Global Discourse, 2014

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2014.917031

Recognition and the origins of international society

Erik Ringmar*

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Department of Political Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

The international system of civilized states that came to develop in Europe in the
course of the nineteenth century was formed through practices of recognition, which
created and affirmed similarities between all European states, but also through practices of non-recognition, which created and affirmed differences between Europeans
and non-Europeans. Practices of non-recognition are generally ignored in liberal
accounts of the origins of international society. A theory of recognition allows us to
retrieve this alternative history and make it explicit.
Keywords: recognition; non-recognition; international systems; international law;
international practices; English School

In his account of the logic of world history in the Phenomenology of Spirit, G.W.F. Hegel
envisioned two parties locked into a deadly struggle for recognition.1 They must engage
in this struggle, Hegel explained, for they must raise their certainty of being for
themselves to truth, both in the case of the other and in their own case (Hegel 1979,
sec. 187:113114). There was at the time of Hegels writing a real-life example of such a
deadly struggle the slave rebellion on the Caribbean island of Saint-Domingue, and
there are good reasons to believe that this event directly inspired Hegels philosophical
account. The actual and successful revolution of Caribbean slaves against their masters is
the moment when the dialectical logic of recognition becomes visible as the thematics of
world history, the story of the universal realization of freedom (Buck-Morss 2009,
5960). In fact, there were two separate struggles of recognition going on in SaintDomingue. First, the slaves struggled to be recognized by their former masters, but
secondly, the new nation of Haiti struggled to gain international recognition as an
independent state. Recognition, we could argue, was always a matter of international
politics, and it was always a matter of non-European nations gaining recognition from
European.2
As Hegel explained, a failure to be recognized on ones own preferred terms was not the
end of the story. Instead, it was only the beginning. A failure of recognition initiated a
process of progressive change whereby the inferior party the slave, the non-European
was forced to work on himself, to improve himself, to the point where the superior party
the master, the European finally would be able to recognize him as one of his own (Kojve
1980, 3170; Horkheimer and Adorno 2007, 342). This dialectical process of acculturation
describes the very logic of world history, and its final end is a steady state in which full
recognition is universally extended, on equal terms, by everyone to everyone else.
Or, to translate the same logic into terms valid within the international politics of the
nineteenth century: there was an international society made up of civilized European
*Email: erik@ringmar.net
2014 Taylor & Francis

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states, considered as sovereign actors who all granted each other formal recognition as
equals. International society was kept together through what we could call practices of
recognition everyday forms of behavior into which the recognition which states granted
each other was embedded. Non-European states, on the other hand, were not members of
international society; they had at best a partial standing in international politics, and they
did not enjoy full rights to sovereignty. But just as Hegel had explained, this was not the
end of the story. The non-Europeans could be recognized as full members if they only
worked on themselves, improved themselves, that is, became sufficiently Europe-like.
Having busied themselves at this task through internal reforms and diplomatic measures,
Turkey was formally invited to become a member of Europe-led international society in
1856 and Japan in 1899.
The logic which Hegel elucidates is not, however, the only one possible. The process
of acculturation does not necessarily work. There is no reason, for example, why the
already established members of international society cannot refuse to admit non-members,
no matter what they do to improve themselves. It is through exclusion, after all, that the
exclusivity of a membership club is best maintained. As Groucho Marx famously noted,
once everyone is admitted on equal terms, membership loses its social prestige (Marx
1995, 321). In this alternative scenario, recognition takes place not between a master and a
slave, but between a group of masters who provide an identity for themselves by
exaggerating the features that separate, and thereby distinguish, them from others.3
They recognize each other as superior because of their differences from everyone else.
This, we will argue, is how international society came to be constituted. International
society was not formed once a core of like-minded European states realized how much
they had in common and as they generously extended the benefits of their solutions to
everyone else. This is how members of the English School have explained the origins of
international society, and this explanation is incorrect (Bull and Watson 1985; Watson
2009, 288298). Rather, international society was formed as the Europeans drew as sharp
a distinction as ever possible between themselves and others, accentuating and exaggerating the differences and forgetting nuances and variations. This demarcation, moreover,
constituted the rationale for two entirely different sets of behaviors: practices of mutual
recognition among the Europeans themselves, but practices of non-recognition in relation
to non-Europeans. It was through practices of recognition, affirming sameness, and
through practices of non-recognition, affirming difference, that international society
came to constitute itself as such. And the story is, arguably, on-going. Practices of nonrecognition are constitutive of international society also as it currently exists.
The aim of this article is to briefly review these two sets of practices practices of
recognition and of non-recognition as they developed within three separate fields
diplomacy, trade, and warfare and to study how the respective practices gave rise to the
distinction between the European and the non-European through which international
society was constituted. As an illustration of this process of identity-creation, we briefly
look at the legal stipulations that emerged among international lawyers in the course of the
nineteenth century regarding the protection of cultural artifacts in times of war.
Practices of recognition
International relations in Europe are often thought of as simultaneously both anarchical
and societal in nature (Bull 1977, 2352). That is, despite persistent wars and threats of
war, relations between states are not best described in terms of a Hobbesian state of
nature. In their everyday practices, states follow norms and customs which help determine

