Hierarchy and Judicial Institutions: Arbitration and Ideology in the Hellenistic World

Abstract

International arbitration is a distinctive feature of both contemporary international politics and the ancient world. Explanations of arbitration in the international relations literature generally posit that states engage in arbitration to mitigate the effects of competition in an anarchical system, or that the practice of arbitration reflects democratic norms. However, an examination of arbitration during the paradigmatic case of the Hellenistic period (338–90 bce) casts doubt on the existing literature. Hierarchy rather than anarchy better characterizes the political context in which arbitration took place: the Greeks often organized themselves into alliances or leagues in which a hegemon dominated decision making, or into federal states with a common foreign policy. This hierarchical setting was a necessary condition for international arbitration where the practice of arbitration was a tool to legitimize hierarchical powers. We assemble an original data set of Hellenistic arbitrations, and use qualitative comparative analysis to show that hierarchy was almost always a necessary condition for international arbitration. Process-tracing of arbitration under three political orders—hegemonic kingdoms in the Greek world, Greek federations, and the Roman Empire—shows that arbitration as a particular means of dispute resolution was used as an ideological device to build and legitimize international order. We then analyze the contemporary record, finding a role for hierarchy in modern international arbitration.

Qualitative Comparative Analysis

“…Other studies operate at different levels, for instance examining the influence of ethnic identity groups on U.S. foreign policy (Rubenzer 2008), the inclusion of human rights in territorial peace agreements (Caspersen 2019), the conditions under which democratic leaders opted for defection from the multilateral Iraq War coalition (Mello 2020), the foreign policy behavior of Brazil in various international crises (de Sá Guimarães and de Almeida 2017), agency slack within UN organizations (Heldt et al 2022), military intervention in Africa (Kisangani and Pickering 2022), conceptions of international order, as expressed in Australian and Chinese policy documents (van Nieuwenhuizen 2019), and even international arbitration under Hellenistic rulers in ancient times (Grynaviski and Hsieh 2015).…”

Blinkered Learning, Blinkered Theory: How Histories in Textbooks Parochialize IR

“…Putting substances before relations in such a way risks missing not only the relations between substances, but also many of the crucial processes that constitute, maintain, and enable substances to emerge and interact with others; to take part in international relations, in other words. Work by Grynaviski (2018) and Grynaviski and Hsieh (2015) on 'middlemen' and arbitration are good examples of what is missed through substantialist approaches, with the latter of note for its undermining of traditional IR narratives of classical Greek international relations. They reveal that the discipline's traditional preoccupation with the 'big man' history of great power leaders and elites fails to capture the full panoply of activity that makes international relations happen.…”