A Theory of World Politics

In this book, Mathias Albert develops an ambitious theoretical framework

that describes world politics as a specic social system set within the wider
political system of world society. Alberts analysis of the historical
evolution and contemporary form of world politics takes the theory of
social differentiation as its starting point. World politics is a specic,
relatively recent form of politics, and Albert shows how the development
of a distinct system of world politics rst began during the long nineteenth
century. The book goes on to identify the different forms of social
differentiation that underlie the variety of contemporary forms of
organising political authority in world politics. Employing sociological
and historical perspectives, A Theory of World Politics also reects
critically on its relation to accounts of world politics in the eld of
International Relations and will appeal to a wide readership in a range of
elds.

mathias albert is Professor of Political Science at Bielefeld University,

Germany.
 Cambridge Studies in International
Relations: 141

A Theory of World Politics

editors

Christian Reus-Smit
Nicholas J. Wheeler

editorial board

James Der Derian, Theo Farrell, Martha Finnemore, Lene

Hansen, Robert Keohane, Rachel Kerr, Jan Aart Scholte, Peter
Vale, Kees van der Pijl, Jutta Weldes, Jennifer Welsh, William
Wohlforth

Cambridge Studies in International Relations is a joint initiative of

Cambridge University Press and the British International Studies
Association (BISA). The series aims to publish the best new
scholarship in international studies, irrespective of subject matter,
methodological approach or theoretical perspective. The series seeks
to bring the latest theoretical work in International Relations to bear on
the most important problems and issues in global politics.
 Cambridge Studies in International
Relations

140 Emma Hutchison

Affective communities in world politics
Collective emotions after trauma
139 Patricia Owens
Economy of force
Counterinsurgency and the historical rise of the social
138 Ronald R. Krebs
Narrative and the making of US national security
137 Andrew Phillips and J.C. Sharman
International order in diversity
War, trade and rule in the Indian Ocean
136 Ole Jacob Sending, Vincent Pouliot and Iver B. Neumann
Diplomacy and the making of world politics
135 Barry Buzan and George Lawson
The global transformation
History, modernity and the making of international relations
134 Heather Elko McKibben
State strategies in international bargaining
Play by the rules or change them?
133 Janina Dill
Legitimate targets?
Social construction, international law and US bombing
132 Nuno P. Monteiro
Theory of unipolar politics
131 Jonathan D. Caverley
Democratic militarism
Voting, wealth and war
130 David Jason Karp
Responsibility for human rights
Transnational corporations in imperfect states

Series list continues after index

A Theory of World
Politics

mathias albert
Bielefeld University
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the Universitys mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
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www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107146532
Mathias Albert 2016
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2016
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Albert, Mathias, author.
A theory of world politics / Mathias Albert.
Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 2016. | Series: Cambridge studies
in international relations ; 141 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
LCCN 2016006301 | ISBN 9781107146532 (hardback)
LCSH: International relations Philosophy. | International
organization Philosophy. | Differentiation (Sociology)
LCC JZ1305 .A258 2016 | DDC 327.101dc 3
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016006301
ISBN 978-1-107-14653-2 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
For Greta and Ragnar
Contents

List of gures page xi

Acknowledgements xii
Introduction 1
Ambition and preliminaries 1
Chapter overview 8

Part I World society theory 15

1 The world and society in world society 19
The world in world society 19
The society in world society 32
World society 43

2 World society and social differentiation: segmentation,

stratication and functional differentiation 46
Differentiation as a core concept 48
Forms of differentiation 58
Regional variations of differentiation? 63
Function systems interaction organisation and social evolution 66
Differentiation theory and the system of world politics 71

Part II Emerging world politics 77

3 The system of world politics 81
The political system of world society in global knowledge orders
and imaginations 83
The evolution of world politics as a subsystem of the political
system I: from interaction to system 90
The evolution of world politics as a subsystem of the political
system II: the structural expansion of world politics and the
consolidation of forms 116
International and world politics: a note on semantics 126
Summary: the differentiation of the system of world politics 132

ix
x Contents

4 Forms of world politics 134

System complexity 140
Differentiation and forms of organising political authority
in world politics 146
The enduring variety of world politics 169

Part III Reections and roads ahead 171

5 Reections on theorising world politics 173
On the theory condensed 173
Theory: purpose and limits 178
Theoretical ts and mists 182

6 Limitations, loose threads, further research 200

From limitations . . . 200
. . . to loose threads and further research 209

Concluding remarks: scrambles amongst world politics 218

References 221
Index 250
Figures

4.1 The proto-system of world politics: interaction page 142

4.2 A stratied system 144
4.3 A segmented system 145
4.4 A functionally differentiated system 146

xi
Acknowledgements

Work on this book began during a research stay at the Social Science
Research Center in Berlin in the winter of 2010/11 thanks to the
Center, and especially to Michael Zrn, for their hospitality.
It continued in Bielefeld and particularly in the intellectually
stimulating environment provided by the Institute for World Society
there. Most of the work, however, was done with the help of a grant
from the Volkswagen and Thyssen Foundations under the opus
magnum programme. I spent quite some time in this context at the
German Armed Forces University in Munich, with Stephan Stetter as
host. Many thanks to him, both for his comments and for his
hospitality. Parts of this book were presented in various research
colloquia, and I am very grateful to all those who asked critical
questions and provided suggestions on these occasions. Revisions to
the rst version of the manuscript were mostly done while being based
at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto as
DAAD Hannah Arendt Visiting Chair in the 2014/15 academic year.
I cannot overstate the importance of the feedback from those who
read earlier versions of the entire manuscript or most of it and provided
critical and supportive comments: Lothar Brock, who has been
providing me with sound advice for more than twenty years by now;
and Barry Buzan, who has written many inspiring books which serve as
a background for any intellectual endeavour like the present one, and
with whom I have collaborated on the broad theme of social
differentiation in International Relations. Lothar and Barry are tough
nuts to crack, and I will never ever be able to fully convince either of
them of my theoretical approach but doing as much as possible to
achieve that aim serves as the best quality assurance one can get. Bettina
Mahlert and Andreas Vasilache both provided a wealth of general and
detailed comments, which greatly helped to improve the argument.
Thanks also to Antje Wiener for the helpful suggestions, particularly
regarding accessibility and readability of the text.

xii
Acknowledgements xiii

Without having read it, Tobias Werron provided extensive and very
helpful comments after a presentation of the almost completed very
rst draft manuscript in Bielefeld in early 2014. Bettina Heintz did not
even need to listen to an extensive presentation, merely to some of my
ruminations between the different courses of an excellent Swiss meal,
to ask helpful questions that went right to the point.
I am grateful to Julia Lhr, who provided research assistance in the
early phases of the project. Thomas Mller greatly helped this project
not only by providing research assistance but also by asking a range of
critical questions and providing many highly constructive suggestions.
Many thanks to him.
Special thanks to two people. The rst of these is Stephen Curtis, who
helped to greatly improve (and de-Germanise) the style of my writing
in the latest revision round. Stephen was able to do this because of all
people I happen to know, he, by a country mile, is the person most
knowledgeable in the intricacies of both the English and the German
language. In helping out with the present manuscript, he not only did
this in a very precise way but also with an efciency that puts a shame at
least on all the DOPPers (Deadlines are Other Peoples Problems) in
the academic world. The second person to whom special thanks are due
is Claus Ritter, who was able to implement my ideas about graphically
illustrating different forms of social differentiation. Reaching an
understanding on these illustrations was not hindered by a few pints
of stout, and certainly much facilitated by the practical wisdom
inserted into the discussions by Peter as a common, and by now and
far too early absent friend.
Finally, many thanks to the critical and helpful questions posed by
the two anonymous readers of the manuscript for Cambridge
University Press.
 Introduction

Ambition and preliminaries

This book proposes a theory of world politics. It analyses world politics
as a specic and historically relatively recent form of politics. It takes
politics to be a functionally differentiated realm of modern society, and
it takes modern society to be a world society. Put more formally in
terms of an approach based on systems theory, world politics is
a subsystem of the (functionally differentiated) political system of
world society.
This book is about world politics. It is not an international relations
book, nor is it a sociology book; nor, for that matter, is it a history
book. It is a book arguing that to understand world politics as a social
system within world society requires pooling the fund of knowledge of
all of these disciplines. Such a design will, hopefully, lead to a range of
insights and make for a stimulating read. However, it does provide
a challenge to those more immersed in specic, discipline-focused
approaches to the subject.
A Theory of World Politics starts from the quite simple observation
that all social relations and all formations and transformations of social
structures take place within society and as an evolution of society.
It rst demonstrates what it means to take world society seriously as
a theoretical concept, and that forms of social differentiation provide
a main key for understanding its evolution and form. The book then
goes on to describe how a system of world politics as a specic form of
politics took shape in a long process that lasted roughly from the late
eighteenth to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The point here is not to deny that many instances of interaction
between polities took place before then, interactions that could be
described as a kind of world politics. Rather it is to claim that only in
its modern form, in which it emerges from within a functionally differ-
entiated political system of world society, does world politics assume

1
2 Introduction

a systemic character. Metaphorically speaking, the issue here is how

a kind of proto-system of world politics, which consisted of any
number of individual journeys, turned itself into a system of organised
trafc (with such things as timetables and complicated fare structures).
One of the main ambitions of this book, in fact, is to avoid using the
term system in a loose sense and to be very precise about what it
actually means to talk about world politics as a kind of social system.
It is on this basis that the book proceeds to describe the seemingly
incoherent variety of forms of organising political authority in the
contemporary system of world politics as actually coherent, inasmuch
as it expresses the various forms of social differentiation present in the
system. Things as different as the ordering of world politics according
to power status, relations between equal sovereign territorial states,
supranational forms of authority, global governance, regionalisation
and so on can all be found at the same time, and this variety has
certainly been noted time and again. What this book proposes, there-
fore, is a theoretical framework that sees this variety as an expression of
social differentiation within the system of world politics.
The description of a heterogeneous system of world politics in
a theoretically coherent fashion is one of the rewards hopefully to be
gained from reading the following chapters. However, the reward
comes at the cost of quite a few intellectual demands. For many readers,
to approach world politics in the way that the following chapters do
will be counter-intuitive. Is not world politics something that, in var-
ious guises, has existed over the millennia? Is it not governed by
regularities and laws that rarely if ever change? Is not the international
a level located somehow above other forms of politics? Finally, is
international politics not something that refers to the realm of states,
while world politics encompasses more than that? This book assumes
from the outset that the answer to all of these questions is no. It does
so because it starts out by viewing society as a social system and
because it takes all social systems to be based on communication alone.
All communication constitutes and continues society. Society to
a signicant extent evolves through the way in which it is differentiated.
Regardless of the specic theory of society used, there is hardly any
disputing the fact that, on a grand historical scale, society proceeded
from segmentation (e.g. into hunter-gatherer bands, tribes), via strati-
cation (into distinct levels with clearly demarcated statuses, e.g.
estates or classes), to functional differentiation (into politics, the
Introduction 3

economy, law etc.). It is equally widely agreed, in addition, that one

form of social differentiation did not simply replace the other. Rather,
the different forms folded into one another in a complex fashion and so
came to characterise modern society. Society is obviously differentiated
functionally (which, in the most basic sense, means that politics, econ-
omy, law, religion etc. appear to be different from each other in the rst
place). Yet, in many respects, it remains segmented (at least in the
political and legal systems territorial segmentation plays a tremendous
role), and stratication is entrenched in various forms and scales of
inequality too.
All social systems are differentiated systems, and all social systems
are characterised by the simultaneous presence of different forms of
differentiation. While, in this book, segmentation, stratication and
functional differentiation play an important role in analysing and
describing system formation and evolution, it should be emphasised
that there is a huge difference between using a theory of differentiation
as an analytical tool, on the one hand, and giving a structuralist
account, on the other hand. Whereas structuralist accounts invariably
identify strong constraints on developmental paths and place substan-
tial restrictions on contingency, using differentiation theory allows for
an extreme degree of contingency. Forms of social differentiation do
not in any way prescribe which evolutionary paths can be tried. They
merely identify historical conditions which make it more likely that
some variations will be selected in social systems as the basis for further
evolution, while others will not be. It can always be otherwise, and
revolutionary turns remain a distinct possibility in social systems.
To use just one prominent historical example: as long as stratication
trumps functional differentiation in society, it is simply less likely that
those belonging to the Third Estate will acquire wealth, be judged right
or become powerful than that members of the nobility will. Yet this
does not prevent things from changing fundamentally over time, suc-
cessful revolutions taking place (in addition to the far more numerous
unsuccessful and mostly unremembered ones) or things turning out
rather differently from one day to the next.
Starting with such a concept of world society turns many established
ways of imagining and thinking about social reality on their heads.
The basic question about society is no longer how is it held together?,
as in most classical theories of society, it is rather how does commu-
nication continue? Society, in other words, is an incredibly complex
4 Introduction

arrangement that has evolved over time and is not only based on
communication but has as its sole purpose to ensure that communica-
tion can continue. Once we focus on modern world society, the ques-
tion becomes how in this process do specic forms of communication,
symbolically generalised media of communication and specic systems
and subsystems evolve in and through the operation of society. System
and structure formation is always going on in society (as in any com-
plex system), so the main question and image must then have to do with
societys internal evolution. Society evolves through internal differen-
tiation and system formation. This leads to a completely different
image of the social world compared to, for example, that of a whole
to which new parts are added, or that of an assembly of levels on top of
which another level emerges over time. It also leads to a point that
many people socialised in various theoretical traditions outside systems
theory nd very hard to swallow: namely, the seemingly trivial one that
a theory about politics (or, in the present case, a subsystem of the
political system) can only be about politics, and not about anything
else. This commonly leads to the questions about whether, for example,
economic or legal factors are properly taken into account. The simple
answer to such questions is as follows. Economy, law, religion, orga-
nisations, individuals and so on are taken into account in the political
system in that it observes them as systems or addresses of communica-
tion in its environment. However, it can only do so on its own terms,
that is to say that the communication involved is political communica-
tion. Furthermore, a theory about a social system that is seen to be
based on communication alone can never be anything other or any-
thing more than a theory about the way in which such a social system
evolves on the basis of its internal processing of meaning. This is the
challenging and, indeed, often difcult shift which follows from
a systems theory starting point: the fabric of social reality analysed is
not one of actors, people, institutions and so on that could somehow be
described as being political, legal or economic actors and so on, but
one of communication within self-referential social systems. This is
what is meant by the admittedly awkward term used with respect to
social systems, that of their being operatively closed. Social systems
are modes of communication and not entities to which a message can be
delivered like a letter there simply cannot be political communication
outside the political system nor economic communication outside the
economic system. Nonetheless, to continue that example, the political
Introduction 5

system makes very good sense of the economic system, as much as the
economic system makes sense of the political system all the time. But
they can only do this on the basis of their own languages, that is their
codes and symbolically generalised media of communication (power
in the case of the political and money in the case of the economic
system).1
To ask readers to put themselves inside a basically systems theory
view of the social world is to ask a lot of them already, but a second
demand which probably runs counter to the academic socialisation of
many has to do with the fact that this book is primarily a book about
something world politics. It is not primarily a book of sociology,
international relations (IR) or history. This is reected in the fact that it
is not a book that starts within a distinct body of literature; it is one that
draws a broad range of literatures around its subject instead. But
drawing on a range of different literatures is not merely an issue of
intellectual style. In substantive terms, it reects the fact that, while
scholars of international relations have long been rather negligent of
the social environment in which their subject is embedded, sociologists
have likewise tended to overlook world politics. There simply is no
readily available, coherent body of literature sitting strictly within the
boundaries of one of the relevant disciplines that could easily be
extended by the present theory. Thus, although by being about world
politics this book is looking at a core subject in IR, it does not start its
intellectual journey from within IR. Such an approach demands from
an IR audience the willingness to think outside the IR theoretical box.
Yet the idea behind this book is that it is not only worthwhile to think
about IR outside of IR, but high time this was done if claims that