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the way they participate in balance of power politics, alliances and international organizations, as well as the way they conduct their trade, diplomacy, and wars. Although
atrocious counter-examples are easy to cite, international society does contribute a
measure of order, a degree of civilized behavior, and it assures a modicum of predictability and peace to relations between states. Since these everyday practices presuppose
that we recognize the other participants as formally equal to ourselves, we could call them
practices of recognition.
Practices of recognition presuppose reciprocity. By engaging in a certain practice, we
expect our counterparts to respond in kind: to mirror our behavior and to return favors, if
not in every interaction, at least over the longer haul (Keohane 1986, 1924). Although
the rules of the game may be largely tacit, states know how to go on behaving towards
each other, and they all go on behaving much in the same way. This knowing-how-to-goon is founded not only on formal similarities between us but on the fact that we share in a
certain way of life. As a party to these practices, we can expect all other parties to
automatically recognize us as one of their own; non-parties, however, can make no such
assumptions. It is scarcely necessary to point out, the British lawyer William E. Hall
pointed out in 1884,
that as international law is a product of the special civilisation of modern Europe, and forms a
highly artificial system of which the principles cannot be supposed to be understood or
recognised by countries differently civilised, such states only can be presumed to be subject
to it as are inheritors of that civilisation. (Hall 1884, 40)

This does not preclude disagreements between members of the same international society
and it does not rule out that violence will be used, but it does make wars between
members of the same international society into fratricides or into peculiarly international
species of civil wars.
Compare the new science of international, positive, law as it came to develop in the
course of the nineteenth century (Koskenniemi 2004, 1197). According to its enthusiastic
proponents, international law is not declared into existence by political fiat but emerges
instead from the everyday practices in which states engage (Bull 1977, 5971).
International law is customary law, case-law, which resembles the law of stateless
societies, in that it is constructed from the bottom up rather than the top down. Ubi
societas ibi ius est, as John Westlake, the British international lawyer, put it in 1894,
where there is a society there is law (Westlake 1894, 3). When we assert that there is
such a thing as international law, we assert that there is a society of states: when we
recognise that there is a society of states, we recognise that there is international law. Yet
since customary law can only be as strong as the customs on which it rests, international
law will inevitably fall apart if international society is too diverse and the practices in
which states engage too divergent. To make international society more coherent and more
unified, according to the new generation of international lawyers, was consequently the
best way to strengthen the force and increase the reach of the law. The more unified and
homogeneous international society became, the more viable the law, and the more viable
the law, the more unified and homogeneous international society (Lorimer 1884,
2:112113).
The practices of diplomacy provide an example. In Europe, the first permanent
ambassadors were dispatched from the court one of ruler to the court of another in the
course of the Renaissance (Mattingly 1937, 423439, 1988, 6177). Despite mutual
suspicions and recurring hostilities, this expanding diplomatic network provided a

