Westphalia Revisited

Abstract

There is an ongoing controversy among historians regarding the historical evaluation of the peace of Westphalia of 1648. “The Westphalian system” school, representing a huge number of historians of the past two centuries, argues that modern international politics based on the concept of state sovereignty and its corollary such as sovereign equality of nations has originated from Westphalia. On the other hand, the revisionist school, which has gained ascendancy during the recent 20 years, contends that the state sovereignty concept is of a more recent origin and did not exist at the time of Westphalia, and, therefore, what “the Westphalian system” school stands for is nothing but “a figment of the 19^th century imagination”. The present study, upon re-examination of the theoretical and empirical arguments of the two schools, has come to conclude that those of “the Westphalian system” school are both more tenable and discerning than those of the revisionism in all the respects considered. The following is a summary of its argumentation.

In expatiating on “ the Westphalian system” , the present study calls attention of historians to a fundamental theoretical fact that “the Westphalian system” is itself a Weberian <ideal-type>, designed to illuminate <reality> and its historical significance, with a theoretically relevant implication, however, that an <ideal-type> must not be equated with <reality>. As Weber says, “an <ideal-type> is not identical with <reality> but is a theoretical device which will heuristically help cognize <reality>”. The revisionist school commits a fatal mistake of failing to recognize this theoretical and methodological distinction between Westphalia as <ieal-type> and Westphalia as <reality>. It is equally a mistake, however, to assume that an <ideal-type> is a mere product of imagination with no relevant relation to <reality>. For the simpl reason that it is indeed a ”meaningful” aspect of <reality> that motivates a historian to construct an <ideal type>, this “meaningful“ aspect serves as a “nexus” or <linkage> which connects the <reality> to the <ideal-type> in question. What is, then , this <linkage> which connects Westphalia as < ideal-type> with Westphalia as <reality>?

The present study takes notice of a concept “supremum dominium”, a package of authority and property rights transferred to the French king when a large part of Alsace was ceded to France in the Peace Treaty. Linguistic as well as ethnographic-legal studies all indicate that this concept has had much in common with the modern concept of sovereignty. The French knew it, and knowingly demanded the use of this concept to justify their new sovereign rule over the ceded territories. It is this “supremum dominium” that the present study regards as the <linkage> connecting Westphalia as <reality> to Westphalia as <ideal-type>, thereby, providing an adequate and justifiable basis for the validity of “the Westphalian system”.