Rethinking the Nation-State: The Many Meanings of Sovereignty Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy by Stephen D.

Krasner Review by: Josef Joffe Foreign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 1999), pp. 122-127 Published by: Council on Foreign Relations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20049538 . Accessed: 24/03/2012 16:02
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Review Essay

Rethinking

the Nation-State
of Sovereignty

The Many Meanings

Josefjoffe

Sovereignty: Stephen Princeton

by Organized Hypocrisy, D. KRASNER. Princeton: University Press, 1999,

And

For to bear all naked truths to envisage circumstance, is the top of sovereignty.

all calm

That

264 pp. $49.50 (paper, $16.95).

In international less understood politics, and more no is concept than misused

aside the poet's sense of sover Setting as a serene, Stoic state of mind, we eignty are left with two basic, everyday meanings for the word: or think when their supreme power and autonomy is how most people This independence. they talk about states and

term carries at that of sovereignty. The in everyday language. least three meanings in it denotes First, "supreme power"?as s poem "Oenone," Lord Tennyson self which celebrates "self-reverence, as the self-restraint" only knowledge, to a "life to sovereign In a way power." in similar vein, Robert Burton, tongue as a tobacco cheek, praises "sovereign to all diseases." A second meaning remedy Alfred of the word from denotes or autonomy, independence. freedom And constraint,

sovereignty. In that case, it is of course easy to as a into sovereignty poke large holes central about tenet of traditional international realist thinking politics. Supreme even the United States, power? Not has it. the "last remaining superpower," is not holy writ; it certainly word Americas cannot treat the rest of the world in the manner of the Athenians, do what who famously

the third definition

John Keats'

can be found in

told the intractableMelians

strong they

that "the

"Hyperion":

can and the weak

at Stanford University, Joffe, visiting Payne Lecturer Munich of the S?ddeutsche Zeitung in Page Editor and Columnist at Harvard University's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. Josef

is Editorial and Associate

[122]

Rethinking
the United suffer what they must." When States goes to war, it usually feels compelled to ask for the Security approval of the U.N. in aworld of almost 200 Council. Living consult, countries, Washington and coax other nations; convince, only can it coerce or ignore them. rarely it comes is even more true when This to autonomy, the second vernacular No nation of sovereignty. meaning an island, and not even North Korea autonomous one's own (literally, laws"). Nations "able to make is is must

Nation-State the To begin, he rightly makes short shrift

of the commonplace idea that sovereignty means from external freedom influences. What sover "interdependence in pat eignty" expressed phrases is eroding because such as "state sovereignty he labels is usually Krasner Such bromides, "control" with "authority."

of globalization." argues, confuse Of course the flow

over states are losing control of people, goods, pollutants, across their borders. But and currencies this has

have always for resources, support, depended or not forced to do so, security. Even if they their autonomy have always compromised on others in countless tions, ways: (with alliances, and confederations. constraints), Thus it seems to follow such thing as sovereignty. that the dominant model politics?the construct?is It follows through institutions treaties, coali their

case. In fact, always been the some measures, international "by capital markets were more open before the First World than they are now." So there new under the sun here, nor is nothing does the loss of control prove anything War about More sovereignty itself. are Krasner's next interesting three definitions of sovereignty. "Domestic is perhaps the weightiest of sovereignty" strongly with and Jean Hobbes, Jean Bodin, Thomas it is rooted in the Jacques Rousseau, deeply all. Associated them most

that there is no further of international

realist or balance-of-power as useful as a you unicycle: can ride on it, but not very well, if at all.

Western
Hobbes

tradition of political philosophy.

If sovereignty is compromised in myriad so is the conventional that model ways, recalls G.W. monads" Leibniz's "windowless that states are like

to escape taught that the only way a state of the state of nature, from really war, was for men "to confer all their power and may will." There that refers conflict. as Krasner ... that he one man strength upon ... unto one reduce all their wills had enforced to that the to be a supreme authority law and adjudicated then, sovereignty," source of authority," exists in all it, which

by assuming

billiard balls: hard-shelled, highly polished

units without bonding propelled and only by their internal dynamics, a life of to doomed collision. perpetual REWRITING Here work, makes Right Stephen RULES D. Krasner's most recent surfaces,

"Domestic calls

"final

Sovereignty: OrganizedHypocrisy!, a most welcome appearance.

