Merum Imperium and Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages (original) (raw)
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Sovereignty. European and Global Histories, 1400-1800, Introduction
Beyond presenting and introducing the subsequent chapters, the introduction seeks to reduce the subject of sovereignty into its most abstract form, namely, that a ruler or decision-maker has the power to rule over others concerning all problems or, the very least, a particular set of problems within a given social context. Challenging this position raises the issue of navigating the relationship between two (or more) powers – in dual relationships this results either in the subordination of one to the other or in coordination. Such dual or multiple power relationships can be studied not only in both Western and global politico-theological contexts, but also with regard to gender power relationships or the relationship between functional spheres (economics, science, politics, etc.). Drawing on the current state of research in the classical field of European juridico-political theory and the evolution of the political concept of ‘sovereignty’ beginning in thirteenth-century Europe, the chapter addresses several methodological problems within the field of global history such as how to deal with distinctions in the modern Western language of analysis, different source languages, and varying global forms of political order when attempting to historicize an object so ephemeral as ‘sovereignties’. Examples illustrating the interaction between the British East India Company and the Mughal Court around 1700 serve as a prolepsis to the subsequent chapters in the latter part of the volume, which is devoted mostly to Eurasian case studies.
The thesis that the secular system of modern international relations has medieval, religious roots is not new. Various accounts have documented how the Protestant Reformation and its late medieval antecedents represented a ‘revolution in ideas’ that broke away from the hierarchical arrangement of fragmented feudal polities, which was apparently characteristic of the Middle Ages, to the egalitarian society of sovereign states, which is seemingly synonymous with modernity. Linked to this is the standard story in International Relations that views the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Discovery of the New World as a radical rupture, which replaced the ‘Dark Ages’ with a new era of enlightenment progress. Such a supercessionist structuring of historical narrative reinforces the secularist bias that has dominated the discipline since the late 1950s and 1960s. As a result of the secularisation of international relations, the role of religion in international affairs has not so much been neglected and overlooked, as misrepresented and under-theorised. Most contemporary international relations scholarship lacks an account of both the historical influence and the contemporary relevance of rival theological approaches in relation to the modern international order. Recent scholarship in political thought and in the history of ideas has highlighted some of the profound continuities between the medieval and the modern period. Building on these and other accounts, this essay explores the role of theological concepts in the genesis of modern international relations. The focus is on the contrast between the Franciscan legacy and the Dominican heritage. My argument is that the modern states system and transnational markets rest on late medieval ideas, notably Franciscan conceptions of inalienable individual rights, centrally vested sovereign power, and a natural state of anarchy that requires an artificial social contract. Against secular hegemony, which, paradoxically, can be traced to late medieval Franciscan theology, I contend that the Dominican tradition offers conceptual resources to chart an alternative modernity. To suggest that we live in the (late) modern age assumes a particular meaning to modernity. But the modern project was never monolithic in the West, or elsewhere. On the contrary, from a global historical perspective, there was no single modernity but rather multiple and even rival modernities that were variously more secular or more religious. Moreover, ‘we have never been modern’, as the French philosopher Bruno Latour has argued. For modernity rests on an irresolvable aporia between the notion of human artifice (the social contract) and unalterable nature (the violent ‘state of nature’). Crucially, there are no absolute breaks in history that inaugurate new eras which supersede preceding traditions and ideas, including the notion that Westphalia ushered in modern international affairs. If this is so, then perhaps it is also true that (late or post-)modernity is best described as the ‘modern’ Middle Ages — the intensification and extension of certain late medieval ideas rather than a wholly new phase of history. In turn, this helps explain why the shape of contemporary international relations really is neo-medieval but in ways that have not been conceptualised by theorists of international relations. The first section examines the historicist narrative of International Relations and traces it back to both Protestant and Catholic theology. The second section shows how the modern notion of secular imperium as an autonomous, neutral space on which the idea of the sovereign state rests, was invented and instituted by late medieval Franciscan theology, in particular the work of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. The third section argues that the conception of subjective, individual rights guaranteed by