Westphalian sovereignty
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Westphalian sovereignty is the concept of nation-state sovereignty based on two principles: territoriality and the exclusion of external actors from domestic authority structures.
The idea can be traced back to the Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, in which major European powers with the notable exception of England agreed to abide by the principle of territorial integrity.
The Peace of Westphalia ended attempts at the imposition of any supranational authority on European states. The ‘Westphalian’ doctrine of states as independent actors was bolstered by the rise, in the 19th century theory, of nationalism, under which legitimate states were assumed to correspond to nations, that is, groups of people united by language and culture. Benedict Anderson refers to these putative nations as ‘imagined communities’.
In the Westphalian system, the interests and goals of nation-states were widely assumed to transcend those of any individual citizen or even any ruler. Although practical considerations still led powerful states to seek to influence the affairs of others, forcible intervention by one country in the domestic affairs of another was less frequent in the period between 1850 and 1900 than in most previous and subsequent periods (Leurdijk 1986).
Both the idea of Westphalian sovereignty and its applicability in practice have been questioned from the mid-20th century onwards from a variety of viewpoints. Much of the debate has turned on the ideas of internationalism and globalization which, in various interpretations, appear to conflict with Westphalian sovereignty.
A notable defence of Westphalian sovereignty is to be found in John Rawls' book from 1999, A Law of Peoples
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[edit] Globalization and Westphalian sovereignty
During the 1980s and early 1990s, the emerging literature on globalization focused primarily on the apparent erosion of interdependence sovereignty and Westphalian sovereignty. Much of this literature was primarily concerned to criticize realist models of international politics in which the Westphalian notion of the state as a unitary actor are taken as axiomatic (Camilleri and Falk 1992).
The European Union concept of shared sovereignty is also somewhat contrary to historical views of Westphalian sovereignty.
[edit] Military intervention
Since the late 1990s, the idea of Westphalian sovereignty has been brought into further question by a range of actual and proposed military interventions in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan among others.
[edit] Humanitarian intervention
Some of these, including the interventions in Yugoslavia have been justified as humanitarian intervention, aimed at preventing imminent genocide or large-scale loss of life. Neoconservatism in particular has developed this line of thinking further, to assert that a lack of democracy may foreshadow future humanitarian crises, or that democracy constitutes a human right on its own.
There is, however, debate about whether recent infringements of state sovereignty, such as the 2003 Iraq War, really reflected these higher principes, or whether the real justification was simply that of self-defense, which is more consistent with the traditional view of Westphalian sovereignty. A new notion of contingent sovereignty seems to be emerging in international law, but it has not yet reached the point of legal legitamacy.
[edit] Failed states
A further criticism of Westphalian sovereignty arises in relation to allegedly failed states, of which Afghanistan (before the 2002 US invasion) is often considered an example. In this case, it is argued that no sovereignty exists and that international intervention is justified on humanitarian grounds and by the threats posed by failed states to neighboring countries and the world as a whole.
Some of the recent debate over Somalia is also being cast in these same terms.
[edit] References
- Camilleri, J. and Falk, J. (1992), The End of Sovereignty?: The Politics of a Shrinking and Fragmenting World, Edward Elgar, Aldershot.
- Leurdijk, J. (1986), Intervention in International Politics, Eisma BV, Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
