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The Westphalian legacy and the impact on
modern international politics
 The causes of Westphalia
- The reformation and counterreformation
- The Habsburg bid for hegemony
- The thirty years war
 The Westphalia settlement
 The emerging norms of Westphalia
- Balance of Power
- Sovereignty
- International law
- Diplomacy
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The Reformation
 An attempt to counter the religious dogma of
the papacy
 Challenged the Vatican and the European
rulers that prescribed to Catholicism
 Implicitly separated state from church
 Strengthened the role of the king
The Counterreformation
 Weakening and disintegration of Christianity
 Driven by the Catholic Church
 Supported by the Catholic Habsburg Empire
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What was proposed that was so challenging?
Martin Luther
- 95 theses in Wittenberg 1517
- Favoured moderate reform of the catholic
church
- Accepted the hierarchy of the church
- Attempted to popularise the church
- Took hold in parts of Germany and
Scandinavia
Jean Calvin
- More radical than Luther
- Challenged the hierarchy of the church
- Self-government in congregations
- The right to oppose an oppressive ruler
- Took hold in GB and the Low countries
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The religious map of Europe in 1560
What were the political consequences of the
reformation and counterreformation?
 All of Europe formed into two camps, for or against
the Habsburg Empire
- The Habsburg Empire was conservative and
against the reformation
- Tried to restore the unity of Christendom
- Feared the disintegration of Europe and the
power of the Ottoman Empire. Political as well
as religious motives.
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 The hegemonic claims of the Habsburgs was
an attempt to move the European states system
towards empire
 The anti-hegemonic (reformist) camp tried to
counter the Habsburgs and move the system
towards (greater) independence
 The French anti-hegemonic camp rallied both
“religious” and “political” allies and through
the “thirty years war” the Habsburg Empire
was diminished
 Though the war achieved greater independence
the importance of France increased
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The Peace of Westphalia 1648
 Refers to two treaties
- The treaty of Münster (the Habsburgs)
- The treaty of Osnabrück (the Lutherans)
Gerhard Terborch (1648)
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The map of Europe in 1648
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What were the effects of Westphalia?
 It redrew the map of Europe
 It ended the hegemony/domination of the
Habsburg Empire
 It established an anti-hegemonical principle,
emphasised independence
 It was the first general congress of Europe
where states assembled and decided on
common rules
 It paved the way for nationalism and national
allegiance
 It established a normative framework (an
international society) that has become global in
reach
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Balance of power
1. Was the cause of the thirty-years war
2. A norm firmly established in the peace
settlements of Ütrecht and Osnabrück
Balance of power can be understood both as a
descriptive and a normative term
Descriptive balance of power:
- Indicates how power is distributed in the
international system
- Can be balanced or unbalanced (tilting)
- If balanced it can be bi-polar or multipolar
- Traditionally focused on military power
and capabilities
Economic power
increasingly important
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Normative account of balance of power
 What is the value of balance of power?
- Prevent the establishment of empire and/or
hegemony
- Preserve the international system and its
actors’ independence
- Provide the conditions for international
institutions
international law,
international organisations
- Deter war through the assurance of armed
response
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How can balance of power be achieved?
 ALLIANCES
Through the NATO and the Warsaw Pact the
aligned western and eastern countries formed
formal alliances to counter each other
 INTERVENTION
A hostile act of a greater against a weaker
power purporting to affect the current order
- Vietnam War
- Soviet invasion in Budapest 1956 Prague
1968
 SPHERES OF INFLUENCE
Competing powers demarcate “their” areas of
hegemony
Britain’s and France division
of Northern and Western Africa, Soviet
Union’s dominion in Eastern Europe
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The self-determination of states
 Rex est imperator in regno suo (the king is
emperor in his own realm)
- The king is not subject to higher authority,
neither domestically nor internationally
 Cuius regio, eius religio (the king determines
the religion of his realm)
