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The Composition and Status Ordering of the International System: 1815–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

J. David Singer  and
Melvin Small
J. David Singer
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Melvin Small
Affiliation:
Wayne State University
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Extract

This paper has two closely related purposes, both of which, if accomplished, may help to accelerate the development of international relations as an empirically based discipline. One is to identify the shifting and expanding membership of the international system during the 125 years between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of World War II. The other is to classify all such members of the system according to their attributed importance or status during the same period. In each case, the intent is not only to provide certain data which may be useful to the discipline, but to describe in considerable detail the procedures by which such data were gathered or, more accurately, “made.”

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , January 1966 , pp. 236 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1966

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References

1 Elsewhere, one of the authors suggests some methodological and epistemological distinctions between gathering information and making data; see Singer, , “Data-Making in International Relations,” Behavioral Science, IX, No. 1 (January 1965), 68–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 There is no suggestion here that this task has not suggested itself to anyone else before; a few such lists can be found in various handbooks and compendia. But the criteria are seldom made explicit; they are usually ethnocentric by implication; and the listings that result often seem to do violence to the historian's or political scientist's intuitive notions of reasonableness.

3 Though some persuasive arguments have been raised against it, the definition of power as “the capacity to influence” still seems reasonable in its conceptual clarity and in die absence of any operational measures for conflicting definitions. See Singer, , “Inter-Nation Influence: A Formal Model,” American Political Science Review, LVII, No. 2 (June 1963), 420–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S., “The Two Faces of Power,” American Political Science Review, LVI, NO. 4 (December 1962), 947–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a suggestive combined index of potential power, see German, Clifford, “A Tentative Evaluation of World Power,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, IV (1960), 138–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and for a provocative discussion of the general problem, see Knorr, Klaus, The War Potential of Nations (Princeton 1956).Google Scholar

4 Limited data are already available for several of these variables. See especially Russett, Bruce M. and others, World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (New Haven 1964)Google Scholar, and the forthcoming study of Rudolph J. Rummel and others, “Dimensions of Nations,” both of which focus on the post-1945 period; and Richardson, Lewis F., Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (Pittsburgh 1960)Google Scholar for the general period covered in this study. [See also the Research Note by Rummel, “A Foreign Conflict Behavior Code Sheet,” in this issue of World Politics—Editor.]

5 At least, for the historical period that concerns us in the larger study: 1815–1945. After World War II, a strong “inflationary” trend set in, with the result that the previously clear and meaningful distinctions between the classes of diplomatic representation accredited to members of the international community became obscured by major-power attempts to win favor with minor and nonaligned, but strategically important, nations. This problem will be discussed later in this article.

6 Russett, , Community and Contention: Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 228.Google Scholar

7 The yearbooks consulted include the following: Almanack de Brussels (Paris 1918)Google Scholar; Almanack de Gotha (Gotha 1764–1944)Google Scholar; Almanack de Paris (Paris 1865–1869)Google Scholar; Annuaire Diplomatique et Consulaire de la République Française pour 1899 et 1900 (Paris 1900)Google Scholar; The Diplomatic Year Book (New York 1951)Google Scholar; Europa Year Book (London 1926–1929, 1959–1964)Google Scholar; International Yearbooks and Statesman's Who's Who (London 1953–1964)Google Scholar; The Statesman's Yearbook (London 1864–1964).Google Scholar

8 The signatories were Austria, Britain, France, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Spain, and Sweden. The text, along with that of the subsequent Protocol, is found in American Journal of International Law, III, No. 1 (January 1958), 185–87, 187n.Google Scholar

9 Among those using this class is Sir Bland, Nevile, ed., Satow's Guide to Diplomatic Practice, 4th ed. (London 1957), 171–72.Google Scholar

10 Regala, Roberto, The Trends of Modern Diplomatic Practice (New York 1959).Google Scholar

11 Estonia, not even an independent state, was accorded diplomatic standing despite the fact that it was represented by only a consul-general in New York.

12 One operation that we do not carry out, but that would be quite useful today, is an identification of all the less-than-independent entities in the world community. Though far from sovereign, such entities often were and are important actors in the system, especially during their almost inevitable drives for independence.

13 There may come a time when the international system is so well institutionalized that a political entity might well meet all reasonable criteria of nationhood and nevertheless fail of admission to such institutions. In such a case, membership in the system and nationhood might well be different things. Here also we are treating nationhood and statehood as equivalent, even though international lawyers might not do so. It will be seen, however, that our criteria for the former are easily as stringent as those normally required for the latter.

14 For population data, we used Almanack de Gotha; Statesman's Yearbook; and Bertillon, Jacques, ed., Statistique Internationale Résultant des Recensements de la Population Exécutés dans les Divers Pays de l'Europe Pendent le XIX Siécle et les Époques Précédentes (Paris 1899).Google Scholar Needless to say, the figures these sources provided were not always precise, and other sources might well have put some of our members over the threshold a year or so earlier or later than the date we decided upon.