in federal republics like polities?even the United States where power iswidely shared. The locus of final authority
from the politburo in may vary widely, to a supreme court in the United China or Israel. But there States, Germany, not has to be such a locus; we would one a real state. call an entity without November/December 1999 [ 12 3 ]

a cuts away, Krasner through of conceptual confusion tangle by sorting out the many ways in which we use and misuse classificatory the term scheme "sovereignty." is fourfold. His

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Josefjoffe
"Domestic logic Next a sovereignty" of statehood. in Krasners legal normative is part of the comes the principle cuius regio, that the ruler s faith religioj meaning became the official denomination of his eins state. Krasner never calls this a system of "orga It also reaffirmed

taxonomy

"international higher "domestic

sovereignty." This has content than does even Kim

nized hypocrisy," and right he is, for states

have when domestic in the stopped interfering affairs of other states?especially of

Hobbes'

(although sovereignty" or North Koreas Leviathan internal know when

Jong II cannot live by brute force alone

but needs How do we legitimacy "international we as well). legal see it? Krasner

clout. they had the appropriate But Krasner also sets up something as a closer look at theWest actually designed cuius regio, etus

a straw man, system phalian To begin with,

sovereignty"

reveals. religio was

tests: "Is a state the following proposes recognized by other states? Is it accepted as a juridical equal? Are its representatives

compromised from the startby the principle of religious tolerance. Although those
300 sovereigns were the top dogs in their were bound to state churches, respect they of the freedom of worship and conscience was their religious minorities. More important the realpolitik of the settlement. The two victors France and guarantors and Sweden, were of the peace, the granted

entitled to diplomatic immunity?" In other

words, control mestic badge it is not enough territory. Those sovereignty of acceptance must to seize power and who claim do be accorded states? the

by other

implying that their claim is right and

a proper actor on the world just. To be a must be so certified. stage, political entity

In this respect, all states that fulfill the

criteria powerful, landmass Closely are a "sovereign"?whether like Kuwait city-state related to "international puny or or a vast

in the affairs of the interference right of Sweden even gained Holy Roman Empire.

a formal right of participation in the Imperial Diet (asKrasner actually points

out elsewhere before the settlements in his book). So 300 years I ofWorld Wars

like Canada. is Krasner

legal s last definition, sovereignty" model." which he labels the "Westphalian It rests on two principles: "territoriality and the exclusion of external actors from domes to one tic authority structures." Reduced it is the of nonintervention. word, principle is a bit of a sovereignty" "Westphalian For it suggests?wrongly?that misnomer.

and II, there was already a heavy whiff of in theWestphalian and Potsdam Versailles dose of international air: a massive super arrangements Plus ?a of Germany. change.... is Still, "Westphalian sovereignty" what we should mean when we say as we concede "sovereignty"?as long a that there is large "ought" concealed core. We to treat the concept's ought other states as hard-shelled their entities as well territoriality to noninterference. that has never been by as in vision over the future internal

back in 1648, at the end of the Thirty

the European Years' War, and Osnabr?ck M?nster on one another's domestic powers agreed to stop intruding is true politics. It the territorial states of the in

that the peace recognized of the member sovereignty Holy Roman

respecting their right of course,

Empirically, the case.

princes

leaving about 300 Empire, turfs. in exclusive charge of their

the history of interna Since Thucydides, of has been the history tional politics

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Rethinking

Nation-State the
and there is a vast and nonintervention, of international law to go with apparatus not it. Except only do they ignore that in the crunch (if they have the "ought" also undercut the wherewithal). They principle voluntarily, by allowing others

and Krasner's book provides intervention, a exhaustive survey of how it has well-nigh been done?when, where, by, and to whom. As Krasner puts it, [of noninterference] enduring but violated. Rulers powerful states have justified ofWestphalian principles by alternative norms such as the principles have been inmore violations invoking

to penetrate their hard shells inmyriad

conventions conclude such as ways. They I of France and Suleiman the one Francis

illegitimacy of revolutionary regimes (the Holy the provision of national security Alliance), on Cuba (the Platt Amendment imposed States), problems of drug by the United running (the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama) or the protection of the Soviet common wealth (the Brezhnev doctrine)."

theMagnificent
Krasner

which, as signed in 1538,

notes, provided for the exemption of foreigners from Ottoman taxation and to be tried under the laws of for them their home Later countries in Vienna in consular courts. in 1815, minority to ethnic groups extended in Prussia, embedded Russia, in national

The list is endless.