- Success of the reformation: either
Catholic, Lutheran or Calvinism without
intervention from other states
 This meant de jure if not de facto equally of
states
 Established a European commonwealth of
sovereign states
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Sovereignty
1. What is sovereignty?
2. How can it be defined?
3. What is the value of sovereignty?
According to Jean Bodin (1530-1596):
“Sovereignty is that absolute and perpetual power
vested in a commonwealth”
According to Harry Hinsley:
“[t]he idea of sovereignty was the idea that there is a
final and absolute political authority in the political
community...and no final and absolute authority
exists elsewhere”
According to Carl Schmitt:
“Sovereign is he who decides on the exception”
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 Authority located in a specific territory
 Only states can be sovereign
 Sovereignty is the defining feature of the
international system/society – the “rite of
passage”, ”stamp of approval”
something
 It is a fact as well as a value
that is valued by states and potential states
(Kurdistan, Quebec, Kosovo, Montenegro,
Tibet)
 There can be society without sovereignty
(stateless societies), but not the other way
around
 Sovereignty has to be recognised by the
international community (Kosovo recognised
by 67 states)
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The two dimensions of Sovereignty:
Internal Sovereignty
 The lawful exercise of power by the
government
The government’s “inside”
right to govern
 The government’s legitimate right to use force
(Max Weber)
External Sovereignty
 There is no legitimate power beyond the state,
no world government
leads to
international anarchy (lack of ruler not rules)
 A state’s territorial integrity should be
respected by other states
 Dependent on international recognition
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Internal sovereignty can be either absolute or
popular
Absolute
 Power vested in a single ruler (monarch,
dictator)
 The ruler cannot be bound by domestic laws
 The ruler cannot give up his/her power
would be a loss of sovereignty
 The power of the sovereign is perpetual even
beyond life (Bodin’s view)
Popular
 Can be traced to the American revolution 1776
and the French revolution 1789
 An effect of nationalism/self-determination
 The legitimacy of sovereignty is dependent on
consent of the population
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The Westphalian legacy and international law
 “Rex est imperator in regno suo” and “Cuius
regio, eius religio”, are important international
legal principles
 International law regulates how states (and
non-state actors) should interact, what is
permissible and not permissible
 How can one talk of international law? Law is
dependent on central authority and sanctions
 International law is an important international
(recall Bull’s def. of
norm or institution
international society)
 International law is mainly “self-enforcing”,
states can rarely be compelled to follow
international law. UN Security Council can
however act in an enforcing way
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Why should independent sovereign states follow
international law?
 It “cushions” international relations, it works
as an important “egg box”
 For self interest
- To achieve increased security
- To achieve international coordination
- For predictability
 To gain a reputation and “good will” in the
international society
Compare U.S.
foreign policy during Bush and Obama
administrations
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Important international legal principles
Jus cogens
Fundamental shared international norms that
cannot be opted out of. 1.) Crimes against
humanity 2.) Genocide 3.) Slavery etc.
“A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it
conflicts with a peremptory norm of general
international law. For the purposes of the present
Convention, a peremptory norm of general international
law is a norm accepted and recognized by the
international community of states as a whole…”
(The Vienna Convention Art. 53)
Pacta sund servanda
The idea that (international) legal agreements
should be respected, can only be overridden by jus
cogens
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Jus ad Bellum
Regulating when it is permissible to use
international force and wage war
used
before the war. 1.) Just cause 2.) Last resort 3.)
Right intention 4.) Hope for success 5.)
Proportionality 6.) Right Authority
Jus in bello
The “laws of war” that regulate how should be
conducted, what is fair and unfair
- How should POW be treated?
- What rights do the civil population have?
- The “characteristics” of the combatants?
- Which weapons can be used?
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Diplomacy
“Diplomacy in world politics refers to a
communication process between
international actors that seek through
negotiation to resolve conflict short of war”
(White, 2006:388).
It is a policy instrument used to achieve certain
the medium through
political objectives
which peaceful international relations are
conducted
World Politics
Conflict
Cooperation
War
Diplomacy
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Was it the function and purpose of diplomacy?
 Representation
- The monarch’s representative in a foreign
country
- To express the will of his/her monarch
 Communication
- To function as a “messenger”
- To communicate changing policies
 Negotiation
- Nicolson: “the art of negotiating between
conflicting interests”
- The application of strategy and cunning
 Gathering information
- To gain strategic (military and economic)
information of the host country
Foreign policy recommendation
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Traditional diplomacy can be characterised under
the headings of structure, process and agenda
 The structure/framework of traditional
diplomacy
- Emerged out of the need for regular
contact between sovereigns (monarchs)
- Became institutionalised through a
network of permanent embassies
- Was later “professionalised” as the
diplomats became employed and paid
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 The processes of traditional diplomacy
- The ways through which diplomacy was
conducted
“diplomatic protocol”
- Diplomacy was traditionally bi-lateral
(state to state) and negotiations secret
- A number of ceremonial procedures and
rules of seniority
- The principle of “don’t shoot the
messenger”
The protection of the
diplomat
- The principle of “extra-territoriality” and
“diplomatic immunity”
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 The agenda of traditional diplomacy
- Focused on narrow agenda of issues
- Primarily the personal relations between
sovereigns, conflictual or harmonious
- Focused on matters of war and peace and
strategic alliances
- Characterised by secrecy and deceit
A diplomat is “an honest man sent abroad
to lie on behalf of his country”
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 In the early 20th century Woodrow Wilson
argued in favour of New Diplomacy
- According to Wilson important causes of
the First World War was secrecy and
deceit. The League of Nations needed to
be more open.
- Diplomacy was perceived to be in need of
“popularisation”
- Too secretive, needed to be open to control
and scrutiny: “open covenants of peace,
openly arrived at” (Wilson)
- A product of democratisation
Ideally
a descending chain from the citizenry to
the diplomat. The diplomat should speak
in the name of the people
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The effects of the new diplomacy debate
 Structure
- There are still embassies and diplomatic
envoys
- There are new important arenas in the
form of international organisations (UN,
EU, WTO, etc.)
- There are new actors that influence world
politics, primarily international
organisations and non-governmental
organisations, expertise
- As states have changed domestically
relations among them have changed as
well. Not as secretive (e.g. the UN keep
official records from meetings)
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 Process and Agenda
- Political leaders more directly involved
- From being bi-lateral it is increasingly
multi-lateral. A number of countries acting
together. Climate change where all states
come together on a head of states level.
- A greater number of issues are addressed
internationally, not only security matters:
the environment, economic and financial
issues, human rights
- The emergence of high and low
politics/diplomacy