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means of gathering information, of spying, but also a way of keeping in touch with
one another, of carrying out negotiations and concluding deals. A number of practices
developed, which facilitated the work of the new diplomats: extraterritoriality for their
embassies, immunity for the diplomats themselves, inviolability of diplomatic dispatches, the right to worship the god of their choice, and so on. Or consider the many
rituals in which the diplomats engaged. There were rules for how they should carry
themselves, for how they should dress, walk, and talk; there were prescriptions for
how to arrange audiences, dinners; for which presents to bring on what occasions; and
for how letters of accreditation should be written, presented, and acknowledged
(Satow 1917). A large number of rules concerned how to determine matters of rank
and standing: the way diplomats should be seated during negotiations, in conferences
and at dinner tables; who had the right to enter a gate before whom; and the order in
which treaties should be signed and ratified.
An analogous argument can be made regarding international trade. In early modern
Europe, with Holland and then Britain taking the lead, new markets were discovered
and new products Atlantic herring, Baltic wheat, West-Indian sugar developed and
promoted (see, inter alia, Braudel 2002a, 81114, 138204; De Vries and van der
Woude 1997, 350408). The vast profits made in these markets were fed back into
expanding commercial enterprises and a large number of practices developed, which
organized, facilitated, and policed the new trade. Commerce required ships and the
ships required harbors, shipwrights, sea-captains, and crews, but also pilots, better
maps, and more reliable commercial intelligence. The goods needed to be safely
transported, insured against storms and pirates, stored in granaries and warehouses,
then distributed. Financial instruments, such as bills of exchange, were required to pay
for the purchases, and the financial instruments needed banks that were connected to
each other in an all-European network. In addition, once each respective state got
involved in the commercial transactions, an entirely new set of political practices
developed concerned with ways of organizing tolls and duties, ways of avoiding tolls
and duties, ways of smuggling and preventing smuggling, with patents and monopolies, with the collection of taxes, and with ways of giving and receiving bribes. Or
consider a practice such as the granting of most favored nation status, whereby
countries promised each other not to treat each other less advantageously than their
best-treated trading partner.
The practices of diplomacy and trade embodied a shared set of values which
governed relations within the European international system. The principal such
value was sovereignty (Bull 1977, 89, 3637; Koskenniemi 2004, 143152). In
Europe, each state was regarded as a sovereign subject that followed its own preferred
course of action. The goal of diplomacy was to further each states national interest,
and the purpose of trade was to enrich the nation. European states had, for example,
an obvious right to control which goods that moved across their borders, or,
indeed, if any goods moved across their borders at all (Heffter 1857, 6768; Hont
2010, 185266). Sovereignty and formal equality led to the problem of anarchy to
the problem of how to assure peace in the absence of a world state. However, at least
as strong as these centrifugal tendencies was the centripetal pressure for social conformity. Consider the practices of diplomacy. European diplomats showed up in the
same place at the same time, following the same elaborate protocol, wearing the same
kinds of clothes and powdered wigs. Through practices such as these, the European
states recognized each other as sovereign, as formally equal, and also and at the same
time, as rivals and enemies.