METHOD So what? IN THE MADNESS Krasner's is not real project but theory. How best to under of so-called sovereign has changed? Krasner's states?

protection such as Poles treaties were was

on, was

living even

andAustria. After World War I,minority law. So the breach of the Westphalian
model or never imposition; and convention. recent United human amatter just it also involved Add rights of coercion contract

taxonomy, stand aworld What,

if anything, is not easily cracked. How do we problem a is both normative wield concept that

to this the more conventions of the

and empirical, that describes both the

"ought" and the "is?" On the inside of is clearly states, "domestic sovereignty" example, president there is aTreasury Depart commander; ment that alone may print bills and mint coins. On the outside, "international is also for real. We a who is the supreme a

Nations, states, which by

shouldered voluntarily seek to constrain rulers

reality; there is in theUnited States, for

from inflicting their nasty habits on hapless subjects. This leads to something of a
paradox: "The very fact," notes Krasner, that "rulers could freely sign such agree

ments [limiting their domestic sovereignty]

is an affirmation legal of their international the fact, in other sovereignty"?of that "they are recognized words, by to enter into other states as competent international So what to accords." does it all mean? Krasner's

legal sovereignty" as do treat other states, vast or measly, we accept their right to juridical equals; representation to them alone do we in the United Nations; grant the authority contracts and conventions. sign we But the issue becomes tricky when turn to "Westphalian sovereignty." Under all states are model, pledged to noninterference to the

problem is this: If Westphalian

is "organized hypocrisy,"

sovereignty
still

can we

understand theworld in its terms?His

response Krasner is ambivalent, and rightly so. faults the realists for standing and sovereignty-centered 1999

this system, billiard-ball

on a state-

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[125]

Josefjoffe
foundation while that foundation the fact that ignoring and always has been, is, is too smart (or is of trade top traders, today.1 International flow as a fraction of gdp? It rose rapidly

crumbling (although without ever disin

tegrating). flag among international But Krasner the new

until 1914, then dropped until the mid

19408, not reaching "earlier levels for some countries until the 1980s." International

himself too much of a realist) to plant his

conventionalists theory, relations be they global

migration? Itwas at its highest level in

the latter part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century. The spread aids and recall the of disease? Forget

institutionalists, or izationists, Those who of the schools,

constructivists,

interdependentists. are not drawn to the battle which Krasner renders

Black Death
one-third fourteenth The a most

that claimed the lives of

population point in the is that century. interesting and state activity, rather have actually risen

of Europe's

with impressive analytical insight in his second chapter,will profit handsomely

from his Game last, the conclusion of Chess." Although the forces that have titled "Not he starts out

globalization than being

by (again) castigating the realists for

ignoring undermined since the days and autonomy sovereignty of Francis and Suleiman, he politely applies scorn even more his analytical liberally who the "new worlders"?those correcting as a novel and see globalization radical phenomenon. Take increased said to undermine are capital flows, which state. "The the degree to

in inimical, that European tandem. Given peacetime has soared from government spending about 10 percent of gdp in the nineteenth today, how or obsolete

century to about 50 percent has the state been rendered moribund? obsolescence

Indeed, how can we even posit in the face of the relentless of state entities 200. case institution can make sovereignties? were present Nations; Not at the

multiplication even 50 such creation there The alists

of the United most

today

of change from the past and the extent to have been markets which global capital fully integrated have often been overrated." Take time, quotes was the foremost the German multinational of its Fuggers. Krasner aptly the great French historian Fernand than the mighty set." He empire of out

are almost

interesting

and integrationists today is Union. is that of the European There no the fact that its members gainsaying have voluntarily (but not truly relinquished sizable chunks of sovereignty alienated) is instance and autonomy. One dramatic monetary That was in January. launched union, the end of national monetary

Braudel: "The empire of this huge firm

vaster

Charles V and Philip II, on which aswe

know that the sun never in the nineteenth wealth or was points a century, quarter invested overseas?

policy, and 2001will spell the end of the

of 11 states. sovereign minting prerogatives courts accept the national European Court of Justice. verdicts of the European

of British

something that cannot be said of the

United States Germany, the world's

this, see in particular the figures supplied by the intellectual father of all neorealists, in his seminal piece "TheMyth of International Interdependence," in Kenneth N. Waltz,
Charles P. Kindleberger, ed., The International Corporation, Cambridge: mit Press, iQ70.

1 On

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Rethinking
is now "desovereignization" European as we like a coral reef: it keeps sprouting no "states' righter" European speak, and has yet proposed RENAMING So Krasner taking an axe to it.

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