the character of the
polity (or its ruler). Regnal rulers such as the King of France, the Duke
1
(Peters 1980) reviews medieval struggles against heresy, which were at the heart of both
“internal” and “international” politics. See also (Ames 2015). R. I. Moore (2007 [1987])
even defines medieval Europe (somewhat anachronistically, it seems to me) as “a perse-
cuting society.”
2
(Cowdrey 1998, 546–550 and ch. 10), (Chodorow 1972, ch. 9).
3
The classic statement is in a letter from Pope Gelasius I to Emperor Anastasius in 494.
(Robinson 1988, 288–300ff.) briefly introduces the doctrine and its development.
4
(Watts 2009, 216). See also (Reynolds 1984, 9).
5
Very briefly, see (Watts 2009, 116–122).
6
(Ullmann 1972) and (Whalen 2014) are single-volume histories of the medieval papacy.
7
On the Investiture Controversy, which in the early twelfth century shifted the power to
appoint archbishops to the Pope, see §11.2.2 at n. 21.
8
(Fuhrmann 1986 [1983]) and (Haverkamp 1988 [1984]) are histories of the central-
medieval Empire.
9
(Reynolds 1984, ch. 8, esp. 254). (Watts 2009, 376–380) powerfully applies the concept
to the development of late-medieval and early modern polities.
of Brittany, and the Count of Flanders, however, not only had limited
legal, fiscal, and political rights but also usually lacked the resources to
exercise much control beyond their personal dynastic domains.
Secular rulers on what I call the provincial level thus typically were
subject only to limited (imperial or regnal) direction and oversight.10 As
John Watts nicely puts it, there was “a thin royal crust over a mass of
independent jurisdictions.”11
In local communities, which were overwhelmingly rural, secular
authority was exercised by lords (seigneurs, Herren), with little higher
supervision.12 (Most localities were outlying areas that had not been
peripheralized.13) Furthermore, “many lordships … were little more
than private estates, with odd scraps of jurisdiction attached – often
insecurely.”14
These two functionally separate hierarchies also diverged territorially.
Regnal polities usually included (at least parts of) multiple archbishop-
rics. Archbishoprics did not correspond to duchies or counties. Church
parishes rarely corresponded to local lordships.
The result was a heterarchic15 system of overlapping and interpene-
trating authorities and jurisdictions.16 Each place typically was subject to
multiple secular and ecclesiastical “princes” – who often stood in com-
plicated (and contested) relations.
Overlaid on all this was a socio-political hierarchy based on a func-
tional division between those who prayed, those who fought, and those
who worked the land.17 My spatio-political focus downplays this hierar-
chy. In an account that aspired to greater completeness, though, it would
deserve considerable emphasis.
Although the particularism of medieval life stands out to us today, the
emphasis at the time was on the unification of particularities in an all-
encompassing cosmic hierarchy18 – and the temporal hierarchical unity
10
See (Reynolds 1984, ch. 7). (Arnold 1991) explores princely rule in the twelfth- and
thirteenth-century Empire.
11
(Watts 2009, 84).
12
(Reynolds 1984, ch. 5), (Sivéry 1999), (Freedman 2000), (Dyer 1998).
13
On this distinction, see §16.1.3.
14
(Watts 2009, 97).
15
See §§15.7.1, 16.5.
16
Control over the use of force was similarly shared across levels, with regnal rulers raising
armies of self-armed and self-provisioned men through feudal levies. See, for example,
(Contamine 1984 [1980], ch. 2, 3, 8), (Brown 2001).
17
(Duby 1980 [1978]) is a standard account of this “three orders” framework.
18
(Pseudo-)Dionysius (Denys the Areopagite) provided the most influential expression of
this vision. His works are available in translation at www.ccel.org/ccel/dionysius/works
.html. (Rorem 1993) provides a commentary on the texts and their influence.
of Christendom, the universal polity that provided the path to salvation.

Therefore, the top level, although populated by actors with limited pow-
ers, was essential to the structuring of high-medieval politics.
17.2 Late Medieval Changes

This heterarchic high-medieval system very gradually gave way to an
early modern states system through a long sequence of changes that can
be traced back into the thirteenth century.
After the death of Frederick II in 1250 there was a steady (although
uneven) absolute rise in the capabilities and autonomy of leading
provincial-level polities within the Empire.19 And outside the Empire,
the motto rex imperator in regno suo [the king is emperor in his realm] was
being regularly used by the end of the thirteenth century.20 Although the
Emperor held a superior status, he did not even claim to rule over, let
alone in, kingdoms such as England, Castile, and France.
The papacy,21 in addition to facing the challenge of rising secular rul-
ers, was weakened by sustained internal conflict, especially the move to
Avignon (1309–1377) and the Great (Western) Schism (1378–1417),
during which competing popes, and their political backers, crassly com-
peted for ecclesiastical control.22 Even after the Council of Constance
(1414–1418) restored ecclesiastical unity,23 churches in France,24 Ger-
many,25 and Spain26 became increasingly “national”/regnal. The failed
crusades against the Hussites,27 which forced the papacy in 1436 to
19
(Arnold 1991) is a standard English-language source on medieval Territorialstaten (pro-
vincial polities in my terminology).
20
(Hinsley 1986, 88–89), (Pennington 1993, 31–36), (Rivière 1924), (Ullmann 1975,
96ff.; 1979), (Watts 2009, 68).
21
On the high-medieval papacy see (Ullmann 1972, ch. 9, 10), (Blumenthal 2004),
(Robinson 2004), (Watt 1999), (Meyer 2007), and, most briefly, (Watts 2009, 49–59).
22
See (Ullmann 1972, ch. 11, 12), (Kaminsky 2000), (Zutshi 2000), (Logan 2002, ch.
15, 16) and, at greater length, (Rollo-Koster 2015; Rollo-Koster and Izbicki 2009).
During the Schism, kings, especially in France and Castile, “began to wield powers that
had formerly been exercised by popes” (Watts 2009, 296), including taxation to support
the Church. (Watts 2009, 291–301) briefly summarizes the decline of papal power in
the first half of the fifteenth century.
23
(Black 1998, 67–76) and (Watts 2009, 291–301) provide brief accounts of the Council
and its successors.
24
(Small 1995, 8–25) briefly addresses the link between kingship and religion in late-
medieval France. (Lewis 1968, ch. 3, sect. iv) is a good brief introduction to the late-
medieval French Church.
25
A useful introduction to the Reichskirke (Imperial [Catholic] Church) can be obtained
by following the index entries in (Wilson 2016).
26
(Payne 1984, ch. 2), (Rawlings 2002).
27
(Klassen 1998).
accept religious heterodoxy in Bohemia and Moravia, foreshadowed the

Lutheran and Calvinist Reformations of the sixteenth century,28 which
fatally fractured the doctrinal and ecclesiastical unity of Christendom
(on which much of the Pope’s authority rested). And the Italian Wars
(1494–1559)29 effectively reduced the secular power of the papacy to
that of an Italian regional actor.30
In the fifteenth century, however, Emperors Sigismund (r. 1410–1437)
and Frederick III (r. 1452–1493) were not merely competent but in many
ways successful rulers.31 Sixteenth-century Emperors thus exercised
greater control over a stronger polity than their fourteenth-century prede-
cessors.32 The official change of name in 1512 to the Holy Roman Empire
of the German Nation, however, reflected the fact that the Emperor had
in effect become king of Germany; that is, a regnal-level great power.
Thus by the late sixteenth century the high-medieval “universal”
(supra-regnal) level had been eliminated. And, as we will see as we pro-
ceed, governance was increasingly concentrated in regnal, and especially
royal, polities.
17.3 New Monarchies and the Rise

of a European States System
The most important spatio-political change in fifteenth- and sixteenth-
century Christendom was the absolute and relative rise of regnal poli-
ties. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, leading kings and dukes
expanded their systems of law courts and improved their administrative
and fiscal capabilities,33 allowing them to begin to push their authority a
bit further and deeper into their realms. And some kings who managed
to succeed in the brutal dynastic wars of the fifteenth century began to
distinguish themselves from all other secular princes.
In France, England, and Spain, several decades of crisis – the last
decades of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453),34 the Wars of the
28
(Greengrass 2014, ch. 10, 11) and (Marshall 2009) are useful, recent, brief overviews.
(Cameron 2012) and (Marshall 2015) are thorough but accessible book-length intro-
ductions, as are (Pettegree 2000) and (MacCulloch 2005 [2003]) at greater length.
29
(Mallett and Shaw 2014 [2012]) provides a good recent overview.
30
(Ullmann 1972, 332) concludes his history of the medieval papacy with the observation
that “on the threshold of the modern period” the papacy had been “reduced … to a
power situated in central Italy.”
31
(Herde 2000), (Hlavacek 2000), (Scott 1998).
32
See §17.4.3.
33
(Watts 2009, 43–129, 205–263, 393–419) surveys changing late-medieval governmen-
tal structures and practices. See also (Guenée 1985 [1981]).
34
(Vale 1998), (Neillands 2001, ch. 13–16).
Roses (1455–1485),35 and a series of wars and succession crises from

1412 to 1469 within and between the crowns of Castile and Aragon36
(followed by the War of the Castilian Succession (1475–1479)) – opened
spaces for vigorous and effective kings to try to establish something like
hegemony in their realms. (I explicitly use the language of hegemony, in
the IR sense of more or less grudgingly acknowledged predominance and
leadership, to underscore the absence of anything like a supreme cen-
tral government.) The principal issue of “national” political contention
became the balance between regnal and provincial centers.
“Internationally,” a single Christian polity remained an almost uni-
versally endorsed ideal. In practice, though, heterarchic multilevel
governance gave way over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries to a states system, rooted in dynastic political particularism
and a grudging tolerance for the coexistence of polities of (a few) differ-
ent Christian confessions.
Charles of Hapsburg (1500–1558) made the last serious attempt
to (re-)establish something resembling a universal Christian polity.37
Dynastic good fortune added to his hereditary title of Duke of Burgundy
(as Charles II) not only rule over both Castile and Aragon (in 1516, as
Carlos I) but also the Empire (in 1519, as Karl/Carolus V), creating
a polity that rivaled Charlemagne’s in size and power. In addition, he
strongly supported Christian unity – that is, efforts to suppress, by force
if necessary, heresy (Protestantism) – and military efforts to stop the
advance of the “heathen” Turk.
But Charles’ realm did not include France (or England). And near the
end of his life, disillusioned, he effectively renounced both secular and
religious universalism.
In 1556, Charles abdicated and divided his domains, passing Spain
and the Netherlands to his son Philip and the Empire to his brother
Ferdinand. No less importantly, in 1555 he agreed to the Peace of Augs-
burg, which established the principle cuius regio, eus religio [whose realm,
their religion], allowing princes within the Empire to choose Catholicism
or Lutheranism as the official religion of their polity. This acceptance
of (limited) religious heterodoxy and the subordination of churches to
princes marked a decisive shift from the functional bifurcation of high-
and late-medieval politics.
These changes, along with the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559),
which finally ended the Italian (Hapsburg-Valois) Wars, can be seen as
35
(Carpenter 1997), (Horrox 1998), (Pollard 2013, ch. 5, 6), (Grummitt 2013, ch. 7, 8).
36
(Hilgarth 1978, pt. 2), (Ruiz 2007, ch. 5), (Del Treppo 1998), (MacKay 1998).
37
See, for example, (Blockmans 2002), (Maltby 2004), (Parker 2019), and, in IR, (Nexon
2009, ch. 5).
the beginnings of a (slow and uneven) transition to an early modern

states system. A four-level system of functionally divided governance was
replaced by a three-level system in which both “national” and “interna-
tional” governance was increasingly concentrated in regnal polities.
Although the Peace of Westphalia (1648) presented itself as “a Chris-
tian and Universal Peace” for “the Benefit of the Christian World,”38 in
practice there was no politically significant actor above the regnal level
after the 1550s. During the personal rule of Louis XIV (1661–1715),
driven in part by fears of French hegemony, a political world dominated
by (mostly royal39) regnal polities became the near-universal expecta-
tion. And this understanding became relatively highly institutionalized in
the decades following the Peace of Utrecht (1713–1715).
These major structural transformations, as we will see as we proceed,
were matters of continuous (trans)formation. In an average lifetime, the
experience of continuity would usually have been greater than the experi-
ence of change – except for catastrophes, such as famine, pestilence, and
war.40 And across generations and centuries, although basic structuring
relations did change, those changes were largely driven by mechanisms
of transposition and re-functionality that produced co-evolving polities
and political systems that by the eighteenth century were settling into
the configuration of states-in-a-states-system – “modern international
relations.”
17.4 Early Modern Dynastic Empire-States

The polities in the emerging early modern states system were empire-
states (agglomerated polities) not States (integrated polities)41 – let alone
“modern” legal-rational states, a model that “is hopelessly anachronistic
when applied to an early modern state.”42
Where “the modern state has been constructed to create a unifor-
mity or universality of life within its borders”43 – a “single system of
38
Treaty of Munster, Article 1 and Preamble. (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/
westphal.asp.spu).
39
The Dutch Republic was the one non-royal great power. In “Germany,” the power of
the Hapsburg rulers, beginning with Leopold I (r. 1658–1705), rested more on their
regnal holdings as Archduke of Austria (and King of Bohemia and King of Hungary)
than the Imperial crown. (Lists of great powers therefore came to use Austria rather
than the Empire.)
40
Charles V is the exception that proves the rule – and even there his dramatic rise was the
result of well-established practices of dynastic agglomeration.
41
See §16.4.
42
(Collins 1995, 2). See also (Elliott 2002 [1963], 77).
43
(Migdal 1997, 209).
governance … [and] law applies to (virtually) all who find themselves

within these boundaries”44 – early modern polities were variegated
aggregations of “a myriad of smaller territorial and jurisdictional units
jealously guarding their independent status,”45 with “different social
structures [and] different laws and institutions.”46 These “composite
states”47 were very much assemblages – “non-integrative unions”48 – in
which “constituent parts ha[d] a meaningful and partly independent
existence.”49 Here I look at France, Spain, Britain, and the Empire, the
four great powers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (Those
uninterested in the details should feel free to skim or skip this section.)
17.4.1 France
When Louis XI became king in 1461, although the English had been
expelled from everywhere except Calais, “France” did not include Brit-
tany, Burgundy, Lorraine, Franche-Comté, Savoy, Provence, Picardy,
Flanders, or Hainaut.50
Furthermore, different territories were differently incorporated.
Two-fifths of the king’s subjects in the sixteenth century retained
their traditional laws and representative institutions. Even Louis XIV
(r. 1643–1715) added Flanders to his realm through agglomerative com-
pacts that produced “two governmental systems corresponding to very
different historical traditions [that] found themselves having to work side
by side.”51
Early modern French kings, like their medieval predecessors,
“assembled their kingdom piecemeal, layer on layer. They accreted
different customs, legal systems, and privileges.”52 The resulting
“conglomeration of duchies, counties, and provinces”53 was “under
the domination of the king of France”54 but “only partially under
44
(Morris 2004, 197).
45
(Elliott 1992, 51).
46
(Koenigsberger 1986, x).
47
See (Elliott 1992), (Koenigsberger 1978) = (Koenigsberger 1986, ch. 1), and, more
briefly (Nexon 2009, 68–72).
48
(Hayton and Kelly 2010b, 4).
49
(Watts 2009, 380).
50
The fragmented character of Louis’ realm is strikingly evident in www.emersonkent
.com/map_archive/france_1461_map.htm.
51
(Lottin 1991, 86). (McCluskey 2013) examines Louis’ military occupations of Lorraine
and Savoy, providing considerable insight into the character of politics in the far periph-
eries of the kingdom.
52
(Briggs 1977, 2).
53
(Major 1962, 125).
54
(Mousnier 1979 [1980], 251).
royal control.”55 And whatever the official legal status of a place,