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Practices of non-recognition
International society thus described was sharply distinguished from the assorted political
entities which the Europeans encountered once they left their own continent. In the
nineteenth century, it was common to make a distinction between two kinds of nonEuropeans: savages and barbarians. Savages were peoples, predominantly in Africa
and the Americas, who lived in societies that had no state. Roaming around in vast forests,
they could not properly defend themselves from outsiders and they had no means of
controlling and administering their own territories (Lorimer 1884, 2:2:157; Westlake
1894, 136). Barbarians, on the other hand, were predominantly to be found in the
ancient monarchies of Asia. Here there were states states which more than perfectly
fulfilled the European requirements for statehood yet since they were states of a
distinctly non-European kind, it was impossible to include them in Europes international
society. The problem was their unwillingness, or perhaps inability, to reciprocate. Asian
states were despotic, the Europeans decided, meaning that they were arbitrarily ruled by
omnipotent rulers who cared little for the welfare of the people (Rubis 2005, 109180).
Taking themselves as the centers of their respective worlds, they refused to regard other
states as equals. With states such as these, there could be no mirroring and no trust.
As a result of the drawing of these distinctions, savages and barbarians were given an
entirely different standing in international law than European states (Lorimer 1884, 2:101;
Wheaton 1855, 2782; Bluntschli 1874, 61109). European states enjoyed the full rights
and obligations of sovereignty the inviolability of borders and the right to self-determination. A civilized state could conduct both domestic and foreign policy without interference from others, and if it was attacked, it had an unquestionable right to self-defense.
Savages, by contrast, had no standing in international law; they enjoyed no sovereign
rights and could rely only on the kind of benevolence which all human beings owe each
other by virtue of their shared humanity. The right of undeveloped races, like the right of
undeveloped individuals, said James Lorimer, professor of public law at the University of
Edinburgh, 1884, is a right not to recognition as what they are not, but to guardianship
that is, to guidance in becoming that of which they are capable, in realising their special
ideals (Lorimer 1884, 2:157). As a consequence, there was nothing stopping the
Europeans from appropriating their land for themselves. As for barbarians, they occupied
an intermediary position between the civilized and the barbarians (Lorimer 1884, 2:216
218; Westlake 1894, 142; Oppenheim 1912, vol. I:155). They had an international status
and standing, but they were international subjects only in certain respects. Barbarian states
were formally independent but not fully sovereign, and they periodically saw their
territories invaded and parts of their political systems taken over by foreigners. Their
actions were often constrained by unequal treaties and by military intimidation.
The practices of diplomacy were altered in line with these distinctions. As for the
savages, it was obviously quite impossible to establish proper diplomatic relations with
people who did not have a state of their own, and besides, Europeans were convinced,
savages were far too uncouth to master the elaborate protocol required (Westlake 1894,
129189; Anghie 1999, 180). The diplomatic engagements that did take place with such
peoples were farcical exchanges where the natives dressed up in what they took to be the
required outfits, while the European visitors struggled to repress their laughter. Diplomatic
relations with the monarchies of Asia was quite a different matter. These states had long
traditions of receiving foreign diplomats, not least from Europe, and medieval European
visitors had often been amazed at the sumptuousness of the courts and the dignity of the
rituals involved. Yet once the Euro-centric international society came to constitute itself as

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such, these traditional practices were found wanting. A particular problem was the headlong prostration, the proskynesis or koutou, which Asian rulers insisted that visitors
perform (Rockhill 1897, 627643; Ringmar 2012, 6880). The prostration, the
Europeans decided, constituted proof of Asian despotism since only Asian monarchs
required such ceremonies and only Asian subjects were servile enough to perform
them. The insistence that European visitors participate in the same ritual demonstrated
how difficult it was to do business with Asiatic rulers. A European diplomat who
prostrated himself before an Asian king would not only degrade himself but also his
country. While European visitors in previous ages had followed the local customs when
visiting Asia, by the nineteenth century they stubbornly refused to humiliate themselves in
this manner.
Trade provides another example of practices of non-recognition. Trade with savages
was easy to conduct. Since savages had no state they had no way of policing their own
borders and no way of stopping the Europeans from engaging in whichever exchanges for
which they could find a business partner. In Africa, for example, the Europeans bought
ivory, hardwoods, and slaves in exchange for shotguns, mirrors, and alcohol (Braudel
2002b, 430441). As for the barbarian states of Asia, they did indeed have the power to
stop European attempts to trade, and in the case of China and Japan, they famously did. In
China, before 1842, foreign trade was only allowed at the southern port of Guangzhou,
and in Japan, before 1869, trade was only possible at Deshima in Kyushu. Yet since these
barbarian kingdoms were not full members of international society, the Europeans saw no
reason to respect these constraining arrangements. In 1853, Japan was threatened by the
Black Ships of Commodore Perry, and between 183942 and 185660, the Europeans
made war on the Chinese in order to gain trading rights, in particular the right to sell
opium. In Europe, needless to say, similar practices would have been perfectly
unthinkable.
The arguments used to justify Europes military aggression throw further light on
the distinction which international lawyers made between the civilized and the uncivilized. According to the medieval understanding, based on the stipulations of natural
law, the right to trade was given equally to all men by Providence itself (Viner 1976,
3233, 37). Providence has so wisely organized matters, went the argument, that the
objects which human beings require are scattered around the globe. We must consequently exchange with one another if we are to provision for ourselves, and in the
process, friendly relations between individuals and societies will quite naturally come
to develop. It is consequently against the stipulations of natural law to restrict trade, in
particular in the kinds of goods that are necessary for our survival. This, indeed, was
the premise of Hugo Grotius celebrated argument in favor of freedom of the seas
(Grotius 1916). Yet in the nineteenth century, this argument was discarded together
will all other parts of the natural law heritage, and the cunning of Providence was
replaced by appeals to economic advantage. Free trade, Adam Smith explained, is
beneficial to all parties, yet among civilized states, trade was never freer than the
national imperatives permitted. Sovereign states could, and did, restrict trade in order
to benefit themselves. It was only in relation to people outside of Europe that the old
natural law arguments remained in force. As the Dictionary of Commerce, 1842,
explained: if a country abundant in resources insulates itself by its institutions, and
adopts a system of policy that is plainly inconsistent with the interests of every other
nation, then such nation may be justly compelled to adopt a course of policy more
consistent with the general well-being of mankind (McCulloch 1842, 72). Since
arguments regarding economic advantage carried no force with barbarians, and since