1
In many respects this book takes Luhmannian systems theory as its starting point,
although it deals with world politics as a substantive issue that systems theory
thus far has almost completely neglected. And it certainly uses systems theory far
more in a heuristic than in an orthodox fashion. However, sharing some of the
basic assumptions with Luhmanns theory as outlined here, and taking up the
issue of how far, for example, issues of economics need to be taken up in a theory
of world politics, one analogy needs to be pointed out. Luhmann in his work has
books (most notably Social Systems, Luhmann 1995; and the Die Gesellschaft
der Gesellschaft, Luhmann 1997) which deal with the theory of society and social
systems and, among other things, the issue of how specic function systems t
into the grander scheme of things. Yet far more numerous are his books on
specic function systems, such as politics (Luhmann 2000a), the economy
(Luhmann 1994), law (Luhmann 2008), art (Luhmann 2000b) and so on.
If anything, this book is of the latter not the former kind.
6 Introduction

inter- or transdisciplinary approaches foster knowledge are to be taken

seriously and actually lead to such approaches being practised.
While the present proposal of a theory is a bold endeavour simply by
reason of its broad thematic scope, in another sense it is also a modest
undertaking. A Theory of World Politics is not The Theory of World
Politics. This emphasis on being one among many possible approaches
to the subject matter in hand is, however, only partly an acknowl-
edgement of the fact that different theoretical and methodological
traditions will invariably lead to diverging theoretical accounts. It is
much more an expression of the conviction that specic theories are
devised for a specic subject matter and that a range of theoretical
assumptions always pregure what this subject matter is, and what,
therefore, a possible theoretical approach designed to make sense of it
might entail.
It is in that sense that this book understands world politics in a rather
specic way. This understanding and the corresponding terminology
differ from many established uses, particularly in the eld of interna-
tional relations. Though many of the assumptions and terms under-
lying such an approach to world politics will be elaborated in more
detail in Part I, it seems worthwhile to spell out some of them now.
The starting point here is the idea of world society as the most
comprehensive of social systems. While Chapter 1 will introduce var-
ious dimensions of the meanings of world and society, the particular
notion of world society used here follows the tradition of systems
theory and sees world society as the entirety of communication. This
understanding hinges on a quite basic theoretical assumption: that
everything social is constituted as, and through, communication.
Such an approach leads one to view the entirety of communication as
world society. This puts it in sharp contrast to classical sociology,
which sees society as a normatively integrated entity, as well as to
a fair proportion of IR, which sees world society as a social realm
separate from and existing side by side with others (such as the inter-
national system or international society).
Using the levels metaphor as an illustrative case in point and jumping
straight into the issue of world politics, then, world politics is seen here
as a specic form of politics which emerges within (and together with)
the political system. The political system is a function system of modern
society. This means that world politics is not something that emerges
from pre-existing levels of (local, national etc.) politics, nor is it located
Introduction 7

somehow above them. The system of world politics is differentiated as

a subsystem within the political system, so questions of hierarchy
between levels do not play a large role in this respect. World politics
is a specic form of politics within the political system and a large part
of this book is about the historical evolution of this specic form. It is in
that sense that throughout this book it is important to bear in mind the
difference between the political system of world society, on the one
hand, and the system of world politics, on the other. The political
system of world society is one function system of a world society
differentiated functionally (others are, for example, the legal system
or the economic system), whereas the system of world politics is
a subsystem of the political system of world society. Within the system
of world politics a semantics of the global, the world and the inter-
national has evolved, which relies heavily on the image of a political
system as somehow layered into hierarchical levels. Yet, as a subsys-
tem of the political system of world society, the system of world politics
is neither above nor below any other of its subsystems (which can be
as different as, for example, environmental, Ecuadorian, constitutional
or, for that matter, Californian politics).
Somewhat in passing, the previous paragraph contained a reference
to the terminology of the world as opposed to, most notably, the
international when those terms come to be combined with politics.
To avoid confusion, it needs to be made clear at this point that, in
substantive theoretical terms, this book makes no difference whatso-
ever between international politics and world politics. There sim-
ply is no independent social system of world politics that could be
distinguished from a social system of international politics, let alone
a history in which one might have preceded the other. Yet within the
system of world politics, there is a complex semantics of world
politics, international politics, international relations and other
afliated terms that, historically, has constantly shifted. That the
subsystem of the political system described here is called the system
of world politics rather than the system of international politics is
solely due to the situation, described in Chapter 1, whereby the notion
of world politics emerged in a complex semantic eld of world
composite terms, particularly in the nineteenth century. Yet though,
analytically, international and world politics could be used almost
interchangeably in what follows, there is, of course, a far more
nuanced picture when it comes to their appearance as historical
8 Introduction

semantics (see the section on International and world politics:

a note on semantics in Chapter 3 on this).

Chapter overview
The book is organised into three main parts. These could roughly be
described as being about: (1) concepts and context, in particular with
respect to world society and social differentiation; (2) the emergence
and evolution of the system of world politics; and (3) reections on and
applications of the theory presented. The order of these parts and of the
chapters they contain has been deliberately chosen. However, readers
of the manuscript of this book have had quite different reading experi-
ences that strongly correlate with their respective disciplinary back-
grounds. Most notably, readers from sociology often nd it necessary
to read the rst part in order to be able to contextualise the argument
developed in the second part. Some readers with a background in IR,
however, say that, for them, many of the conceptual points made in
Part I only began to unlock themselves in the light of Part II. So, after
reading this introduction, readers with an IR background may wish to
consider reading the second part before the rst.
The rst part introduces world society theory. This is where the
books roots in Luhmanns theory are most clearly evident. One of
the main ideas involved here is this. If communication constitutes
society, if no communication can take place outside society, and if,
since the full discovery of the globe, all communication in principle can
connect to all other communication, then there is one social system
which includes all social systems, and that is world society.2 Unlike in
classical sociological and many IR uses of the term, world society here
does not entail a substantive claim about some kind or degree of social
integration or cohesion. It simply refers to the entirety of the social
system as a social whole and thus directs attention to the question of
how, in an important dimension, order can always also though never
exclusively be accounted for by looking at the internal differentiation
of world society.
The rst part will more systematically develop the concept of world
society in order to use it as an analytical context for describing the

2
See Hondrich (1992) on the issue of remaining niche societies.
Introduction 9

evolution and the contemporary form of the system of world politics in

the second part.3 This development itself will take place in two steps.
In Chapter 1, the concept of world society as a social whole will be
dissected and further developed through its two composite parts,
world and society. The main line of argument here is that, in order
to avoid much of the confusion which has surrounded Luhmanns
notion of world society and to put it to practical analytical use, it is
useful to distinguish between three different dimensions of the meaning
of world in this context: a phenomenological, a semantic and
a structural one.4 The necessary corollary to this exercise is to point
out the specic use of the notion of society in this context. The main
issue here is that the sociological tradition uses two fundamentally
different understandings of the term. One refers to society as a social
formation which crucially depends on some integrative device (most
notably a community, a collective identity etc.). The other sees it as
a social system dened through the distinction between system and
environment. The latter understanding also provides the ground for the
theoretical perspective underlying this book.
Chapter 2 applies the concept of social differentiation to world
society. As a basic concept used to describe society from the inception
of sociology as an academic discipline, functional differentiation has
played an important role in modern sociology. It has mostly remained
implicit in theories of international relations, but has been used in
sociological theorising in relation to societies understood as nation-
state societies. There is, however, no reason why this powerful way of
describing and understanding society should not be used in relation to
world society as well. It is important to be precise about our exact
understanding of differentiation, particularly with respect to its status

3
Further elaborating on the concept of world society is an exercise that markedly
differs from Luhmanns analyses of different aspects of society. There has always
been a strong impression that while, theoretically, Luhmann saw his theory of
society as a theory of world society, there was a large disjuncture between the
scope of his historical knowledge in many elds, on the one hand, and his more
limited perception of world society, which was conned, basically, to its Western
part.
4
It could be said at this point that the lack of mutual engagement between this sort
of theory of (world) society, on the one hand, and theories of international
relations, on the other, has to do with the fact that they refer to different
dimensions of world (with Luhmann leaning more towards the phenomenolo-
gical side, IR theory more towards the structural side).
10 Introduction

as a kind of social macro-process; also about the various forms of

differentiation to be found; and not least about the relative importance
of these forms. Here, arguably, far too many discussions following
Luhmanns work have focused on the issue of the primacy of func-
tional versus other forms of differentiation. In this book it will be
argued that these discussions and the issue of the primacy of a specic
form of social differentiation are certainly interesting intellectually, yet
not very helpful analytically. The concept of social differentiation can
unlock its full potential only if it is allowed to describe the social world
or parts thereof as expressing the simultaneous presence of three main
forms of differentiation segmentation, stratication and functional
differentiation. In order to prepare the ground for the argument about
system formation in Chapter 3, the discussion of forms of differentia-
tion in Chapter 2 also introduces and reects upon the relation between
function systems, on the one hand, and other forms of social system, on
the other, most notably interaction (systems) and organisations.
While the rst part prepares the ground for addressing the political
system in the context of world society and in terms of differentiation
theory, the second part focuses on politics as a functionally differen-
tiated part of world society and, more specically, on the evolution and
contemporary form of world politics as a specic subsystem of the
political system. The main argument here is that the evolution of
world politics as a distinguishable realm of its own within the political
system expresses the increasing importance of functional differentia-
tion even within the political system of world society, in addition to
continuing segmentation (into territorial states) and stratication
(varying forms of empire, differences between great, medium and
small powers). This development accounts for the increase in complex-
ity within the political system, expressed in the variety of forms of
organising political authority. Chapter 3 traces the historical evolution
of world politics in a process roughly spanning from the late eighteenth
to the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. During this period,
world politics emerged as a distinguishable subsystem of the political
system of world society. The relations between rulers and polities
became less reliant on their constitutive reproduction in a culture of
presence requiring interaction through face-to-face meetings. New and
other forms of interaction were used and, simultaneously, world poli-
tics became less dependent on specic interaction systems. It turned
from a proto-system based on interaction into a specic subsystem, as
Introduction 11

interaction increasingly took place in an ever-denser web of diplomatic

practice, permanent representation, treaties, and generally more and
more through various forms of organisation on a routine basis. World
politics emerged and marked a specic boundary of the system vis--vis
its environment. This boundary was represented by the semantic mar-
kers international and world politics, yet it was rst and foremost
a boundary within the political system (excluding other politics which
were not international or world). This formation of world politics as a
system of its own (within the political system of world society) made it
accessible to the presence and operation of various forms of differentia-
tion within itself. The corollary of this development was the evolution of
a specic systemic programme the balance of power that greatly
inuenced how world politics was observed within world society. It is in
this sense that Chapter 3 revisits the notion of a balance of power and
argues that, while conventional wisdom sees the eighteenth century as
the apex of balance of power politics (and, incidentally, balance of
power literature), it was only in the nineteenth century that the metaphor
of a balance of power became deeply interwoven with the emerging
system of world politics, forming the basic optic (or programme) by
means of which the system observes itself and allows world political
communication to continue.5 The chapter then goes on to briey revisit
the further evolution of the system of world politics in terms of the key
aspects of both the (non-linear) expansion of a European-centred system,
on the one hand, and the consolidation of nation-states and empires as
the main forms of organising political authority, on the other.
It concludes with a reection on the relation between the evolution of
semantics and ideas, coupled with the problem of changes in a language
that accompanies the emergence of a system of world politics. In this
context, it will also reect on the relation between the semantics of world
and international politics briey alluded to above.
Chapter 4 will turn to the shape of the contemporary system of world
politics. The idea is to use the theory of social differentiation to rst

5
Throughout this book, the notion of observation and an observer is used in the
sense of post-cybernetic systems theory. The notion of an observer is used very
abstractly and independently of the material substrate, the infrastructure or the
specic mode of operation which allows observations to be conducted.
Observing simply means . . . distinguishing and signifying (Luhmann 1997: 69).
Observation is thus a basic operation of a social system, and the observer is not
necessarily a person.
12 Introduction

delineate the various possibilities for one individual form of social

differentiation, or a combination of different forms, to be present
within the system. The basic argument is that it is possible to use such
an approach to arrive at a typology of the various forms of organising
political authority within the system of world politics. While this
permits us to identify a number of boundary conditions for the possible
further evolution of the system, it does not permit us to make predic-
tions. Various forms of organising political authority, such as empires,
failed states, regional integration organisations, global governance
regimes and so on, are usually the subject either of highly divergent
individual stories (and histories) or of stories (and histories) of devia-
tions from an international system of states. The novel feature of the
present theoretical account is that it tells a single story about them, as it
understands them as expressions of the simultaneous presence of dif-
ferent forms of differentiation and a combination thereof. The map
presented is thus not a static one, but equally represents the process of
the evolution of the system of world politics as it builds up and deals
with its own complexity through differentiation. It is not a map that
can be used for detailed navigational purposes either, as all real
historical manifestations of organising political authority invariably
deviate to some degree from their place in a typology.
The third part of the book is the one most explicitly about theory and
theories. Chapter 5 re-states the theory presented here in a condensed
manner. In doing so, it briey turns again to some underlying theore-
tical elements and traditions from which it draws, with a particular
focus on certain assumptions about social evolution, and reects on the
specic purpose and the limitations of this theory. Although this is
a book about a theory of world politics and not a book about theories
of international relations, Chapter 5 quite naturally is also the place to
identify zones of overlap with and disjuncture from various other
theoretical accounts of world politics/international relations. A specic
focus here will be on structural realism, English School thought, older
cybernetic and systems theory approaches in IR, and critical readings of
international relations as a social practice in the context of globality.
However, as will become clear in this chapter, this book does not t
easily into the sedimentary layers of the vast discursive formation of IR
theory. This is also the main reason behind the decision not to deal with
specic IR theories up front (in the sense of giving an overview of
existing research), but only relatively late in the book.
Introduction 13