“political control … always ebbed at the extremities of the country,
progressively decreasing in the more recently acquired provinces
farthest from Paris.”56 Provincial governors were more or less inde-
pendent powers (usually with deep local roots).57 Major towns were
semi-autonomous.58 Many rural areas were largely untouched by
royal rule (except for increasingly onerous taxation).
Malcolm Vale’s assessment of mid-fifteenth-century France applies
across the early modern period. “Dynastic loyalty and a recognition of
the crown’s theoretical sovereignty was as much as could be expected
from many of the kingdom’s inhabitants. Divided by law, language and
custom, France was not a ‘nation’ in the modern sense.”59 “France” was
not an “international system” either.60 But the sixteenth-century Valois
kings ruled a polity that was in many ways as similar to today’s EU as to
today’s France.
Louis XIII (r. 1610–1643) and Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715) did sig-
nificantly increase central administrative capabilities. As we will see in
§17.7.2, though, administration in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
France, although no longer “medieval,” certainly was not “modern.”
“The French king’s writ did not extend equally across his kingdom
even when Bourbon power was at its most complete.”61 And, as we saw
in §12.3, Louis XIV’s armies were similarly post-medieval but early/
pre-modern.
Early modern France was “a polyglot empire” – as late as 1789, half of
the population did not speak French62 – “with a wide range of local insti-
tutions adapted to the many local cultures.”63 It “had no common legal
code or administrative system … and individuals, towns, corporations,
and provinces all possessed a bewildering array of privileges.”64 Even
55
(Kettering 1986b, 5). See also (Mousnier 1979 [1980], 251), (Hoffman 1994, 227),
(Salmon 1975, 62).
56
(Anderson 1974, 85–86).
57
(Harding 1978), (Mousnier 1979 [1980], ch. 22).
58
(Mousnier 1979 [1974], ch. 13).
59
(Vale 1998, 407).
60
See §17.13.1 on the problems of a national–international binary in early modern
Europe.
61
(Hayton and Kelly 2010a, 245). See also (Anderson 1974, 85–86), (Brewer 1990
[1988], 6).
62
(Hobsbawm 1992, 60).
63
(Collins 1995, 5). P. S. Lewis’ (1968, 4) observation on the late medieval period is
equally true of the early modern period: “we must begin … with this concept of a France
highly regional in mentality.”
64
(Swann 2001, 145).
“the famous hexagon [the shape of modern France] can itself be seen as
a colonial empire shaped over the centuries.”65 And that final shape only
was solidified by French failures in the Italian Wars (1494–1559) and
Louis XIV’s inability to take Hapsburg holdings in Italy and Catalonia.
17.4.2 Spain
The marriage in 1469 of Isabella, future queen of Castile, and Ferdi-
nand, future king of Aragon, laid the foundations for the creation of
“modern Spain.” The Crown of Aragon, however, was “a loose federa-
tion of territories” – including not only Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia
but also Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Majorca – “each with its own laws
and institutions.”66 And Castile, although more geographically compact,
was no less an agglomeration.
These two amalgamated polities were incompletely integrated, each
retaining its own system of law and distinctive political institutions. (In
fact, on Isabella’s death in 1504, Ferdinand did not inherit the Crown
of Castile.) Granada and Navarre were added to the Crown of Castile
in 1492 and 1515, to be governed by their own laws. The growing new
world empire was incorporated (into Castile) on still different terms – as
was Portugal (in 1580).
In 1516, both Castile and Aragon passed to Charles I, who in 1519
also inherited the “Austrian” Hapsburg holdings and was elected Holy
Roman Emperor (where he reigned as Charles V). “Spain” thus became
the Western anchor of a Hapsburg dynastic empire that encircled
France. But when Charles abdicated and divided his holdings, his son,
who was king consort of England (through his marriage to Mary I),
succeeded to the crowns of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre as Philip II
(r. 1556–1598). (Charles’ eastern holdings were passed to his brother
Ferdinand.)
In the seventeenth century, Castilian dominance was solidified. But
Portugal fought (successfully) for almost three decades to break free (in
1688) from this dynastic composite. And Catalonia tried (unsuccess-
fully) to exit as well, revolting from 1640 to 1652 during the Franco-
Spanish War (1635–1659) – which concluded with the loss of northern
Catalonia to France, making the Pyrenees the border – again from 1687
to 1689, and still again from 1705 to 1714, during the War of the Span-
ish Succession (1701–1715). Only in 1714 did Castilian law become the
law throughout the entire realm of the (now Bourbon) Spanish crown.
65
(Weber 1976, 485).
66
(Elliott 2002 [1963], 31).
17.4.3 England/Britain
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the early modern English
crown came to rule an increasingly complex imperial agglomeration. In
1542 Ireland became a separate kingdom, held by the English crown but
subject to a very different (brutally oppressive) system of rule.67 And in
1603 James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth I as James I of England,
creating a personal dynastic union of the two kingdoms.68
It may be an exaggeration to say that “England and Scotland had little
more than their king in common.”69 Nonetheless, throughout the sev-
enteenth century Scots identity remained strong, Scots law operated in
tandem with English law, and the Parliament of Scotland remained inde-
pendent.70 And the Scots were persistently obstreperous.
Charles I’s attempt in 1637 to impose the Anglican (English) Book
of Common Prayer led to the Bishops’ Wars (1639–1640) – which con-
cluded when the Scots crossed the Tweed and took Northumberland
and Durham, which they continued to hold as surety for the indemnity
Charles agreed to pay in the Treaty of Ripon (1640). In the Wars of the
Three Kingdoms (1639–1653)71 the Scots, who pursued an indepen-
dent foreign policy that courted both the Dutch Republic and Sweden,72
fought, and in 1646 defeated and captured, the king – with whom they
signed a secret treaty in 1647 and supported (by invading England) in
response to the royalist uprising in 1648. And in 1650, the future Charles
II (r. 1660–1685), following his father’s execution by the English Rump
Parliament, concluded the Treaty of Breda with a faction of Scots, pro-
voking another decade of warfare. (Charles came to Scotland to accept
the crown in January 1651 but in September, after losing to Cromwell’s
forces at Worcester, was forced to flee to the continent.)
67
On Ireland under the Tudors, see (Brady 1991), (Moody, Martin, and Byrne 1991
[1976], ch. 2–4). (Canny 2001) is a detailed study of the imposition of the plantation
system, up through the rebellion of 1641. More briefly, see (Moody, Martin, and Byrne
1991 [1976], ch. 7–9). Cromwell’s reconquest was particularly brutal. See (Connolly
2008, ch. 3), (Moody, Martin, and Byrne 1991 [1976], ch. 13, 14), (O’Siochrú 2008).
And resistance to foreign (English) domination persisted through the twentieth century.
68
(Cantry 1995) examines regional responses to the growing power of the Tudor and early
Stuart monarchs. On the problems posed by multiple kingdoms, see (Russell 1990, ch.
2), (Bucholz and Key 2009, ch. 7), (Macinnes 2003).
69
(Koebner 1961, 63).
70
(Mitchison 1983) traces the progress of union from a Scots-centric but relatively bal-
anced perspective. See also (Mitchison 2002, ch. 10–19) and, more briefly, (Wormald
2005, ch. 5, 6). (Brown, Tanner, and Mann 2004; 2005) covers the early modern
Scottish Parliament in great detail.
71
(Gentles 2014 [2007]), (Royle 2004), and (Scott 2004) are histories that treat the con-
flicts in all three kingdoms. See also (Wheeler 2002).
72
(Young 2001, 87–103).
The “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 provoked another half century

of rebellions in Scotland (and in Ireland and northern England), with
major uprisings in 1689, 1715, 1719, and 1745 (popularized in Out-
lander).73 And the vagaries of dynasticism led in 1714 to Georg Ludwig,
Duke of Hanover, becoming King George I of Great Britain and Ireland,
which he and his successors held in personal union with Hanover.
As in Spain and France, differentially incorporated polities retained
much of their original character within a dynastic assemblage. And, as
in Spain and France, a growing overseas empire was understood as just
another differentially incorporated part of the realm. “Empire” was sim-
ply a term for the agglomerated realm of a ruler who recognized no higher
secular authority (much like the eighteenth- and nineteenth- century
Russian and Austrian empires) – not a term focused on overseas colonial
holdings.74
17.4.4 The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation

The early modern Holy Roman Empire, although it remained more a
heterarchy-state than a single-center polity, underwent similar processes
of “state formation” in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries,
with similar results.
In 1495 an independent imperial court, the Reichskammergericht
(Imperial Chamber Court), was created to replace the Hofgericht, the
personal high court of the Emperor.75 The other high court, the Reich-
shofrat (“Aulic Council”), was reorganized in 1497/1498 and further
reformed in 1559.76 The Reichstag (Imperial Diet), which was reorga-
nized in 1489, had by the mid-sixteenth century become a significant
representative institution.77 The Empire also “modernized” its taxation
and defense administrations,78 with results broadly comparable to those
of its geopolitical rivals. All of this left the Emperor (Kaiser) and the
73
(Szechi 2002) and (Szechi 2012) are brief overviews of the Jacobite movement. At
greater length, see (Szechi 1994). (Szechi 2006) is a history of the 1715 rebellion.
(Plank 2006) looks at the 1745 rebellion in a broader imperial context. (MacInnes,
German, and Graham 2016 [2014]) is a self-consciously revisionist collection of essays
on Jacobitism.
74
(Koebner 1961) covers early modern English usage. See also (Armitage 2000).
(Koebner and Schmidt 1965) traces the transformation of the term in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries.
75
(Wilson 2011, 70–75), (Wilson 2004, 177–182), (Holborn 1959, 43–44).
76
(Whaley 2012, 364–365). On the jurisdiction of the supreme courts, see (Härter 2013,
124–129).
77
(Whaley 2012, 355–356, 370–371).
78
(Whaley 2012, 361–362, 439–440, 443–444, 494–497, 512–521, 570–572), (Wilson
2011, 85–93), (Wilson 2004, 157–169).
imperial institutions stronger, both absolutely and relatively, than they

had been in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries – and a force to be
reckoned with internationally until the end of the seventeenth century.
The principal subordinate political centers, the “territorial states”
(Territorialstaten),79 were even more internally diverse and differentially
incorporated than provincial polities in Britain and France. Seven Elec-
tors (Kurfürsten) – the Archbishops of Cologne, Trier, and Mainz, the
King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine (Pfalzgraf) of the Rhine, the Duke
of Saxony, and the Margrave (Markgraf) of Brandenburg80 – exercised
many rights that elsewhere were held by kings, including rights to hear
legal appeals, collect taxes, levy customs duties, and mint coins. Impe-
rial Princes (Reichsfürsten) – in 1582, 43 voted in the Prince’s Chamber
(Reichsfürstenrat) of the Reichstag – had, in addition to their elevated status
and imperial rights, important juridical, fiscal, and governmental rights.
And both Electors and Imperial Princes had rights to make alliances with
other princes, both within and outside the Empire. In addition, Imperial
Counts (Reichsgrafen) – there were about 140 in the mid-sixteenth cen-
tury – exercised a variety of governmental rights.81
Not all of the territory of the Empire, however, was subject to a “ter-
ritorial prince.” Imperial Knights (Reichsritter),82 who owed direct alle-
giance to the Emperor, governed some 1,500 estates encompassing
4,000 square miles and hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. Imperial
Cities (Freie und Reichsstädte)83 – there were about five dozen in the late
sixteenth century84 – also enjoyed “imperial immediacy” (Reichsunmittel-
barkeit); i.e., direct subordination to the Emperor, without incorporation
into a “territorial” unit.
It is true that “the emperor wielded power and influence to very dif-
ferent degrees in different areas”85 and that “different dynastic and legal
79
On territorial political organization in the early modern Empire, see (Wilson 2016, 396–
421), (Barraclough 1963 [1947], 320–381), (Whaley 2012, 47–49, 255–271, 275–280,
486–491), (Wilson 2011, 33–36, 99–102).
80
New Electorates were created for Bavaria in 1623 and Hanover (Brunswick-Lüneburg)
in 1692/1708.
81
Furthermore, in most of the leading “territorial states” princes shared rule with “estates”
(Landstände and Landtage); that is, corporately organized representative institutions
that were a lower-tier parallel to the Reichstag. (Carsten 1959) is the standard English-
language introduction to the “German” estates. On assemblies of estates more broadly
in early modern Europe, see §17.5.2 at nn. 106–114.
82
(Wilson 2004, 41–42, 199–200, 245, 249, 341–342; 2011, 12, 14, 29–30), (Whaley
2012, 42–43, 80, 210, 353).
83
(Wilson 2004, 37–38, 72–74, 147–148, 347–348, 378–379), (Whaley 2012, 26, 41, 43,
249–251, 351–352, 531–540).
84
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Free_Imperial_Cities.
85
(Whaley 2012, 19).
traditions gave rise to differing degrees of imperial jurisdiction.”86 These

descriptions, though, also fit Spain, France, and Britain. Similarly,
although “attempts to establish an effective system of royal government,
either in south Germany or in the Reich as a whole, remained piecemeal
and only intermittently effective,”87 much the same was true of Spain,
France, and Britain. And Karl Härter’s observation on the Empire’s
array of judicial mechanisms holds across early modern Europe: they
“didn’t necessarily form a hierarchical order, but rather a system of legal
spaces with complex interactions and interconnections. It was character-
ised by legal diversity and legal pluralism.”88 (Even France did not have
a single system of law until Napoleon.)
In addition, there were considerable attractions to an imperial struc-
ture that both fostered and embodied local autonomy and diversity. As
Peter H. Wilson puts it, the structure of the Empire reflected not “failure
to centralize” but success in “revising and recombining earlier methods
into a new, more collective form of imperial governance by the emperor
and a more self-conscious princely elite.”89 The Empire kept its mon-
arch in check at least as well as in Britain and better than in France. And
its geopolitical orientation was largely defensive not aggressive. Aban-
doning nationalist and statist prejudices, we might even see the Empire
as an attractive historical model for thinking about regional integration90
and globalization – more a precocious foretaste of a postmodern future
than a relic of the medieval past.
At the time of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), despite the devasta-
tion of Germany over the preceding thirty years, nothing suggested that
the Empire had a less robust future than France or Britain. Only in the
wars of Louis XIV, beginning in 1672 and reaching frightening scale
in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1715), did the weakness
of the Empire begin to become evident. And the problem then was not
that the Empire was less modern in the Weberian sense but that it was
less “absolutist;” less able to coerce resources from its population to
fund huge armies. In the eighteenth century, the Empire lost out not
86
(Whaley 2012, 24).
87
(Whaley 2012, 80).
88
(Härter 2013, 116).
89
(Wilson 2016, 353).
90
See (Zielonka 2006, 2013). This was true not only of the Empire as a whole but also
of the Kreise (singular, Kreis; “circle”), regional groups – six created in 1500, four more
added in 1512 – that jointly provided military contingents, had considerable responsibil-
ity for maintaining public order, and allocated and collected centrally mandated taxes.
See (Wilson 2011, 67–68, 89–93), (Wilson 2004, 184–198), (Whaley 2012, 20, 35–36,
355–361, 366–368, 585–591, 609, 631).
to modern states but to a different type of pre-modern state, the fiscal-

military state (to which we turn briefly in §17.10).
17.5 States, Status, Corporations, and Privileges

The very idea of “the state,” as we understand it, was foreign to sixteenth-
and seventeenth-century Europe. The central political concern was the
statuses and privileges of the corporate groups that composed early
modern polities. Although the following discussion falls well outside this
chapter’s principally spatio-political focus, it is essential to understand-
ing how early modern politics was organized and operated. (Any focus is
partial. Therefore, when that partiality impedes understanding, supple-
mental analysis, even if ad hoc and eclectic, often will be appropriate (as
I believe it is here).)
17.5.1 States and Status

Consider the Territorialstaten of the Empire – which, in our terms, were
neither territorial nor states.
The subordinate domains of the Emperor’s realm were defined, like
France, Britain, Spain, and the Empire itself, not territorially but dynas-
tically and historically. For example, sixteenth-century Electoral Palatine
was composed of a large but wildly irregular “Swiss cheese” centered on
Heidelberg plus some two dozen small and half a dozen intermediate-
sized pieces. Electoral Cologne was more compact but also included the
Duchy of Westphalia some fifty miles to the east. And processes of terri-
torial agglomeration continued through the early modern period.91 Most
notably, in 1618 the Margrave of Brandenburg added Prussia to his
domain, creating Brandenburg-Prussia, which included not only its two
(widely separated, amoeba-shaped) named components but also Cleves,
Ravensberg, and Mark to the southwest (to which Minden and Hal-
berstadt were added in 1648); “a completely artificial, composite state,
spread in three main blocks across northern Germany and Poland.”92
Furthermore, early modern regnal polities were not impersonal
authorities that performed most major political functions. And “state,”
in line with the root of the term (in both Romance and German lan-
guages) in the Latin status, indicated polities of greatly varied types with
legally recognized corporate status/privileges.
91
(Wilson 2016, ch. 8) is a good introduction (pp. 431–475 covers the period of Hapsburg
rule).
92
(Koenigsberger 1987, 193).
The first two clusters of definitions of “state” in the Oxford English

