As we have seen so far variations in the relative scope of three social subsystems are a necessary condition for change: Popular innovation by norms entrepreneurs is a sufficient condition for a change in sovereign principles and will determine when systems change occur. Economic efficiency and coercive power might explain the predominance of one type of unit over another it never provides a compelling logic for why certain units proliferate and when those units will proliferate. And conflicts between growing and contracting social systems make certain types of sovereignty more or less efficient and in turn dictate the structure of the international system. The theory can be summarized in three parts:

 

1) World order is determined by the dominant type of sovereignty.

 

2) Sovereign principles are efficient and stable when they mediate the conflicts between the spatial limits of the underlying subsystems.

 

3) Therefore unit types and international order vary when the sovereign principles become inefficient and norms entrepreneurs begin to experiment with alternatives.

 

Formulated in this way it provides a general sense of the types of units that are likely to prevail in a variety of circumstances and a more specific understanding of why sovereign principles form in the way that they do.

 

For example, in the beginning, according to the Old Testament, there was a formless void. In international relations theory, the dominant way of thinking treats the modern world as equally formless. Yet sovereign principles are undeniably present and mustcome from somewhere. Agency is a central issue in this problem. Who creates sovereign principles? It is not as if competing social subsystems create these hierarchies out of thin air. The subsystems themselves have no agency; it is the people involved in each that ultimately must create these sovereign principles. In this way it is no more and no less than foresight and luck that lead some individuals to create a sovereign principle.

 

In Rome ’s case shortly after their initial victories over Latium they arrived at a crossroads. Had Lucius Camillus not spoken up it is impossible to say whether Rome would have become dominant. Had they pursued the other option on the table, eliminating the Latins, would their empire have ever been stable? Similarly in France, had Charlemagne or Henry IV been less effective or innovative there are many reasons to believe that the unstable periods that they were born into might have persisted. It is the precarious nature of this genesis and the unfortunate unpredictability that make this so discomfiting to most political scientists. The central role of these norms entrepreneurs in the genesis of sovereign principles during these periods is of central importance. Individual actors responding to a common problem arrive at different solutions. While Roman or French or Qin military and economic prowess may explain their overall success it does not explain the longevity of their success nor the manner of that success. Norms entrepreneurs do however. There is nothing mysterious or curious about this genesis and it is, in fact, consistent with the existing literature on the evolution of rules and norms. Why did any of these figures attempt to create new systems or rule when they did, and why were they successful?

Augustus’ decision to contract the military and limit expansion was politically expedient at the time, but compounded with later decisions to fortify the limes to stymie the security subsystem and eventually contract it. Similarly, Duke Zheng’s creation of the ba system compounded with Sun Tzu’s strategy of building massive infantry armies to deter war and to ultimately expand the security subsystem while the ideological subsystem did not experience a concomitant expansion. None of these policies are objectionable in and of themselves, but over time they have the unintended consequence of debilitating the existing sovereign principles. Hierarchical sovereignty was possible precisely because of Roman hubris in the same way that transborder sovereignty was possible because of the inherent limitations of individual Zhou states. On the first account in each of these cases we find that elites and norms entrepreneurs are quite aware of the principles of rule that guide their polities. In some ways Tacitus, through the mouth of Galgacus, is speaking directly to Lucius Camillus and Livy when he comments, “They make a solitude and call it peace.” Over centuries of Roman rule, through wars and civil wars and coups, the elites found themselves guided by the same set of preferences and priorities. It is significant that those preferences change profoundly right at the very end of the Western Empire.

 

The second issue, the resiliency of these sovereign principles, is reinforced by the continuity of these narratives. Sovereign principles are successful over time precisely because they are able to withstand the immediate consequences of shortsighted policies. Conversely, sovereign principles become entrenched quickly when the principles are insightful and well-conceived. The principles encompassed in the Edict of Nantes were not only political expedient in resolving the immediate conflict between Protestants and Catholics in France, but as we see subsequently in the rule of Louis XIV useful beyond their immediate intended goal. The Edict of Nantes created relative peace in France and began to unite the state when other contending polities were still deeply fragmented. But its true power was in the principle of absolutism that it embodied. The norms entrepreneurs that succeed seem to be the ones that solve an immediate problem with a long-term solution. Long-term solutions are often pragmatic about the limits of the ruler’s power given the existing conflicts between the subsystems. King Wang’s imprint upon the Zhou Dynasty established the Mandate of Heaven at the same time that it recognized the material limitations of its feudal system. Each fief was strong enough to assert itself if it did not buy into the essential legitimacy of the mandate.