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the laws of Euro-centric international society did not apply to them, natural law was
used to justly compel them.
In the Euro-centric international system, we said, practices of recognition create
similarities between the states that participate in them by embedding presumptions
regarding formal equality into the very structure of interaction. In relation to nonEuropeans, on the other hand, practices of non-recognition create differences between
states by embedding presumptions regarding inequality into the structure of interaction
(Anghie 1999, 180). First, the Europeans drew as sharp a distinction as ever possible
between themselves and everyone else, accentuating and exaggerating the differences and
forgetting nuances and variations, and then, when acting in terms of the distinction thus
drawn, the differences which the Europeans had invented were made manifest and
obvious for everyone to see. As a result, all Europeans really were alike, and they were
distinctly different from non-Europeans. It was the invention of the categories of barbarians and savages which made civilization possible.
A short case-study: the protection of cultural artifacts
As a way to study the practices through which recognition was granted and withheld,
consider a short case study regarding the protection of cultural artifacts during times of
war. Cultural artifacts are not resources that can be used for the purposes of warfare,
instead they are prizes which a victor brings home in triumph, demonstrating that he is
strong enough to take what the vanquished opponent cannot protect. Alternatively, they
are things which the victor deliberately choses to respect, thus displaying his respect not
only for the objects concerned but also for the opponent . As such, the cultural artifact,
and its degree of protection in times of war, provides a way to understand the nature of the
relations that obtain between the participants in a war.
Before the nineteenth century, international law had little to say about the protection of
museums, libraries, and art collections (Auzillion 1897; Ringmar 2013b, 265267).
Occupying armies would deal with such artifacts in whatever way they saw fit, and
there were no legal prohibitions against looting and pillaging. However, once the science
of positive international law came to be established in the course of the nineteenth century,
destruction and appropriation of cultural artifacts came to be explicitly banned by international treaties and surprisingly often also honored in the practices in which European
states engaged.
A first requirement of the new laws was that wars can only be fought between
soldiers, not against civilians and that only military targets legitimately can be attacked.
This stipulation had implications for cultural artifacts, since all privately held property was
regarded as off limits to an occupying army. The occupiers could certainly provision for
themselves in enemy territory, set up camp, and requisition horses and vehicles, but when
they did so they had to pay a fair price for what they took (Bluntschli 1874, 653657,
36669). A different set of provisions governed the property of the enemy state. Although
all public property automatically fell into the hands of an occupying army, there were
limitations here too. Cultural artifacts which rightly belonged to the people, but of which
the state was the custodian, could not be appropriated. The destruction of archives and
libraries was not permitted since that disproportionately would disadvantage civilians. The
only exceptions both in the case of private and public property concerned military
necessity but any military benefit must be immediate, overwhelming, and easily
demonstrable (Lieber 1863, 14, 4; Bluntschli 1874, 549, 309; Wheaton 1855, 6,
421; Moore 1906, 178). Cultural artifacts were unlikely to fall into this category.