Dictionary, which is organized chronologically, are “senses relating to
a condition or manner of existing” and “senses relating to status or
rank.” In French as well, état goes back to the thirteenth century, with
initial core senses of “manner of being” and “situation of a person in
society.”93
These senses parallel contemporaneous Latin usage.94 For example,
in formulations such as status reipublicae (the republic), status imperii (the
Empire), status regni (the kingdom), or status coronae (the crown), “the
word status still meant no more than ‘condition,’ ‘situation’.”95 Similarly,
status regis (the king, kingship) referred to “the royal function, office and
dignity” rather than the realm.96 In addition, “in the fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries status, ‘state’ and stato are frequently synonymous with
potestas, regimen, gubernatio (power, rule, governance).”97
Status – “state” – “was used regularly and fully interchangeably to mean
government, constitution, welfare, common good, way of life, status, and
estate (in both the sense of hierarchical rank and of social-occupational
group).”98 It did not, however, refer to a polity or unit of rule. And
regnum referred equally to the rule and the realm of a ruler (which were
inextricably intertwined not only with each other but also with the office
and person of the ruler).
Such usages persisted through the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-
ries. Increasingly, though, they were supplemented by uses of “state” to
mean polity. But even in the eighteenth century, as we will see below,
“state” did not have anything close to the modern sense of a permanent
impersonal authority with a territorial monopoly on jurisdiction and the
legitimate use of force.
The quip attributed to Louis XIV, L’Etat c’est moi, does mark an
important change: by the early eighteenth century, in the regnal polities
in which authority was most concentrated in the top-tier center, there
was but one état that ultimately mattered. Even here, though, status,
realm, and ruler were complexly entangled. In sharp contrast to modern
states, which are logically and legally prior to their rulers, early modern
polities were defined by (the office of) the ruler. And kings, not polities,
were sovereign.
93
Dictionnaire de l’Academie Française (my translation).
94
(Guenée 1985 [1981]) and (Harding 2002) discuss the late-medieval evolution of the
idea of “state.”
95
(Guenée 1985 [1981], 4). See also (Stump 1994, 253).
96
(Guenée 1985 [1981], 4). See also (Stump 1994, 253).
97
(Guenée 1985 [1981], 5).
98
(Stump 1994, 253).
17.5.2 Corporations, Privileges, and Estates

Another standard sense of “state” in late-medieval and early modern
English was “property, possessions, fortune, capital.”99 (There was no
distinction between “estate” and “state” in English at this time.) Prop-
erty gave one a status in society.100 And it made one part of an estate
(état, state), in the sense of a privileged social corporation (“an order or
class regarded as part of the body politic, and as such participating in
the government either directly or through its representatives”101) – in
France, le tiers état.
Corporate privilege, in the root sense of private laws, was an essential
structuring element of early modern polities. The provinces of early mod-
ern France were understood as territorial corporations; legally recognized
differentially privileged entities.102 And across Europe, corporate privi-
leges were also “assigned vertically along a hierarchy of social status.”103
Nobles104 enjoyed extensive social, legal, and fiscal privileges.105
Towns – urban corporations composed of their citizen members –
enjoyed more or less broad powers of self-rule and various economic
and fiscal privileges.106 Churches (and often clergy) were also privileged.
Furthermore, in most regnal realms select social corporations were
politically represented as “estates” (états, Stände, staten, stati) organized
in assemblies at the “national”/regnal level (e.g., the “Estates General”
in France and the Netherlands) or “provincial” level.107 These assem-
blies of estates “claim[ed] to represent a wider, more abstract, terri-
torial entity – country, Land, terra, pays – which, they assert[ed], the
ruler is entitled to rule only to the extent that he upholds its distinc-
tive customs and serves its interests.”108 “The territorial ruler and the
Stände [estates] ma[de] up the polity jointly, but as separate and mutually
acknowledged political centers. Both constitute[d] it, through their mutual
agreement.”109
99
100
Another medieval and early modern sense of “(e)state” was “Status, standing, position
in the world; degree of rank.” Oxford English Dictionary.
101
102
(Bossenga 2012), (Mousnier 1979 [1974], ch. 10).
103
(Bossenga 1991, 5).
104
(Dewald 1996) offers an overview of late-medieval and early modern nobilities.
105
(Bush 1983).
106
(Friedrichs 1995).
107
(Graves 2001) and (Myers 1975) provide general, although often superficial, over-
views. See also (Stasavage 2011, ch. 3), (Downing 1992, 30–38, 90–97, 113–136,
238–246).
108
(Poggi 1990, 41).
109
(Poggi 1978, 48 [emphasis added]).
Rather than precursors of modern legislatures, these assemblies were

mechanisms by which the prince and select privileged corporations
(“estates”) shared rule. (Most developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries,110 underscoring the fundamentally late-medieval conception
of shared rule.) Although the powers and procedures of assemblies of
estates varied considerably,111 the usual dynamic involved royal requests
for taxes, subsidies, or loans that were met by invocations of the right to
advise and consent, insistence on the crown’s obligation to protect exist-
ing privileges, and, often, demands for new privileges.
The corporate groups represented also varied. One pattern involved
three estates, corresponding to the three medieval social orders of clergy,
nobility, and laborers – although the “third estate” typically represented
towns (and in Britain the gentry) not the people generally. In other
words, to the medieval “ruling orders” of clergy and nobility were added
(usually urban) propertied interests.
H. G. Koenigsberger thus speaks of “the crystallization of powerful
social groups into estates.”112 The estates were “the watchdogs of priv-
ilege and power-sharing”113 – which were inextricably linked in early
modern composite-corporate polities. As Weber puts it, “proprietors of
privilege … came together in joint congresses for the purpose of ordering
political matters by means of compromise.”114
The other crucial corporate group in early modern Europe was the
family/clan/dynasty. “What mattered above all to most of those associ-
ated with the state, from the highest ranking to the lowliest, was the situ-
ation of their family.”115 Deploying their status, children, lands, offices,
and wealth, families created often complicated multilevel networks of
alliances. And multilevel patronage networks were central features of
early modern regnal polities and governance. In these systems of patron-
age politics,116 the king was not a qualitatively different actor but “the
archpatron,”117 “best visualized as sitting, spider-like, at the centre of
110
(Blockmans 1978; 1998), (Hébert 2014). See also (Harding 2002, 221–240), (Guenée
1985 [1981], 221–226).
111
See, for example, in the Empire (Carsten 1959), (Oestrich 1982, ch. 11); in France
(Major 1980), (Collins 1994), (Miller 2010), (Swann 2003); in Spain (Jago 1981;
1992), (Sanz 1994).
112
(Koenigsberger 1995, 160). See also (Poggi 1990, 42).
113
(Graves 2001, 3–4).
114
(Weber 1994, 101).
115
(Rowlands 2002, 12). (Adams 2005) develops a model of the early modern “familial state.”
116
(Lind 1996) briefly discusses patronage and early modern state building. On
Renaissance France, see (Major 1964). (Kettering 1986b) is a standard study of
seventeenth-century French patronage.
117
(Salmon 1975, 92). See also (Major 1964, 643 (“the greatest patron”)).
a kingdom-wide network of patron-client relations”118 – pursuing, like

most other actors, primarily familial (dynastic), not national, interests.
These various privileged corporations were polities; persistent corporate
political actors with a recognized status. Governance, as I have stressed,
was neither fundamentally territorial nor even in theory monopolized
by “state” or royal institutions. Substantial elements of heterarchic gov-
ernance were central to early modern kingdoms, even as authority and
control were increasingly concentrated on the regnal level.
Where and how one was placed – one’s status, and the privileges that
went with it – was far more important in medieval and early modern
society and politics than the regnal polity of one’s birth or residence.
And those regnal polities were agglomerations of territorial and social
corporations.
In this world, no territory was ruled by an impersonal supreme politi-
cal authority. Therefore, there was no reason for “state” to refer to such
a polity – which was not even imagined, let alone advocated, in sixteenth-
and seventeenth-century Europe.
17.6 Agglomeration, Centralization, and Particularism

By the early eighteenth century, the leading early modern kings had
more or less successfully subordinated their provincial-level challengers,
making them “internal” parts of realms in which power was increasingly
concentrated in the royal center.
This concentration of politics, however, involved a series of re-centerings
that were achieved through contentious, often violent, “negotiations” –
and continuing renegotiations. The British Isles, “Spanish” Iberia, and
“France” became less heterarchic and more single-center polities. But
they remained agglomerated not integrated polities; empire-states rather
than States (let alone modern (Weberian) states).119
In fact, “centralization” and regionalization, rather than competing
political projects, were two sides of the early modern process of agglom-
erative polity formation. “The acceptance of decentralization was a
characteristic of nearly all the Renaissance monarchies.”120 And that
acceptance was crucial to new provinces acquiescing in their incorpora-
tion into the royal realm.121 For example, in 1539, “conquered Piedmont
118
(Koenigsberger 1987, 42).
119
On these distinctions, see §16.4.
120
(Major 1962, 116 n. 6).
121
This dual dynamic goes back to the central Middle Ages. As Watts (2009, 122, 123)
puts it, by 1300 we can see not only “the gradual emergence of more powerful and plu-
ral ‘regnal’ polities” but an “equally pronounced … proliferation of overlapping, and
was given a [regional] parlement. This was not, as it has sometimes been
represented, a ‘decentralization of justice and administration’: it was
rather a concomitant of the establishment of fixed centres [plural] of
government.”122
Bernard Chevalier’s assessment of France at the ascension of Francis
I (r. 1515–1547) is true of most early modern monarchies: “the gradual
elimination of the principalities and the centralisation of power in the
person of the king enforced a decentralisation in geographical and institu-
tional terms which respected the strength of provincial particularism.”123
Or as Mario del Treppo puts it in the case of the fifteenth-century kings
of Aragon “on the one hand they strengthened the centralised authority
of the state, above all by extending the general competence of certain …
authorities … to include the entire crown of Aragon. At the same time
these same functions submitted to a process of decentralisation.”124
Early modern polities were based on what Angelo Torre nicely calls
“empowering interactions and entwining jurisdictions;”125 “a recipro-
cal sequence of ‘crossed legitimations’ between different social, juridical
and political actors.”126 Early modern kings ruled not so much over their
provinces (and the privileged groups that dominated them) as in conjunc-
tion with them – a type of rule that was closer to their thirteenth-century
predecessors than their twentieth-century successors. And these changes
occurred largely modularly, through transposition and re-functionality,
producing a continuous (trans)formation of early modern polities.
17.7 Early Modern Administration

Having stressed the composite nature of early modern polities, this sec-
tion looks briefly at the character of early modern administration. (Sec-
tion 12.3 looked briefly at early modern militaries.)
The modern (Weberian) state is a type of bureaucratic state that
“adjudicate[s] and administer[s] according to rationally established law
at some level autonomous, political and governmental structures.” But where Watts
(2009, 122) describes these as “two contradictory developments” I am arguing that
they were (in both the medieval and early modern periods) two sides of the process of
agglomerative polity formation.
122
(Harding 2002, 288). Similarly, “the establishment at Bordeaux, after its conquest in
1451, of Grand Jours [a regional parlement], marked the final incorporation into the
French kingdom” (Harding 2002, 168). On Louis XIV’s differential incorporation of
Flanders, see above at n. 51.
123
(Chevalier 1998, 419–420).
124
(Del Treppo 1998, 194).
125
(Torre 2009).
126
(Torre 2009, 319).
and regulation.”127 Early modern “bureaucracies” – that term was not

even used before the last half of the eighteenth-century128 – were quite
different. They evolved out of medieval administrative systems orga-
nized around the household of the ruler, supplemented by legally trained
clerics. (The centrality of processes of transposition and re-functionality
is strikingly illustrated by titles such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer
(the medieval office responsible for collecting and auditing royal rev-
enues) and the very term “clerk” (originally meaning cleric – who were
much more likely to be literate than their lay peers).)
I look here at Spain and France, the most administratively advanced
great powers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively.
(Those who find this discussion overkill should feel free to move to the
next section, which offers a general account of the logic of composition
in early modern Europe.)
17.7.1 Spain
Ferdinand and Isabella created the Council of the Inquisition in 1488
and the Council of Orders in 1489, laying the foundation for the Span-
ish practice of administration by councils. By the late sixteenth century,
Philip II (r. 1556–1598) ruled through six geographical and eight func-
tional councils,129 giving Spain what J. H. Elliott describes as adminis-
tratively “the most advanced state of sixteenth-century Europe.”130 But
two sentences later Elliott describes this bureaucracy as “cumbersome,
corrupt, and appallingly slow.”131
Philip did substantially regularize provincial (and urban) administra-
tion. The Spanish bureaucracy, however, was an instrument of patri-
monial and personal (not legal-rational) rule. “The administration was
really an ad hoc system of councils with the king at the center.”132 And
Philip extensively employed juntas (unofficial committees)133 to main-
tain his independence from the official bureaucracy.
“Only in Castile was any real attempt made to centralise the adminis-
tration, and even here effective control of the towns and countryside fell to
127
(Weber 1978, 1394. See also 971, 1393).
128
The Oxford English Dictionary dates it to 1759 in French, 1781 in Italian, and 1790 in
German – and provides no uses in English before 1815.
129
(Elliott 2002 [1963], 170–181). (Thompson 1967) examines the Council of War
under Philip II.
130
(Elliott 1989, 14).
131
(Elliott 1989, 14). See also (Dover 2016 [2012]), (Poole 1981).
132
(Woodward 2013 [1992], 12).
133
(Lovett 1977, 144–146, 63–73, 97–100, 194–210).
the grandees and nobility.”134 And seventeenth-century Spanish admin-

istration became even more patrimonial and driven by patronage.135 At
best, Hapsburg Spain saw limited concentration of capabilities in the
royal center that did not introduce legal rationality into administration.
17.7.2 France
In France, administrative centralization did increase throughout the sev-
enteenth century. But France’s burgeoning bureaucracy136 – Louis XII
(r. 1498–1515) had perhaps 5,000 officials; Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715)
had more the 50,000 – neither penetrated very deeply into the prov-
inces nor was entirely under royal control. Provincial governors, drawn
principally from the upper nobility, were semi-independent powers137
and “the great nobles exercised considerable influence over the appoint-
ment and behavior of royal officials in their fiefs.”138 Major towns were
semi-autonomous.139 And, as we saw above, provincial legal and politi-
cal institutions and identities remained strong.
The creation in 1634 of intendants, who exercised general administra-
tive oversight in two dozen généralités (new administrative districts),140
was a major innovation. But in typical early modern fashion they were
layered on top of, rather than replacements for, older jurisdictions,
institutions, and practices. And intendants acted less as legal-rational
bureaucrats than as brokers in the patronage networks of the king and
his ministers141 – and as agents of their own families.
The crown “ruled through the manipulation and management of
factional groups within the government and the court elites.”142 And it
134
(Woodward 2013 [1992], 16)
135
The first half of the century was the era of the privado or valido, the royal favorite
who was not just a first minister but virtually the alter ego of the king. (On the broad
phenomenon in early modern Europe, see (Elliott and Brockliss 1999).) Francisco
Gómez de Sandoval, Duke of Lerma, effectively ruled Spain from 1599 until 1618.
(Williams 2010), (Feros 2000). Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, domi-
nated Spanish politics from 1621 to 1643. (Elliott 1986). And in the second half of
the seventeenth century, “Spanish” politics became so fragmented that often there was
little significant central direction.
136
(Collins 1995, 5–22) and (Major 1994, 32–47) provide useful brief introductions.
137
(Mousnier 1979 [1980], ch. 22), (Harding 1978).
138
(Major 1964, 640).
139
(Mousnier 1979 [1974], ch. 13). (Finley-Croswhite 1999) examines towns during the
reign of Henry IV.
140
(Mousnier 1979 [1980], ch. 26).
141
(Kettering 1986a, 233, 235). See also (Collins 1995, 65). (Major 1994, ch. 8–10) pres-
ents a story of Richelieu’s administration that combines the themes of nobility, estates,
and patronage.
142
(Parrott 2012b, 284).
continued to rely on the still semi-independent power of provincial (and

