Forskningsprosjekt
Empires, Privateering and the sea
Arrangementer
Prosjektet fokuserer på imperier og sjømakt, og interaksjonen mellom dem.
Vi undersøker denne gjennom å fokusere på kaperfart, en middelaldersk institusjon som gjennomgikk en rekke endringer og som i den tidlig moderne perioden tillot private skip under statslisens (kaperbrev) å plyndre fiendtlig skipsfart. Vi stiller to store spørsmål: Hvordan ble stater blitt imperier? Og hvordan ble disse imperier til stater igjen?
Vår hypotese er at små europeiske staters imperiale ekspansjon var mindre et resultat av en gjennomtenkt strategi eller ideologi enn et resultat av institusjoner som kapervirksomheten. Denne svekket også kolonimaktene og bidro til at de ikke lenger kunne forsvare sine imperier. Ved å fokusere på kaperfart bringer vi havet inn i analyser av statsdannelse og imperieformasjon. Dette er viktig, da både historiske sosiologer og statsvitere har hatt en tendens til å fokusere på land og stater ? på bekostning av havet og imperier. Ved å 'bringe havet inn' bidrar EMPRISE til å utvide fokus fra land og stater ved å forske på koloniale statsdannelsesprosesser.
EMPRISE vil være basert på NUPI med en prosjektperiode på fire år (2017-2021). Kjerneteamet består av Benjamin de Carvalho (prosjektleder) og Halvard Leira.
Prosjektet er finansiert av Norges forskningsråd gjennom FRIPRO Unge forskertalenter.
Arrangementer tilnknyttet prosjektet:
Prosjektleder
Deltakere
Nye publikasjoner
The Emergence of Sovereignty in the Wake of the Reformations
The elusiveness of the emergence of sovereignty represents a challenge to IR, as it leaves us with many possible beginnings. And as any new beginning marks an end, settling the question of sovereignty begs the question of how the world was without it. Did sovereignty mark the end of an era that would make little sense to IR and its sovereignty prism? In the present contribution I will take issue with such clear delimitations and make the case for a broad understanding of change grounded in the practical challenges of international politics rather than canonical statements about them. My argument is rooted in a dissatisfaction with extant accounts seeking to redraw the temporal limits of international politics in the wake of the fall of the foundational myth of 1648 and the Peace of Westphalia
What, When, and Where, Then, is the Concept of Sovereignty?
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the concept sovereignty for international relations (IR). And yet, understanding the historical emergence of sovereignty in international relations has long been curtailed by the all-encompassing myth of the Peace of Westphalia. While criticism of this myth has opened space for further historical inquiry in recent years, it has also raised important questions of historical interpretation and methodology relevant to IR, as applying our current conceptual framework to distant historical cases is far from unproblematic. Central among these questions is the when, what, and how of sovereignty: from when can we use “sovereignty” to analyze international politics and for which polities? Can sovereignty be used when the actors themselves did not have recourse to the terminology? And what about polities that do not have recourse to the term at all? What are the theoretical implications of applying the concept of sovereignty to early polities? From different theoretical and methodological perspectives, the contributions in this forum shed light on these questions of sovereignty and how to treat the concept analytically when applied to a period or place when/where the term did not exist as such. In doing so, this forum makes the case for a sensitivity to the historical dimension of our arguments about sovereignty—and, by extension, international relations past and present—as this holds the key to the types of claims we can make about the polities of the world and their relations.
Introduction: The Emergence of Sovereignty: More Than a Question of Time
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the concept sovereignty for international relations (IR). And yet, understanding the historical emergence of sovereignty in international relations has long been curtailed by the all-encompassing myth of the Peace of Westphalia. While criticism of this myth has opened space for further historical inquiry in recent years, it has also raised important questions of historical interpretation and methodology relevant to IR, as applying our current conceptual framework to distant historical cases is far from unproblematic. Central among these questions is the when, what, and how of sovereignty: from when can we use “sovereignty” to analyze international politics and for which polities? Can sovereignty be used when the actors themselves did not have recourse to the terminology? And what about polities that do not have recourse to the term at all? What are the theoretical implications of applying the concept of sovereignty to early polities? From different theoretical and methodological perspectives, the contributions in this forum shed light on these questions of sovereignty and how to treat the concept analytically when applied to a period or place when/where the term did not exist as such. In doing so, this forum makes the case for a sensitivity to the historical dimension of our arguments about sovereignty—and, by extension, international relations past and present—as this holds the key to the types of claims we can make about the polities of the world and their relations.