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Unrealistic though these requirements may appear, they reflected the way armies
already for some time had conducted themselves on the battlefields of Europe (Ringmar
2013b, 265267). During the Napoleonic Wars, the British had paid for the provisions
they requisitioned, and they did the same during the Crimean War. Pillaging and looting
were punished in all armies, and the cultural and architectural treasures of enemies were
generally respected. The near universal cries of barbarism which the exceptions to these
rules evoked demonstrate the relevance of the new practices. Napoleon, for example,
looted art collections in Italy, but after Waterloo, most of the objects were returned and
even the French admitted that the actions had constituted war crimes. Similarly, public
opinion was outraged when British troops in 1814 burned down government buildings in
Washington, DC, including the White House (Moore 1906, 200). Later in the century,
these new practices of warfare were increasingly codified. The Lieber Code of 1863,
which provided rules of engagement for the soldiers of the Northern states in the
American Civil War, is an early celebrated example, but the British, German, and
French armies soon adopted similar legally inspired regulations (Lieber 1863; Ringmar
2009, 5260).
However, when it comes to wars conducted in non-European settings, an entirely
different set of rules applied (Colby 1927, 279288; Ringmar 2013b, 267270). The
practices developed here recognized the differences between Europeans and nonEuropeans, not their similarities. In these colonial wars, works of art and buildings of
religious and architectural importance were not only not protected but often explicitly
singled out as targets. The destruction of cultural artifacts came to be identified as an
integral part of colonial warfare and as a particularly efficient way of striking at intractable
natives. The wars fought by France in Algeria in the 1830s and 40s, by Britain in
Afghanistan, 184142, and in India after the Uprising in 1857 provide numerous examples. In all three locations, the Europeans met with fierce resistance from the locals, and in
each case they came close to being defeated. Changing from European-style, civilized,
practices of warfare to uncivilized practices, their fortunes eventually turned. In Algeria,
civilians were explicitly targeted and the bases of their livelihoods herds, fields,
orchards were destroyed (Porch 1986, 376407). After the British had lost an entire
army in Afghanistan in the winter of 1842 and been forced into a humiliating retreat, they
returned in the fall of the same year to get revenge. Here too civilians were targeted and
the Grand Bazaar of Kabul was reduced to pebbles (Kaye 1851, 638639). In India, after
the British had retaken Delhi, the city was subject to a spectacular loot in which private
and public property alike was stolen and wantonly destroyed. Particularly notorious was
the practice of strapping rebels to the mouths of cannons and firing them off to eternity
(Davis 1994, 293317; Craig 1858, 348350).
Another spectacular case of destruction took place northwest of Beijing in October
1860 (Ringmar 2013a, esp. 6985; Ringmar 2011, 273297). It was here, at
Yuanmingyuan, that the emperor of China had his residence, an enormous park filled
with palaces, pagodas, temples, galleries, and archives. The buildings represented
architecture drawn from various parts of China and beyond, and the collections included
jewelry, clocks, mechanical dolls, furniture, silks, paintings, calligraphy, and a library
with a copy of every book printed in the Chinese language. It was one of the most
remarkable collections of cultural artifacts ever assembled. Yet between October 6 and
9, 1860, Yuanmingyuan was thoroughly looted by a French army, and on October 18
and 19, the whole compound was burned to the ground by the British. As even some of
the participants themselves admitted, this was a Vandal-like and a barbaric act (Hake
1884, 33).