15 For recognition, the sources most useful were Almanack de Gotha; Annuaire Diplomatique et Consulaire; and Bindoff, Stanley T. and others, eds., British Diplomatic Representatives 1789–1852 (London 1934).Google Scholar

16 Recognition and the accreditation of a mission are not necessarily synonymous. Not infrequently, one government may “recognize” another, but may delay sending a representative for long periods. For example, during the 1820's most of the newly independent Latin American states were recognized by European powers, but few permanent missions were dispatched for several decades,

17 Some readers may wonder at our overdetailed discussion of this rather elementary information-gathering procedure, but we consider the original gathering, screening, and coding of information (data-making, if you will) the most critical step in developing empirical generalizations. Ingenious hypotheses and sophisticated statistical analyses may be desirable, but reliable, operationally gathered, and reproducible data are a sine qua non.

18 Bittner, Ludwig, ed., Repertorium der Diplomatischen Vertreter cdler Länder seit dem Westfalishen Frieden (Oldenburg 1936)Google Scholar; and von Hausmann, F., ed., Repertorium der Diplomatischen Vertreter aller Länder seit dem Westfalischen Frieden (1648), 11 (Zurich 1950).Google Scholar The Second World War intervened between the date of completion of Volume II and the projected date for the beginning of Volume III. Some fragmentary information relevant to the third volume was presented in the committee's Bulletins in 1928 and 1930 (“Enquête pour la Publication de la Liste des Diplomates,” Bulletin of the International Committee of Historical Sciences, I, No. 4, Part 4 [March 1928], 464–95Google Scholar; “Préparation de la Liste des Diplomates,” ibid., 11, No. 10, Part 5 [December 1930], 821–32). It is possible that data compiled for the third volume are available in some now-forgotten archives or unpublished monographs; for example, the Bindoff selection cited in footnote 15 was originally destined for publication by the committee. If any reader can tell us anything of the project and its progress, we should be extremely grateful.

19 Gribble, Francis, “The Almanach de Gotha,” Scribner's, XLI, NO. 1 (January 1907), 63–69.Google Scholar

20 Van Westrum, A. Schade, “Europe's Social Registers,” Bookman, XXIV, No. 6 (February 1907), 575–860.Google Scholar

21 Meuriot, Paul, “L'Almanach de Gotha,” Journal de la Societe de Statistique de Paris, No. 6 (Juin 1912), 267–79.Google Scholar

22 For example, information on American representation for the early years of the study was relatively unreliable in Gotha. Thus, we had to turn to such studies as Barnes, William and Morgan, John Heath, The Foreign Service of the United States: Origins, Development and Functions (Washington 1961)Google Scholar; Carlson, Knute Emil, Relations of the United States with Sweden (Allentown 1921)Google Scholar; Evans, Henry Clay, Chile and Its Relations with the United States (Durham, N.C., 1927)Google Scholar; Hill, Lawrence F., Diplomatic Relations Between the United States and Brazil (Durham, N.C., 1932)Google Scholar; MacCorkle, Stuart A., American Policy of Recognition Towards Mexico (Baltimore 1933)Google Scholar; Manchester, Alan K., “The Recognition of Brazilian Independence,” Hispanic American Historical Review, XXXI, No. 1 (February 1951), 80–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marraro, Howard, ed., Diplomatic Relations Between the United States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, 1 (Ragusa 1951)Google Scholar; and Robertson, William S., “The First Legations of the United States in Latin America,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 11, No. 2 (September 1915), 183–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 The material in each Gotha volume represented at best the situation in the world at the close of the previous year. In the years from 1815 through 1840 or so, the final corrected proofs were sent off in the early part of August; in the 1840's this date was moved up to September; in the 1860's, to November; and by 1935, to January of the same year of the volume. Although it may distort matters somewhat, we have considered Gotha's tabulations as representing the situation at the beginning of the year of the volume used.

24 Given the confusion that followed the Napoleonic Wars, information on the unsettled status of several nations was not always available by 1817; therefore we utilized diplomatic ranks for either 1817 or 1819, and assigned to each nation the higher of these two possible scores when both were available.

25 Given the rather arbitrary nature of the divisions, the precise standing of each nation each half-decade within one of the quintiles is not as significant as the general trend of that nation's status over a period of several decades. That is, it is more interesting to note that from 1840 to 1859 Russia was always in the first or second quintile than to observe specifically that it was in the second quintile in 1840.

Also worth noting is that, even though certain nations score no diplomatic status points in the 1920–1940 period, they were, by League membership and scholarly consensus, de facto members of the system. Much of their diplomatic intercourse was handled at Commonwealth conferences, by direct communication among foreign ministers, or by representatives below the rank of charge.

26 While the first four of these attributes would seem to be functions of capability (or perceived capability), esteem may well tap another and equally important dimension: perceived intentions and evaluations of style. One measure that combines subjective, laymen's estimates of eight different dimensions is reported in Shimbori, Michiya and others, “Measuring a Nation's Prestige,” American Journal of Sociology, LXIX, No. 1 (July 1963), 63–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar