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International hierarchy and the origins of the modern practice of intervention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2013

EDWARD KEENE
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Abstract

This article argues that hierarchy plays an important role in shaping the practice of intervention, and that the changing nature of international hierarchy is a crucial part of the story of how the modern practice of intervention emerged. It describes the early modern order of precedence, and contends that it was ill-suited to encouraging people to recognise intervention as a distinctive kind of practice. However, over the course of the eighteenth century the structure of international hierarchy changed, with the emergence of a new kind of grading of powers, which provided the context for the development of a practice of intervention after 1815.

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Articles
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Review of International Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 5: Intervention and the Ordering of the Modern World , December 2013 , pp. 1077 - 1090
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Copyright © British International Studies Association 2013 

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References

1 Since Stephen Krasner's work is widely discussed in this context, it is perhaps worth noting that I do not fully agree with his view that violations of ‘Westphalian sovereignty’ (such as interventions) are examples of ‘organized hypocrisy’, where states' concern for the ‘logic of consequences’ regularly trumps their adherence to the ‘logic of appropriateness’ that the autonomy of sovereigns should be respected: Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). Apart from the fact that there may be logics of appropriateness in the context of divided sovereignty, more pertinent for now is that Krasner's analysis exaggerates the extent to which the identities of international actors can be captured by the concept of sovereignty alone, even when distinguishing between different kinds of sovereignty, as he does. International actors are indeed sovereigns, but they are not only sovereigns. At the same time, they possess other identities as, for example, different kinds of power (great, middle, or small), or as holders of different kinds of title (imperial, kingly, ducal, etc.), which affect how they treat each other.

2 Bull, Hedley, ‘Introduction’, in Bull, (ed.), Intervention in World Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 4Google Scholar.

3 The phrase is borrowed from Wight, Martin, Power Politics (ed.), Bull, Hedley and Holbraad, Carsten (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1979), Appendix AGoogle Scholar. See also Holbraad, M., Middle Powers in International Politics (London: Macmillan, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See, for example, Finnemore, Martha, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Ideas about the Use of Force (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 102–24Google Scholar. Probably because of their specific focus on humanitarian intervention, there is little, if anything, on this line of thought in the substantially more detailed discussions of sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth-century practice in the first three chapters of Simms, Brendan and Trim, D.J.B. (eds), Humanitarian Intervention: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, while John Bew's chapter there on intervention after 1815, like Finnemore's, does not take account of much that was written before that pivotal moment. Another important study – Simpson, Gerry, Great Powers and Outlaw States: Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar – contains much careful analysis of what happened at Vienna, but approvingly quotes (p. 94) Adolf Lande's dated, and frankly extraordinary, claim that ‘During the eighteenth century the equality of states was not disputed’: Lande, , ‘IV Revindication of the Principle of Legal Equality of States, 1871–1914’, Political Science Quarterly, 62:3 (1946), p. 406Google Scholar; although the point he follows this with, that Great Powers did not yet have special legal rights, has more merit. As well as the works of Wight and Holbraad cited above, the best historical analyses of the emergence of the modern idea of the ‘great power’ are Faber, Karl-Georg, ‘“Gewalt” und “Macht” in den Lexika des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts', and ‘Von den “Großen Mächten” zu den “Weltmächten”’, in Brunner, Otto, Conze, Werner, and Koselleck, Reinhart (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. iii (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1982), pp. 882–8 and 930–3Google Scholar; and Scott, H. M., The Birth of a Great Power System, 1740–1815 (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2006)Google Scholar.

5 D.J.B. Trim and Brendan Simms, ‘Towards a History of Humanitarian Intervention’, in Simms and Trim (eds), Humanitarian Intervention, p. 21.

6 D.J.B. Trim, ‘Interventions in Early Modern Europe’, in Simms and Trim (eds), Humanitarian Intervention, p. 32.

7 Ibid., p. 40.

8 Ibid., pp. 41–64, and Simms, ‘Intervention in the Age of Westphalia’, in Simms and Trim (eds), Humanitarian Intervention, pp. 93–6.

9 Trim, ‘Interventions’, p. 65.

10 Winfield, Percy H., ‘The History of Intervention in International Law’, British Year Book of International Law, 3 (1922–3), p. 132Google Scholar.

11 Ibid. A similar view is set out in Chesterman, Simon, Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

12 The latter is an extremely important distinction within Grotius's work: for this and the other points made here and in the paragraph below, see Beyond the Anarchical Society, ch. 2, for a fuller discussion of this and on the points made below about resistance theory and sovereignty in the period more generally. I confess that I am not quite sure what Winfield means when he talks about what Grotius would have regarded as an ‘ordinary’ war.

13 Of course, ‘just war’ theory made prescriptions about when they should and how they should go about actually waging war, as did other normative codes (such as chivalry). I do not have space to go into that point here. Texts such as the Vindiciae may indeed be represented as making important moves in terms of finding new, possibly more humanitarian, purposes for which force could legitimately be employed.