the sovereign state, independently of the Church, is similarly rooted in the nominalist theology of the Franciscans. This conception of rights can be contrasted with the notion of objective right (ius), and thus reciprocal rights and associative links between national states as contemplated by the (metaphysical) realist theology of Dominicans such as Thomas Aquinas. The fourth section focuses on the Franciscan invention of modern markets, based on sundering the immanent order of nature from the transcendent order of the supernatural Good in God, and on separating gift from contract. The conclusion suggests that the conceptual resources of the Dominican tradition can transform Franciscan modernity in the direction of a neomedieval international order wherein human beings are seen as naturally ‘social animals’ (not self-proprietors of subjective rights) and both states and markets help to promote the pursuit of the common good
Political Authority in International Relations: Revisiting the Medieval Debate
International Organization, 2020
In international relations, accounts of medieval political authority are divided between those who see a heteronomous patchwork of overlapping authorities and those who claim that the era of the state started in the twelfth century. How can we overcome this divide? I argue that IR's current difficulties in grasping the nature of medieval political authority stem from shortcomings in how the notion of political authority itself has been conceptualized. Thus, rather than starting from a substantive definition of political authority, I focus on contestation over the categorization and authorization of rule, that is, on how authority is produced in historically specific ways as a result of contemporary contestation over what political authority is, who is authorized, and how rulers stand in relation to one another. This reorientation allows us to appreciate how medieval political authority emerged from the competition between four sets of ordering categories: iurisdictio, potestas, lord/vassal, and magistrate. Each one of these four categories understood authority, rulers, and the relation between rulers in different ways. The problem with existing accounts of medieval authority is that they attempt to find the single ordering principle of medieval international relations. In doing so, they not only fail to capture the features of the time but also reinforce a particular approach to political authority that is unhelpful for understanding medieval and modern politics alike.
FROM PERSONALISM TO TERRITORIALITY: State Authority and Foreign Policy in Medieval and Modern Europe
Paper presented at …, 1996
This paper has two primary purposes-to develop a more sophisticated conceptualization of state authority relations and to demonstrate the utility of this conceptualization in explaining state behavior. It attempts to contribute to international relations theory by illustrating the contingent nature of territorial sovereignty. Territoriality is defined as a means of asserting, enforcing, and legitimating authority claims; authority claims are limited in terms of particular domains of human activity engaged in by humans within a particular space. This is contrasted with personal authority claims, which are limited in terms of particular domains of human activity engaged in by particular humans regardless of their location in space. When a state prohibits driving over a certain speed limit, it is using territoriality as a means of asserting, enforcing, and legitimating an authority claim. The claim is limited to a specific domain of human activity (speeding) engaged in by people within a particular space (the territory of the state). In contrast, when a religion prohibits sexual relations before marriage, it asserts, enforces, and legitimates its authority claims personally rather than territorially. The claim is limited to a specific domain of human activity (pre-marital sex) engaged in by adherents to the faith. The distinction between personal and territorial authority relations not only helps distinguish the state from other organizational forms, but helps distinguish different historical state forms. This paper argues that the medieval state, organized around feudal bonds of loyalty between lord and vassal, relied on personal rather than territorial authority claims. A preliminary exploration of the Hundred Years War demonstrates that the personal organization of medieval state authority relations helps explain certain "puzzles" of medieval state behavior that are inexplicable if the medieval state is viewed as territorial. This paper also suggests that the distinction between personal and territorial authority is also useful in understanding the behavior of modern states. Modern states are not entirely territorial; they rely in part on personal means of legitimating state authority. This latent personalism helps explain Russian claims of extraterritorial authority over ethnic Russians in the "near abroad" and the attempts by American citizens to bring suit against foreign nationals for human rights violations in other countries.
On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State, 2016
2016
An authorized Persian translation of Strayer, Joseph R. 2005, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State, with forewords by Charles Tilly & William Chester Jordan, Princeton: Princeton University Press (first published in 1970). Joseph R. Strayer (1904–1987) was Professor of History at Princeton University. This book received a Princeton University translations grant: Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies, April 1, 2016.