local) elites to implement its designs and directives.
Furthermore, almost the entire judiciary and much of the royal admin-
istration owned their offices143 – which after 1604 were fully transferable
private property.144 By 1664 there were more than 45,000 venal offices
in the judiciary and financial administration alone.145 Needless to say,
such office-holders were more concerned with assuring a return on their
investment than with rational administration or the rights and interests
of those who appeared before them – or, often, the interests of the King
or France.
The crown, however, was so desperate financially146 that it had no
choice – given that directly taxing the nobility was unthinkable.147 In
fact, the crown regularly acted on its financial incentives to create unnec-
essary, even duplicative, offices (to the considerable chagrin of both
office holders and the population that they “served”).
Royal fiscal and administrative weakness also underlay the practice
of tax farming, by which specified tax receipts were “leas[ed] by the
crown … to a private contractor for a set number of years in return for
a fixed annual rent, any additional profits of the farm accruing to the
contractor.”148 The “general farm” (ferme–générale), established by Col-
bert in 1681, provided about half the crown’s annual revenues until the
Revolution.149 (This parallels the farming out of military recruitment
and supply.150)
In addition, kinship remained central to the system. For example,
“from 1680 to 1700 the closest circle of ministers around Louis XIV
of France consisted, with one exception, exclusively of members of the
family clans of Colbert and LeTellier-Louvois.”151
143
(Mousnier 1979 [1980], ch. 5) is a good introduction to officiers.
144
(Mousnier 1979 [1980], 35–52). (The droit annuel (“La Paulette”) required an annual
payment (initially one-sixteenth of the price of the office), making even past venality a
continuing source of royal revenue.)
145
(Doyle 1996, 6, 11). Note that this does not include venal military offices. (See nn. 62,
63 in §12.3.2.) (Mousnier 1971 [1946]) and (Potter 2003b) look at venality in the sev-
enteenth century. (Doyle 1996) considers the eighteenth century. For a broad survey
of venality in seventeenth-century Europe, see (Swart 1949) and, much more briefly,
(Blockmans 1997, 227–234).
146
The extreme case may have been 1633, when income from the sale of offices amounted
to half of total royal receipts. (Mousnier 1970, 492).
147
(Kwass 2000, 23, 31), (Parker 1983, 139). Similarly, in Britain “the options of
eighteenth-century fiscal legislators were severely limited as long as they refused to
countenance a properly policed tax on wealth” (Brewer 1990 [1988], 217).
148
(Bonney 1979, 11).
149
(Bonney 1979, 11).
150
See §12.3.2.
151
(Reinhard 1996a, 8).
Louis XIV did significantly weaken the independent power of the pro-
vincial nobility. Nonetheless, “a major problem for Louis, as for his pre-
decessors, was to ensure the loyalty and cooperation of his officials.”152
A. Lloyd Moote thus titles an article on the period 1615–1683 “The
French Crown versus Its Judicial and Financial Officials.”153
Governance in Bourbon France (1592–1792) was “quasi-bureaucratic
at best.”154
17.7.3 Administering Early Modern Polities

“Nowhere in Europe, not even in Prussia, did a fully developed profes-
sional civil service exist before the end of the eighteenth century.”155
Administratively – no less than legally, politically, socially, and militar-
ily – early modern polities were variegated agglomerations that did not
aspire to be rationalized unitary wholes. Early modern bureaucracies
instead “facilitated the administration of composite entities.”156
In Weber’s ideal-type legal-rational bureaucratic orders, adminis-
trators are “personally free.” They are “organized in a clearly defined
hierarchy of offices” in which “each office has a clearly defined sphere
of competence.” “The office is filled by a free contractual relation-
ship.” Bureaucrats “are selected on the basis of technical qualification”
and “are remunerated by fixed salaries in money.” “The office is …
the primary occupation of the incumbent” and “constitutes a career.”
“The official works entirely separated from ownership of the means of
administration and without appropriation of his position” and “is sub-
ject to strict and systematic discipline and control in the conduct of the
office.”157
By the mid-seventeenth century, administrators had long been per-
sonally free and a growing number were making administration both a
career and their primary occupation. But even in the eighteenth century,
all the other features of Weberian bureaucracy were, at best, embry-
onic. And the entire apparatus was driven by the personal and dynastic
interests of a patrimonial ruler – and the no less patrimonial interests of
office holders. “Officials worked within the constraints of fiscal, legal
and territorial privilege at almost every level of early modern society, and
152
(Parker 1983, 137). See also (Potter 2003a).
153
(Moote 1962).
154
(Kettering 1988, 422). “On paper, the king possessed an impressive officialdom, but it
should not be confused with a modern bureaucracy” (Swann 2001, 146).
155
(Reinhard 1996a, 13).
156
(Nexon 2009, 91).
157
(Weber 1978, 220–221. See also 956).
encountered provincial, institutional, and individual autonomy, influ-

ence and obstructionism just as inevitably.”158
Even in the most “modern” of mid-eighteenth-century bureaucracies, most
officers still fit G. E. Aylmer’s model of “the old administrative system.”
(i) entry to office by means of patronage, patrimony, purchase, or some combi-
nation of these; (ii) tenure of office either for life or during pleasure; (iii) entry
often through the acquisition of a reversionary interest; venality; the treatment
of offices as if there were subject to normal rights of private property; (iv) the
employment of deputies by part-time or wholly absentee office-holders, and the
(de facto) acceptance of sinecurism; (v) the remuneration of officials by means
of fees, gratuities, and perquisites, as much as, often more than, by salaries, sti-
pends or wages from the Crown or the State; … (vi) the regarding of office as a
private right or interest, rather than as a public service.159
Furthermore, even the most advanced early modern administrations
were ad hoc aggregations that reflected and perpetuated the balance of
interests between the crown and the nobility (and, increasingly in the
eighteenth-century, non-noble elites). And, as in the case of intendants,
usually “‘new’ administration did not replace but was added on to exist-
ing institutions … [A]dministrative innovation … either worked around
existing office-holders and their interests or reached an accommodation
with them by combining the old and new to their mutual satisfaction.”160
17.8 The Logic of Composition in Early Modern Europe

From a modern perspective, early modern kingdoms were kludges. But
rather than “an unsatisfactory prelude to the construction of a more
effective and permanent form of political association”161 they were the
European norm for three centuries – largely because they reflected the
predominant values of the time.
Even in the eighteenth century, “few European states had any obvi-
ous geographical, ethnic, or linguistic unity, nor was it widely felt that
they should.”162 People saw themselves (and each other) as members
of multiple complexly interrelated corporate groups with different func-
tions, roles, and statuses. And a legitimate government was expected to
respect corporate privileges. As James Collins puts it in the case of the
French legal system, “the thicket of jurisdictions, seemingly so absurd, in
158
(Parrott 2012b, 328).
159
(Aylmer 1980, 92).
160
(Brewer 1990 [1988], 69. Cf. 74).
161
(Elliott 1992, 71).
162
(Doyle 1992, 221).
fact served a very important political purpose: it protected the contracts

between the king and [privileged] members of French society.”163
The medieval world of a “patchwork of jurisdictions, operating under
a (sometimes very light) co-ordinating authority”164 had become more
“centralized,” in the sense that more capabilities and authority were
concentrated in the regnal (usually royal) center. It remained, though,
an aggregated hodgepodge – because that suited the political needs and
aspirations of (the dominant groups in) the multiple overlapping com-
munities and corporations that made up early modern regnal polities.165
17.9 Change in Early Modern Europe

In my telling, the early modern era was a “middle age” between the
medieval and modern worlds; post-medieval but pre-modern. In this
section I want to emphasize that although the combination of dramatic
political growth and transformation and devastating and sustained crises
eventually re-centered European politics around larger and more con-
solidated kingdoms, there was no intentionality, teleology, or master
driving causes. Actors of various sorts responded, in both routine and
innovative ways, to constraints and opportunities, both old and new,
producing largely incremental changes punctuated by eventfully cascad-
ing processes that over time accumulated to produce polities that, when
compared at hundred-year intervals were both clearly different from and
clearly similar to what they had been and what they would become.
17.9.1 Crisis and Growth

In agrarian societies, population is a good proxy for prosperity. Although
statistics for this period are notoriously speculative, the population of
Europe (excluding Russia), which had dropped (largely as a result of the
plague166) from perhaps 75–80 million in 1300 to perhaps 55–60 million
in 1400, returned to around 70 million by 1500 – and then grew to
about 90 million by 1600.167 Bernard Chevalier’s assessment of France
163
(Collins 1995, 9).
164
(Watts 2009, 127).
165
It also suited a world with relatively simple organizational and technological capabili-
ties; a system with (compared to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) modest inter-
action capacity (see §11.4.3).
166
(Epstein 2009, ch. 9) is a useful brief introduction to the plague and its impact.
167
(Malanima 2009, 9), which is also used in (McCants 2015, 125). A similar pic-
ture is painted by the parallel figures in Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Demographics_of_Europe#cite_note-ggdc.net-5) of a total western European popula-
tion of 57 million in 1500 and 74 million in 1600 (growing to 81 million in 1700).
is generally applicable: “as centuries go, growth was certainly the chief
characteristic of the ‘wonderful sixteenth century’.”168
Having so far emphasized the consolidation and deepening of regnal
polities, here I want to stress that the early modern period was no less
characterized by repeated, deep, and widespread crises that emerged and
developed along at least five (often-interacting) dimensions.
First, the institution of kingship suffered from disputed successions,
royal minorities, and dependence on the personality of the king, lead-
ing to recurrent dynastic crises. For example, both the French Wars of
Religion (1562–1598) and the Frondes (1648–1653) began during royal
minorities.
Second, many conflicts involved noble and regional resistance to
growing royal power.
Third, religious heterodoxy was both an independent source of con-
flict (as in the Schmalkaldic War (1546–1547) in the Empire and the
French Wars of Religion) and a complicating or intensifying factor in
dynastic disputes, centralization conflicts, and international wars.
Fourth, disease and famine regularly produced demographic crisis,
especially at the provincial level. For example, in Castile and Andalusia
plague in 1599 and famine in 1600 killed about 10 percent of the popula-
tion. “Mortalités” in France in 1630–1632, 1648–1653, and 1660–1662
killed as much as a third of the population in particular regions.169
Finally, international wars, often involving dynastic or confessional
rivalry, were regular, of greatly growing expense, and immensely destruc-
tive – especially when accompanied, as they often were, by disease and
famine. Most dramatically, during the Thirty Years’ War the population
of Germany was reduced by probably about a third.170
Conflict and crisis predominated from the mid-fourteenth century (the
Plague) through the dynastic wars of the fifteenth century. The “long
sixteenth century” was fundamentally a period of growth, creative trans-
formation, and consolidation. (France during the Wars of Religion was
the exception that proves the rule – and was only a temporary setback.)
The middle decades of the seventeenth century were again dominated by
crisis.171 But the era of the mature ancien régime – beginning in the last
168
(Chevalier 1998, 421).
169
(Mousnier 1971 [1946], 480).
170
(Parker 2008, 1058). (Theibault 1993) briefly surveys responses to the death and
destruction.
171
On the idea of a general pan-European mid-seventeenth-century crisis, see (Trevor-
Roper 1959) and (Parker and Smith 1997). There was a dramatic slowing (and in
some cases reversal) of the population growth rate. For example, (Malanima 2009, 9)
suggest a growth rate of over 25% in the sixteenth century, not much more than 10%
third of the seventeenth century and running to the French Revolution –

was a period of consolidation and growth.
17.9.2 Periodizing Early Modern Politics

Oversimplifying, we can identify two rather different periods in the early
modern era.
The earlier “Renaissance” period was a time of progressing but still
hotly contested peripheralization, culminating in the tumultuous 1640s
and 1650s: the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648),172 the English Civil War
(1642–1651)173 and Protectorate (1653–1659),174 the Frondes (1648–
1653),175 and the Catalan Revolt (1640–1659)176 and Portuguese War
of Restoration (1640–1668).177 By the last third of the seventeenth cen-
tury, though, French and English kings had made their principal chal-
lengers peripheralized parts of regnal realms.178 This ushered in the later
“Baroque” (or ancien régime) period. 1660 – the Stuart Restoration in
England, followed the next year by Louis XIV’s assumption of personal
rule – is a conventional marker.
Baroque states, however, remained agglomerated, not integrated,
polities. Although provinces (and provincial nobles) rarely retained the
option of armed resistance, they continued to enjoy considerable auton-
omy and a wide range of fiscal, legal, and political privileges. And the
central government still had only the most limited local capabilities.
17.10 Baroque Absolutism and Fiscal-Military States

“The rise of the early modern state” led to the century-long apotheo-
sis of the ancien régime under Louis XIV (d. 1715) and Louis XV (d.
in the seventeenth century, 20% in the first half of the eighteenth century, and another
25% in the last half of the eighteenth century.
172
(Parker 2006), (Wilson 2009), (Bonney 2014), (Kamen 1968), (Sutherland 1992). See
also (Wilson 2010), (Wedgewood 2005 [1938]).
173
(Stoyle 2005), (Russell 1990), (Hughes 1998). See also (Parry 1970), (Young 2012),
(Purkiss 2009).
174
(Coward 2002), (Worden 2010).
175
(Bonney 1978) is a good brief introduction. See also (Collins 1995, 65–78) and, at
greater length, (Ranum 1993). (Moote 1971) focuses on the parelements, (Bonney
1981) on the high nobility, (Kettering 1986a) on patronage.
176
(Elliott 1963) is an extended study.
177
(Birmingham 2018, ch. 2), (Livermore 1969, ch. 7). See also (Newitt 2009, ch. 6).
178
The Spanish crown did not even try very hard at this task – and thus dropped from
the ranks of the great powers. And in Central Europe the Hapsburg monarch’s power
increasingly shifted to Austria (and Bohemia), reflecting both the relatively effective
peripheralization of the crown’s dynastic domains and the growing autonomy of the
other parts of the Empire.
1774), the Restoration in Britain, and the eighteenth-century emergence

as great powers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. None of these polities,
with the partial exception of Britain at the end of the eighteenth century,
resembled “modern” (nineteenth- and twentieth-century) states.
Lacking the space to give the eighteenth century anything more than
the most superficial attention, in this section I offer two brief illustra-
tions, using the framings of “absolutist” and “fiscal-military” states.
17.10.1 “Absolutist” States

The political form that Louis XIV (r. 1643/1661–1715) perfected in
France179 and that dominated eighteenth-century Europe is commonly –
although misleadingly – called “absolutist.”180
Otto Hintze describes “absolutism” as “a concomitant of that pro-
cess of political organization in which a conglomerate of separate ter-
ritories becomes fused into a unitary political structure.”181 A more
unitary political structure, though, need not be – and in early modern
Europe certainly was not – absolute. Likewise, Charles Lipp’s descrip-
tion of “a system in which authoritarian royal power freed itself from
traditional limitations, legitimized itself by divine right, and thus exer-
cised greater domination over society”182 does not describe anything that
could plausibly be called absolute rule. Roland Mousnier thus speaks of
“absolutism, or, rather, … increasing bureaucratic centralism, which was
confused with absolutism.”183
As we saw above, “the power of the monarch depended on the gov-
ernment’s ability to manipulate an array of vested interests rather than
its capacity to override them.”184 “Absolutism” reflected a new kind of
“alliance between the monarchies and the high nobility;”185 “a renewed
accommodation between monarchy and nobility, not a radical restruc-
turing of their relationship in favour of the former. … [I]t augmented and
179
(Collins 1995) is an excellent introduction to the French ancien régime state. For good
introductory surveys of the ancien régime, with an emphasis on politics and society, see
(Williams 1999 [1970]), (Doyle 1986b, 2012). (Doyle 1992) is an excellent general
history of the period.
180
(Asch 2015, 369–379), (Campbell 2012), and the beginning pages of (Sommerville
2016 [2012]) provide complementary surveys of the recent historiography of “abso-
lutism.” (Henshall 1992) compares France and Britain in some detail. On Germany/
Austria see (Gagliardo 1991), (Weis 1986), (Wilson 2000). (Miller 1990) contains
several short national case studies. (Teschke 2003, ch. 5) is also useful.
181
(Hintze 1975, 173).
182
(Lipp 2011, 5).
183
(Mousnier 1979 [1980], 235).
184
(Parker 2003, 62).
185
(Koenigsberger 1987, 42). See also (Clark 1995).
stabilized the power of both monarchy and a section of the nobility.”186