Chapter 6 reects on the present theory and its possible uses in two
ways. First, it briey addresses the issue of possible limitations not only
on the present, but on all attempts to make theoretical sense of world
politics. This particularly pertains to the issue of an embedded Euro-
centrism. While, of course, this is not the place to enter into a full-
blown general discussion of the issue, it will be argued that it is helpful
to distinguish between three different aspects of Euro-centrism
or Euro-centric world views, which can be seen by analogy with the
three different aspects or extensions of world in world society dis-
cussed in Chapter 1. This reection then feeds directly into the second
aspect dealt with in Chapter 6, namely possible future extensions of the
present theory, in terms of both further theoretical and further empiri-
cal work. Reection on the latter in particular is of great importance in
the present context, as some loose theoretical threads left in previous
chapters of this book cannot be woven together in a meaningful way
using theory alone, but require support from empirical research.
This book proposes a theoretical framework for understanding world
politics that is then left for the reader to adopt, modify, reject or use for
her or his own analysis. It should be clear from the scope of the argument
that this book could easily have been many times its present length or,
in fact, been many books. Yet, if there is one main ambition behind it, it
is that it should be a thought-provoking proposal that does not over-
stretch the patience of its readers. Every theory which does not lead to the
discovery of new empirical data or present itself as an ideology in
disguise, but which simply provides a fresh perspective on otherwise
seemingly well-trodden ground invariably raises the so what? question.
With this in mind, instead of providing another summary of its preceding
chapters, the books concluding remarks add some afterthoughts on
theorising world politics in IR.
 part i

World society theory

International relations (IR), sociology and history are mutually

enriching disciplines (see Hobson 2002: 13; programmatically, see
also Buzan and Lawson 2013). While the present study is quite
ambitious in its crossing of disciplinary boundaries, it is also very
restrained in the sense that it is certainly not a project for a world
sociology (Hobson and Hobden 2002: 271ff). Its main theoretical
reference points are the theory of social differentiation, systems the-
ory and the theory of social evolution applied to the specic realm of
world politics. Put differently, this is not an attempt to sociologise
every part of what is usually studied in the eld of IR.1 It merely
sociologises that a relatively small part of IR that cares about the
theories underlying the big picture and seeks to capture the charac-
teristics as well as the transformative dynamics of international or
world politics as a whole.2
The present account differs from many, if not the overwhelming
majority, of the conceptualisations of what is variably termed a world
society, a world community, a global society and so on. These are
often used as normative concepts, referring to something which is not yet
in existence (except, maybe, in rudimentary form), but which people
should possibly strive to achieve. In contrast, the present study uses the
notion of world society in a strictly analytical sense. It subscribes to the
idea that social relations are constituted by communication, and world
society is nothing but the totality of communication. As there can be

1
That the theory of social differentiation is one of the areas, if not the area, which
can most usefully be applied to studying world politics is also expressed in the
choice of title for a recent collection on the subject: Bringing Sociology to IR.
World Politics as Differentiation Theory (Albert et al. 2013). See also Stetter
(2013) for a broader inquiry into possible points of engagement between
sociology and IR.
2
Yet this book is sympathetic with the thrust, if not the detail, of the argument that
theorising on a larger scale should play an important role in IR (see Mearsheimer
and Walt 2013).

15
16 Part I World society theory

nothing social outside world society, it, therefore, is the highest-order

social system conceivable.
There are a number of things that follow from such a conceptualisa-
tion of world society. The most important of them is that it differs from
the concept of society mostly used in classical sociology. That thinks of
society as somehow integrated by a community, solidarity, norms, a
collective identity and so on. The conceptualisation used in this book is
not, in itself, a normative concept of world society, nor a vision of
world community (Bartelson 2009), nor an image of an integrated
realm of world politics that might somehow replace or supersede
international politics (see Walker 2010). Rather, it sees normative
concepts, visions of world community, notions of world politics, or
political projects relating to world politics and so on as part of world
society. It analyses world politics as an existing social system more
precisely, as a subsystem of the political system of world society, which
evolved and consolidated itself as a subsystem during the nineteenth
century and continues to operate today.3
The distinction between the system of world politics and the poli-
tical system of world society, already addressed in the Introduction,
will be re-emphasised here. The starting point is the differentiation of
world society into function systems, such as the economic, political and
legal systems. All of these are not only functionally differentiated vis--
vis each other, but they are also internally differentiated. They form,
within themselves, a range of specic subsystems. The system of world
politics is one such subsystem of the political system of world society.
There is an immense variety of other subsystems of politics within the
political system of world society in addition to the system of world
politics. They can be dened through their function (e.g. energy policy)
or by virtue of addressing a particular segment (e.g. Belgian politics).
The important point is that subsystems, including the system of world
politics, are not exclusive systems. Everything that happens in a sub-
system also happens in the system to which it belongs.4 A subsystem
3
World politics in this sense is not a vision of the future or a project for the future
in the sense used by R. B. J. Walker in his After the Globe, Before the World
(Walker 2010).
4
I wish to emphasise this point as its earlier formulation led to a reading by one of
the reviewers which I did not intend to convey. While the reviewer was right to
point out that, in Luhmanns work, the notion of a subsystem recedes into the
background over time, as he is at pains to avoid suggestions that there is a
hierarchy among systems, this discontinued usage particularly pertains to
Part I World society theory 17

processes communication in a specic way, yet communication does

not somehow reside within it. Communication can be observed by
other subsystems in other equally specic ways (think, to give a rough
and approximate example, how building a gas pipeline can simulta-
neously be an issue of energy politics, environmental politics, foreign
policy, local politics and so on as well as being regarded as an economic
issue, in legal terms and so forth). The present account is based on a
view of the social world which sees it as consisting of many inclusive
systems and not of distinct parts which are somehow assembled into a
whole.
The use of the notion of world society in the present case differs from
some other uses in both IR and sociology. I am referring here to the few
approaches which provide more developed theoretical accounts of world
society (in sociology, most notably the work of the so-called Stanford
School of sociological neo-institutionalism and the works of Peter
Heintz; in IR, the elaboration of the concept in an English School context
by Barry Buzan, John Burtons contributions, and, with the present
authors own involvement, the approach of the World Society Research
Group).5 The same also applies to the many uses of the notion of world
society where it is, with varying degrees of (theoretical) elaboration,
mostly seen as identical with a not-yet-realised (or, indeed, never-to-be-
realised) community of mankind.6 That said, this does not mean that
these contributions are irrelevant to the present study. They are relevant
inasmuch as they point to global social forms (e.g. Heintzs international
system of stratication, Meyers world polity) which need to be
accounted for in the present context as well, though in different theore-
tical terms, especially with regard to differentiation theory. Most of them
will be addressed in order to mark the differences. However, what follows

function systems like politics or law. Avoiding the notion of subsystems in

relation to these is actually necessary after the autopoietic turn that sees them as
operatively closed and does not allow them to be seen either in a hierarchical
relation to each other (in the sense, most notably, of politics being a rst among
equals) or in relation to society as an overarching whole. It is in keeping with this
that this book avoids the use of the term subsystem when it comes to function
systems. However, the term is retained for systems that form as a result of internal
differentiation in function systems, although here too the prex sub is not
intended to denote hierarchy, but only the fact that communication within the
subsystem is a subset of the communication within the function system.
5
See, for example, Meyer et al. (1997); Heintz (1982); Buzan (2004a); Burton
(1972); for an overview, see Albert (2004).
6
See, for example, Bull (1977).
18 Part I World society theory

is not a discussion of the merits of the specic notion of world society

employed here, but rather a development of it, which will proceed by rst
separating its two composite parts, the world and society (Chapter 1),
before reassembling them using the differentiation theory toolbox
(Chapter 2).
1 The world and society in world
society

The world in world society

It is hardly possible to separate the history of the concept of world
from various cosmological traditions, and therefore the following
reconstruction of its evolution will necessarily contain a few refer-
ences to cosmological thought. However, the main starting point for
the modern career of world is its use in many composite terms,
beginning in the late eighteenth and continuing during the nineteenth
century. These composite terms range from Hegels world spirit
(Weltgeist) and Kants cosmopolitan citizen (world citizen in the
literal translation from the German Weltbrger), via Marxs world
market (Weltmarkt) and the identication of a world literature and
various world projects (world time, world language, etc.), to the
representation of the world in world exhibitions. The inationary
use of the term demonstrates that, to paraphrase Hegel, mans realisa-
tion that the world is round, and thus complete for him, is more and
more translated into concrete forms that conceptualise this complete-
ness and into the creation of structures and projects with a worldwide
reach.1
The world exhibitions among which the 1900 Paris exhibition
stands out as it combined the idea of representing the world with the
consciousness of living in a time of epochal change serve as an
illustration that an orientation towards the world was often not an
expression of cosmopolitan thought, but rather linked to nationalist

1
The breakdown of the certainties of Western thought about the world changed
the study of the world. To the degree to which engagement with world history
grew more complex in the face of an integration which was actually taking place,
the social sciences turned towards specialised partial disciplines with objects of
research which could be veried empirically. They dealt with all regions of the
world as well, but preferred a partial approach, in contrast to a world history still
dreaming about the whole. (Bright and Geyer 2007: 60)

19
20 World society theory

and imperialist views and goals.2 While in both name and ambition
world exhibitions claimed to represent the world, as they still do up to
the present day, nation-states became more and more important over the
years. In the 20th century the big exhibition halls and industrial-cultural
classication were nally replaced by national pavilions; every country
now shows its particular sectional view of its world (Krasny 1996:
325).3 At the same time, many other efforts to think in terms of the
world served as vehicles for nationalist-hegemonic agendas (e.g. the idea
of a Weltdeutsch, a world German; see Krajewski 2006: 97), or at least
exhibited a strong nationalist orientation (e.g. the proposal to rst create
a German bibliography and later a world bibliography out of a system-
atisation of the bibliography of Prussian libraries; cf. Erman 1919).
Generally, an emerging awareness of global connectedness enabled
some events to become global events (Weltereignisse; cf. Nacke et al.
2008), which, in turn, fostered that awareness. These events constituted
global moments in which visions of world order frequently referred to
events with a popular signicance that appealed to people in discrete and
distant locations (Conrad and Sachsenmaier 2007: 12).
However, while in many respects one can look at the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries as a period of both the consolidation of
nation-states and the global spread of this particular form alongside
and in addition to continuing imperial forms of order, the same period
also saw a worldwide and world-oriented reconguration of time and
space. This reconguration pertains particularly to the transformation
of meta-geographies (see Lewis and Wigen 1997; also Grataloup
2009), that is, the mental maps designating the imagined natural
orders of space. They attained forms then that mostly remain valid
today. Regarding the transformation of the political system, which will
be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3, these mental maps attained
their complexity mainly through the interlocking processes of a com-
petition between nation-state and imperial forms of order and bound-
ary demarcation and the expansion of a European system of powers
2
See, for an overview, Kretschmer (1999); Wrner (2000); for a particularly rich
account of the 1851 London exhibition in its contemporary socio-economic
context, see Haltern (1971); Bosbach and Davis (2002). For an explicit analysis
of some exhibitions as imperial expositions, see Geppert (2010).
3
Quite interestingly in this context, some observers of two recent world exhibitions
(2000 in Hanover and 2010 in Shanghai) assert that national pavilions lost out in
both to theme-oriented exhibits and that the former should be seen as relics of the
past that may very well disappear in forthcoming exhibitions; see Knapp (2010).
The world and society in world society 21

into a global system of states.4 That these developments have been

brought to our attention in a comprehensive fashion, without being
biased towards one part or level of society or the other, is largely due to
approaches in global history, and particularly the seminal works by
Christopher Bayly (2004) and Jrgen Osterhammel (2009).5
Efforts to re-create the world as one space and one time abounded in
the 1870s and 1880s, as witness the foundation of the World Postal
Union in 1874, the coordination of an ever denser network of rail and
steamship travel and the global synchronisation of clocks through
clearly dened time zones (although the idea of a single global standard
time was not adopted at the Prime Meridian Conference in 1884).
According to Krajewski (2006), this was the time when the world
was made rest-less (that is remainderless, in the sense that, time
and space being homogenised, there was no rest of the world left
outside the homogenised areas). The organisation of global travel,
communications and the transport of goods, which provided the
main rationale for the homogenisation of space and time, mirrors
basic problems in the reproduction of society. Society permanently
needs to solve and, in fact, is constituted by this continuing solving
of the basic problem of how communication (in this case, journeys)
can continue. It needs to ensure connectivity on a regular basis. This, of
course, requires more than merely providing the preconditions for
successful journeys, by building roads, railway lines and harbours,
just as intellectual communication is not made possible merely by
printing books. Programmes are required. European and global rail
timetables need to be coordinated with each other and with ferry travel.
The use of connected networks like these is what creates the experience
of global interconnectedness among a growing global elite. In those
who like Phileas Fogg go on a journey through this network (of text as
much as trafc), the impression of the total connectivity, of the

4
This complex expansion was neither unidirectional nor linear. Issues of a
Eurocentric view of this expansion of a European into a global system of states
will be discussed in Chapter 6 in conjunction with the general issue of Euro-
centrism and its consequences for any theory of world society or world politics.
For an interesting thesis that the notion of powers marks a semantic develop-
ment quite different from the evolution of the semantics of sovereign statehood,
see Keene (2013).
5
The general relation of approaches in global history not only in distinction to
established approaches of world history but also in distinction to the notion of
social evolution underlying this book will be addressed in Chapter 5.
22 World society theory

borderless accessibility of the world is almost necessarily created

(Krajewski 2006: 51). It is in that sense that trafc actually produces
world (Krajewski 2006: 56ff; cf. also Wenzlhuemer 2010,
Passepartout 2013).6
It is impossible to answer the question as to when world society came
into existence by referring to one specic datum only. If (as in
Luhmann), the world in world society is primarily seen as the horizon
of all observation and communication, the crucial point is the possibi-
lity that all communication can connect to all other communication (it
is not required, in other words, that this should happen on a regular
basis and a massive scale). In that sense, world society came into
existence with the full discovery of most of the inhabited parts of the
planet in the sixteenth century (apart from isolated populations parti-
cularly in the tropical and polar regions). That was the time when all
societies at least learned about the existence of all others and thus could
no longer see themselves as world societies. However, if understood in
a more structural sense that is if world is taken to refer not to the
possibility of global connectivity, but to its realisation on a regular
basis then world society was probably shaped most effectively only
some time after the end of the Second World War. Nonetheless, it was
in the second half of the nineteenth century that the ground was pre-
pared for this structural consolidation of world society: that was when
the world became a pervasive thinking space in politics, literature, arts
and so on and the basis of a global infrastructure was established.
Since world, as in world society, has already been used to mean two
quite different things, a few words on the philosophical background
and connotations of the concept are required before I undertake to
distinguish three different dimensions of the meaning of world in
relation to world society.
The basic difculty in the way of getting a clear-cut grasp on the
notion of world stems from the fact that, like history, it means a
totality which cannot be grasped by means of logical generality and in
this characteristic elementary conditions of our experience are
addressed (Braun 1992: 433). This is exactly the sense in which Kant
discusses the notion of world in his Critique of Pure Reason,