 

The transborder sovereignty of the Zhou Dynasty played to the strengths of the Zhou rulers. Those strengths, we have demonstrated, are determined by the differential growth and contraction of the various subsystems relative to each other. The degeneration of sovereign principles in each of these cases is thus mostly attributable to either encouraging changes in the relative scope of these subsystems through various policy changes or ignoring the sovereign principle in the first place. The revolutionary moments in each of these case studies tend to reinforce the existing research. The periods of instability and experimentation may be prolonged as they were in the European and Chinese cases, or quite short as they were in the Roman case. Regardless these cases studies seem to support two conclusions about the international system:

 

1) Sovereign principles are resilient and domestic policy or institutional changes are not a sufficient condition for change in the international order.

 

2) Subsystems are highly fluid, but changes in the principles or patterns of the subsystems are not a sufficient condition for change in the international order.

 
Thus revolutionary change on this scale is very difficult to achieve and only happens intermittently. The specific shifts as seen next can occur in a number of ways:

The various theories of global governance and the evolution of the international system have been mainly concerned with more practical issues such as the democratic deficit, or a nascent American imperialism, or as Robert Kaplan has termed it, ‘the coming anarchy.’ (Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy: How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet. The Atlantic Monthly, February, 1994, 44 – 76).

 

In each case the concern is that mundane problems of globalization will continue to manifest themselves and irrevocably undermine the edifice of the Westphalian system. Taken as face value these concerns seem at once legitimate and obscure. For example, it is not entirely clear how increasing instability in Africa might ultimately undermine the stable zone of peace that exists among American, European, and East Asian countries. Nor is it clear that a democratic deficit exists or is actually problematic for sovereign states. In addressing the future course of the international system we must move beyond various specific challenges to the international system and deal with the spatial dynamics of the subsystems. If American imperialism is the dominant story of the last 60 years then perhaps we ought to expect a move towards hierarchical sovereignty. Rather than addressing the potential changes in the dependent variable, which may be obscure or open to multiple interpretations, it seems more fruitful to consider such a possibility in terms of the independent variable. This study has shown that any term, like feudalism, can have multiple meanings and represent distinct sovereign principles. It is thus entirely possible that we could speak of a nascent American imperial that represents the status quo. Most claims about the evolving security subsystem tend in two directions. In one direction lay the claims about American military preponderance. In the other direction lay various claims regarding asymmetric warfare, the democratic peace, and the obsolescence of war. During the Cold War the US Congress structured military appropriations around the goal of being able to fight two Major Regional Contingencies (MRCs). This strategy was taken to mean major wars on two fronts in two different parts of the world. Military preponderance became a primary goal of the appropriations and strategizing process. One requirement for this strategy to be effective has been the use of basing agreements and bilateral Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs). Judged simply by military expenditure it are American military bases that are most advanced, most adept military in the world. The US spends more on the military than the next 15 countries combined. (See (SIPRI), Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2006, see also: http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/mex_data_index.html).

 

The closest contenders, Russia and China, either lack a blue-water navy or lack the capacity to use it. Judged simply on geopolitical influence one is tempted to claim that the scope of the American security subsystem is nearly global. (See Frank Umbach, The Maritime Strategy of Russia: The Gap Between Great Sea Power Ambitions and Economic-Military Realities. In Maritime Strategies in Asia, edited by J. Schwarz, W. Herrmann and H.-F. Seller. Bangkok 2002).

 

However this tends to miss a number of important qualifying concerns. Chief among these are the extent to which MRCs have been replaced by operations other than war (OOTWs) and the increasing importance of asymmetric warfare. Asymmetric warfare refers to the use of unorthodox methods in battle. Thus we arrive at a paradox; it seems as if American military power is nearly global in scope, but this scope is far from absolute and does not create any exclusive zone of peace. The capacity to create an expanding American zone or peace is actually far more limited than the American network or bases might suggest. Do we judge the security subsystem based on the first or the second criteria? Given this conflict it seems as if the security subsystem is more suggestive of a nebulous frontier, as the Roman limes were, than of an overt delimitation of American power. The American military can exert its influence everywhere, but it may not be able to dominate anywhere. (See John E. Mueller, The remnants of war. Cornell University Press, 2004).

