The Sovereign State and Its Competitors

The Sovereign State and Its Competitors
Authors
Hendrik Spruyt
Publisher
PrincetonUP
Date
2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00
Size
2.40 MB
Lang
en
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The present international system, composed for the most part of sovereign, territorial states, is often viewed as the inevitable outcome of historical development. Hendrik Spruyt argues that there was nothing inevitable about the rise of the state system, however. Examining the competing institutions that arose during the decline of feudalismamong them urban leagues, independent communes, city states, and sovereign monarchiesSpruyt disposes of the familiar claim that the superior size and war-making ability of the sovereign nation-state made it the natural successor to the feudal system.

The author argues that feudalism did not give way to any single successor institution in simple linear fashion. Instead, individuals created a variety of institutional forms, such as the sovereign, territorial state in France, the Hanseatic League, and the Italian city-states, in reaction to a dramatic change in the medieval economic environment. Only in a subsequent...