6
See Gosch and Stearns (2008) for a historical account of point-to-point travel.
The authors identify a pre-modern explosion of travel as early as the fteenth
century.
The world and society in world society 23

explicating the paradox inherent in the word itself. As Braun observes:

The world can never be given in total in some kind of collective
perception [Anschauung]. Thus Kant discovered the hypostatisation
[Verdinglichung] of the world in its totality through the expectations of
an experience of totality embedded in the word itself to be mere
appearance, yet at the same time declared it to be unavoidable
(Braun 1992: 435). This is not the place to repeat Brauns excellent
conceptual history of the notion of Welt through the centuries. Sufce it
to say that, over many centuries and with traces left today, the opposi-
tion GodWorld forms the words entire horizon of meaning (Braun
1992: 439) and it is only in the nineteenth century that the theological
frame of reference starts to pale (Braun 1992: 439).
Probably the most decisive move in this respect was the introduction
of the notion of Weltanschauung (world-view) by Kant in his Critique
of Judgment. It laid the basis for a theory of subjectivity which can give
a meaning to the view and picture of the world which is caused
subjectively, yet is objectively binding (Braun 1992: 478). Less crypti-
cally, as world is removed from its afliation with the transcendental
and linked directly to the worldly realm of the subject, space is opened
for the subsequent coining of all kinds of composite terms with world
in them. This development mostly refers to the emergence of new terms
(such as world trade). It can also, however, refer to a shift in the
meaning of existing ones. The term world war, for example, was
already in existence around 1600, but in a completely different sense
to the one we are familiar with. Then it functioned as a contrasting
notion to Pax Christi (Braun 1992: 478), while, of course, it was their
global extent that made the two great wars of the twentieth century into
world wars.
By the same token, whereas notions of a world state (Weltreich) and
world dominion (Weltherrschaft) had been around for a while, secular
notions of world power and world politics only emerged in the
nineteenth century.7 Only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
was world fully stripped of religious or transcendental connotations.
It is, however, precisely this situation which constantly forces us to
confront the question as to why such a large and complex thing, which

7
However, see Chapter 3 below for a more nuanced treatment of this subject, with
references to earlier equivalent notions; for a recent overview of world-state-
equivalent ideas, see Mazower (2012).
24 World society theory

obviously supports so many composite terms, should be thought of as

one or as a whole. The problem was articulated in particular by
Nietzsche, who emphasised the extreme discrepancy between the uni-
versality implied in the word world, on the one hand, and the pro-
liferation of its individual meanings in composite terms, on the other
(see Braun 1992: 499f). It is arguably only with Luhmann, about a
century later, that one nds a serious attempt to rescue the notion of
world from this basic tension by changing its level of abstraction and its
operative order (see Braun 1992: 506):

As meaning, the world is accessible everywhere: in every situation, in any

detail, at each point on the scale from concrete to abstract. From any starting
point one can proceed to all other possibilities in the world; this is what it
means to say that the world is indicated in all meaning. That state of affairs is
indicative of an acentric world concept.
At the same time the world is more than the mere sum comprehending all
possibilities, all meaningful references. It is not just the sum, but the unity of
these possibilities. Above all, this means that the world horizon for every
difference guarantees its own unity as difference. It sublates the differences in
all perspectives from individual systems, in that for every system the world is
the unity of its own difference between system and environment. (Luhmann
1995: 70)

As hinted at by Nietzsche, and seemingly paradoxical at rst, the fully

secularised world, while becoming all-encompassing except in rela-
tion to the transcendental and the divine, loses its unity in the sense that
it can no longer be known in its entirety. It is in this sense that the
production of world through the construction of global infrastruc-
tures of trafc and communication, as well as the remarkable rise and
popularity of various semantics of world, must not be read as an
integration of one world. The idea of acquiring universal knowledge,
as represented in the gure of the polymath, has increasingly been
rendered implausible, given the realisation that, to put it simply, the
world is too big and complex to be known by one observer: The world
disaggregates into unimaginable singularities (Krajewski 2006: 61).
Niklas Luhmann discusses this development in his 1971 article World
Society. In it, he prepares the ground for a somewhat paradoxical
conceptualisation of world society, in terms of which its internal differ-
entiation provides the only way to describe its unity: The contempor-
ary state of world society can no longer be understood under the aspect
The world and society in world society 25

of an ontically essential or hierarchic primacy that belongs to a specic

partial system, but only from the functions, requirements and conse-
quences of functional differentiation itself (Luhmann 1971: 27).
Despite or maybe because of this realisation of a loss, that is, the
realisation that the world as a whole cannot be fully known by one
observer at the very time when it was increasingly being addressed as a
unity, the nineteenth century was characterised by an enormous effort to
collect knowledge about the world as a whole. It was the time when the
big national libraries, museums, archives and the encyclopaedias
emerged. It was a century obsessed with numbers, a time in which the
process of international organisation led to a tremendous increase in the
number of international statistics (Herren 2009: 19). It was also when
photography created the notion that, in a sense, time can be saved
beyond the moment. To put it differently, there was a wholesale mod-
ication of how social systems remember (Deutsch 1963), and there was
a raft of new inventions around that modication in what Osterhammel
(2009: 25ff) calls the medial perpetuation of the nineteenth century.
The ipside of this was the realisation that there were few if any
outsides of the world left on the planet: there was no rest beyond the
world (see Krajewski 2006: 256ff). While at rst sight this might
appear to be nothing but a marginal logical conclusion, the realisation
that the world was complete implied much more and formed the
prerequisite for studying its internal dynamics, which now seemed to
form something closed. An example here would be the emergence of
modern ideas of geopolitics. While geopolitical thought had been
around for quite a while, the entire calculus of the supposed laws of
geopolitics crucially depends on the assumption that there is no more
signicant unknown or unexplored landmass or ocean on the planet
(see Mackinder 1904: 421).
The realisation of the worlds completeness together with an inten-
sication of global exchange relations over time gave rise to a kind of
global consciousness (at least among elites at rst; see Robertson
1992; Osterhammel 2009). However, reecting upon the notion of
world history, Khler (1955) makes a cautious yet important point
when he argues that global interconnectedness does not necessarily
lead to a consciousness of humanity. He, in fact, sees general reasons
standing in the way of its formation, as he insists that boundaries form
a necessary precondition for any kind of historical consciousness
(Geschichtsbewutsein; Khler 1955: 1). The most interesting point
26 World society theory

that Khler makes in this context pertains to his comparison of cul-

tures. Although he does not deny that there may be an intensive
exchange between cultures, he insists that the particular world hor-
izons of particular cultures are more world and, indeed, more uni-
versal than the kind of world horizon created by a contact and
exchange between cultures. Starting from this assumption, he argues
that it makes little sense to speak of a single world history as it is quite
implausible for anyone to construct a synchronicity of historical (in
contrast to physical) time across cultures (Khler 1955: 4). Indeed, the
very idea of a universal world history is highly particular in that its
origins lie in Christian eschatology.8
Writing about the world in the context of the study of international
relations in the same year as Khler writes on world history, Quincy
Wright expressed his puzzlement about the complexity of the subject
matter:

It requires considerable intellectual sophistication to conceive the world as a

eld of conditions, values, ideals, and attitudes, in continuous ux, but at any
point and moment exerting inuence upon the actions of individuals,
associations, and nations. But is this eld one of nature, of custom, of
ethics, of opinion? Is it constituted by the relations of human individuals
and groups, of human interests and policies, of human personalities and
cultures, of human organisations and institutions, of human instincts and
drives, of human habits and customs, of human values and consciences, or of
human attitudes and opinions? (Wright 1955: 491)

Given this puzzlement about what the world is about, with its para-
doxical nature as both a totality and something fragmented into many
composites and with its meaning being in constant ux and heavily
laden with philosophical connotations and historical baggage, one
might legitimately ask why the notion world should be used at all
when trying to make sense of the social world. To put it more pre-
cisely, if, like history, world refers to a totality which, to repeat the
observation by Braun (1992: 478) above, cannot be captured with
8
In the medieval understanding, universal history is always eschatological history.
Medieval world history usually starts with the creation of the world and termi-
nates in present time as end time. However, Christian belief carries the history-
related worldview beyond its own present and directs it towards the future, the
salvation of mankind. World history aims at Judgement Day, at the end of the
world. (Olberg-Haverkate 2004: 171)
The world and society in world society 27

logic generality as elementary conditions of our experience are

addressed, is there any way to address the notion of world in relation
to both society and politics which is of any analytical use and goes
beyond merely saying that society and politics operate within an
abstract totality of meaning?
This book would not exist if it had not answered this question in the
afrmative to begin with. However, it argues that analytical useful-
ness depends on distinguishing between at least three main dimen-
sions in which the world is referred to both during its semantic
history, briey alluded to in the preceding paragraphs, and in con-
temporary debates on the theory of world society. Keeping these
dimensions, which are practically always linked, analytically separate
helps to account for many of the seeming contradictions and para-
doxes with which the notion of world is imbued when it is seen as
both a totality and a composite term that can be attached to some-
thing particular.
The three dimensions of world referred to here are the phenomen-
ological (1), the structural (2) and the semantic (3). As far as the
notion of world society in particular is concerned, distinguishing
between these three dimensions is a way of trying to defuse a basic
tension inherent in the notion from the start. On the one hand, it can
hardly be denied that, with the full discovery of the globe, it became
impossible in a strict sense to speak of world societies in the plural (an
observation which underlies Luhmanns notion of world society). On
the other hand, the formation of structures on a global scale took a
few more centuries. In addition, the evolution of the latter, which gave
shape to contingent possibilities contained in the former, could only
take place in conjunction (but not always synchronously) with the
development of vocabularies, historical semantics, a global con-
sciousness and so on.
(1) When Luhmann talks about the emergence of one single world
society at the moment of the full discovery of the globe, after which
no particular social formation could claim to be world society, his
understanding of world is, by implication, strictly phenomenolo-
gical. According to Husserl, world is the correlate of the phe-
nomenological notion of meaning (Gbel 2003: 5). World is simply
the (endless) horizon of possibilities in which meaning is created:
the act-correlate of meaningful intentionality (Gbel 2003: 5). In
the words of Husserl:
28 World society theory

The world is pregiven to us, the waking, always somehow practically

interested subjects, as horizon, not occasionally but always and necessarily
as the universal eld of all actual and possible practice . . . The world, on the
other hand, does not exist as an entity, as an object, but exists with such
uniqueness that the plural makes no sense when applied to it. Every plural,
and every singular drawn from it, presupposes the world-horizon. (Husserl
1970: 142143)

There can, in fact, be no meaning outside of the world. However

incommensurable the rationalities, customs, languages and so on of
different cultures may be, they share the same world horizon in a
phenomenological sense. Meaning outside of this horizon could only
be located in an unknown other world. It is in this respect only that the
claim that world society came into existence with the full discovery of
the globe makes sense (see Luhmann 1997: 145147). What the emer-
gence of world society in the phenomenological sense means is that a
basic global network of physical links is established, but signicant
resources are required to make use of these infrastructures, and they do
little more than establish repeated point-to-point connections. In the
structural sense of world, this kind of world society is literally as far
removed from a structurally consolidated one as are the steamship and
the electric telegraph from the World Wide Web.
While a single world society in the phenomenological sense comes into
existence with the full discovery of the globe, it is characterised more by
the possibility of global connectivity than by actual global connections
established on a regular basis. However, it is important to emphasise at
this point that the establishment of actual connections over large geo-
graphical distances is only one side of the coin. The fact that commu-
nication could, in principle, connect with or reach out to all other
communication does not mean the actual establishment of a particular
number of connections. It means rather that local communication oper-
ates with the background knowledge that it could be linked to commu-
nication afar. The other, and at least equally important, side of the coin,
therefore, is that local contexts can now be observed against a back-
ground of knowledge of the world. Specic forms of knowledge can
now be compared to practices and forms of knowledge in geographically
distant places (see Heintz 2010) even if, historically speaking, this kind
of comparative observation led mainly to some asserting their own
superiority over inferior or backward others.
The world and society in world society 29

(2) In the structural dimension of the notion of world, the emer-

gence of world society is a far more long-term and open-ended process,
in which global connectivity over long distances and the observation of
local practices against the global background evolve from a rare to a
regular, or possibly even the dominant modus operandi in parts of
society. At the risk of oversimplifying at this point, it is this evolution
of world society in the structural sense that is the main subject of
diagnostic work on globalisation. To use an analogy from the world
of computers, it is thanks to this process that navigating through the
World Wide Web rather than establishing individual point-to-point
connections becomes the normal thing to do (with the next step being
that the actual computing is done somewhere remotely on the Web and
not on a local piece of computer hardware). It should be emphasised
that this structural evolution of world always has been and remains a
highly varied process with respect not only to issues of geographic
density/distance covered but also to its timelines and structures. This,
quite obviously, is where the issue of differentiation comes into play
directly, as structure formation could hardly be imagined to be inde-
pendent of the prevailing and competing forms of differentiation in
society.
(3) Looking at the evolution of world society in terms of the struc-
tural dimension of world basically means asking typical what-ques-
tions, inquiring, that is, about the emergence of specic forms and
intensities of (communicative) connectivity. The semantic dimension
of world typically leads one to ask how-questions, for instance, how
is the continuation of this connectivity made possible. This dimension,
to use the computing analogy again, is the one that has to do with basal
codes, programs and programming languages as well as the customs of
communication. While social structures and semantics are always
necessarily interlinked and trying to understand the one requires us to
permanently refer to the other, they are usually not synchronised. New
structures and new forms of structure require new semantics to
describe them; on the other hand, semantic innovations may be made
at the beginning of structure formation (or even before). Moreover,
some semantic innovations may not lead to any kind of substantial
structure formation at all.
The many world composite terms of the nineteenth century illus-
trate this difference very well. It could, for example, be argued that,
relative to the entire population, there were very few people around
30 World society theory

who actually met the demands for being cosmopolitan citizens

(Weltbrger) at the time when Kant wrote about them. Similarly, the
notion of a world market arose at a time when, compared with the
situation today, that market was still nascent, structurally.9 In addi-
tion, very ambitious and prominent inventions, such as a world lan-
guage, have led to very little structure formation at all.10
While the structural and the semantic dimension of world are
distinct, the analysis of the emergence of a system of world politics in
Chapter 3 will deal with them side by side. Taking them one by one
would mean providing different analyses of what might be called
material structure formation, on the one hand, and a conceptual his-
tory, on the other, which in and for themselves might not be very
instructive. The phenomenological dimension does not disappear
entirely in this context. However, it is not really an issue any more
when it comes to the question of world society as the horizon delineat-
ing the boundary of (social) meaning.11 Rather, it translates into the
formation of system boundaries within world society, appearing, for
example, in the question of how and for how long it is possible to
operate within a purely European system of states (with its own logic),
still unaffected by an emerging global political system.
Irrespective of the distinction between the three different dimensions
of the world in world society, it is primarily the phenomenological
dimension that allows us to think about world society as a social whole
(see Albert and Buzan 2013). There is some similarity here to the notion
of a totality in German idealism (Hegel), where totality means

more and something different than a mere wholeness in the usual sense.
Totality means a specic form of wholeness in which the whole is not

9
Possibly the rst next-to-global system of trade was the slave trade.
10
Stichweh deals differently with the problem that the two components of world
society, world and society, are co-extensive, but that world society does not
suddenly appear as such at a given point in time. Rather than distinguishing
between different dimensions of world, he distinguishes between a phenom-
enological notion of world and a structural notion of society; see Stichweh
(2000: 237ff).
11
The qualication social could be seen as important here if one follows
Luhmann, who argues that, next to world society as the all-inclusive social
system, psychic systems (individual consciousnesses) are also systems based on
processing meaning. But psychic systems are not a part of social systems: what
somebody really thinks or intends is never directly accessible (or socially
relevant), only what is communicated/observed is.
The world and society in world society 31

understood as a posterior assembly of elementary pieces like a pile of stones,

but in which, as an original unity, it creates its articulating differences out of
itself and relates to itself through these differences; such differences are not
pieces which could also exist and be understood separately from each other,
but moments of an originally unied whole . . . This self-referential structure
of concrete totality is understood by Hegel as the processual unity of self-
differentiation and self-identication. (Halfwassen 2004: 275; italics in
original)

However, although it retains some similarity to this understanding of

world in the tradition of German idealism, the notion of world
employed in this book is also substantially different, inasmuch as it
basically follows Luhmanns notion of world in world society, and by
so doing severs itself from any remaining metaphysical anchors.
Understood in this sense, world society does not appear as a unied
whole, but as the entirety of communication. Thus it is almost inher-
ently paradoxical, in that it only achieves its unity through its internal
differentiation.12
While these might sound like legitimate deliberations on the world
in world society, the question now arises as to why such a totality of
the social should be called by the name of what seems to be a rmer and
better-dened kind of social form,13 namely a society?
12
Gbel (2003: 22f) asserts that [t]he world of [Luhmanns] systems theory is the
world of one society which achieves its homogeneity through one primary form
of differentiation. As will become clear in Chapter 2, the present argument does
not follow Gbel as regards the notion of homogeneity, and only partially
follows him in relation to the role of a primary form of differentiation.
For an extensive treatment of the evolution of philosophical thought from the
metaphysical notion of world to the natural notion of world in phenomen-
ology, see Bermes (2004).
13
Thomas Mller has made the point that my use of the term social form does not
accord with the classical use by Simmel in his Soziologie. This is not the time to
enter into more detailed discussions of this rather specic subject matter.
However, I would maintain that the difference between my usage here and
Simmels is primarily scalar, meaning, for example, that in the end I see society as
constituting a social form like friendship, conict or marriage, yet on a vastly
different scale. Society formation [Vergesellschaftung] is thus the form which
realises itself in the innumerable different ways in which individuals, on the basis
of their interests sensual or ideal, momentary or permanent, conscious or
unconscious, causally pushing or teleologically pulling grow together into a
unity (Simmel 1908: 6). In addition, I would maintain the basic similarity of
these understandings. Seeing society as only one among many instantiations of
Vergesellschaftung, albeit a large-scale one, is a position that can be maintained
on the basis of the view that society is constituted through communication.
32 World society theory

The society in world society

Like world, society is an elusive term. However, this is a somewhat
more orderly elusiveness in the sense that most of its meanings belong
to one of two broad directions. On the one hand and this is the version
most common in the sociological literature society can be seen as a
social entity, mostly congruent with the boundaries of a nation-state.
This entity is integrated or held together by commonly shared norms,
values, institutions, a collective identity and so on (and is always a
variation on an underlying Gemeinschaft theme). On the other hand,
society can be seen as a more descriptive term referring simply to some
kind of social whole, regardless of whether this is in any way socially
integrated or not. Some uses of the term society in international
relations (global society, global civil society) usually refer to societies
of the rst type, but relax or indeed sever their close association with
the nation-state.
Although this is not the place to go through the conceptual history of
the notion of society in sociology, it seems fair to say that the tension
between society as something integrated and held together by some
form of Gemeinschaft and society as characterised by differentiation
has dominated thinking about the concept from its very inception (cf.
Riedel 1975). It reappears in treatments of social differentiation, and
particularly functional differentiation. The latter then either appears as
something which decomposes society, giving rise to the task of identi-
fying the mechanisms which can hold society together, or it appears as
something through which the specic form of modern society emerges
in the rst place.
The close association of society with the form of the nation-state,
which still dominates both its everyday use and its understanding in the
scientic literature, is by no means something which somehow befell
pre-existing conceptualisations of society in sociological thought. The
force of what often has been termed methodological nationalism in
this case is particularly visible in a closely intertwined process of
development. On the one hand, the (sociological) observation of

There is an additional observation by Simmel that applies here as well, namely

that: In every social appearance which can be found, content and societal form
make up a unitary reality; a social form cannot come into existence stripped of
any content, just as no spatial form could exist without any matter of which it
was the form (Simmel 1908: 6).
The world and society in world society 33

complex social arrangements as integrated, despite the seemingly cen-

trifugal tendencies of modernity (through functional differentiation),
provides the cognitive base that allows the idea of nations to be
transferred from more particular concepts (such as university student
unions in the German case) to the entirety of a people living within the
boundaries of a territorially demarcated state (see Schulze 1998). On
the other hand, the consolidation of territorial nation-state sovereignty
at the expense of other forms of organising political space, particularly
in the shape of a formal empire, requires the active curtailment of the
idea that integrating social bonds can exist beyond the boundaries of
the nation-state. Of course, this highly idealised characterisation of the
co-evolution of the nation-state and the idea of a nation-state society
does not do justice to the many intricate and varied developments that
underpinned this process between the late eighteenth and the early
twentieth centuries. However, the outcome is well known. Today the
argumentative burden is usually not on those who ask why the entirety
of social congurations within the territorial boundaries of a nation-
state, even if highly fragmented in terms of race, class, ethnicity and so
on, should be termed a society, but rather on those who wish to claim
that (international, global, world, etc.) society does not only or does
not even primarily exist within the connes of territorial nation-state
boundaries.
However, before addressing the issue of society beyond the nation-
state, it is necessary to clarify the two basic notions of society men-
tioned above. Referring to the one or the other has signicant
consequences for the possibility of talking about world society.
Rather than pursuing this clarication through a complete exegesis
of the extant sociological literature, I shall illustrate it by reference to
two thinkers, namely Jrgen Habermas and Niklas Luhmann. While,
at least in the social sciences in the English-speaking world, the
impact of the former has so far been greater than that of the latter,
much social theory in the German-speaking world over the last four
decades or so has been perceived through the meta-lens of
Habermas v. Luhmann. And, though often overblown in heated
debates, some of the differences between Habermas and Luhmann
provide a very good illustration of the two different forms of under-
standing society.
In a sense forming the very backbone of sociology as a systematic
way of thinking about modern society since the days of the disciplines
34 World society theory

founding fathers, Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, the diagnosis

that modern society/modern societies is/are functionally differentiated
remains undisputed (see Stichweh 2013 for an overview).14 Opinions
differ widely regarding the relevance of this observation, the exact form
and consequences of functional differentiation, and the relation
between it and other forms of differentiation (see next chapter).
There is, nevertheless, a shared sense that, for better or worse, func-
tionally dened realms of the social world, such as politics, the law, the
economy and so on, very much operate according to their own logic.
The main difference between the two ideal-typical understandings of
society (and of the role of sociology in it, which is the origin of the so-
called HabermasLuhmann controversy) becomes visible especially in
relation to how these functionally differentiated realms of the social
world are seen to relate to society as a whole. Habermas developed this
theme particularly in his Theory of Communicative Action (Habermas
1988). As a result of his reading of Parsons and further development of
Parsons ideas, he accords a very important (and growing) role to
functional differentiation in modern society. However and here he
is still following Parsons he also sees functional differentiation as
having a (partly manifest, partly latent) centrifugal effect on the life-
world, from which the social systems are increasingly decoupled. This
is the starting point for Habermass entire project, which is to reect
upon the ways in which society can be held together. The answer in a
nutshell is communicative action, that is, the philosophically grounded
idea that there are universal standards of validity in language under-
lying any truth claim, and that in any kind of ideal, non-authoritarian
discourse (herrschaftsfreier Diskurs), the forceless force of the better
argument will prevail. It is impossible to realise this ideal speech
situation, but its counterfactual anticipation forms the necessary back-
ground for validity claims in real speech situations. In a very basic
sense, a communicative community is the glue that holds society
together (and it is the basis on which legal and other kinds of norms,
moral orientations, institutions etc. are established). Communicative

14
This point can be illustrated nicely by reference to everyday language. Although
many people assert that all politics are driven by economic interests, or that legal
issues are dominated by political interests and so on, these observations require
that politics, the law, the economy and so on are seen as functionally differ-
entiated areas of society in the rst place a view simply rarely available in pre-
modern eras.
The world and society in world society 35

action is seen as a complementary notion to the lifeworld which, if

understood as the context forming the background of processes of
deliberation, [allows us to] analyse the reproduction of the lifeworld
under various functional aspects (Habermas 1988: 304).15 For
Habermas, society always necessarily includes the lifeworld: Luhmann
hypostatises a lifeworld pushed behind media-driven subsystems into
society, where subsystems are no longer directly attached to action
situations, but only form the background for organised systems of
action (Habermas 1988: 232). The target of this criticism, however, is
ostensibly not (only) Luhmann but also, and to a greater extent, Talcott
Parsons and the basic move from an action-based concept of society
towards the notion of the social system (Habermas 1988: 363).16 For
Habermas, systems and lifeworld are part of society, yet remain different
things that are also integrated differently through mechanisms of system
integration and social integration. In the end, his argument boils down to
two empirical claims. The rst of these is that throughout human history
there has been sufcient precursory understanding (Vorverstndigung),
so that reection on the rules applied in using language always makes it
possible to arrive at a sensible agreement, at least through a counter-
factual reference to the ideal speech situation.17 The second empirical
claim is that only the functional realms of empirical reproduction can be
differentiated from the lifeworld through steering media. The symbolic
structures of the lifeworld can only reproduce themselves through the
basic medium of action oriented towards reaching understanding; the
action systems related to cultural reproduction, social integration and
socialisation remain attached to the structures of the lifeworld and of

15
The prominent adoption of Habermas particularly by German IR since the mid-
1990s has focused on the issue of communicative versus instrumental rationality
in action settings that underlie the emergence of institutions and norms, and
completely ignored that, at least up until the Theory of Communicative Action,
Habermas also wrote on the theory of society.
16
Even though Parsons, throughout his works, keeps insisting, that a society
differentiated into various function systems requires a so-called societal com-
munity in order to hold together. For a concise recent statement of Habermas
difculties in following Luhmann regarding the relation between systems and
lifeworld, see Habermas (2014); also Fitzi (2015) for a proposal to go beyond
Habermas and Luhmann with a theory of trans-normative society formation.
17
The fact that Habermas sees this commonality in the use of language as being
established by the use of language in history marks a major departure from the
transcendental pragmatics of Apel, who would rather identify it as being
inherent in language (cf. Apel 1973).
36 World society theory

communicative action (Habermas 1988: 391). To cut a long story short,

Habermass account is quite sophisticated and would not simply claim
that integration through a community or a societal community is set
against the disintegrative effects brought about by functional differentia-
tion in some simple or even zero-sum relation. Still, his theoretical works
rely on, and remain variations on, an underlying theme: namely, there
can be no society other than one integrated and held together by some
kind of social glue. For Habermas, this glue is communicative action,
which underpins the reproduction of the lifeworld.
The development of the second type of notions of society by Luhmann
cannot easily be compared to the works of Habermas (and this is only
partly the case because whereas Habermas after his 1981 Theory of
Communicative Action wandered more and more into the area of poli-
tical theory, Luhmann continued to develop his theory of society parti-
cularly through two main works: Social Systems, published in 1984, and
The Society of Society, published in 199718). The basic differences
between the two approaches actually have less to do with the issue at
stake in the original HabermasLuhmann debate in the early 1970s
(Habermas and Luhmann 1972), namely the question of whether sociol-
ogys task should be to merely describe society, or whether it should be a
critical science (see also Fllsack 1998). More important here is that
Habermas designs his theory as subject-centred, reecting upon the
conditions of intersubjective practices of Verstndigung (understand-
ing). For Luhmann, however, the basic categories are not subject and
speech/understanding, but observation and communication. The impor-
tant point here is that this refers to a basic difference as to the main
question that underlies a theory of society. Rather than asking how
society is integrated, Luhmann asks how communication can continue.
It is thus explicitly anti-humanist in that people are not, in a strict sense,
a part of society: only observations of people, including the ascription of
agency, and communications are part of society. Although they are
meaning-processing systems as well, psychic systems are part of the
environment of social systems. Within a social system, it is impossible
to know what somebody really means or intends. Within social

18
The Society of Society is the literal translation of the original German title Die
Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. This title is in contradistinction to the many books
by Luhmann that deal with specic function systems of society (e.g. The Law of
Society, The Economy of Society). The English translation chose Theory of
Society as the title instead, thus losing this distinction.
The world and society in world society 37

systems, meaning is generated through the observation of intentions. Yet

it is impossible for social systems to directly access these intentions, as
they are operations of psychic systems. Social systems can only operate
on the basis of their own observations. This kind of theory is also
radically different from methodologically individualist accounts based
on various (rationalist) theories of action:

[T]he question of most interest to a theory of society, however, would be why

almost all possible actions and interactions do not take place. They obviously
lie beyond the scheme of possible motives and rational calculations. But how
does society accomplish this de-selection [aussortieren] of the nonetheless
possible. Why is it part of the meaning of forms of social life that these
tremendous surpluses of the possible remain unnoticed as unmarked space?
(Luhmann 1997: 39)