VINDICIAE CONTRA TYRANNOS: JUDGING THE FUTURE OF SOVEREIGNTY FROM ITS PAST
An exegetical interpretation of concepts goes on to show their true nature and allows theorists to draw a comparative analysis between the original intention of the framers of the particular concept and the present status of the same concept. In the present Post Modern world, where everything is relative, some of the elementary norms of the international society are also being closely scrutinized. In recent times, Sovereignty, which is considered a building block of international legal order, is going through an existentialist crisis. Sovereignty, whose origins are usually and allegedly traced to The Treaty of Westphalia, is no longer considered a Gospel truth. The questioning and re interpretation of a basic norm has serious ramifications as Sovereignty is responsible for vesting State with a legal personality. Re interpretation of Sovereignty automatically questions the existence of State in the 21st state. Economic forces of globalization have already launched a blitzkrieg against the traditional functions of State and its utility has been questioned over the past two decades. What makes the case of Sovereignty more peculiar is that the very essence of Statehood is being questioned. This is novel because the relativity of Sovereignty makes the surety complex of the Positivists a hollow notion. For the sake of stability of international relations and international law, the concepts of State and Sovereignty have been looked upon as a priori, as if, the entire global legal order was possible and knowable because of them. Their presence was as definite as time and space. But, the current era of comparative studies derides this approach. The traditional notions of Sovereignty are being questioned because of the following reasons: (1) Changing notion of intervention in International Law. (2) The problem of fail/ weak states. (3) Humanitarian Intervention. (4) Advent of Responsibility to Protect. (5) Doubts about the indivisibility and unlimited aspects of sovereignty. Points (1) – (4) are related to the subject matter of sovereignty, while point (5) is related to the subject matter of the sovereignty. Points (1)- (4) are inter related as it has direct nexus regarding the interpretation of Art 2(4) of UN Charter and the compromising nature of the external aspect of sovereignty . Point 5 is related to the subject matter of sovereignty and demands a historical analysis of the origin of sovereignty. It is in the context of the above mentioned paragraphs that the present research paper is being written. The paper focuses on a medieval political treatise called VCT (hereinafter referred as VCT), which was drafted in the days of the religious conflict in Europe. This treaty encompassed the idea that if a tyrant prince unleashed his wrath on its citizens in form of mass killing only on the pretext of religious affiliations then , the neighbouring princes would intervene in the matters of that territory to set things right . This treaty provides one of the earliest examples where the external aspect of sovereignty was compromised for humanitarian causes. The developing concept of Responsibility to Protect is the proof of the changing notion of sovereignty in 21st century. Part I of the paper will discuss the origins and concept of VCT while Part II of the paper will give a brief introduction to the concept of Responsibility to Protect and at the same time it will be argued that VCT is the intellectual godfather of Responsibility to Protect. Part III will give the concluding observations on the research topic
A Genealogy of State Sovereignty
A genealogical account attempts to unravel the most basic features lying beneath a concept. To begin with, I point to the theological origins of the notion of sovereignty that is deeply bound up with the idea of God, and in particular with a voluntarist image of God who is capable of intervening directly in the world. In the second stage, I present the rationalistic attempt to save the theological origins by providing a non-voluntarist account of sovereignty. Thirdly, I sketch an account of state sovereignty that attempts to do away altogether with any theological foundation of political authority. I argue that the best account of state sovereignty is naturalistic because it can explain the emergence, rise and decline of the national state. A naturalistic account of state sovereignty shows the deep connection between descriptive and prescriptive laws: when the two match, then state sovereignty is secure; if the two have divergent paths, then state sovereignty declines. I conclude by pointing to the fact that the decline of the Westphalian system of state sovereignty is connected with the lack of ability on the part of the national state to meet the factual challenges of an economically globalised world through national laws. A naturalistic account of state sovereignty highlights the last step in the evolution of the concept: when the transcendental explanation of state sovereignty disappears, the mist surrounding the political authority of the national state is lifted and we are capable to understand why the national state may one day be replaced by a competing framework of political authority that is more efficient in the resolution of global problems.
GENEALOGY OF AUTHORITY AND THE PUZZLE OF SOVEREIGNTY
In the following article on the basis of Agamben's and Arendt's philosophical tradition the idea of authority will be examined and interpreted in the light of the Agamben's most provocative and crucial concept-idea of Homo Sacer. Genuine understanding of the concept will be attempted by using genealogical and hermeneutical method. Despite the historical and philosophical richness and depth of material, Arendt's investigation lacks precise definition of the term and also nothing is said about the place and function of authority in modern social and political context. Arendt confines herself with historical elucidation and negative representation of authority. She tells more about what was not its meaning, rather defining it in positive terms. However, opposite can be said on Giorgio Agamben. Methodological resemblance of authors is evident, both chose archeological and historical form of inquiry, but as Agamben characterized his attitude, his aim was to develop the problematic thought and to say what remains unsaid and concealed in other's writings without any ambition of fulfilling it. Therefore, we can interpret the notions of authority and power, as they are mixed with each other in the sovereign's figure of indifference.