“This alliance of absolute monarchy with the nobility is a characteristic
feature of the whole ancien régime.”187
Consider Perry Anderson’s Lineages of the Absolutist State. By “the
Absolutist State” Anderson means simply “the centralized monarchies of
France, England, and Spain” that emerged in the sixteenth century.188
And although these polities “introduced standing armies, a perma-
nent bureaucracy, national taxation, a codified law, and the beginnings
of a unified [state],” marking “a decisive rupture with the pyramidal,
parcellized sovereignty of the mediaeval social formations, with their
estates and liege-systems,”189 they were not modern states. Rather, they
represented “a redeployed and recharged apparatus of feudal domination,
designed to clamp the peasant masses back into their traditional social
position;” “a displacement of politico-legal coercion upwards towards a
centralized, militarized summit.”190 They were “first and foremost mod-
ernized instruments for the maintenance of noble domination over the
rural masses;” “exotic, hybrid compositions whose surface ‘modernity’
again and again betrays a subterranean archaism.”191
“The ‘success’ of Louis XIV’s reign after 1661 owed much to a
conscious royal determination to be more sensitive to the interests
and aspirations of the social elites”192 – so long as they did not insist
on autonomous political power. The “absolutist” state “was forged by
respecting pre-existing institutions so long as they could be induced to
cooperate with the king, modifying those that proved too recalcitrant …
and only occasionally constructing new institutions for circumventing,
although rarely outright replacing, those that proved particularly obdu-
rate or inefficient.”193
France, like the other regnal polities of the Baroque era, “remained,
despite the ideological trappings of central control and absolutism,
a composite state.”194 Royal officials sat more heavily on, but did not
deeply penetrate (let alone control), provincial institutions and elites.
186
(Zmora 1991, 6). See also (Clark 1995).
187
(Hintze 1975, 202). Thus H. M. Scott and Christopher Storrs (2007) write of “The
Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe, c. 1600–1800.” For brief overviews of the
French and British nobilities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see (Mettam
2007), (Swann 2007), (Cannon 2007).
188
(Anderson 1974, 15).
189
(Anderson 1974, 17, 15).
190
(Anderson 1974, 18, 19).
191
(Anderson 1974, 20, 29. See also 40–42).
192
(Rowlands 2002, 2).
193
(Benedict 1992, 33).
194
(Nexon 2009, 264).
The balance had shifted to the center. Power, however, remained deeply
disaggregated.
William Beik thus titles an article “The Absolutism of Louis XIV as
Social Collaboration.”195 Alejandra Irigoin and Regina Grafe write of
“bargaining for absolutism” in Spain.196
Baroque kings often did seek to subordinate (although usually not
eliminate) corporate privileges and regional institutions. This move
to more unilateral, even arbitrary rule, along with the development in
the seventeenth century of doctrines of the divine right of kings,197 did
have a certain “absolutist” air. But the absolute rights of Baroque kings
were of about as much practical significance as the universal imperium of
medieval Emperors.
17.10.2 Fiscal-Military States

In the century prior to the French Revolution, nearly all of Baroque
Europe’s great powers – France, Britain, Austria, the Dutch Republic,
and Prussia, and in some accounts even Russia198 – were, despite signifi-
cant differences in constitutional form, what historians today often call
fiscal-military states.199
War, finance, and state-building were essentially linked through-
out late-medieval and early modern European history. A tipping point
was reached, though, in the late-seventeenth century. Increased cen-
tral authority, power, and efficiency allowed France and its adversar-
ies to deploy armies of unprecedented size – the population of France
increased by about a half between 1500 and 1700 but its army was six
or seven times larger200 – and to keep them in the field for years on end.
And the “need” for such massive armies drove political centralization.
195
(Beik 2005).
196
(Irigoin and Grafe 2008).
197
(Figgis 1896), which covers both Britain and the Continent, remains a useful overview.
(Bossuet 1999 [1707]) is the classic mature French expression. (Beik 2000) provides a
useful collection of primary source material for France. (Keohane 1980, ch. 8) surveys
the development of the idea in the reign of Louis XIV. (Wootton 2003) covers the
debates in Stuart England.
The enhanced status of divinely ordained kingship, in addition to being intrinsi-
cally desirable, was, in a highly status-conscious world, a valuable political resource,
especially in contests with status inferiors or during religious strife. But claims of divine
right only mildly enhanced the limited powers of early modern kings.
198
(Hartley 2009).
199
(Parrott 2012b, 327–334) briefly summarizes the type. (Brewer 1990 [1988]) and
(Glete 2002) are standard book-length studies. See also (Stone 1994), (Storrs 2009),
(Graham and Walsh 2016), (Conca Messina 2019 [2016], ch. 4, 5).
200
For figures on the size of early modern armies, see (Downing 1992, 69), (Greengrass
1991, 5).
This, however, clearly distinguishes these polities from modern (and

especially twentieth-century) states. Wolfgang Reinhard observes that
“in its decisive phase of growth the [early] modern state is a war state,
which expands its administration and taxation mainly in order to be
able to wage war.”201 In eighteenth-century Britain and France, mili-
tary spending plus debt (which was almost entirely war debt) typically
consumed four-fifths or more of annual income.202 Such war states look
more like the polities of Warring States China and ancient empires such
as Rome.203
Furthermore, these wars were dynastic wars. The two great wars of the
first half of the eighteenth century were the War of the Spanish Succes-
sion (1701–1714) and the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748).
Eighteenth-century France, Austria, Britain, and Prussia were patrimo-
nial204 monarchies rather than modern states.
17.11 A Succession of Types of Polities

I have told a story of the succession of different types of polities brought
about through extensive and extended processes of continuous (trans)
formation. This contrasts sharply to the standard story of the devel-
opment of “the modern state” as a type of polity that was present, in
essence or in embryo, early on.
For example, Hendrik Spruyt argues that as early as the late eleventh
century “we find the beginnings of the modern state,” although “the pro-
cess came to full fruition [only] in the wake of the French Revolution.”205
Setting aside the implausibility of a single process of institutional unfold-
ing over seven centuries, this reading is hopelessly anachronistic.
Spruyt titles a chapter “The Rise of the Sovereign Territorial State
in Capetian France.”206 In fact, though, the realm of the last king of
the house of Capet, Charles IV (r. 1294–1328) was a patchwork of
201
(Reinhard 1996b, 9).
202
(Brewer 1990 [1988], 40, Fig 2.1, 116, 133). See also (Félix 2012, 78).
203
See (Hui 2005) for a China–Europe comparison from an IR perspective. (Eisenstadt
1993 [1963]) is a classic macro-historical work that categorizes early modern European
states as a form of empire.
204
Given my primarily spatio-political focus, I have not emphasized the Weberian ideal
type of patrimonial rule. Weber (1978, 231–232, 643–644, 1006–1011, 1055–1059)
sketches the type, emphasizing its military-bureaucratic character. See also (Bendix
1977 [1960], 334–359). For applications to early modern Europe, see, for example,
(Ertman 1997, 2005), (Gorski 2003, 2005). (Wang and Adams 2011) compares patri-
monialism in early modern Europe and Qing China.
205
(Spruyt 2002, 132, 133).
206
(Spruyt 1994, ch. 5).
disconnected, dynastically agglomerated holdings.207 Rather than the

sovereign ruler of a territorial polity, Charles was the overlord of various
principalities that were largely independent polities. And the Hundred
Years’ War would soon tear “France” apart – on dynastic, rather than
territorial, grounds.
If, as Spruyt argues, the key element of a modern state is “territorial
exclusivity”208 then, as we have seen above, there was nothing even close
to a modern state in early modern Europe. And it is simply false to say
that “in late medieval Europe … states became synonymous with sover-
eign territorial rule”209 or that the thirteenth century – or even the seven-
teenth century – saw the emergence of “homogeneous governance.”210
Similarly, Joseph Strayer is just plain wrong when he claims that by the
early fourteenth century “basic loyalty shifted from Church, community,
and family to the emerging state.”211 As Ruth Mackay nicely puts it,
even in the seventeenth century “‘Spain,’ ‘Castile,’ and their derivatives
were used rarely by policy-makers, usually inconsistently, and hardly
ever by common people, whose concerns did not embrace such large
geographic expanses.”212 And the same was true in the other composite
states of early modern Europe.
Furthermore, turning our attention to the end of this process, if we
take France as paradigmatic of “the development of the modern state”
(as is typical and as Spruyt does) then “absolutism” looks more like a
dead end than anything else. The French Revolution, rather than perfect
the form developed by the Bourbon kings, overthrew the ancien régime,
which had to be destroyed (even if it was not fully swept away) before a
modern state could be constructed on its ruins. Only in the “relatively
medieval” polities of Britain and the Dutch Republic – which did not
become “absolutist” states – can we tell anything even close to a story of
eighteenth-century progress toward “the modern state.”
17.12 Pre-modern Polities in an Early Modern States System

Part of the problem in conceptualizing political change in early modern
Europe arises from assuming that the “states” of “the early modern states
system” must have been “modern states.” For example, Spruyt claims
207
www.pitt.edu/~medart/image/france/france-l-to-z/mapsfrance/sf076fra.jpg is a readily
accessible map.
208
(Spruyt 1994, 3).
209
(Spruyt 2002, 131).
210
(Spruyt 2002, 132).
211
(Strayer 1970, 36).
212
(MacKay 1999, 15).
that his principal concern is “the origins of the state system” and espe-
cially the fact that “the feudal order was gradually replaced by a system
of sovereign states.”213 He thus rightly emphasizes the decline of feu-
dal particularism and the demise of papal and imperial universalism,214
which may indeed be traced back into the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies. This, though, is irrelevant to the (Weberian) modernity of early
modern polities – which, as we have seen, were dynastic empire-states.
For example, Michael Mann calls early modern polities “relatively
centered and relatively territorial”215 – which they were compared to the
polycentric non-territorial heterarchy of the medieval world. Compared
to modern states, though, they were very loosely and incompletely “cen-
tered;” empires rather than States. And through the entire early modern
period they remained dynastic composites.
The internal political transformations associated with the move from a
medieval heterarchy to an early modern states systems were largely mat-
ters of (a) scale – larger polities, larger armies, more officials; (b) the bal-
ances between secular and ecclesiastical authorities; and (c) the balances
between, on the one hand, kings and the regnal center and, on the other
hand, aristocrats and the provinces of regnal realms. Furthermore, to the
extent that these changes involved new forms of “state,” those forms, as
we have seen, were not expressions of or unfolding steps on the path to
“the modern state.”
By the late-seventeenth or early-eighteenth century, European polities
were externally (or internationally) sovereign and territorial, in the sense
that they mutually recognized one another’s jurisdiction over a territory.
But sovereigns, as we have seen, did not rule their territories territori-
ally. And those territories were defined dynastically or historically – not
territorially.
We can pull together much of the preceding discussion by noting four
fundamental differences between early modern composite polities and
(Weberian) “modern states.”
• Modern states were defined territorially or nationally, legitimated
legally and rationally, and ruled bureaucratically. Early modern poli-
ties were defined dynastically, legitimated by tradition, religion, and
dynasticism, and ruled patrimonially.
• Modern states were relatively tightly integrated polities with a sin-
gle system of law and administration. Early modern polities were
213
(Spruyt 1994, 3. Cf. 16–17.).
214
(Spruyt 1994, 36–57). See also (Strayer 1970, 22, 27–28, 43, 53, 57).
215
(Mann 1986, 455).
agglomerations of disparate territorial and social corporations gov-

erned by different laws and institutions.
• Modern states had citizens who were individually equal before the law.
Early modern polities had subjects who were members of hierarchi-
cally organized corporate groups, all but the lowest of which enjoyed
particularistic privileges.
• Modern states were multifunctional entities that monopolized not
only law and force but identity, social policy, and economic regula-
tion. Early modern polities provided little more than limited access
to justice, some degree of internal order, and ruinous foreign wars
(during which they offered partial protection against external attack).
17.13 Before (and Beyond) “International Relations”

I have focused on the organization of regnal polities partly because of my
spatio-political focus, partly for reasons of space, and also because this
was the fundamental locus of structural political change in early modern
Europe. The focus on regnal polities, however, also reflects the fact that
the idea of “international relations” is problematic in medieval and early
modern Europe.
Political systems did not sort into “national/internal” and “interna-
tional/external.” Multiple nested systems of polities (rather than a single
international system composed of many national systems) – multilevel
multiactor governance (not single-level governance) – has been the his-
toric norm in the Western world since the fall of the Roman Empire.
17.13.1 Before “International Relations”

For example, France between 1560 and 1660 experienced “internal”
warfare in 49 years and “external” war in 47.216 And “internal” “French”
politics often looked more like relations between polities than within a
polity.
During the Wars of Religion (1562–1598)217 large swaths of the king’s
realm repeatedly fell out of his control, including Paris from 1588 to
1593, as leading families – Valois, Bourbon, Guise, Montmorency – pur-
sued dynastic, religious, and regional interests. For example, in the fifth
(1575–1576) war, the King’s brother, Francis, the heir to the throne,
joined the rebels (to advance his own fortunes and those of his branch of
the family lineage). And in 1587 the Guises, who for a quarter century
216
(Lynn 1997, 11, Table 1.1).
217
(Holt 2005) is an excellent general history. In IR, see (Nexon 2009, ch. 7).
had been the King’s leading supporters, turned on him. Nobles, for fam-
ily, religious, or personal reasons, regularly chose to fight against the king
(or sit out a particular conflict). And the King too pursued his (dynastic,
royal, and religious) interests rather than anything that could plausibly
be understood as a national interest in anything close to the modern
sense of that term.
Furthermore, noble leaders of rebel communities as a matter of course
made treaties with foreign rulers. For example, both the 1562 Treaty of
Hampton Court, between the Prince of Condé and Queen Elizabeth of
England, and the 1584 Treaty of Joinville, between the Guises (on behalf
of the Catholic League) and Philip II of Spain, brought “foreign” forces
to France. And, partially in response to the Treaty of Joinville, the Eng-
lish crown concluded the Treaty of Nonsuch (1585) with Dutch rebels
in the “Spanish” Netherlands.
Treaties were agreements between “princes,” in the broadest sense of
that term, not kings (let alone states). Guise, Bourbon, and Valois were
equally free to enter into treaties. (That the former usually were less
attractive allies is a different matter – as is the changing dynastic fortunes
of the Bourbons.)
Conversely, royal edicts ending individual wars were essentially peace
treaties among the various “French” parties. And they regularly returned
leading rebels to their prior positions. For example, after the first war the
Protestant leader Louis of Bourbon, Prince of Condé, received the office
of Lieutenant-General, which had been held by his brother, who had
been killed in the fighting. This looks very much like the treatment of
foreign princes after a war: restoration of the status quo ante, with adjust-
ments based on the ex post balance of power.
Even more strikingly, in 1620 Marie de Medici, King Louis XIII’s
mother (and the former regent), led an ill-fated rebellion. At its conclu-
sion “Marie and her followers were given full pardons, captives were
freed without ransom, offices were restored, salaries and pensions were
paid for the period of the revolt, royal taxes that had been appropriated
were written off, and Marie herself received six hundred thousand livres
to pay her [war] debts.”218
France, it must be emphasized, was not unusual. For example, during
the Catalan Revolt of the 1640s and 1650s (more than a century and a
half after “the creation of modern Spain”) Elliott notes that “the rebels
found it easier to rally support, because the oppression came from for-
eign [i.e., Castilian] rulers, foreign officials and foreign troops.”219 Or
218
(Major 1986, 404–405).
219
(Elliott 1969, 51).
consider the rebellions of Scotland in the first half of the eighteenth cen-
tury – which involved “national” differences and had significant “inter-
national” participation.
Neither was this an early and brief “transitional” phenomenon. As we
noted above, in the mid-seventeenth century regime-threatening regional
crises wracked all the (dynastically agglomerated) great powers – both
where religion interacted with provincialism and privilege (in Britain
(the Civil War) and the Empire (the Thirty Years’ War)) and where it
did not (in Spain (the Catalan and Portuguese revolts) and France (the
Frondes)). And this was a continuation, on a larger geographical scale, of
a pattern of provincial resistance to royal rule – contested peripheraliza-
tion – going back at least to Charlemagne.
The end of such rebellions, however, did mark an important structural
change – which came to France in the late-seventeenth century; to Spain
(through the imposition of Bourbon rule) in the early eighteenth century;
and to Britain in the last half of the eighteenth century (if, as is often the
English wont, we don’t count Ireland). “Modern” states typically did
not have provincial rebellions. Early modern polities, like their medieval
predecessors, did – regularly, and often with a vengeance. Rebellions
were the flip side of practices of dynastic agglomeration and legitimation.
17.13.2 Beyond “National” and “International”