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The question is what the relationship might be between the way the Europeans
behaved in these two geographical settings. Why did the Europeans agree to protect
cultural artifacts in Europe itself while they at the very same time targeted them, in nonEuropean settings, as a matter of explicit and officially sanctioned policy? The most
charitable interpretation is to say that the discrepancy was nothing but a coincidence, but
we may be more inclined to see it as a particularly blatant case of double-standards. In fact
it was neither. Instead the two sets of behaviors causally entailed one another. The two
distinct sets of practices first created and then affirmed the differences between the
European and the non-European, constituting the identity of a European self as well as
a non-European other. It was because the Europeans committed acts of barbarism outside
of Europe that they became increasingly civilized in Europe itself, and because they
became increasingly civilized in Europe itself, that they committed acts of barbarism
outside of Europe. Through the practices of recognition embedded in war-making,
Europeans were made alike, and through the practices of non-recognition, nonEuropeans were made different. It was on the bases of these similarities, and these
differences, that international society rested.
This categorization explains why the Europeans fought the non-Europeans in such
ferocious fashion. Although the destruction of a cultural artifact had no military value, it
was an efficient way of demonstrating ones might and of intimidating ones enemies.
Such demonstrative effects were particularly important when it came to colonial warfare
(Ringmar 2013a, 147149). Despite their obvious military superiority, the Europeans were
not generally able to impose their will on the kingdoms of Asia by regular military means
alone. Wars were logistical nightmares at a time when a single journey to East Asia took
three months to complete and instructions took just as long to reach a commander in the
field. A country such as China was impossible to occupy and administer, and although
India was colonized, the British military presence here was exceedingly thin on the
ground, a weakness exposed during the uprising of 1857. Under such circumstances,
the most successful military actions were those that terrified the locals. Colonial wars
were pieces of theater designed to showcase a military superiority which did not necessarily exist (Ringmar 2013a, 147149). This is why cultural artifacts were targeted. It was
because the palaces, temples, and bazaars contained such irreplaceable treasures that they
were destroyed. This, the Europeans decided, was the quickest way to intimidate their
uncivilized enemies (Porch 1986, 378382). In addition, the radical distinction between
practices of recognition and of non-recognition served to remind the Europeans of who
they took themselves to be. Spectacular acts of destruction undertaken in extra-European
settings were a way of policing the boundary they had drawn between the civilized self
and the uncivilized other. Treating non-Europeans differently, and making war on them in
explicitly uncivilized ways, strengthened and affirmed this distinction. In this way, the
coherence of European international society was enhanced.
On the origins of international society
According to a reformist narrative common to American liberals and to members of the
English School, international society has its origin in the shared practices, which developed among European states in fields such as diplomacy, trade, and warfare. We called
these practices of recognition since they embedded norms of formal equality and
reciprocity in everyday, routinized, behavior. International society became global in
scope as the Europeans, in the nineteenth century, colonized the rest of the world and
as the former colonies, in the twentieth century, achieved their independence on European

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terms. As a result, in 1945, all states were recognized as sovereign and as formally equal,
as subjects of international law, and as members of the United Nations. In the twenty-first
century, on the received account, this international society still helps bring a measure of
predictability and order to relations between states (Bull and Watson 1985; Watson 2009,
288298).
Common though this narrative may be, it rests on a fatal omission. International
society, we argued, was not formed once a core of like-minded European states realized
how much they had in common and as they generously extended the benefits of their
solutions to everyone else. Rather, international society was formed as the Europeans
drew as sharp a distinction as ever possible between themselves and everyone else. The
Europeans were civilized, they agreed, and the non-Europeans were either savages or
barbarians. This distinction did not name a preexisting difference as much as it constituted a difference which previously did not exist. This difference, moreover, constituted
a rationale for practices of non-recognition forms of behavior through which presumptions regarding inequality came to be routinized in everyday interactions which
excluded the non-Europeans and made them legitimate targets for European interventions
and wars. The practices of non-recognition were not an aberration, not a mistake, and not
even a regrettable by-product of imperialism. Instead they were constitutive of international society as it currently exists.
Much as Hegel suggested in the Phenomenology, the only way for the non-Europeans to
avoid this predicament was to emulate the European understanding of international politics
and to quickly become Europe-like countries. They had to work on themselves, improve
themselves, before they could gain membership in international society. On 30 March 1856,
in the wake of the Crimean War, Turkey was expressly admitted to participate in the
advantages of the public law and system of concert of Europe, but critics soon complained
that the admission had been premature since Turkeys laws still were distinctly uncivilized
(Moore 1906, vol. I:9; Krauel 1877, 388). The Turks, as a race, James Lorimer decided,
are probably incapable of the political development, which would render their adoption of
constitutional government possible. Islam is an exclusive religion which stands between
Turkey and the world and contradicts its constitutional professions of reciprocating will
(Lorimer 1884, vol. 2:123). Compare the discussions which today are pursued regarding a
Turkish application for membership in the European Union (Nas and zer 2012). After
decades of attempts to approach the Europeans, Turkey was finally admitted as an official
candidate country in December 1999, but negotiations have since stalled and leading
European politicians have insisted that the country cannot be admitted since Turkey is
not a proper European country (Bilefsky 2007; Finkel 2012).
Or take the case of Japan. After very extensive domestic reforms in the 1870s and 80s
and full acceptance of the Euro-centric rules on diplomacy and international law, the
country was finally admitted into the circle of law-governed countries as a fully
independent sovereign power in the summer of 1899 (Moore 1906, vol. I:9; von
Siebold 1901). And although the Japanese leaders played along with the Europe-directed
balance of power politics during the First World War, they began to break the rules in the
1930s. Japan, it turned out, was a revisionist power and not a very civilized country at all.
As far as China was concerned, the imperial authorities undertook sweeping reforms of its
foreign policy in the 1860s, including the establishment of a European-style ministry of
foreign affairs the Chinese began sending diplomats abroad in the 1870s, and participated in international conferences in the 1890s and yet the Europeans remained
profoundly skeptical regarding the countrys progress. Chinas reforms never seemed to
be radical enough. In 1912, according to Lassa Oppenheim, China still belonged to a