 

Thus in the case of the until now powerful USA, we cannot take the network of American bases to be an absolute proxy for the geographical scope of the American security subsystem. At the same time, the social hierarchies that exist reinforce the basic notion that American hard power is more pervasive than bases themselves. In discussing the subsystems as they exist today it is necessary to move beyond the obvious indicators of their existence such as bases and towards evidence of their role structure. In this vein American military power secures outcomes and defines hierarchies in a diverse set of circumstances. However, granting both the extensiveness of the role structure provided by the American security subsystem and the actual limitations of American power one is tempted to claim that the American security subsystem is contracting.

 

One can furthermore, not assume that incidents that seem to demonstrate the weakness of a hegemon actually reflect any true change in the hegemon’s power. The most that can be said than is that the US security subsystem is stagnating. (See for example Joseph S. Nye, The paradox of American power: why the world's only superpower can't go it alone, Oxford University Press 2002 and  Charles Kupchan, The end of the American era: U.S. foreign policy and the geopolitics of the twenty-first century, 2002).

As the United States realizes a growing inability to dictate outcomes on the periphery, as evidenced by nuclear proliferation, it is also implicitly legitimizing the existence of non-state armies. The second largest coalition force in Iraq are PMCs. The scope of the security subsystem is stagnating and new innovations, such as PMCs, are becoming a more popular alternative to this security subsystem. (A. Leander, 2005. The market for force and public security: The destabilizing consequences of private military companies. Journal of Peace Research, 2005, 42 (5): 605-622).

 

Another argument has to be that the telecommunication revolution has brought everyone in the world in more direct contact with each other and as such has put diverse peoples on a more even footing with each other. The general principle of market capitalism that structures this subsystem is focused mainly on capital mobility. Recent conflicts have begun to force revisionist thinking, but the general framework of agreements that structure the trade subsystem have favored capital mobility over labor mobility, and as strange as it may sound, land mobility. Labor mobility has increased substantially over the course of this globalizing period, but much of it has been unwanted or undocumented or unexpectedly permanent. Every developed country sees itself as having an immigration problem. Traditional immigrant states such as the United State, Canada, and Australia have managed their problem more effectively than others, but still have massive unresolved debates over the nature of labor mobility. Similar debates of capital mobility are more restrained and policymakers are far less inclined to limit capital mobility. The foreign acquisition of land is less of a problem all around. Numerous scholars have argued that globalization and capital mobility have confounded the ability of states to actually control this increased level of commerce or more importantly to tax the profits from it. (Sungur Savran, Globalisation and the new World Order: The New Dynamics of Imperialism and War. In The Politics of empire: globalisation in crisis, edited by A. Freeman and B. Kagarlitsky. London, 2004, Pg. 128).

 

The increased scope of the trade subsystem has united economically diverse portions of the international system. Increased competition between these diverse states and groups has created downward pressure on social welfare systems in developed and developing countries alike. R. B. Hall has shown how the Asian miracle was gradually replaced by the Asian failure after the crisis of 1997 and 1998 when in fact it was a more systemic failure in general. The financial austerity paradigm that has been gaining advocacy after World War II, particularly after the collapse of Bretton Woods in 1974, has generally painted the success of the Asian tigers in shades of free market superiority, and export-led growth. The truth of the matter is not nearly this black and white. Nonetheless the agreements contained in the Uruguay Round negotiations of the WTO and the agreements being hashed out in ongoing Doha Round negotiations are creating more homogeneity not less, and more free markets not fewer. The struggle between providing a minimal set of welfare benefits in developing countries and maintaining sufficient financial solvency has hamstrung many of these developing nations, but they almost always choose to go towards free markets, not away from them. The level of austerity required by IMF conditionality and World Bank loans has been softened, but it becoming more pervasive all the same. The trade subsystem continues to grow in scope at a fairly steady pace; expansion of the freemarket hierarchy has continued with few setbacks. (R. B. Hall, The discursive demolition of the Asian development model. International Studies Quarterly, 2003, 47 (1):71-99).

 

But while Romanization created a direct linkage through access to citizenship through submission. Americanization creates a more diluted linkage through each individual state and through the state to the international order. Just as in the Roman case this creates some inherent contradictions. The priority placed on individual rights sometimes conflicts with the priority placed on groups rights through self-determination. Popular culture, as in Roman times, enables individual and group expression at the cost of being unable to reject the popular culture itself. In the same way Americanization accepts all modifications to it, but it is more difficult to reject Americanization itself.

 

 

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