The theory of society that builds on these basic categories of observa-

tion and communication replaces the traditional notion of society as
some kind of a social whole that has parts with a distinction between
system and environment. From this perspective, society is not a whole
because it is made up of parts; it appears as a whole only through the
form of its internal differentiation. The question, then, is whether it is
legitimate to treat this kind of world society as a society at all. As
already mentioned, Habermas suspected that Luhmann kept the notion
of society only to cover the fact that the lifeworld was still hovering
somewhere at the back of social systems a lifeworld excluded from
social systems, yet still present thanks to world society still being
treated as society, rather than being referred to by a different term
(e.g. something along the lines of the highest-order social system
possible). However, it is exactly at this point where probably, for the
purposes of the argument developed here, the single most important
difference between Habermass and Luhmanns understandings of
society shows up, and where the two of them, in an almost ideal-typical
fashion, express two long-standing traditions in sociological thought
regarding the relation between society and its functional differentiation
in modernity.
To paint the picture in primary colours: for Habermas, specialisa-
tion, that is the differentiation and growing autonomy of (functionally
dened) social systems and their decoupling from the lifeworld, is
a development which happens to a society composed of subjects
and the practices of intersubjective understanding. Moreover, it is a
38 World society theory

development that potentially drives this society apart and fragments it.
It is probably not an overstatement to claim that Habermass entire
project, particularly in many of his writings after the Theory of
Communicative Action, is to resist or overcome this decoupling and
fragmentation through a critical-emancipatory endeavour.
For Luhmann, on the other hand, there is no such thing as modern
society that somehow precedes or exists outside its own form of
functional differentiation and to which differentiation can then hap-
pen. There is differentiation and a growing autonomy of (functionally
dened) social systems, and there are all kinds of coupling problems
between social systems associated with it yet this is what society is
about, as Luhmann sees it. Functional differentiation, in this view, does
not drive (modern) society apart, but in fact marks the limits and
possibilities of its evolution.
This is not the place to add to the vast amount of literature dealing
with the issue of whether Habermass and Luhmanns theories, or spe-
cic aspects of them, are somehow compatible with each other. The view
taken here is that, although at least up until the Theory of
Communicative Action they talked more to and about one another
than is usually realised in the Anglo-American reception of Habermass
work in particular, they are only partly compatible owing to the funda-
mental differences outlined,19 yet that these fundamental differences also
afrm their respective positions in two fundamentally diverging strands
of thought on the relation between functional differentiation and society,
namely the decomposition view, on the one hand, and the emergence
view, on the other (see Schimank and Volkmann 1999).
Although it certainly does not do justice to the complexity of the
matter, the sketch of these two basic ways of understanding society
given here has been a relatively elaborate one. Which of them one
adopts has tremendous consequences not only for what society could
mean beyond the context of the modern nation-state but also for the
very possibility of talking about society in this sense in the rst place.

19
The most prolic contemporary social theorist who tries to combine elements of
both is Hauke Brunkhorst. However, while he thoroughly thinks through the
consequences of Luhmanns systemstheory-based understanding of functional
differentiation and its implications, he remains with Habermas in the search for
some form of integrating device that will hold together a (world) society driven
apart by functional differentiation; see, for example, Brunkhorst (2002); cf.
also Albert (2014).
The world and society in world society 39

In everyday language, society remains strongly linked to the nation-

state: while it is very common to speak of Russian, French or Canadian
society, for example, it is far less usual to refer to North American or
Asian, or Southern Portuguese or British Columbian society. This pri-
marily reects the fact that, historically, society has been strongly tied
to the state (whether in opposition to it or in terms of one being a part of
the other) and that the modern nation-state has been very successful in
establishing dominance over other forms of statehood (though far less
successful in fully displacing them; see Chapter 4). Furthermore, it is this
strong coupling between the nation-state and society, which forms the
backbone of the methodological nationalism which explains the dom-
inance of the integrative version of society in theories of society. It is
only because of the dominance of the nation-state over other forms of
statehood, backed up by territorial exclusivity and positive collective
identication with the nation-state, that national society appears as
something that needs to be held together. In the history of the
European nation-states, this basically means that state-related societies
preceding the formation of nation-states (e.g. Bavaria or Prussia) have
been recoded into cultural traditions, and thus become folk entities that
ought to be preserved rather than societies to be integrated. When
emphasising the historically contingent but very rm relation between
society and state, it is worth pointing out that in many theories of society,
societies are rather abstract concepts without too many empirical refer-
ences. Thus, for example, Durkheim strongly emphasised the notion of
society at a time when it was hardly, if at all, possible to speak of a French
society in that sense (see Weber 1976).
This very close link between a specic notion of society on the one
hand and the modern nation-state on the other lies at the heart of
what has repeatedly been called methodological nationalism and is
what makes it so difcult to use a concept rmly wedded to the
modern nation-state in relation to realms beyond it. This difculty is
reected in the fact that, in the history of the discipline of
International Relations, concepts like international, global, world
society and so on have mostly been dealt with on the margins, the
centre being held rmly by the concept of an international system (of
states). However, following the observations above on the two very
different ways of conceptualising society and the rm connection
between the integrative mode and the evolution of the modern
nation-state-cum-society complex, this should hardly come as a
40 World society theory

surprise. If society is seen as something that necessarily requires a

strong form of community-backed integration, which the nation-state
achieves through the double move of clear and exclusive territorial
demarcation and the construction of a collective identity, then three
conclusions regarding the extension of this form of society beyond
the context of the nation-state are possible. The rst is basically the
answer most succinctly given by Parsons, namely that, while the
international system is also a social system, it does not qualify as a
society since what is lacking is the integrative device of the societal
community. The second, and this is the answer given by quite a few
authors in a broadly dened realist tradition, is that a world society
is something which is possibly worth hoping for, yet its realisation is
hindered by the lack of its corollary in the form of a world state. This
is an attitude that features strongly in Aron (1986) and Morgenthau
(Morgenthau and Thompson 1985). The most densely populated
ground, however, is probably that held by the third answer. It does
not sever the link between society and state, but, given the unlikeli-
hood of the emergence of a world state (here basically understood as a
nation-state writ large), sees other forms of society developing
beyond the state. This is the home ground of various accounts of a
global civil society, held together by shared values and norms (human
rights). However, this global civil society in most cases is not a state-
less society! Quite the contrary. The explicit emphasis on its being a
civil society reproduces and in fact emphasises the old statesociety
distinction. However, the state counterpart of global civil society is
neither the single nation-state nor a world state. Rather, depending on
the specic understanding of global civil society involved, the coun-
terpart in most cases is the collective of states.
Without entering into a detailed exegesis of these various uses of
society in the international/global realm, what they all share is an
implicit or explicit reference to some kind of community or commu-
nity-like bond that holds society together. This is a bold move com-
pared to the use of these terms in classical sociological literature.
Tnnies, in particular, ruled out the idea that some kind of
Gemeinschaft could exist in an international context although,
quite remarkably, he did not rule this out for Gesellschaft, nor for
Gemeinwesen [polity], which he saw as a separate social form from,
yet on equal footing with, society and community (see Tnnies 1972).
Although Tnnies distinction between Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft
The world and society in world society 41

(with the latter underpinning the former) forms the leitmotif for most
uses of society beyond the nation-state context (see Albert et al. 2000),
the picture gets rather complicated when it comes to more specic uses,
particularly of the concept of community.20
Community can mean fundamentally different things in relation to
the international community. It could be a community based on
dissent and differing interests (that is the anarchical international
system of states), which nonetheless bridges these differences through
institution building (roughly the pluralist version of English School
thought). Alternatively, it could be a community based on consent,
meaning that it is possible to arrive at a consensus because of shared
values and norms (this is roughly the solidarist version of English
School thought21). Either way, the main point remains that the ulti-
mate frame of reference is the integration of a society, though the
accounts vary on the exact elements of community formation
(Vergemeinschaftung) which accomplish this task (norms, institu-
tions, values). The counterfactual background assumption is always
the same: without such a moment of integration, international/global
society would decompose and ultimately fall apart (or fall back) into
a basic state of anarchy.
The question here is not whether relying on a form of society
historically wedded to the form of the nation-state is appropriate for
a number of specic purposes. It might, for example, be appropriate if
the analytical interest is normative in the sense that the establishment
of some kind of an equivalent to a nation-state society on the global
level is seen as good and worth striving for (even if it is unattainable,
as in realist accounts).22 The question here is rather whether such a
view of society is adequate if one is trying to arrive at a theoretical
description of the global social system of world society. The answer to
this question is no, if the strong bond between society and nation-

20
Jochen Walter currently works on a project providing an extensive history of the
concept of international community. It should be noted, though, that in IR quite
often the notions of society and community are used interchangeably; see, for
one example among many, Kavan (1982).
21
See Dunne (1998) for a good summary of the distinction (and the emergence of
this distinction) between the two versions of the English School of IR.
22
Although accounts that see society as normatively integrated do not necessarily
themselves have to be normative accounts, most of them are if only in the
minimal sense that they argue that society should rather be normatively inte-
grated than not integrated.
42 World society theory

state and the accompanying focus on social integration as a dening

feature of society are seen as contingent and passing features (albeit
temporarily very important ones) in the history of such a global social
system. Behind this no lies a shift in the underlying question asked by
a theory of society from How is society held together (in spite of
centrifugal tendencies)? to How did world society acquire its present
shape (in spite of numerous other possibilities)? The rst question
requires an answer that points to some substantive form of cohesion.
The second question requires a retrospective account of social
evolution.
The second kind of question underlies quite a broad tradition in
systems theory thought or even, according to Bunge, the extremely
broad view of systemism, according to which everything in the
universe is, was, or will be a system or a component of one (Bunge
2004: 190). This is not to paper over the differences between disci-
plines when it comes to thinking about systems. What they have in
common, however, is the view that every system is constituted by a
difference between system and environment. Depending on various
other basic theoretical assumptions, systems theory accounts differ
widely according to whether the system is an open or a closed one
(and to what openness and closeness actually refer). Yet they share as
a basic motive that they see social forms which are perceived as
order as things which emerge out of complexity (see Urry 2005)
and heterogeneity (see Mathisen 1959). The main issue, then, is not
how something is held together, but how structures evolve despite a
high degree of complexity and heterogeneity, with varying emphases
on whether the underlying problem to be explained is the reproduc-
tion of underlying social forms (see Eisenstadt 2001), or the conti-
nuation of communication (Luhmann 1997) under these conditions.
However, this reference to systems theory thought in particular begs
the question of whether it is appropriate to use the notion of society in
this context at all. Would global social system not be sufcient to
capture what is involved? Would any social scientic inquiry attempt-
ing to overcome traces of methodological nationalism not be better
advised to shed not only an important, but probably the most impor-
tant notion reproducing it, in order to arrive at something like a
sociology without society (see Touraine 1998)? Maybe the answer
to this question is ultimately a matter of taste taste inuenced by
how useful the term turns out to be in what it allows one to observe. It
The world and society in world society 43

is in such a modest sense that world and society can be put together
in what follows.

World society
World society refers to the encompassing global social system that is a
world society because it can be characterised through patterns of
internal social differentiation. It is a world society because its internal
operation not only takes place against a global horizon, but also
because it leads to the emergence of global structures and global
forms of self-description. While world society may be the highest-
order social system possible, meaning that anything social takes place
within world society, it would be highly misleading to characterise it as
a whole somehow made up of constituent parts. The important point
here is that, if world society is a social system, the scheme of parts and
the whole is replaced by the scheme of system and environment. This,
however, implies what could be termed a radical de-ontologisation of
the concept:

World society is not distinct from other societies because of ontological facts.
Thus the decisive question is not whether world society exists (in an
ontological sense). One has to talk about world society from the moment
when global players recognise each other in the difference between their
different ways of relating to the one and same world and this becomes
reexive. World society would thus be . . . a world horizon which opens up
if and when it establishes itself as real in communication. (Nassehi 1998:
162; italics in original)

As already noted above, it is particularly because of this characteristic

of world society that it is a global social system which, in a sense, only
exists in the form of its internal differentiation that it would be
misleading to conceptualise it by analogy with a concrete totality in
the Hegelian sense. World society is the overall social system consoli-
dated and evolved through modernity.23 And, although probably not
in the phenomenological dimension of world, at least in the structural
and the semantic dimensions, this evolution has never been a unidirec-
tional (let alone a teleological) or a synchronised process, which is
exactly what is meant by notions of variants of modernity or multiple
23
For the argument that Luhmanns theory of differentiation is a theory of mod-
ernity, see Mller (1994).
44 World society theory

modernities.24 While the evolution of social structures and semantics

within world society thus follows complex pathways, the novel and
decidedly modern innovation is that they take place within the horizon
of world and thus can be observed in relation to this horizon as
processes of the internal evolution of world society. While global
disparities exist in many important respects, for example in relation
to income or power distribution, it would be a misnomer to take this as
evidence of the co-existence of various worlds (see Senghaas and
Mader 2006; Czempiel 1991).
It is in that sense that the history of world society is the history of the
emergence of a global social system, but not a question of social
integration. It is at most a question of system integration and system
reproduction through differentiation, including various degrees and
forms of convergence and divergence that always remain in ux (see
Herkenrath et al. 2005; Meyer et al. 1997; Eisenstadt 2001):

We thus urgently require a revision of sociological notions and theories. They

should no longer start from the assumption of an independent society, but
from a multiplicity of societies with their intersocietal connections, external
relations, external conditions and other border-crossing forms of society
formation [Vergesellschaftungen] . . . Rather than presuming the existence
of society by denition, it is the task of sociology to inquire whether, when,
how and why a society emerges out of the multiplicity of
Vergesellschaftungen. (Tenbruck 1989: 429)

While this view of world society as the comprehensive global social

system differs from notions of world society that refer to it as, for
example, the community of mankind (see Bull 1977), there are simila-
rities particularly to neo-institutionalist accounts or earlier theories of
development. Thus, in essence both John Meyer and colleagues (Meyer
et al. 1997) and Peter Heintz (1982) see world society as a global social
system whose evolution is largely co-extensive with a process of mod-
ernisation (see Greve and Heintz 2005 for an overview). In the neo-
institutionalist case, however, there is a strong emphasis on world
society being constituted through the global spread of standards of
24
The relation between differentiation, social evolution and modernity is not a
central issue in this book. It is, however, quite remarkable that in IR this subject
has more recently been discussed largely in Trotskyist terms in the debate about
uneven and combined development (cf. Allinson and Anievas 2009), whereas
the sociological debates about the subject (for a good overview, see Haferkamp
and Smelser 1992) have largely been ignored in this debate.
The world and society in world society 45