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11

small group of countries where neither their governments nor their populations are at
present able to fully understand the Law of Nations and to take up an attitude which is in
conformity with all the rules of this law (Oppenheim 1912, vol. I:155).
Lets note the paradoxical nature of this game of recognition and non-recognition
(Ringmar 2002, 115136). To the extent that countries such as Turkey, Japan, and China
ignored the rules of the Euro-centric international system, they were denied the rights of
sovereignty and they could be bullied by the Europeans with impunity. It was consequently only by following Europeans practices that they could gain the right to act freely;
only by modeling themselves on foreigners would they be allowed to be themselves.
Sovereignty, once gained, would give them the right to do whatever they wanted, but
sovereignty could only be granted to states that lived up to the European norm. Selfdetermination, much as in Hegels formulation of the struggle for recognition in the
Phenomenology, required determination by others.
The paradox of sovereignty placed, and continues to place, European and nonEuropean states on an unequal footing despite all the rhetoric regarding equality and
universal rights. Today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, all states are considered sovereign, they have their respective seats in the United Nations, and they are all
formally equal subjects of international law, trade, warfare, and diplomacy. Yet the
civilized states of the world still need savages and barbarians who can help confirm
them in their perceptions of themselves. Although there are few remaining formal criteria
by which such distinctions can be drawn, there are a number of informal practices
informal practices of non-recognition that serve the same purposes. Countries are still
called uncivilized by European and North American TV viewers watching reports of
bloody wars in faraway places, by investment bankers drawing up plans in their airconditioned offices, by development experts frustrated by the inefficiencies of the local
government, and by expats as they look out on shantytowns from their chauffeur-driven
sedans. Or consider the discourse on human rights (Mutua 2001, 201245). Despite the
norm regarding sovereignty, to which all independent countries are subject, sovereignty,
the Europeans insist, should not give rulers a pretext for treating their own people in
degrading, dehumanizing, and savage ways. And while there is no doubt that human
rights continue to be broken in various non-European locations around the world, and that
such abuses should be condemned and stopped, it is equally obvious that the human rights
discourse serves Europeans well in drawing the same line they have drawn since the
nineteenth century the line between themselves as civilized and the non-Europeans as
savages and barbarians.

Notes
1.
2.
3.

I am grateful to Jens Bartelson, Shannon Brincat, and John Hobson for comments on a previous
version of this article.
Europeans here, and throughout this article, includes the inhabitants of the former European
colonies in North America.
This possibility was always occluded by Hegels own account where there were only two
parties to the interaction.

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