14 Ibid., p. 48. I put Revolt in quotation marks because, while that is what we usually call it, I think Grotius saw it (or chose to see it) not as a revolt, but as a justified public war waged by the States General against Philip II in defence of their sovereign right to levy taxes in the Netherlands. That contention, which I learnt from Peter Borschberg, was at the heart of my interpretation of Grotius's whole theory of the law of nations. Note how this also fits with the idea that there are no alternative states between war and peace: there are no legitimate ‘revolts’; but the category of legitimate war is much larger than one might have thought.

15 A couple of fine examples within a large literature here are Roosen, William J., The Age of Louis XIV: The Rise of Modern Diplomacy (Transaction Books, 1976)Google Scholar; and Frey, Linda S. and Frey, Marsha L., The History of Diplomatic Immunity (Ohio State University Press, 1999)Google Scholar. A recent work in International Relations that picks up on this theme extensively is Lebow, Richard Ned, A Cultural Theory of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Another possibility would be schemes for reordering Europe, many of which include lists of the members of these ideal systems, sometimes in a kind of rank order for example those of Sully, Cruce, William Penn, and the Abbé St Pierre: see Butler, Geoffrey G. and Maccoby, Simon, The Development of International Law (Union Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

17 One of the most important figures in the legal history of the concept of sovereignty, Bartolus of Sassoferrato, also produced what Maurice Keen describes as ‘the first truly learned discussion of heraldry’, the Tractatus de insigniis et armis: see Keen, , Chivalry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 148Google Scholar. I believe I am correct that this aspect of Bartolus's work does not feature even in excellent historical studies, such as Pennington, Kenneth, The Prince and the Law, 1200–1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar. Writers such as Rousset de Missy also illustrate this crossing-over between genres: his work fits in with the emerging public law literature (particularly Dumont) and is steeped in heraldic learning. Rousset provides a list of key references: among them, see especially, Lünig, Johann Christian, Theatrum ceremoniale historico-politicum, oder historisch und politischer Schau-Platz aller ceremonien, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1719–20)Google Scholar.

18 Nys, Ernest, Études de droit international et de droit publique (Brussels, 1896)Google Scholar.

19 Segar, Sir William, The Book of Honor and Armes (1590) and Honor Military and Civil (1602) (Delmar, 1975), p. 56Google Scholar; and Jean Rousset de Missy, Le cérémonial diplomatique des cours de l'Europe, in Dumont, , Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens, vol. 5, pp. 201–2Google Scholar. Rousset also appears, in a very different guise as an exponent of reason of state, in Meinecke, Friedrich's Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Reason of State and its Place in Modern History, trans. Scott, Douglas (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957)Google Scholar, ch. 11, which concentrates on Rousset's journalism for the Mercure historique et politique – one of a series of what can only be described as current affairs journals that were taking off in the first half of the eighteenth century – and his Les intérêts présens et les prétentions des puissances de l'Europe (1741). Meinecke cheerfully confesses to ignoring the bulk of the latter work since it was concerned with ‘the historical legal titles’ that formed the basis for states' claims to territory: ‘a monstrous baroque compendium full or marvellous and antiquated things’ (p. 264). Yes, but this ‘baroque compendium’ was the main point of the book! To leave it out and locate Rousset within the tradition of reason of state is a curious piece of scholarship. Rousset was a remarkably flexible thinker, who also features prominently in Jonathan Israel's account of the ‘radical’ (that is, Spinozian) Enlightenment, and elsewhere in G. C. Gibb's analysis of the influence of the Huguenot diaspora.

20 Note that at this stage I am still focusing exclusively on the order of diplomatic precedence. As I shall explain later, other, quite different perspectives on international hierarchy were emerging during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and these were starting to have notable effects on diplomatic ceremonial, but I shall reserve that issue for later.

21 de Missy, Jean Rousset, Mémoires sur le rang et la préséance (Amsterdam, 1746), p. 5Google Scholar.

22 See (Gabriel Bonnot) de Mably, Abbé, The Principles of Negotiations: or, An Introduction to the Public Law of Europe, Founded on Treaties (London, 1758)Google Scholar. I discuss this in the next section.

23 von Martens, Georg Friedrich, Summary of the Law of Nations, Founded on the Treaties and Customs of the Modern Nations of Europe, trans. Cobbett, William (Philadelphia, 1795), pp. 29–32Google Scholar. For a further example of this tendency, see Klüber, Johann Ludwig, Droit des gens moderne de l'Europe (Paris: Aillaud, 1831)Google Scholar. This closely echoes language used by Rousset de Missy in Le cérémonial diplomatique, although Rousset adds discussion of the difference between those with ‘closed’ and those with ‘open’ crowns, which I do not find in Martens. Possibly this highly symbolic distinction had dropped out of the discussion somewhat. It is part of how kings enacted their claim (produced by tame Roman lawyers) that rex in regno suo est imperator regni, by adopting imperial crowns: see Hoak, Dale, ‘The Iconography of the Crown Imperial’, in Hoak, (ed.), Tudor Political Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 54–103Google Scholar.