Western rationality, with the most important issue being who or what
counts as a rational actor in the rst place. An account of world society
in terms of its internal differentiation remains more implicit here in the
sense that it stays hidden in the rationalities embedded in acting (see
Thomas 2010). Peter Heintzs account of world society strongly
focuses on differentiation, yet with a sole emphasis on world society
being a highly stratied system dened through different developmen-
tal strata.
The present account of world society does not exclude such
approaches, but rather views them as specic takes on specic aspects
of it. Put simply, if world society as the comprehensive social system is
not integrated, but if it achieves any kind of unity only because within
it differentiation in various forms is at work, then the history of this
world society can only be a history of the evolution of its internal
differentiation. In order to approach such a history, however, it is
necessary to rst detail the notion of differentiation and its various
forms underlying the present analysis. Before doing so, however, it
needs to be emphasised that such a systems-view is quite demanding,
as it is different from the cognitive imagery about the social world
deeply rooted in the social sciences and beyond. It requires a willingness
to treat this social world not as a neatly carved-up space where some
kind of whole is assembled from parts, rather, the social world is a
complex and multi-dimensional space which is marked by distinctions
(between, most notably, system and environment). It also requires at
least a relaxation of any assumptions that the social world can be
analysed by separating distinct levels there is no doubt that many
levels can be identied, but these are mostly inclusive, in the sense that
one and the same interaction can take place on different levels at the
same time. Thirdly, this results in the somewhat counter-intuitive
perspective in which something with world in it, including world
politics, is not somehow above other things. Most notably, world
politics does not refer to some kind of international system that is
somehow built on the foundations of domestic politics but is at the
same time above it. World politics is one subsystem of the political
system of world society no more, no less.
2 World society and social
differentiation
Segmentation, stratication and functional
differentiation

The concept of social differentiation is at one and the same time one of
the most overrated and one of the most underrated concepts in the
social sciences. While [o]bviously, not all social change is differentia-
tion (Alexander 1990: 1), everything social nevertheless takes place
within a social system characterised by forms of differentiation. So, the
concept of social differentiation is an underrated one in that few socio-
logical theories reect upon the specic forms of the differentiation of
society as boundary conditions of social change. However, in its func-
tion as not only one of the core concepts but probably the constitutive
concept for thinking about society in a systematic fashion, functional
differentiation in particular is also often overrated in terms of its
explanatory purchase.
It is difcult to dispute that functional differentiation that is, the
emergence of functionally dened realms of society like politics, law,
the economy and so on as relatively autonomous spheres of commu-
nication forms one of the central characteristics of modernity.
The history of how modern society emerged in this sense is at its core
a history of the relative demise of stratication. This history describes
a change from a situation in which competencies in all realms of society
were xed by belonging to specic strata (nobility, peasantry etc.), to
one in which, owing to the increasing importance of functional differ-
entiation, specic realms of society increasingly operated according to
their own logic and set of rules. However, while the story of modern
society as a functionally differentiated society has had many variations,
the story of modern society as world society in terms of its differentia-
tion has so far been less well elaborated. The aim of this chapter (as well
as of this book as a whole) is to remedy this situation to some degree.
To push the observation above that while not all of society is
differentiation, there is none of the former without the latter a little

46
World society and social differentiation 47

further, it makes little sense to talk about the global social system as
a world society, if the latter cannot be described, at least in part,
through its internal differentiation. This internal differentiation,
which invariably includes the simultaneous presence of different
forms of social differentiation, describes the boundary conditions for
the emergence of specic structures within the system (although these
boundary conditions and structures are intertwined in social evolu-
tionary processes and there is no simple causal relation between them).
What differentiation theory if applied not in a functionalist, but in an
open analytical sense can provide is an account of the historically
specic range of social forms which can be found within society. It can
also help us to think about the possibilities of social change on a larger
scale. What it cannot do is to provide detailed accounts of specic
events. In this sense, a theory of world society which is understood as
a form of differentiation theory can say little about detailed forms of
social interaction and change (much as, for example, a Theory of
International Politics in the Waltzian sense cannot be, and does not
claim to be, about the specic foreign policies of specic countries).
This is also to say that, while forms of differentiation represent power-
ful ordering principles, they do not order or structure everything; they
are not causal principles but rather a kind of lter through which
communication and social evolution proceed.
This chapter will briey introduce the concept of social differentia-
tion. This will require us to come back to the issue of there being two
fundamentally different views of society and its relation to functional
differentiation the decomposition view and the emergence view
that largely correspond to the two fundamentally different views of
society outlined in the rst chapter. Then, in a second step, the three
main forms of social differentiation that can be identied will be
introduced segmentation, stratication and functional differentia-
tion. This will be followed by a short discussion of the issue of
a primacy of one form of differentiation over the other in world
society, and, in this context, the specic question of whether there are
or can be regional variations in relation to differentiation.
Completing the conceptual and theoretical groundwork for the fol-
lowing chapters, this chapter will also address the relation between
function systems, which express the functional differentiation of
society, and other forms of social system, most notably interaction
systems and organisations, as well as providing a summary of the
48 World society theory

concept of social evolution applied in the present context. The chapter

will conclude with some remarks about how the differentiation theory
view provides powerful alternative narratives to seeing the world, and
particularly world politics, through the usual perspective of levels.

Differentiation as a core concept

Differentiation, like modernisation or rationalisation, forms one of the
most important core concepts of sociology. One could indeed go so far
as to claim that the emergence of the concept of functional differentia-
tion and the systematic scientic inquiry into a meaningful realm called
society that is the raison dtre of the academic discipline of sociology
are one and the same. The origins of thinking about functional differ-
entiation as a dening characteristic of modern society can be traced to
the founding fathers of sociology as a science, Herbert Spencer
and Auguste Comte. In fact, Spencer formulated elements of a theory
of social evolution well before Darwin did the same for the natural
world. In doing so, he not only provided the basis for, but actually
preceded, many later theories of differentiation in that he shifted atten-
tion from the question of how some kind of (incoherent) homogeneity
in the social world is established and preserved to the question of how
society functions and evolves as a (coherent) heterogeneity:

The advance of organisation which thus follows the advance of aggregation,

alike in individual organisms and in social organisms, conforms in both cases
to the same general law: differentiations proceed from the more general to
the more special. First broad and simple contrasts of parts; then within each
of the parts primarily contrasted, changes which make unlike divisions of
them; then within each of these unlike divisions, minor unlikelinesses; and so
on continually. (Spencer [1904] 1966: 230)

The view of society as some kind of a social organism primarily stems

from efforts by the early sociologists to establish the respectability of
sociology as a science vis--vis the natural sciences (see Turner and
Maryanski 1979: 5). This move, however, also establishes the problem
of the unity of this social organism at the heart of sociological theory.
The guiding questions then are: what legitimises thinking of society as
something that hangs together in a meaningful sense? What legiti-
mises upholding an assumption of even minimal unity in spite of the
high degree of diversity and heterogeneity within any society?
World society and social differentiation 49

To a signicant extent, the answers to these questions build on the

assumption that societies take shape within specic nation-states and
that integration is achieved, to varying degrees, by a specic territorial/
nation-state and its institutions, a (national) collective identity and
commonly shared values and norms. However, this still leaves open
the question of how to deal with the observation that societies intern-
ally are highly diverse and differentiated.
It forms a common leitmotif of sociological thought that modern
society is characterised by a high degree of functional differentiation,
that, in fact, functional differentiation and the emergence of modern
society go hand in hand. This functional differentiation is observed in
varying terms, for example as role specialisation or, prominently, as
division of labour (Durkheim). Common to all approaches is the idea
that specialised parts of society, for example politics, law, the economy
and so on, full specic functions. Functional specialisation allows
a more efcient reproduction of society than would be possible without
it or indeed than in the pre-modern order where stratication, that is,
belonging to specic hierarchical strata (for example nobility versus
peasants, upper versus working classes) provides the dening ordering
principle for society.
However, despite this shared diagnosis that modern society is char-
acterised by some form of functional differentiation, there are two very
different readings of what this implies for society as a whole the
decomposition view and the emergence view (of which, as discussed
in the previous chapter, Habermass and Luhmanns theories respec-
tively are two prominent and relatively recent examples).1
The decomposition view is possibly best expressed in Durkheims
Division of Labour in Society (Durkheim 1933) and operates on the
basis of the idea that society pre-exists as a meaningful cultural entity
whose stability is compromised by an evolution that decomposes it into
ever more specialised units, subsystems and roles.2 If society in this
sense is seen as something held together by some form of community
(Gemeinschaft) and a shared culture/collective identity, then functional
differentiation necessarily appears as something that threatens to

1
It is also possible to identify fundamental philosophical differences underlying
these two different views; see Stichweh (2013).
2
See Thomas (2013) for the argument that functional differentiation takes place in
rationalised cultural contexts. These contexts are thus in a sense prior to, or
somehow mediate, differentiation.
50 World society theory

undermine these communal bonds. Such a view also underlies the

concerns of Tnnies (1972), who worried about the loss of
Gemeinschaft in the transition to modernity and Gesellschaft. Crucial
to this view is an account of what it is in the rst place that makes
society hang together despite the ongoing processes of differentiation.
This social glue is variously referred to as solidarity (Durkheim),
a societal community (Parsons) or a lifeworld (Habermas), all of
which point to the realm of shared values and norms as the counter-
force to the centrifugal tendencies of functional differentiation.
The emergence view, most notably represented by Simmel, Weber
and later Luhmann, sees functional differentiation as a process of
emergence (see Schimank and Volkmann 1999: 8ff). In other words,
the processes of functional differentiation itself the emergence of
recognisably different spheres of politics, law, economics, religion
and so on are what accounts for the existence of society as a social
whole in the rst place (see Nassehi 2004). Here, functional differen-
tiation is integral to the existence of society, not antagonistic to it.
Functional differentiation then does not mean that an integrated
whole is somehow decomposed, but rather that, as society evolves
through functional differentiation, it undergoes a process of newly
emerging structures and systems. To put it differently: functional dif-
ferentiation does not tear apart modern society; rather, it would be
simply impossible to talk about modern society if it was not
a functionally differentiated one in the rst place. At its most extreme,
this view refers to Max Webers shunning of the notion of society in
what could be characterised as sociology without society (Touraine
1998). Simmel (1908) likewise uses society simply to mean the agglom-
eration of social forms. Luhmann completes this turn by asserting that
society (which, for him, cannot be anything but world society) can only
appear as such because it is internally differentiated, there is no inte-
grating force in addition to the form of functional differentiation itself
(see below).
These two different views of functional differentiation largely corre-
spond to the two fundamentally different approaches to society dis-
cussed in the previous chapter. However, different theories of society
accord varying degrees of importance to the concept of functional
differentiation. The two theories of society that most prominently
build on it are Parsons on the one hand and Luhmanns on the other.
Yet while both, in a sense, exemplify the two different views of society
World society and social differentiation 51

discussed at length earlier, they also vary as to whether they see func-
tional differentiation more in an analytical fashion (Parsons), or more
as characterising structures of society and processes of social change.3
However, and reiterating a point made in the previous chapter, it seems
fair to say that the view that society is somehow glued together, and
functional differentiation exerts a decomposing effect, dominated
sociological thought in the twentieth century. Much of the function-
alist thought in this context had then to deal with two basic problems
inherent in this view. The rst is whether functional differentiation
primarily refers to a process and thus describes the emergence and the
evolution of society, or whether what it primarily describes in fact is the
way society is structured.4 The second, related, problem concerns the
relation between functional and causal analysis.
Although they were identied as separate by Durkheim (yet are often
difcult to separate in practice), functional analyses over time have been
full of conations of these two questions. Causal analysis asks: Why does
the structure in question exist and reveal certain properties? Functional
analysis asks: What need of the larger systems does the structure meet?
To confuse the two questions is to invite an illegitimate teleology where
consequences cause the events producing them (Turner and Maryanski
1979: 1718). From these two basic problems follows a third, which
becomes particularly important in relation to societies other than nation-
state societies. It has to do with the question of whether functional
differentiation primarily refers to functional differentiation within society,
or to functional differentiation as the emergence of society. The difference
is more than a minor semantic issue. It addresses the question of whether
society can indeed be seen as some historically pre-existing whole in
which, at some point, processes of functional differentiation take off, or
whether it is actually processes of functional differentiation, that is, the
emergence of recognisably different spheres of politics, law, economics,
religion and so on, which account for the existence of society as a social
whole in the rst place (see Nassehi 2004).5
While the aforementioned problems represent basic challenges to
theories of functional differentiation, they have been dealt with in

3
See Luhmann (1980); Luhmann (1988) on this issue.
4
This and the following paragraphs draw on the elaboration on the subject already
contained in Buzan and Albert (2010).
5
On the issue of the social whole and the question of differentiation, see Albert
and Buzan (2013); also Thomas (2013).
52 World society theory

various ways by a number of functionalist thinkers (although they

arguably still lie at the heart of much functionalist thought when it is
applied at a global level, see next section). Talcott Parsons provided
the most comprehensive reformulation and further development of
early functionalist thought. He offers innovative solutions to at least
the rst two of the three problems mentioned. A few elements of
Parsons work stand out in the present context because they provide
a necessary bridge for understanding the later, more radical refor-
mulation of the theory of functional differentiation by Luhmann.
Parsons arrived at his version of functional analysis primarily
through his account of the Structure of Social Action (Parsons
1968). Here the leading question was why social structures persist
as regular, institutionalised patterns of interaction. His (and
Smelsers; see Parsons and Smelser 1956) answer led him to develop
the famous AGIL-scheme, according to which adaptation (A), goal
attainment (G), integration (I) and latency (L) are basic problems
which a social system has to address and solve continuously in order
to reproduce itself (that is, to survive). This led Parsons to analyse
social structures in functional terms with regard to how they manage
to address these requirements. It also led to the insight that a major
characteristic of modern society is that the social systems serving
different functions increasingly operate independently of each other.
This is neither a causal nor an ontological statement, but purely
a statement on the operation of social systems. It is also a statement
to be understood on the basis of a highly consequential theoretical
innovation in the later work of Parsons. In the end, Parsons claims
that the relation between interaction systems is purely informational
in the sense that it is expressed in symbolically generalised media of
exchange such as money or power. Returning to the three basic
problems mentioned above, Parsons at least implicit answer to the
rst two is quite clear. On the one hand, he combines structural and
processual analysis. The functional realms of society and their struc-
tures are reproduced by addressing the problems of AGIL. On the
other hand, while social systems can be analysed and usefully
described by functional analysis, in the end it is social interaction
that underlies functional differentiation. This means that social
interaction can always be different from system requirements and
fail to solve the problems of AGIL functional analysis is thus not
to be conated with causal (or structuralist) analysis.
World society and social differentiation 53