Politics: Layered Systems of Polities
IR’s national–international binary defines political systems by whether
they involve relations within or between a privileged type of polity –
“states” (terminal polities). This, in addition to its anachronism, makes
“the international system” an external, even alien, arena; a mere envi-
ronment in which polities happen to interact.220
My account instead sees “the international system” as a system (whole)
of which polities of varied and particular sorts are parts. It also sees mul-
tiple nested systems of polities as normal. (The two-level structure of Figure
16.6 is but one (not especially common) arrangement of political space.)
Even Justin Rosenberg’s account of “the international” as “that dimen-
sion of social reality which arises specifically from the coexistence within
it of more than one society,”221 reflecting the fact that “human exis-
tence is not unitary but multiple,”222 largely reformulates a foundational
national–international binary as unitary–multiple. It also suppresses the
220
See also §5.8.
221
(Rosenberg 2006, 308).
222
(Rosenberg 2016, 135).
fact that all complex societies are societies of societies – and that federal
States, empire-states, and heterarchy-states include multiple centers/
polities/societies.
Multiplicity is distinctively “international” only where r elatively tightly
integrated terminal polities create domains of relative (internal/“national”)
unity and deal with each other as peers. The more that centers are dis-
tributed across levels the more problematic the label international. It
thus seems to me not at all coincidental that the term “international”
was coined in the late eighteenth century, as a system of single-level
governance by terminal peer polities was emerging. (The Oxford Eng-
lish Dictionary attributes it to Jeremy Bentham (in 1780).) And today
the term “international” seems increasingly incomplete (and sometimes
even off the mark).
Only in a world of States-in-a-states-system is it illuminating to draw a
fundamental distinction between national/inside/unity and international/
outside/multiplicity. Mainstream IR, however, inappropriately general-
izes this very particular kind of structuring.
The frame of centers and peripheries, by contrast, shifts attention to
the variety of relations between polities in layered systems of polities. It
also (properly) treats as empirical questions the locations of governance
and the ways that peoples, places, and political authorities are organized
and related.
17.14 Re-assembling a Globalizing World

For reasons of space, I jump to today. My framework depicts “globaliza-
tion” as an epochal change from the configuration of modern-States-
in-the-modern-states-system to a postmodern configuration that is
increasingly heterarchic but otherwise of uncertain shape.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, governance was concen-
trated in actors of a single type located on a single level. These privileged
peer polities provided governance “nationally” on a territorial basis and
(to a limited extent) “internationally,” through bilateral and multilateral
cooperation and conflict. The political hallmark of modernity, in this
reading, was the comprehensive centering of political life on the modern
state.
The modern world was also associated with the rise of a relatively
sharp functional differentiation of state, market, and civil society. Mod-
ern states, however, struggled – mightily, with varying degrees of suc-
cess – to contain all three domains within the boundaries of the state; to
create national economies and national societies within national polities.
Globalization represents the ultimate failure of these efforts.
But rather than something radically new, globalization has largely

involved the unbundling or unwinding of the modern system of single-
level governance through terminal peer polities. Or, stated more posi-
tively, globalization has involved processes of re-assembly that are giving
greater priority to functional heterarchic governance. And in both read-
ings, globalization involves continuous (trans)formation, largely through
transpositions and re-functionality and cross-network re-configurations.
17.14.1 From States System to Heterarchy

The multiple monopolies of the modern state are eroding, very unevenly.
Authorities and capabilities previously concentrated in territorially
delimited terminal peer polities (modern states) are being disaggregated
and reallocated – “up,” “down,” and “across.” Furthermore, new func-
tions (e.g., standard setting) are being created, usually at a level above
states. And non-territorial forms of organization are increasingly salient.
When we step back, though, many of the principal actors and issues look
not really the same yet not fundamentally different from how they looked
half a century ago (that is, in my adult memory).
Figure 16.9, as I noted above, was designed with contemporary Europe
in mind. To model globalization we would need to add one more layer
on top (and populate the two supra-state levels much more unevenly). In
the contemporary world, the inter-state system, which previously was the
highest-level political system, now is the middle-level system.
States remain the most important centers. (Most governance still goes
through states, even where they are no longer its sole or direct provider.)
There is a clear trend, though, toward multilevel multiactor functional
governance. And to the extent that a fundamental national–international
distinction persists, the character of “the international” has been trans-
formed by the growing importance of the regional and global suprana-
tional levels.223
Bilateral action by the great powers remains central – but for a declining
range of issues. International regimes, which greatly enhanced interna-
tional governance capabilities in the twentieth century, remain impor-
tant. Today, however, “regime complexes” are increasingly necessary
to address supranational problems and opportunities.224 And “nonstate
223
International relations can no longer be plausibly represented as largely inter-state
politics. The society of states no longer exhausts international society. Regional
international societies and world society are of steadily (although unevenly) growing
importance.
224
See n. 77 in §14.5.
actors” of varying sorts are increasingly central to supranational gover-

nance, acting in varying combinations with one another and with states.
At the national level as well, we see an increasing “decentering” of the
state – or, more accurately, various re-centerings and re-arrangements
of relations between publics and polities of varied types on multiple lev-
els. “Subordinate” jurisdictions are in many places acquiring increas-
ing autonomy. “Private” actors are increasingly participating in, and
occasionally taking over, activities that in twentieth-century Europe
were monopolized by states – and undertaking new kinds of governance
activities as well. In addition, non-national actors on various levels are
playing growing roles in national and sub-national politics, economics,
and society.
More generally, the relatively sharp distinctions between levels char-
acteristic of modern governance are eroding. And political patterns and
processes are increasingly varied by place. An increasingly complicated
heterarchic system is emerging.
17.14.2 Globalization as Continuous (Trans)formation

These new entities, institutions, and practices, however, largely involve
re-arranging and re-purposing “modern” elements. For example, there
were not-insignificant nonstate actors in the early modern and modern
eras, especially in national and international economies. Now, though,
more kinds are becoming increasingly central. Similarly, the growth
of “global governance” – more accurately, the growing importance of
regional and other forms of (usually functional) supranational regula-
tion – builds on the birth of “international organizations” in the late-
nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.
More broadly, globalization, rather than a radical break with a line
of development that spanned half a millennium, is another phase in the
continuing transformation of polities and systems of polities outlined
above. In fact, the movement “away” from the modern looks very much
like a move “back” toward the early modern.225
Interestingly, though, while the upward reallocation of state authorities
has been primarily functional the downward reallocation has been more
territorial – which suggests unplanned modular adaptations involving re-
purposings of existing resources. Even in countries where “devolution”
is relatively advanced, such as Spain and the UK, authority has flowed
mostly to regional territorial polities (rather than being fundamentally
225
Compare (Nexon 2009, 298–300).
reorganized along functional lines).226 Territorial organization at the

national and subnational levels remains resilient.
The character of states, however, is changing as their functions and
relations change. Postmodern states are recognizable descendants of
modern states. But they are increasingly looking like a new “species” of
polity, living in a very different “ecosystem.”227
Talk of “the rise of the modern state” thus increasingly appears as,
if not simply misguided, out of date. Late-medieval and early modern
history did not so much lead toward the modern state as happen to get
there. And then history did not stop.
The modern state was an undeniably central feature of the modern
era. Viewed across the arc of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern his-
tory, however, it seems more like a digression – or a transition. The
nineteenth- and twentieth-century configuration of States-in-a-states-
system increasingly looks like a bridge between the multilevel multiactor
governance of medieval and early modern Europe and the multilevel
multiactor governance of the postmodern globalizing world.228 But the
substantive contrasts with the medieval and early modern worlds are at
least as striking as the formal structural similarities.
17.15 Alternative Framings

My spatio-political account not only easily and “naturally” pulls together
standard elements in depictions of globalization (such as interdepen-
dence, complexity, changes in scale, changes in sovereignty, and the rise
of nonstate actors) but shows them to be structurally interrelated. It also
encompasses globalization within a comparative framework of broad
applicability – rather than draw ad hoc comparisons with selected fea-
tures of the modern configuration (or claim that nothing fundamental
has changed because the system remains anarchic).
The familiar framing most similar to mine is “multilevel gover-
nance.”229 Heterarchy, however, adds multiactor governance. And if,
as I have suggested, these two features are both interdependent and
226
“Privatization,” which often is more deeply heterarchic (i.e., less territorial and involv-
ing a wider range of types of actors and forms of action), remains limited in most
places.
227
On an ecosystem metaphor of international systems see §11.6.
228
To the extent that this is true, IR’s tendency to assume a states system not only takes
the particular for the general but also takes the exception for the rule (at least in the
European case).
229
(Stephenson 2013), (Schakel, Hooghe, and Marks 2015), (Behnke, Broschek, and
Sonnicksen 2019).
connected with a move from territorial to functional organization then

heterarchy provides a richer account of the referenced phenomena. It
also makes the distinction between single-level and multi-level gover-
nance a matter of conceptual principle rather than ad hoc comparison to
a previously predominant (single-level) pattern.
The rise of nonstate actors and transnational action has been an
important theme in IR for half a century.230 Heterarchy, however, does
not conceptualize political organization through the lens of (the histori-
cally contingent dominance of) states; refuses to reduce most types of
political actors to undefined members of a residual class (not states);
and presents the multiplicity of types of actors as noteworthy but normal.
My account also has similarities to James Rosenau’s notion of “frag-
megration,” understood as “processes of integration and fragmenta-
tion [that] are unfolding simultaneously and endlessly interacting as the
migration of authority [away from states] moves helter-skelter and in
contradictory directions.”231 But fragmentation and integration – differ-
entiation232 – are universal features of social and political systems. States
systems are segmented and integrated in one way, empires in other ways,
and heterarchies in still other ways. “Fragmegration” inappropriately
takes the configuration States-in-a-states-system as an unquestioned ref-
erence point and somehow not fragmegrated.
Similarly, the idea of an embedded state, enmeshed in increasingly
complicated transnational, international, and supranational institutions
and practices,233 inappropriately privileges the (unembedded) modern
state – which was created through historically uncommon processes of
dis-embedding. This framing also is focused on states (rather than sys-
tems) and their autonomy (rather than the structuring of their relations).
My framework shifts attention to the fact that polities of various types are
regularly parts of varied kinds of layered systems of polities.
Anne-Marie Slaughter’s notions of the “disaggregated state” and a
“disaggregated world order”234 likewise take the particular aggregation
of functions in modern states as a pre-given condition or unproblematic
reference point. And she focuses on states and “government networks”
rather than systems and their structures.
230
(Keohane and Nye 1972) was seminal. See also (Risse-Kappen 1995), (Risse 2007),
(Milner and Moravcsik 2009), (Cerny 2010), (Go and Krause 2016). (Keck and
Sikkink 1999) launched a now-massive literature on transnational advocacy networks.
231
(Rosenau 2005, 75). The concept is more fully elaborated in (Rosenau 1997).
232
See Chapter 11.
233
(Hanrieder and Zangl 2015), (Jacobsson, Pierre, and Sundström 2015).
234
(Slaughter 2004, 12–14 and ch. 4).
Globalization is also sometimes presented as “neo-medieval.”235 The

world of the twenty-first century, however, is not becoming “more medi-
eval” in substance. It is becoming more heterarchic.
A spatio-political depiction of globalization, although neither complete
nor privileged, provides distinctive and penetrating insights that help us
to see globalization as neither structurally unprecedented nor insignifi-
cant but a matter of re-configurations comparable in significance, sub-
stance, and form to those that have occurred more or less continuously
in Eurocentric political spaces over the past millennium.
A spatio-political framing also allows us to consider the (I think very
real) possibility that rather than moving in any particular direction – for
example, toward a world state or back toward a states system – varied
changes in relations between varied polities on varied levels will proceed
in varied ways and varied paces in different places. As in earlier periods,
we can expect to see, on a time scale of a few decades, not directional
change but complex combinations of continuities and transformations in
the configurations of polities and systems of polities.
235
The locus classicus, which predates talk of globalization, is (Bull 1977, 254–255, 264–
276). See also (Held 1995, 137–140), (Kobrin 1999), (Friedrichs 2001), (Faludi
2018), (Duran 2022).
18 Afterword
Multiple Approaches to Multidimensional
Systems of Relations
This brief afterword restates the case for a pluralistic IR that gives sub-
stantial attention to the multidimensional structuring of relations in
international systems; the configuring configurations that configure lay-
ered systems of polities.
18.1 Multiple Models of Multidimensional Systems

Political systems and their structures are not simple things that come in
only a few forms that differ in relatively minor ways. Having briefly sur-
veyed several dimensions of variation, I conclude with an emphasis on
the fact of multidimensionality.
It would be difficult for any systemic account to address, let alone inte-
grate, all potentially relevant dimensions. And I doubt that that would
be desirable. Depending on the facts of the case and the purpose of the
analysis, only some dimensions are likely to be of concern. (A cardiolo-
gist is not likely to be interested in (most) of the structure of the skeletal
system.) Therefore, rather than try to generate a single typology of near
universal applicability or depict “the structure” of a (national or interna-
tional) political system, we should seek insightful models of some impor-
tant features that help us to better understand the nature and structured
operation of some parts of some types of political systems.
In the preceding chapter, my principal focus was on spatio-political dif-
ferentiation. But I supplemented my models to produce richer empirical
accounts. For example, dynastic aggregation (a normative-institutional
feature) helps to explain the prevalence of provincial/regional rebellions
during the long period during which previously more autonomous poli-
ties were being peripheralized. If space had allowed, I would have looked
at fiscal and juridical developments that enabled royal centers to pene-
trate their peripheries both more extensively and more intensively. This,
over a period of centuries, prepared the way for what ultimately became
States – although that transition also required, among other things,
politically subordinating social corporations and reconfiguring political
353
relations between sovereigns and subjects toward relations between

states and citizens.
The interactions between the facts of the world and the interests of
the observer also leaves considerable room for substantive and method-
ological variation, even when addressing similar subjects. For example,
Meghan McConaughey, Paul Musgrave, and Daniel Nexon develop a
three-dimensional typology that in many ways overlaps with mine but
focuses attention in significantly different places, in large measure as a
result of adopting a contracting frame and looking at “segments” (rather
than centers and peripheries).1
Such projects share a focus on thoughtfully selected sets of “middle-
range” configurational models. (“Structure” is used not with the definite
article but with adjectives, such as spatio-political.) These sets of models
not only enable “big picture” comparative explanations/understandings
but also, by specifying a set of alternatives, facilitate exploring possibili-
ties for and patterns of both continuity and change2 – and, through fur-
ther critical attention to what they leave out, can help to move us toward
new kinds of insights.
18.2 The Nature of Systemic/Relational Explanations

Systemic/relational models explain things that otherwise resist explana-
tion (and sometimes even identification). And they explain differently –
through configurations (not causes). I thus want to conclude by returning
to the contrast between my account of systemic/relational explanations
and Waltz’s account (which still preoccupies IR).
If systems are parts of particular kinds arranged in particular ways
to produce wholes with emergent properties then systemic/relational
explanations must seek to identify the relational connections and inter-
dependencies that give a system a particular character. Waltz’s claim
that “structurally we can describe and understand the pressures states
are subject to”3 is, by contrast, inappropriately individualistic (seeing
states as externally constrained autonomous actors rather than parts of
assembled wholes).
Waltz got a bit closer to what I have in mind when he talked about
structures “shaping and shoving” states4 – especially if we emphasize
1
(McConaughey, Musgrave, and Nexon 2018). (Nedal and Nexon 2019) is another com-
plementary cut at some of these issues, focusing on hierarchy and the balance of power.
2
See also §15.9.2.
3
(Waltz 1979, 71. See also 89, 118).
4
(Waltz 1990, 34; 1997, 915).
Afterword 355
shaping. Or, as I would put it, assembled systems position actors in

ways that recursively (re)shape their character and interests, (re)set
the parameters of the possible (both for them and for the system), and,
through these structured relations, regulate (but do not cause or deter-
mine) actions and interactions – all in ways that are constantly evolving.
Although Waltz claimed that systemic/structural theories provide a
“positional picture of society,”5 there are no social positions in his anar-
chic void. In my account, by contrast, polities occupy positions that have
associated rights, responsibilities, and roles. The resulting structuring
(of positions) creates a particular type of system that shapes, channels,
and regulates political actions and interactions in particular ways. And
my models try to depict how, as Waltz put it, “a great many different
phenomena are part of a coherent whole”6 – a task that, in practice, he
did not even attempt.
Systemic models neither identify causes nor explain law-like regu-
larities. Rather, they suggest that certain “things” tend to result when
(other) “things” are arranged this way – and that these arrangements
help us to understand some of what typically happens (and does not
happen).7 Structural explanations take the form “That is what we should
expect when the world is more or less like this (as a result of the organiza-
tion and operation of this system).”
As Patrick Jackson puts it, “[social-]scientific researchers trace and
map how particular configurations of ideal-typified factors come together
to generate historically specific outcomes in particular cases.”8 Or in
John Padgett and Walter Powell’s formulation, “scientific prediction in
open-ended, creative systems … is not the specification of a fixed-point
equilibrium. It is the description of processual mechanisms of genesis
and selection in sufficient detail to be capable, in the rich interactive
context of the study system, of specifying a limited number of possible
histories.”9
This, it seems to me, nicely explains what I tried to do in the preced-
ing chapter. Waltz, however, attempted no such thing. And the Waltz
who argued that theories explain laws10 would have been appalled at
5
(Waltz 1979, 80).
6
(Waltz 1979, 9, quoting (Heisenberg 1971, 31)). See also §4.1.2.
7
These are not, however, “indeterminate predictions” (Waltz 1979, 124). The aim is not
prediction but configurational understanding – just as estimates of causal effects are not
indeterminate predictions but causal explanations (that have a particular probability or
explain some part of the observed variance).
8
(Jackson 2011, 114).
9
10
See §4.1.1.
the suggestion that this is what (one type of) social scientific explanation
looks like.
Jackson goes on to argue that “keeping the ideal firmly in mind helps
us make sense of what actually did happen.”11 Or as Ole Waever puts
it, “application of theory then takes the form of assessing the fit between
the model and things in the world.”12 And that fit is the explanation;
an illumination of a particular case by showing it to be an instance of a
generalized set of structured relations.
My models, I have argued, do (sometimes) fit the world rather well.
And they help us make (a certain kind of) sense of what has happened, is
happening, or might happen. They render certain actions, interactions,
and outcomes intelligible; explicable (through the model).
This, as I have repeatedly emphasized, is not meant to criticize or
even denigrate causal (or rationalist) theories or explanations – prop-
erly applied, in their proper place. Different kinds of theories, models,
and explanations look at different things in different ways to help us
understand different parts of the world, differently. (Scientific explana-
tions do not have a singular character or structure.) But I have argued
that, among the many things worth knowing about political systems,
knowledge of how they are differentiated and structured into configuring
configurations that configure is an often valuable but widely underap-
preciated and woefully under-pursued kind of knowledge.
That sounds both a lot like where Waltz started and very far from
where he ended up. This book therefore can be read as an attempt to vin-
dicate the systems-theoretic (and more broadly relational) project that
Waltz claimed was his inspiration by rescuing systemic theory from what
happened to it in, and through the influence of, Theory of International
Politics.
In any case, it is now time – actually, long past time – to get out and
do it. I am at work on such a book of my own. And I hope that the argu-
ments above, both negative and positive, help to inspire, encourage, or
support relational/systemic work by others.
In particular, I hope that properly understanding the nature of systemic
explanations and research will help to further facilitate and consolidate
the broader relational program in contemporary IR. If both systemists
and relationalists come to appreciate that relationalists are doing sys-
temic work, and vice versa, then IR may finally be able to to begin to
realize the promise of systemic approaches.
11
(Jackson 2011, 115).
12
(Waever 2009, 207). On model-based explanations, see §4.8.2.
Afterword 357
Relational/systemic research, properly conceived and well executed,

can both expand the range of things that we can understand and increase
the penetration of our explanations. That would not amount to the
“Copernican Revolution” that Waltz promised.13 It would, though, be
not just an incremental advance but a jump forward into new material
and new ways of understanding.
13
(Waltz 1979, 13).
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Index
absolutism, 338–340 capabilities, distribution of, 86, 144,

accuracy (in explanations), 78–80 147–152, 195
adaptation, 33–35, 208, 225, 226, causal inference, 60, 65, 67, 69, 74–76, 240
229, 232 causal thickets, 77–78
agents/agency, 47, 48, 185, 200, causation, 66–68, 239
222, 232 causes, 61, 64–69
agent–structure problem, 46–49, centralization, 157–158, 295–299,
185, 222 328–329, 349
agglomerated/aggregated polities, 305, Charles V, 315–316
316–324, 334–335, 343–344 co-evolution, 227–229, 241–242
aggregate(d), 27, 29, 68 Coleman, James, 44
Albert, Buzan, and Zurn, 163–169 common security communities, 258
Altman, Dan, 262–265 complex interdependence, 284
amalgamated security communities, 259 complexity, 29–36
Analytical Sociology, 44–45 complicated, 28–30
anarchy, 36, 62, 86–87, 97–130, 136–141, composite polities. See agglomerated/
143, 153, 154, 156, 157, 160–162, aggregated polities
171, 254, 269, 284, 296 concert systems, 257, 278
consequences/effects of, 105–109, 116, configurations, 9–11, 180, 183–184, 201,
139–141 354, 356
cultures of (Wendt), 108 constitutional structure, 249–254
definition, 100–101 constructivism, 94, 122, 134, 248, 262
discourse of, 117–127 constructivism, philosophical, 12
vs. hierarchy, 97–98, 102, 103, 141, continuous (trans)formation, 207–215,
153, 154, 159 224, 229, 310, 316, 335, 341,
Archer, Margaret, 48 348–350
assemblages, 9, 15, 17–18, 56, 185–186, globalization as, 349–350
222 Cronin, Bruce, 254
autarchy, 272, 282, 283
autocatalysis, 32, 216, 218, 235 Dawkins, Richard, 224–225
autopoiesis, 32 decolonization, 260–261
Axelrod, Robert, 121, 247 decomposition, 22, 28, 35, 46, 88–89
DeLanda, Manuel, 7
Barnett, Michael, 270 demarcation criterion, 98–99, 104, 121
Baroque (era), 337–341 Dickinson, G. Lowes, 125
binding through sharing, 115–116, 140 differentiation, 163–166, ch. 11
Binford, Lewis, 109 activities, 192–193
Britain, 320–321 actors, 190–192
Bull, Hedley, 283 authorities, 193–194
Bunge, Mario, 4, 10, 23, 38, 47, 69 center–periphery, 297–299
Buzan, Barry, 39, 40, 199, 249, See also dimensions, 164
Albert, Buzan, and Zurn formal, 190, 274
452
Index 453
functional, 146–147, 193, 310–311 predictive, 70

horizontal, 189 rational actor, 72
material, 194–198 reductive, 20, 23, 29, 41, 90–91, 224, 239
normative-institutional. ch. 14 relational. See explanation, systemic
segmentation, 190–192 scientific, 64
spatio-political. ch. 16 systemic, 5–6, 36–37, 40, 46, 59, 70–71,
stratification, 193–194, 269, 274–280 78–80, 243, 354–356
substantive, 190, 274 this-is-a-cause-of-that, 65, 68–69, 74,
types, 164 75, 240
vertical, 189, ch. 15 top-down, 7, 24, 90, 94, 239
dissipative structures/systems, 206 why, 69–70
dominion, 258 extended organisms, 51
double dichotomy (Waltz), 101–103 extrinsic relations, 17
downward causation, 7, 239
fields, 9, 71, 106
ecosystems (international systems as), fiscal-military states, 340–341
201–203 fitness, 227
effects forager societies, 109–116, 137–140, 197
of anarchy, 105, 106, 122–123, 127 France, 317–319, 331–333
causal, 64, 66, 67, 262
systems, 4–6, 23, 26, 28, 67, 109, 162, genetic linkage, 226
262, 293 genidentity, 53–56
egalitarian (autarchic) orders, 272 geographic mosaic theory (of
Elster, Jon, 44, 69 co-evolution), 242
emergence, 10, 22, 26–29, 215, 232 geotechnics, 196–198
inferential, 28 globalization, 37, 203, 272, 347–352
methodological, 28 Gould, Stephen J., 233, 238, 241, 243
ontological, 28 governance, 267
empire-states, 305, 309, 316–324 multilevel multiactor, 306–308, 344,
empiricism, 13 350
entropy, 205, 206 single-center, 303–306
environment (vs. system), 4, 94–95 single-level, 301–303, 347, 351
epistasis, 225 great power states systems, 98, 116, 138,
essentialism, 11 140–143, 146, 276
estates, 326–328 Griffiths, Ryan, 157–163
eventful history, 219–221, 229
evolution, 36, 52, 202, 224–230, 232–233, Hedström, Peter, 45
236, 238, 241–243 hegemony, 257, 284–287
social, 230–233 heterarchy, 282–290, 306–308, 310–313,
theory of, 241 328, 348–349
exaptation, 227 in early twentieth century, 287–289
existential fear globalization as, 348–349
effects of, 139–141, See also survival hegemony as, 284–287
explanation, 64, 69–73 hierarchical subordination (systems of),
accuracy in, 78–80 257
analogical, 72 hierarchy, 6, 36, 86, 98–99, 102, 134, 141,
analytic, 5–6, 20, 28, 40, 41, 88–90, 170 144, 149–150, 153–158, 171, 189,
as if, 72 268–272, 274–287, 289, 291–292, 297
associational, 70 compositional, 43, 51, 299
causal, 64–69, 239–240 contested, 271
field, 71 convergent, 271, 274–282
functional, 73 divergent, 271, See also heterarchy
how, 63, 68–69, 239–240, 290–291 simple, 270
intentional, 72 in states systems, 280
model-based, 76–77, 290–291 tangled. See heterarchy
natural law, 70 taxonomic, 6
454 Index
Hobbesian state of nature, 137–140, major transitions in evolution, 230

254, 272 Mann, Michael, 343
holism, 23–24 Mearsheimer, John, 125, 139–140, 195
holobionts, 50 mechanisms, 15–17, 70, 76, 77, 240, 241
Holy Roman Empire, 311, 313–315, mechanisms and models approach, 76,
321–324 223, 240–242, 290
Humphreys, Paul, 28 micro foundations, 44–46
micro–macro, 43–44, 46
ideal type, 99, 103, 161–162, 167, military revolution, 209–214
292 Mitchell, Sandra, 60, 80
imperial international systems, 258, models, 76–79, 169, 177, 188–190, 243,
280–282, 292 274, 290–291, 353–356
individuals. See also persons modern synthesis (evolutionary biology),
biological, 49–51 224, 241
evolutionary, 51 modularity, 34–36, 208, 222, 229–230,
human, 48, 52, 54, 200, 201 236
social groups as, 52–53 Molter, Dan, 50
species as, 52 multilevel selection, 225
inequality, 99, 165, 270, 289
inside-out theory, 89 Nadel, S. F., 136
institutions, 248–249 natural selection, 224, 225, 226, 228, 230,
security, 254–259 232, 240, 241
integrated polities, 303–304 naturalism, 23, 70
interaction capacity, 199 neoliberalism, 82, 107, 122, 134
intrinsic relations, 17 neo-medievalism, 283, 352
irreducibility, 18, 27, 28, 47 neo-positivism, 13
netdoms, 56
Jackson, Patrick, 24, 180–183, networks, 9, 70, 181, 190, 216, 218
355, 356 gene regulatory, 234
Jacob, Francois, 229 Nexon, Daniel, 24, 180–183, 270, 354
Jervis, Robert, 19, 28, 40–41, non-aggregative, 26–27, 29
66, 81 non-linearity, 30–31
Jessop, Bob, 284 norms, 248–249, 254, 261
constitutive, 254
Keohane, Robert O., 82, 92, 122, 247, Nye, Joseph, 82, 284
248, 284
King, Keohane, and Verba, 60, 64, 66, 69, ontologically flat, 7
74, 240 ordering principles, 86, 97, 103, 104, 116,
134–136, 151, 153–157, 160–163,
laws and theories model, 76, 223 163, 168–171, 269, 309
levels, 38 outside-in theory, 90
of abstraction, 38, 42–44
of analysis, 19, 37–43, 89, 170 Padgett, John, 215–219
of evolution, 225 Padgett and Powell, 51, 55, 215–219,
of explanation, 39 229–231
of organization, 6–7, 19, 23, 37–39, Parker, Geoffrey, 209–210
42–43, 47, 48, 52, 53, 57, 186, 199, partial (in)separability (of systems and
229, 300, 311–312 their components), 20–25, 186
of reality, 6 path dependence, 207, 232
triads of, 43–44, 46 persistence (requires explanation), 204,
Lewontin, Richard, 225, 206
231 persons, 55–58, 200–201
Lloyd, Elizabeth, 238, 243 perspectives, 77
Lotka–Volterra model, 67 phenotype plasticity, 236–238
Louis XIV, 213–215, 325 pleiotropy, 226
Luhmann, Niklas, 4, 32 pluralism, explanatory, 60, 61, 64, 73
Index 455
pluralistic security communities, 115, 258 states, 303–304, 316–317, 324–325,

polarity, 150–152, 199 328–330, 343–344
positions, 182, 200, 202, 355 states systems, 24–26, 89, 94, 101,
Powell, Christopher, 185 119, 128, 171, 194, 274–280, 286,
Powell, Robert, 88, 105 289, 292, 301–303, 307, 314–316,
Powell, Walter, 215–219 348–349
practices, 9, 249–254, 262–263, 265–266 states-in-a-states-system, 25, 184, 202,
pragmatism, 12 347, 351
Prigogine, Ilya, 31, 207 stratification, 193–194, 269, 274–282, 308
processes, 13–15, 17, 33, 34, 54–55, 67, Strayer, Joseph, 342
68, 180–185, 206–207, 214–215, structural realism, 86–87, 144, 151,
220–222, 232, 235–236, 298–299 195–196
structure, 36, 58–59, 87–88, 221, 248,
reduction, 20–23, 89–91, 224–226, 239 294, 309, passim
eliminative, 21–22, 89, 224–225, 234 substantialism, 10–11, 14, 180, 182, 206,
regnal polities, 311–312, 314–315 209
regulative regimes, 267 sufficiency (vs. scarcity), 197
relational institutionalism, 9 superorganism, 49
relationalism, 8–13, 36–37, 179–185, survival, 79, 92, 198
passim symbiosis, 228
relations, 24–25, 95–96 systems. Passim, See esp. ch. 1, 2, 5, 10
extrinsic, 17, 299 closed, 204, 205
vs. interactions, 88, 95, 108–109 complex adaptive, 33–34, 36, 53, 58,
intrinsic, 17, 299 208, 222, 223, 225, 230
relative gains, 87, 105, 115, 116 complex physical, 33
Renaissance (era), 337 definition, 3–5, 87–88
Rescher, Nicholas, 14, 27, 55 dissipative, 206
residuals, 30, 42, 154, 198, 262, 290, 351 far-from-equilibrium, 206, 207
Roberts, Michael, 209 open, 205, 206
Rosenau, James, 351 of systems of systems, 6, 43, 44, 47, 58,
Rosenberg, Justin, 346 238
rules, 96, 128, 137, 248, 252–253, 267 vs causes, 68
systems effects, 168, 169, 187, See also
Sampson, Aaron, 136 effects, system
scale, 197
scarcity, 197–198 terminal peer polities, 191–192, 347, 348
schema, 77 territorial war, 259–267
Schmidt, Brian, 125–127 territoriality, 197, 261, 272
Schrödinger, Erwin, 205 theory, 61–64, 74–79, 241–243
scientific realism, 12 structural (Waltzian), 89–92, 96,
second law of thermodynamics, 204 144–145, 172
security systems, types of, 254–259 systemic, 8, 85, 89, 91–92, 96, 129,
segmentation, 160, 164, 169, 190–192 202, 356
self-help, 86, 105, 109, 114, 115, 148 Waltz on, 61–64
self-organization, 31–33, 216, 218, 230, thermodynamic equilibirum, 205
231, 234, 236 this-is-a-cause-of-that explanation. See
Sewell, William, 219–221 explanation
Simon, Herbert, 35 Thompson, John N., 228, 242
Singer, J. David, 38, 41 tinkering (evolution as), 229
sketch, 77 transposition and re-functionality,
Slaughter, Anne–Marie, 351 215–219, 224, 229, 230
solidarity (organic and mechanical), tripartite conception, 141–144, 247
159–160 typologies, 166–167, 291–294, 353
Spain, 319, 330–331
spheres of influence, 277 Ukraine, 265–267
Spruyt, Hendrik, 341–342 unipolarity, 281, 286
456 Index
unit level, 42, 85, 91, 96 Wendt, Alexander, 41, 105, 108, 115,
unit of analysis, 39 122, 140
units, 88, 91–92 White, Harrison, 8, 55–58, 218
unity of science, 21, 65 Wilson, E. O., 22
Wimsatt, William, 22, 27, 77, 78
Waltz, Kenneth N. passim. See esp. ch. 5, Woodburn, James, 109
7, 8 and §§3.2, 4.1, 6.1, 9.7
Wars of Religion (France), Zürn, Michael. See Albert, Buzan, and
211–213 Zurn
Cambridge Studies in International Relations
159 Claire Vergerio

War, states, and international order
Alberico Gentili and the foundational myth of the laws of war
158 Peter Joachim Katzenstein

Uncertainty and its discontents
Worldviews in world politics
157 Jessica Auchter

Global Corpse politics
The Obscenity taboo
156 Robert Falkner

Environmentalism and global international society
155 David Traven

Law and sentiment in international politics
Ethics, emotions, and the evolution of the laws of war
154 Allison Carnegie and Austin Carson

Secrets in global governance
Disclosure dilemmas and the challenge of international cooperation
153 Lora Anne Viola

The closure of the international system
How institutions create political equalities and hierarchies
152 Cecelia Lynch

Wrestling with God
Ethical precarity in Christianity and international relations
151 Brent J. Steele

Restraint in international politics
150 Emanuel Adler

World ordering
A social theory of cognitive evolution
149 Brian C. Rathbun

Reasoning of state
Realists and romantics in international relations
148 Silviya Lechner and Mervyn Frost

Practice theory and international relations
147 Bentley Allan

Scientific cosmology and international orders
146 Peter J. Katzenstein and Lucia A. Seybert (eds.)
Protean power
Exploring the uncertain and unexpected in world politics
145 Catherine Lu
Justice and reconciliation in world politics
144 Ayşe Zarakol (ed.)

