The World Imagined

Spruyt, Hendrik

doi:10.1017/9781108867948

Cited by 55 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 354 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Other than in Europe where wielders of coercion competed for territories, European colonizers drew most borders in Africa, Asia, the Middle East or Latin America. Thereby, they globalized the Westphalian state system with its spatially defined concept of sovereign authority that constitutes the ideational base for a bellicist dynamic of state formation (Spruyt, 2020: 75–76, 282–283). Yet, the rise of the norm of territorial integrity in the 20th century locked this system of arbitrary borders in and thereby reduced interstate war.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making or un-making states: when does war have formative effects?

Jüde

2021

European Journal of International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“War made the state, and the state made war” is Charles Tilly’s famous dictum that has become highly influential both in comparative macrosociology and in International Relations. An extensive literature suggests that this mechanism has played a pivotal role in European processes of state formation. However, its applicability to warfare in the Global South is controversial. While some argue that the relationship remains the same, others are skeptical of the effects of the bellicist mechanism. Against the background of the debate as to whether war makes or un-makes states in the Global South, this paper examines the conditions under which wars have formative effects and result in state-making. Revisiting the war-making/state-making paradigm, I argue that the mode of economic reproduction of “wielders of coercion” determines whether war has formative effects. Wielders of coercion, or more specifically, non-state armed movements may draw on (1) rents, (2) indirect extraction, or (3) direct extraction to sustain their economic base and organize coercion. However, they institutionalize and develop into a state-like organization only when they rely on direct extraction. To support these claims, I conduct a plausibility probe drawing on evidence from highly successful armed insurgencies: Eritrea’s EPLF, Somaliland’s SNM, and Namibia’s SWAPO. In sum, the bellicist relationship remains valid for the Global South, even if the conditions under which war makes states are rare. A more nuanced reading of the bellicist theory improves our understanding of the dynamics of state formation and decay in the post-colonial world.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making or un-making states: when does war have formative effects?

Jüde

2021

European Journal of International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The primary reason why studies that find the Ottoman Empire worth examining do not recognize the Ottoman international system is their focus on the ideational sources of the Ottoman Empire rather than the practices of the Ottoman international system. As Spruyt, 18 Buzan and Acharya, 19 and Zarakol 20 concentrate on the Ottoman Empire's ideational similarities with Islamic and Mongolian traditions, they fail to acknowledge that the Ottomans were at the center of a unique pattern of relations connecting Europe, North Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Middle East. More importantly, the Ottoman Empire emulated Roman and Byzantine models, learning from their successful practices to create open, flexible, and organizationally coherent imperial institutions.…”

Section: The Ottomans At the Centermentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ottoman International System: Power Projection, Interconnectedness, and the Autonomy of Frontier Polities

Balcı¹,

Kardaş

2023

Millennium: Journal of International Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article posits that the Ottoman international system was built on three pillars: power projection, interconnectedness, and autonomy of frontier polities. While its military power projection dwarfed its great power rivals, cultural and organizational capacities of the Ottoman Empire extended its influence to areas out of its military reach. Occupying a central position in trade, pilgrimage, and diplomacy during the early modern period, the Ottoman Empire fostered connections throughout the wider Afro-Eurasian world. The flexible and almost independent status of the peripheral polities not only increased the survival capacity of the empire but also played a central role in the functioning of the Ottoman international system. Rather than presenting either a material or ideational perspective, the present study adopts a via-media approach, integrating both perspectives to elucidate the Ottoman international system, which persisted for nearly three centuries from the early 16th century to the late 18th century. Analyzing such a broad historical phenomenon, this article aims to enrich and contribute to the increasingly popularized historical and non-Western IR subfields. Additionally, it holds potential to deepen our comprehension of heterogeneous international systems and their modus operandi. Le système international ottoman : Projection de puissance, interconnexion et autonomie des territoires frontaliers

show abstract

“…The collective beliefs embodied in the tributary system 'informed how authority was legitimated, how interpolity relations should be conducted, and how the interiority and exteriority of the political community were defined'. 8 Tributary relations created 'a cognitive framework' through which actors understood their social and political world and served as 'a lingua franca' that facilitated mutual understanding. 9 Within this system of shared collective beliefs, actors could have diverse, even contradictory, interpretations of their roles and positions, but they would have to do so within the same belief system.…”

Section: The Sirens' Lure Of the Tributary Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Strange Journey of the Tributary System

Wang

2021

Millennium: Journal of International Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Scholars of international relations have embraced the tributary system as the dominant lens to studying historical orders of East Asia. Hendrik Spruyt’s The World Imagined, a rare gem in the study of comparative international orders, argues that the tributary system articulated the ontology of the historical East Asia international society. This article cautions against two common pitfalls. First, the tributary system is a modern conceptual construct that can blind researchers to other types of political orders existing throughout East Asia’s diverse landscape and history, thus contributing to a Sinocentric bias. Both the Mongols and the Tibetans adopted a distinctive set of rules of inter-polity conduct that have little to do with the Chinese tributary system. Second, the tributary system perpetuates the myth that East Asia has been historically peaceful, while glossing over the numerous interpolity warfare that took place in the region as well as internal conflicts within the same cultural sphere of a state. I argue that our understanding of international orders can be substantially enriched when we take material power seriously and study its interplay with ideational factors.

show abstract

The World Imagined

Cited by 55 publications

References 354 publications

Making or un-making states: when does war have formative effects?

Making or un-making states: when does war have formative effects?

The Ottoman International System: Power Projection, Interconnectedness, and the Autonomy of Frontier Polities

The Strange Journey of the Tributary System

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About