Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
order based on an equilibrium of power among the leading states. States are in a constant
competition for security. Great powers rise up and seek domination, or they ally with other
states to prevent their domination by other great powers. War comes when powerful states
seek to overturn the state system and replace it with universal empire—the Hapsburg Em-
pire, the France of Louis XIV, the France of Napoleon, and Hitler's Germany—all of which
suffered the same fate. In the face of these imperial ambitions, a coalition of threatened states
came together to restrain and subdue the would-be dominating state. Security and order was
returned to the system as power again became decentralized among competing states who re-
affirmed their rights to independence and sovereignty. 17
The European continent has been the central stage for this great historical drama. France,
Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Spain, and other major powers and imperial states are the
dramatis personae of this grand narrative. Over the centuries, aggrandizing states have grown
powerful, weakened and declined, acquired and lost empires, gone to war, and made peace.
Despite the many variations of specific historical circumstance, the European—and later,
worldwide—great powers have operated according to a common logic. In each era, power-
ful states have risen up to challenge the balance of power—perhaps seeking domination or
simply growing more powerful as other states have gone into decline—in turn threatening
other states that respond by mobilizing their national capacities and allying themselves with
others to confront and resist the challenge. War and peace settlements have marked these mo-
ments when power is brought back into balance.
Going beyond this basic logic, some scholars have explored the historical evolution of the
system of states and balance-of-power politics. These moderate realists and society-of-states
theorists have identified long-term changes in the institutional arrangements and practices of
great-power relations. 18 From the early modern era to the present, the great powers have en-
gaged in repeated episodes of war and peacemaking. In the aftermath of these conflicts, the
great powers have found themselves grappling with the terms of postwar settlement. Inevit-
ably, these settlements have been not just about the ending of war but also about the organiza-
tion of the peace. They have been “ordering moments,” when the great powers have struggled
over the basic rules and principles of international order. The result has been the rise and
evolution of the so-called Westphalian system of states. The great powers compete, cooper-
ate, and balance each other within a wider framework of rules and norms. In the background,
Westphalian norms of sovereignty enshrine states as formally equal and independent, pos-
sessing the ultimate authority over their own people and territory. 19
Over the centuries, the Westphalian system has evolved as a set of principles and practices
and expanded outward from its European origins to encompass the entire globe. Despite this
unfolding, however, states have retained their claims of political and legal authority. The
founding principles of the Westphalian system—sovereignty, territorial integrity, and nonin-
tervention—reflected an emerging consensus that states were the rightful political units for
 
 
 
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