1. States as the Major Actor in International Relations:
The Notion of Westphalian Sovereignty in the Era of Globalization
Introduction to International Relations
I39009, In-ae Joo

2. What is the State? A geographical domain with fixed boundary
TERRITORY
A geographical domain with fixed boundary
POPULATION
Residents of the territory
SOVEREIGNTY
Supreme authority over the territory
Before I get into the main part, I’d like to ask you this. What is the state? As the name of this presentation suggest, most of us would know and agree that the states are the primary actors in international affairs. So who are they? What are the elements that consist the state? There should be the territory. The geographical domain with boundaries. Then you will need people who live in that territory. The population. What else do you need? Another essential element that comprise the state is sovereignty. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the term. It refers to the supreme authority of the state over its territory. This includes the power that excludes any external intervention on the domestic affairs. And then there should be functioning government and recognition. The diplomatic recognition refers to the formal acknowledgement of other foreign states that your state is legitimate.
These may sound very basic and presumed. But it hasn’t always been like this. Actually this is a quite modern idea; that states would require these elements. And it took hundreds of years to take its form. In that process, the Peace of Westphalia played a significant role as the watershed moment.
GOVERNMENT
Group of people who are officially in control
RECOGNITION
Diplomatic acknowledgement of a foreign government as legitimate

3. Peace of Westphalia (1648) Ended the Thirty Years’ War
- Decline of the Medieval Holy Roman Empire
“Whoever rules the territory determines the religion”
“The separate states of the Holy Roman Empire were
recognized as sovereign members”
So, what is the Peace of Westphalia? It refers to a set of treaties that were signed in 1648 in West Germany. First, its primary objective was to end the Thirty-years war. The Thirty-years war started as a religious conflict and came to involve many major powers of Europe at the time: Spain, France, Sweden, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. And the end of this war brought a decline of the Medieval Holy Roman Empire.
But more importantly, this treaty included some very important terms. The one like this. ★ “Whoever rules the territory determines the religion”, or like this one, ★ “the separate states of the Empire were recognized as sovereign members”, who are free to control their own affairs independently of each other and of the emperor.
As you can tell from these terms, this treaty established the principle of freedom in religion, as well as the principle of non-intervention. These are the ideas that made this treaty the beginning of the contemporary, modern international system.

4. Peace of Westphalia (1648) “Westphalian Sovereignty”
“Westphalian International System”
Established the principles of…
(1) Territoriality
(2) Sovereignty
Criticisms?
This map shows the territorial arrangement in Europe after the Peace of Westphalia. As you can see, the area surrounded by the bold black boundary used to be the territory of the Holy Roman Empire. But after the Peace of Westphalia, the right to self-determination is given to various kings and princes of each state, which later became the basis for the concept of sovereignty.
Ever since, ★ this treaty is frequently referenced by the terms like “Westphalian sovereignty”, or “Westphalian international system”. It is important because ★ it has established the fundamental principles of modern statehood. It gave the supreme authority to the state, the right to exclude any external intervention over their territory.
However, there has always been a criticisms to the concept of sovereignty. It is well-described in the book written by Krasner, ★ called “sovereignty, organized hypocrisy”. In this book, he argued that sovereignty is nothing more than a legal fiction. He made a very interesting point considering the huge inequality among states in size, wealth and power.

5. Globalization and Sovereignty
“A social process in which the constraints of geography on economics, political, social and cultural arrangements recede”
- Malcolm Waters (2001)
Impact of Globalization on State Sovereignty
- Economic interdependency
- Emergence of Non-state Actors
- Creation of Common Rules among States
Such perspective is very convincing, especially as the world entered into the era of globalization. There is no doubt that globalization has fundamentally changed the pre-existing system. One scholar, famously defined globalization like this. I think this definition summarizes it well; he called it the process of geographical constraints on political, economic and social arrangement recede.
So now, as the result of globalization, state economies are tightly interdependent to one another, and we have witnessed the rise of powerful non-state actors like United Nations, NGOs and Multinational corporations. In consequence, globalization has forced states to be bound by the common norms and rules to cooperate with each another as a member of an international society, despite of the each state’s sovereign supremacy.

6. Example 1) Collective Security
To prevent further aggression among states…
1) Creation of legally binding multilateral treaties
2) Creation of intergovernmental organization
What happens to the state sovereignty?
The prime example of the effect of globalization on state sovereignty is the emergence of collective security. The technological evolution and decreased geographical constraints have created a new threat.
And throughout the world wars, the international society have witnessed devastating results of wars like countless civilian casualties.
To prevent further aggression among states, ★ they have come up with a series of legally binding multilateral treaties, especially regarding the weapons of mass destruction. For example, there are Conventions on biological and chemical weapons, and treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
★ Also, creation of intergovernmental organization like UN, which came after the short reign of League of Nations, can be understood in the similar context.
★ The fact that states have agreed to create such intergovernmental organization and to participate in treaties that constrain themselves, seems like they share the idea of giving up on little bit of their sovereignty to a certain degree for the greater good: that is the collective security and peace.

7. Example 2) Humanitarian Intervention
Diffusion of the idea of human rights awareness
“We must act: to save thousands of innocent men, women and children from humanitarian catastrophe -
The rights of all its inhabitants would be protected.”
- Tony Blair (1999)
Another example of the effect of globalization on the state sovereignty is the conduct of humanitarian intervention. As globalization proceeded, it generated not only the exchanges of economic goods but also the diffusion of idea and awareness on human rights.
Although it is still highly controversial whether such intervention is legitimate, now there are high political pressure and public awareness toward the cases like the armed conflict in ★ Kosovo, ★ Libyan Crisis, and recently, ★ Syrian civil war.
The tension between the humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty is well-illustrated in the speech made by Tony Blair in 1999, regarding the war in Kosovo. ★ What he stated in his speech suggested a new doctrine to the international society: that the non-intervention principle needs to be modified when people are subject to the catastrophic violation of human rights, especially when its driven by their own government.

8. Transition to a New State of Sovereignty
Has globalization eroded the state sovereignty?
- High level of interdependency
- Emergence of strong non-state actors
Changed notion of state sovereignty
- Transformation rather than erosion
So, as these examples indicate, globalization have entailed vast range of consequences; and those can easily be regarded as a threat to the principle of traditional Westphalian sovereignty.
State sovereignty, that once considered invincible and inalienable, is now subject to compromise. Due to the globalization, ★ states are now highly interconnected both politically and economically, and powerful non-state actors like UN or any other NGOs and multinational corporations have emerged.
★ Then how can states persist in the contemporary era of globalization? I believe that the important thing is, now we should understand the concept of sovereignty in a different way than 360 years ago when the Peace of Westphalia was signed. Now the meaning of the sovereignty has transformed from the closed and exclusive authority given to each state. Instead, it can be understood as more inclusive and collective means to achieve more cooperative decision-making process of international society as a whole.

9. Discussion
In what other ways does globalization challenge the state sovereignty?
Will the state remain as the primary actor in IR in the future? Why or Why not?