Hierarchies in world politics
143 Lisbeth Zimmermann

Global norms with a local face
Rule-of-law promotion and norm-translation
142 Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro

Nuclear politics
The strategic causes of proliferation
141 Mathias Albert

A theory of world politics
140 Emma Hutchison

Affective communities in world politics
Collective emotions after trauma
139 Patricia Owens

Economy of force
Counterinsurgency and the historical rise of the social
138 Ronald R. Krebs

Narrative and the making of US national security
137 Andrew Phillips and J.C. Sharman

International order in diversity
War, trade and rule in the Indian Ocean
136 Ole Jacob Sending, Vincent Pouliot and Iver B. Neumann (eds.)
Diplomacy and the making of world politics
135 Barry Buzan and George Lawson

The global transformation
History, modernity and the making of international relations
134 Heather Elko McKibben

State strategies in international bargaining
Play by the rules or change them?
133 Janina Dill

Legitimate targets?
Social construction, international law, and US bombing
132 Nuno P. Monteiro

Theory of unipolar politics
131 Jonathan D. Caverley
Democratic militarism
Voting, wealth, and war
130 David Jason Karp
Responsibility for human rights
Transnational corporations in imperfect states
129 Friedrich Kratochwil

The status of law in world society
Meditations on the role and rule of law
128 Michael G. Findley, Daniel L. Nielson and J. C. Sharman

Global shell games
Experiments in transnational relations, crime, and terrorism
127 Jordan Branch

The cartographic state
Maps, territory, and the origins of sovereignty
126 Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.)

The persistent power of human rights
From commitment to compliance
125 K. M. Fierke
Political self-sacrifice
Agency, body and emotion in international relations
124 Stefano Guzzini

The return of geopolitics in Europe?
Social mechanisms and foreign policy identity crises
123 Bear F. Braumoeller

The great powers and the international system
Systemic theory in empirical perspective
122 Jonathan Joseph

The social in the global
Social theory, governmentality and global politics
121 Brian C. Rathbun

Trust in international cooperation
International security institutions, domestic politics and American
multilateralism
120 A. Maurits van der Veen

Ideas, interests and foreign aid
119 Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (eds.)

International practices
118 Ayşe Zarakol

After defeat
How the East learned to live with the West
117 Andrew Phillips
War, religion and empire
The transformation of international orders
116 Joshua Busby

Moral movements and foreign policy
115 Séverine Autesserre

The trouble with the Congo
Local violence and the failure of international peacebuilding
114 Deborah D. Avant, Martha Finnemore and Susan K. Sell (eds.)

Who governs the globe?
113 Vincent Pouliot

International security in practice
The politics of NATO-Russia diplomacy
112 Columba Peoples

Justifying ballistic missile defence
Technology, security and culture
111 Paul Sharp

Diplomatic theory of international relations
110 John A. Vasquez

The war puzzle revisited
109 Rodney Bruce Hall

Central banking as global governance
Constructing financial credibility
108 Milja Kurki

Causation in international relations
Reclaiming causal analysis
107 Richard M. Price

Moral limit and possibility in world politics
106 Emma Haddad

The refugee in international society
Between sovereigns
105 Ken Booth

Theory of world security
104 Benjamin Miller

States, nations and the great powers
The sources of regional war and peace
103 Beate Jahn (ed.)

Classical theory in international relations
102 Andrew Linklater and Hidemi Suganami
The English School of international relations
A contemporary reassessment
101 Colin Wight

Agents, structures and international relations
Politics as ontology
100 Michael C. Williams

The realist tradition and the limits of international relations
99 Ivan Arreguín-Toft
How the weak win wars
A theory of asymmetric conflict
98 Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall (eds.)

Power in global governance
97 Yale H. Ferguson and Richard W. Mansbach

Remapping global politics
History’s revenge and future shock
96 Christian Reus-Smit (ed.)

The politics of international law
95 Barry Buzan
From international to world society?
English School theory and the social structure of globalisation
94 K. J. Holsti
Taming the sovereigns
Institutional change in international politics
93 Bruce Cronin
Institutions for the common good
International protection regimes in international security
92 Paul Keal
European conquest and the rights of indigenous peoples
The moral backwardness of international society
91 Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver

Regions and powers
The structure of international security
90 A. Claire Cutler
Private power and global authority
Transnational merchant law in the global political economy
89 Patrick M. Morgan
Deterrence now
88 Susan Sell
Private power, public law
The globalization of intellectual property rights
87 Nina Tannenwald
The nuclear taboo
The United States and the non-use of nuclear weapons since 1945
86 Linda Weiss
States in the global economy
Bringing domestic institutions back in
85 Rodney Bruce Hall and Thomas J. Biersteker (eds.)

The emergence of private authority in global governance
84 Heather Rae
State identities and the homogenisation of peoples
83 Maja Zehfuss
Constructivism in international relations
The politics of reality
82 Paul K. Ruth and Todd Allee

The democratic peace and territorial conflict in the twentieth
century
81 Neta C. Crawford
Argument and change in world politics
Ethics, decolonization and humanitarian intervention
80 Douglas Lemke
Regions of war and peace
79 Richard Shapcott
Justice, community and dialogue in international relations
78 Phil Steinberg
The social construction of the ocean
77 Christine Sylvester
Feminist international relations
An unfinished journey
76 Kenneth A. Schultz
Democracy and coercive diplomacy
75 David Houghton
US foreign policy and the Iran hostage crisis
74 Cecilia Albin
Justice and fairness in international negotiation
73 Martin Shaw
Theory of the global state
Globality as an unfinished revolution
72 Frank C. Zagare and D. Marc Kilgour

Perfect deterrence
71 Robert O’Brien, Anne Marie Goetz, Jan Aart Scholte and Marc Williams
Contesting global governance
Multilateral economic institutions and global social movements
70 Roland Bleiker
Popular dissent, human agency and global politics
69 Bill McSweeney
Security, identity and interests
A sociology of international relations
68 Molly Cochran
Normative theory in international relations
A pragmatic approach
67 Alexander Wendt
Social theory of international politics
66 Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.)

The power of human rights
International norms and domestic change
65 Daniel W. Drezner
The sanctions paradox
Economic statecraft and international relations
64 Viva Ona Bartkus

The dynamic of secession
63 John A. Vasquez
The power of power politics
From classical realism to neotraditionalism
62 Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds.)

Security communities
61 Charles Jones
E. H. Carr and international relations
A duty to lie
60 Jeffrey W. Knopf
Domestic society and international cooperation
The impact of protest on US arms control policy
59 Nicholas Greenwood Onuf
The republican legacy in international thought
58 Daniel S. Geller and J. David Singer

Nations at war
A scientific study of international conflict
57 Randall D. Germain
The international organization of credit
States and global finance in the world economy
56 N. Piers Ludlow
Dealing with Britain
The Six and the first UK application to the EEC
55 Andreas Hasenclever, Peter Mayer and Volker Rittberger

Theories of international regimes
54 Miranda A. Schreurs and Elizabeth C. Economy (eds.)

The internationalization of environmental protection
53 James N. Rosenau
Along the domestic-foreign frontier
Exploring governance in a turbulent world
52 John M. Hobson
The wealth of states
A comparative sociology of international economic and political change
51 Kalevi J. Holsti
The state, war, and the state of war
50 Christopher Clapham
Africa and the international system
The politics of state survival
49 Susan Strange
The retreat of the state
The diffusion of power in the world economy
48 William I. Robinson
Promoting polyarchy
Globalization, US intervention, and hegemony
47 Roger Spegele
Political realism in international theory
46 Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber (eds.)

State sovereignty as social construct
45 Mervyn Frost
Ethics in international relations
A constitutive theory
44 Mark W. Zacher with Brent A. Sutton
Governing global networks
International regimes for transportation and communications
43 Mark Neufeld
The restructuring of international relations theory
42 Thomas Risse-Kappen (ed.)

Bringing transnational relations back in
Non-state actors, domestic structures and international institutions
41 Hayward R. Alker
Rediscoveries and reformulations
Humanistic methodologies for international studies
40 Robert W. Cox with Timothy J. Sinclair

Approaches to world order
39 Jens Bartelson
A genealogy of sovereignty
38 Mark Rupert
Producing hegemony
The politics of mass production and American global power
37 Cynthia Weber
Simulating sovereignty
Intervention, the state and symbolic exchange
36 Gary Goertz
Contexts of international politics
35 James L. Richardson
Crisis diplomacy
The Great Powers since the mid-nineteenth century
34 Bradley S. Klein
Strategic studies and world order
The global politics of deterrence
33 T. V. Paul
Asymmetric conflicts
War initiation by weaker powers
32 Christine Sylvester
Feminist theory and international relations in a postmodern era
31 Peter J. Schraeder
US foreign policy toward Africa
Incrementalism, crisis and change
30 Graham Spinardi
From Polaris to Trident
The development of US Fleet Ballistic Missile technology
29 David A. Welch
Justice and the genesis of war
28 Russell J. Leng
Interstate crisis behavior, 1816–1980
Realism versus reciprocity
27 John A. Vasquez
The war puzzle
26 Stephen Gill (ed.)

Gramsci, historical materialism and international relations
25 Mike Bowker and Robin Brown (eds.)

From cold war to collapse
Theory and world politics in the 1980s
24 R. B. J. Walker
Inside/outside
International relations as political theory
23 Edward Reiss
The strategic defense initiative
22 Keith Krause
Arms and the state
Patterns of military production and trade
21 Roger Buckley
US-Japan alliance diplomacy 1945–1990
20 James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel (eds.)

Governance without government
Order and change in world politics
19 Michael Nicholson
Rationality and the analysis of international conflict
18 John Stopford and Susan Strange

Rival states, rival firms
Competition for world market shares
17 Terry Nardin and David R. Mapel (eds.)

Traditions of international ethics
16 Charles F. Doran
Systems in crisis
New imperatives of high politics at century’s end
15 Deon Geldenhuys
Isolated states
A comparative analysis
14 Kalevi J. Holsti
Peace and war
Armed conflicts and international order 1648–1989
13 Saki Dockrill
Britain’s policy for West German rearmament 1950–1955
12 Robert H. Jackson
Quasi-states
Sovereignty, international relations and the third world
11 James Barber and John Barratt

South Africa’s foreign policy
The search for status and security 1945–1988
10 James Mayall
Nationalism and international society
9 William Bloom
Personal identity, national identity and international relations
8 Zeev Maoz
National choices and international processes
7 Ian Clark
The hierarchy of states
Reform and resistance in the international order
6 Hidemi Suganami
The domestic analogy and world order proposals
5 Stephen Gill
American hegemony and the Trilateral Commission
4 Michael C. Pugh
The ANZUS crisis, nuclear visiting and deterrence
3 Michael Nicholson
Formal theories in international relations
2 Friedrich V. Kratochwil
Rules, norms, and decisions
On the conditions of practical and legal reasoning in international relations
and domestic affairs
1 Myles L. C. Robertson
Soviet policy towards Japan
An analysis of trends in the 1970s and 1980s

Systems, Relations, and The Structures of International Societies

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Systems, Relations,

and the Structures of

Inspired by recent work in evolutionary, developmental, and systems

Jack Donnelly is the Andrew Mellon Professor in the Josef Korbel

Jacqueline Best, Karin Fierke, William Grimes, Yuen Foong Khong,

Cambridge Studies in International Relations is a joint initiative of Cambridge

165 Jason Ralph

164 Barry Buzan

163 Brian Rathbun

162 Vincent Pouliot and Jean-Philippe Thérien

161 Swati Srivastava

160 Rohan Mukherjee

Series list continues after index

Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment,

List of Figurespage xii

Part I Systems, Relations, Levels, and Explanations:

2 Complex Adaptive Systems 20

3 From Levels of Analysis to Levels of Organization 38

3.3 Levels of Analysis vs. Levels of Organization 42

4 Systems, Causes, and Theory: Explanatory Pluralism in IR 60

Part II Waltzian Structural Theory: A Postmortem

7 The Tripartite Conception of Structure 134

8 Functional Differentiation and Distribution of Capabilities 146

9 Ordering Principles 153

9.3.3 Two-Dimensional Ordering Principles 160

Part III Systems, Relations, and Processes:

11 Multiple Dimensions of Differentiation in

12 Continuous (Trans)formation: Producing Social Continuity

13 Life Sciences and Social Sciences: Studying Co-evolving

Part III (B) Four Excursions in Relational/Systemic IR 245

15 Vertical Differentiation: Stratification and Hierarchy

16 Levels, Centers, and Peripheries: Spatio-Political Differentiation 295

17 Continuous (Trans)formation of Eurocentric

17.8 The Logic of Composition in Early Modern Europe 334

18 Afterword: Multiple Approaches to Multidimensional

3.1 Coleman’s boat page 45

6.1 Occurrences of “anarchy” and “anarchic”

University, Georgetown University, London School of Economics,

Systems, Relations, Levels, and Explanations

This book advocates a relational processual revival of systems-based

I make fairly extensive use of expository footnotes. I therefore encourage

This book explores some implications for the discipline of International

“A whole which functions as a whole by virtue of the interdependence of

(Consider the allotropes of carbon – the “same” “stuff” arranged differ-

1.2 Systemic and Analytic Explanations

characteristics, purposes, and interactions of the system’s units.”17 “Sys-

1.3 Levels of Organization

to – cannot be explained entirely in terms of – its components. Quite the

1.4 Relations and Systems

• networks36 – patterns of ties between nodes in webs of relations;

The language of systems highlights wholes and emergence. “Rela-

Substantialist approaches have predominated in the contemporary

Epistemological relationalism holds that whatever the world “really

“a” “substantial” (or even “relational”) “thing” as a complex assem-

that of a machine” or “an ordered sequence of events involved in a bio-

understanding those at higher levels. It is the integration of different levels

example, can be a part of only one kind of whole.95 It is a human heart;

1.9 Treating International Systems as Systems

1.10 Postscript: Waltz and Jervis on Systems

This chapter addresses three interrelated features of systems: complexity,

2.1 The Partial (In)separability of Systems

2.1.1 Analysis, Reduction, Decomposition

particular species). Different kinds of “units” will behave differently in

List of Figurespage xii

2 Complex Adaptive Systems 20

3 From Levels of Analysis to Levels of Organization 38

3.3 Levels of Analysis vs. Levels of Organization 42

4 Systems, Causes, and Theory: Explanatory Pluralism in IR 60

7 The Tripartite Conception of Structure 134

8 Functional Differentiation and Distribution of Capabilities 146

9 Ordering Principles 153

9.3.3 Two-Dimensional Ordering Principles 160

Part III (B) Four Excursions in Relational/Systemic IR 245

16 Levels, Centers, and Peripheries: Spatio-Political Differentiation 295

17.8 The Logic of Composition in Early Modern Europe 334