24 Favyn, André, The Theater of Honour and Knighthood, Or a Compendious Chronicle and Historie of the Whole Christian World (London, 1623), p. 196Google Scholar. See also Boyer, Abel, The Great Theater of Honour and Nobility (London, 1954)Google Scholar.

25 See, for example, Folz, Robert, The Concept of Empire in Western Europe: From the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century, trans. Ogilvie, Sheila Ann (London: Edward Arnold, 1969)Google Scholar.

26 Leyser, K., ‘Frederick Barbarossa, Henry II and the Hand of St James’, English Historical Review, 90 (1975), pp. 481–506CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 This is discussed in Osiander, ‘Before Sovereignty’, and see also Pennington, The Prince and the Law, and, especially for French responses to imperial and papal claims, see Jones, Chris, Eclipse of Empire? Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in Late Medieval France (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Sayers, Jane, Papal Judges Delegate in the Province of Canterbury, 1198–1254: A Study in Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Administration (London: Oxford University Press, 1971)Google Scholar.

29 See Mineo, E. Igor, ‘States, Orders and Social Distinction’, in Gamberini, Andrea and Lazzarini, Isabella (eds), The Italian Renaissance State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 339–44Google Scholar.

30 Skinner, Quentin, ‘From the State of Princes to the Person of the State’, Visions of Politics: Volume II, Renaissance Virtues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 368–413CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 For a further example of this tendency, see J. L. Klüber, Droit des gens moderne de l'Europe.

32 Guichenon, Samuel, Histoire généalogique de la Royale Maison de Savoye (Lyons, 1660), p. 80Google Scholar. Cited in Oresko, Gibbs and Scott, Royal and Republican Sovereignty, p. 4.

33 See Isabel de Madariaga, ‘Tsar into Emperor: the Title of Peter the Great’, and Oresko, Robert, The House of Savoy in Search for a Royal Crown in the Seventeenth Century’, in Oresko, Robert, Gibbs, G. C. and Scott, H. M. (eds), Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory of Ragnhild Hatton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 351–81 and 272–350Google Scholar respectively; and Hennings, Jan, ‘The Semiotics of Diplomatic Dialogue: Pomp and Circumstance in Tsar Peter I's Visit to Vienna in 1698’, International History Review, 30:3 (2008), pp. 515–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Zwierlein, Cornel, ‘Normativität zur Empirie: Denkrahmen der Präzedenz zwishchen Königen auf dem Basler Konzil, am päpstlichen Hof (1564) und in der enstehenden Politikwissenchaft (bis 1648)’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 125 (2005), p. 129Google Scholar.

35 Wight, Power Politics, p. 302.

36 Scott, Hamish, The Emergence of the Eastern Powers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 7Google Scholar.

37 Rousset de Missy, Le ceremonial diplomatique, vol. v, p. 774. It is worth noting that, among those who accepted his imperial title, the ruler of Russia was known as ‘Sérénissime et très-Puissant Empereur et Souverain’ (ibid., p. 624). Puissant was not an uncommon adjective in formal references to rulers, but as an adjective attached to a more acceptable noun (such as King or Majesty).

38 The title of ‘Majesty’ was generally adopted by European kings around the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, about the same time that they began to adopt ‘closed’ imperial crowns as well. Italian Princes and German Electors were customarily addressed as ‘Altesses’ (p. 28). This may indicate a formal diplomatic hierarchy, in descending order, of ‘Majesties’, ‘Highnesses’, and ‘Powers’.

39 When the Russians addressed Leopold I as ‘Kaiserliche Grossmächtigkeit’ in an embassy of 1660–1, it precipitated a diplomatic quarrel: de Madariaga, ‘Tsar into Emperor’, pp. 364–5.

40 Zimmerman, E.A.W. von, A Political Survey of the Present State of Europe (London, 1787), i–iiGoogle Scholar. See also Scott, Emergence of a Great Power System, pp. 118–21.

41 A good survey is Sheehan, Michael, The Balance of Power: History and Theory (London: Routledge, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 One of the most important examples is Pufendorf, Samuel von, An Introduction to the History of the Prinicpal Kingdoms and States of Europe (London, 1711)Google Scholar.

43 While these are representative examples, they are not the only ones. One could equally point, beyond Mably, to the works of other legal scholars, such as Johann Jakob Moser; Scott, Emergence of a Great Power System, describes how Jakob Friedrich von Bielfeld and Johann Heinrich Gottleib von Justi were crucial to the development of the statistical approach in the 1750s. He also notes the importance of Montesquieu.

44 Quoted in Doyle, William, The Old European Order, 1660–1800 (2nd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 267Google Scholar.