However, Parsons is much less clear on the third problem men-

tioned above, that is the problem of functional differentiation within
as opposed to a functional differentiation of society. In the end, he
remains ambiguous as to what the society/social system he addresses
actually is. This ambiguity stems from two sources: on the one hand,
the answer Parsons gives to the question of what holds society
together in spite of an ongoing process of functional differentiation
is quite clear a societal community with underlying shared world-
views and values is required in order to constitute society as an
integrated whole despite a high degree of inherent heterogeneity.
On the other hand, Parsons claims that his analysis applies to all
social systems and thus can at least in some part be applied to the
international system, which he takes to be a social system (see
Parsons 1999). However, he neither conducts an analysis of the
international system himself nor provides an answer as to what
might serve as the necessary equivalent to the societal community
(represented by the idea of a nation in the case of most states) in the
international system. He thus concludes that, while his theory of
social systems is universally applicable, the international system
remains, in his terms, only a social system, not a society.
The latter depends on a high degree of normative integration only
attained in the form of the territorial state. This does not lead
Parsons to conclude that there would be no social order and no
normative integration in the international system. On the contrary,
Parsons makes a number of points regarding order and normative
integration in this respect. In the rst place, for him the international
system is not a Hobbesian anarchic one, but is characterised by
a certain amount of order. This order is mainly represented by
a global organisation (the United Nations) which can have a very
appreciable effect, particularly in legitimising the establishment of
elementary political order under auspices other than those of the
most powerful outside interests immediately involved (Parsons
1969: 302; italics in original). Parsons reads this order as manifested
in the fact that there is an ideological polarisation (between East and
West). This polarisation shows the sense not only in which the
whole world has come to be a single political system, but also in
which it is coming to be structured as something resembling, however
remotely, a two-party system (Parsons 1969: 302f; see Mahlert 2005
on this particular point). Parsons maintains that the international
54 World society theory

order exhibits some degree of normative integration stemming from

ties of solidarity across borders, both generally in terms of interna-
tional law and the acceptance of procedural norms and more speci-
cally in terms of solidary associations, a view he later strengthens
when he starts to talk about the existence of a world community
(see Parsons 1967). Yet Parsons views on the characteristics of the
international order or the world community remain vague in the
end. He sees both as being immature forms of social order if com-
pared to (national) society. Although Parsons explicitly states that
the nation-state is, with some qualications, the product of a process
of social differentiation (Parsons 1969: 297; emphasis added), his
theory remains a theory relating to national society only. While
Parsons offers quite a number of important insights and takes the
analysis of functional differentiation to a new level, the implications
for the analysis of social systems beyond the realm of the nation-state
remain underspecied even in his own few contributions on the
notion of international order.
This situation changes with the further development of the theory of
functional differentiation and its merger with a theory of social systems
by Luhmann. In one important respect, Luhmanns work represents
a further development and a radicalisation of Parsonian thought.
Building on Parsons idea that social interaction is expressed through
symbolically generalised media of exchange, Luhmann argues that,
because what can be observed is not minds but only communication,
society itself is based on and constituted by communication (and
people appear only as persons, that is as addresses of communication).
One far-reaching consequence already follows from this basic con-
ceptual move: if society is constituted by communication (and all com-
munication is part of society; there can be no non-social
communication), then society, at least since the full discovery of the
globe, can only be thought of as world society, since potentially all
communication can connect to all other communication. World society
in this sense is thus the highest-order social system conceivable.
However, Luhmanns answer to the differentiation of/in society pro-
blematic reveals the fundamentally paradoxical nature of society: it
cannot be imagined as some kind of integrated whole, but can be
imagined as integrated only insofar as it is functionally differentiated.
This paradoxical nature of world society is to be understood against the
background of another theoretical innovation in Luhmanns work,
World society and social differentiation 55

namely the merger of a theory of functional differentiation with

a systems theory.
The systems theory borrows heavily from theories of self-
referentiality and autopoiesis developed in the natural sciences by
Maturana, Varela and others, which stress that complex systems are
operatively closed, which means they produce all their elements
within themselves. This idea is applied by Luhmann to social systems,
meaning that operatively closed social systems produce all meaning
(the system elements) within themselves. They do this on the basis of
an observation of the difference between system and environment.
This, for example, means that no communication can enter the legal
system. The legal system produces all communication as legal commu-
nication (on terms set by its basal code legal/illegal) within itself.
It does so by means of observing its environment and the difference
between system and environment (it is necessary to bear in mind here
that this concept only makes sense if social systems such as the legal
system are seen as communicatively constituted systems, and not sys-
tems constituted by persons, institutions etc.; more on this later).6
Consequently, Luhmann replaces the semantic and analytical gure
of imagining and analysing society/social systems in terms of parts/
whole (system/subsystem) with an analysis of social systems in terms of
system/environment.
This means that every operatively closed social system builds models of
the world around it through observing the difference between system and
environment. There is no direct communication between social systems
(similar to the way that there is no direct exchange of thoughts between
psychic systems but only an observation of the difference between con-
sciousness and its environment). The basic question for a theory of society
built on such premises is: How does communication continue? (and not:
What holds society together?). Such a systems theory does not deny that
causal forces operate. However, it would claim that a complex system
does not and cannot observe all relevant causalities at the same time (any
system reduces causal complexity) and that for the sociological perspec-
tive, and particularly systems theory analyses, causal explanations are so
demanding that they should not be employed at the level of general
theoretical claims (Luhmann 1997: 570).

6
Another important part of Luhmanns systems theory is his application of the
calculus of form particularly developed by Spencer Brown (1994).
56 World society theory

To summarise, Operative closure means that meaning is consti-

tuted within social systems only:
[S]ystem differentiation is nothing more than the reapplication of system
formation to itself, as the repetition of system formation within itself. In this
way system formation means the establishment, at any time, of a difference
between system and environment. The formation of subsystems reconstructs
the whole system within systems in part as subsystem and in part as the
internal environment of the system, seen from the subsystem. Thus, every
subsystem of society, together with its internal social environment, is the
whole society. And, together with its (socially internal and socially external)
environment it is also the world, viewed and treated from a differentiated
perspective. (Luhmann 1990: 419)

It is this kind of systems-oriented approach to functional differentia-

tion which centrally accounts for the fact that a decomposition view is
inappropriate in this case, since it rests on a mental construct in which
a whole of some kind can disintegrate into its parts. Yet
system differentiation specically does not mean that the whole would be
decomposed into parts and, on this level, would only continue to exist as
these parts and the relations between these parts. Rather every subsystem
reconstructs the system which encompasses it, to which it belongs and which
it operatively co-realizes, through its own (subsystem-specic) difference
between system and environment. (Luhmann 1997: 598; italics in original)7

It would be going too far in the context of the present argument to

elaborate more fully on the particulars of this line of thought.
Nonetheless, it is important to reiterate the consequences that follow
from not using the partswhole scheme to view a functionally differ-
entiated society, as this is a point very often misunderstood in readings
of systems theory approaches. If a society is primarily differentiated
functionally and its function systems are treated as operatively closed,
this does not mean that its political, legal, economic and other systems
form neatly carved-up building blocks making up society as a whole.
7
As Luhmann (1997: 598) hints in a footnote in this context and repeatedly on
other occasions, what is at stake here is nothing less than a criticism of what he
calls the semantics of Old Europe, such as the partswhole scheme, and the
metaphysical baggage which comes along with it. This criticism is shared parti-
cularly with the radical (post-) structuralism of Jacques Derrida. However,
while Derrida dissolves and subverts the unity of the form partswhole through
the temporal moment of diffrance, Luhmanns solution is operative in respect
to the difference between system and environment.
World society and social differentiation 57

On the contrary, it would probably be much more helpful to see them

as the primary logics according to which society functions logics
which cannot, however, be changed on demand, but are the result of
long-term evolutionary developments and rest on the basis of system
differentiation and operative closure as well as the corresponding
development of symbolically generalised media of communication
(such as power in the political system, or money in the economic
system8). However, much of what is actually happening in society
takes place simultaneously in different function systems. Thus, for
example, a governments decision to acquire a new type of weaponry is
clearly a communicative operation within the political system; yet it is
also an operation within the economic system (the weapon costs
money), and within the legal system (contracts need to be signed by
the producer, the government is bound by budgetary rules etc.). It is in

8
This book generally goes along with the Parsonian/Luhmannian concept of
symbolically generalised media of communication, and particularly with the
notion that the symbolically generalised medium of communication in the poli-
tical system is power. While it is recognised that there is quite a long and elaborate
debate on this issue, the argument in this book works without engaging with this
debate in detail, and particularly without going into the issue of the many
individual specications of the medium. The crucial point, which will also
become clear in the discussions on the balance of power in Chapter 3, is that, as
a symbolically generalised medium, power can be specied in different contexts
in numerous ways, just like money as a symbolically generalized medium in the
economic system can be specied in different forms (as currencies which can be
traded or not, as coins, notes, bitcoins, or mere blinks on the screen simulating
real value). I owe this point to a remark by one reviewer who sees limits to the
comparability of power and money, as the former lacks the fungibility and the
measurement and store functions of money. While the latter observation is
obviously correct, it also pertains to other symbolically generalised media of
communication, such as art, love or truth. Yet such a characteristic is not
a characteristic of symbolically generalised media of communication as such, but
points to a specic programme in the economic system (exchange in the market).
Power in the political system is specied in many different forms of rule and
authority, which is why Chapter 4 uses the neutral expression forms of orga-
nising political authority. One could indeed debate at length the issue of fung-
ibility and measurement. While there certainly is no equivalent to the market as
far as power is concerned, there is a long and elaborate procedure for actually
comparing power (in terms of people under arms, tanks, nuclear missiles etc.).
I have chosen to take up this important issue at length in a footnote, rather than in
the main text, not only because the history of power comparison is my next
larger-scale project following the present one, but also because I think that going
over the ner points of the debate on power as a symbolically generalised medium
of communication will lead into debates in systems theory that are both of little
interest to most readers and of little consequence for the argument to follow.
58 World society theory

that sense that functional differentiation actually increases the demand

for coordination within society. There is communication which trans-
cends systems-internal systems boundaries. From this follows an
increasing demand for organisation in the course of social evolution.
Only as an organisation that is in the form of the representation of its
own unity can a system communicate with its environment (Luhmann
1997: 607).
Following these historical and theoretical observations on the evolu-
tion of the sociological concept of (functional) differentiation, the
question is how this concept relates to the actual evolution of society/
societies. Which forms of differentiation exist and how do they relate to
each other? Two remarks are in order before dealing with these two
questions: rst, talking about differentiation in relation to world
society poses a specic problem. The concept of functional differentia-
tion was developed in sociology mainly in relation to Western Europe
(and later North America). This leads to the issue of whether it is
applicable to a global world society, or whether there exists some
kind of regional variation in differentiation. Second, in the end it is
impossible to answer this question theoretically with the concept of
differentiation. The answers need to be empirical in the sense that it is
necessary to identify which forms of differentiation have been in play in
historical and contemporary societies.

Forms of differentiation
Where the forms of differentiation that characterise historical and
contemporary societies are concerned, three elements seem to be lar-
gely undisputed: rstly, modern society is characterised by some form
of functional differentiation; secondly, functional differentiation chal-
lenges and quite radically changes the primarily hierarchical character
of pre-modern, stratied society, which in turn historically emerged
from segmented society;9 thirdly, society is not characterised by one

9
Admittedly, use of the terms society in the singular and societies in the plural
can often be quite confusing. In the broad theoretical tradition on which this
book builds, social differentiation only happens if society is already there or if
facts point to its emergence. There can, strictly speaking, be no differentiation
between societies, as there can be no other society but world society (there could
be different world societies with no knowledge of each other, but they would not
be socially differentiated against each other).
World society and social differentiation 59

form of differentiation only. Thus, in spite of functional differentiation

forming a major characteristic of modern society, modern society also
exhibits strong elements of stratication and segmentation (see later on
the question of the primacy of one or the other form of differentia-
tion). While segmentation, stratication and functional differentiation
form important characteristics of contemporary society, the picture is
less clear-cut regarding centreperiphery differentiation. The question
here is whether centreperiphery differentiation can actually be seen as
a form of differentiation in its own right (rather than as a particular
conuence of segmentation and stratication).
Segmental differentiation means that society is differentiated into
equal subsystems, for example families, clans, tribes and villages.
Structurally, this form of differentiation is mostly expressed through
forms of territorial delimitation or rules of kinship. It is, however,
important to point out that segmentation is far from being a natural
or archaic state of affairs. It is, after all, a form of the differentiation
of society: There is always society before there is family. The family
is constituted as a form of differentiation of society, rather than
society being assembled by families (Luhmann 1997: 634f). While
segmentation still plays an important role in modern society, parti-
cularly because of the persistence of the social form of the family, in
general it takes a backseat to stratication and functional differen-
tiation. In addition, it has an outstanding importance within the
function systems of law (sovereign equality) and politics (territorial
states).
In stratied societies, a difference in rank gradually displaces the
equality of subsystems. While stratication provides an ordering princi-
ple for the entire society, it is historically dependent on both the forma-
tion of a more or less self-enclosed, relatively small upper stratum (no
society has invented stratication by rst consolidating a relatively
large lower class). While stratication usually requires a specic degree
of political centralisation (see below on centreperiphery differentia-
tion), it also requires forms of delimitation between subsystems that
are different from those involved in segmentation. Thus, most notably,
territorial delimitation becomes less important in stratied societies,
which means that, for example, territorial boundaries are not an impor-
tant means of distinguishing the nobility, clergy or peasantry from one
another. It is replaced by, or overlaid with, abstractions of symbolisa-
tion which often are secured through parallel politico-theological
60 World society theory

constructions (Luhmann 1997: 681). Stratication thus requires both

a ceremonial reproduction as well as a reproduction through commu-
nicative practice of the difference in rank among those present.
Stratication is thus reproduced by being permanently recollected
whenever people of different rank are together (Luhmann 1997: 681).
Again, it is important to note here that, in stratied societies too, other
forms of differentiation are in play. However, they typically remain
conned to specic strata. Thus, membership of the nobility is through
birth alone and cannot usually be achieved by even the best scientist, the
richest tradesman or the most faithful cleric. These attributes may under-
lie the evolution of functionally specic processes establishing orders of
rank within ranks, but do not challenge the main principle of
stratication.
An orientation towards functionally specic processes marks the
demise of stratication in the evolution of a functionally differentiated
society. This evolution is not a neat transition, but a long and complex
process.

It is decisive that at some point the recursivity of autopoietic reproduction

turns upon itself and effects a closure, from which point on only politics
counts for politics, only art counts for art, only abilities and the willingness to
learn count for education, only capital and surplus count for the economy.
(Luhmann 1997: 708)

As pointed out earlier, one of the most important innovations of func-

tional differentiation, in contrast to stratication, concerns the specic
universality of function systems. These not only reconstruct and
observe society in its entirety through their specic logic but also
claim a universal competence in their functionally specied realms.
Scientic claims would not be accepted as legitimate because their
proponent was a high-ranking cleric; an act would not be judged to
be legal because the defendant was rich; money would not be paid to
someone simply because that person was religious. These illustrative
examples highlight that a form of social differentiation is not to be
confused with what goes on in specic interaction settings. Nobody
would dispute that money inuences legal proceedings, or that power
inuences economic success on many occasions. However, the point is
that such inuences are observed as irregularities and that the regular
expectation is that the logic of functional differentiation beats stra-
tication. Thus, even if in a highly corrupt system the powerful and rich
World society and social differentiation 61

are regularly found not guilty, the verdict will refer to legal norms and
not to the fact that the defendant is powerful or rich.10
In contrast to segmentation, stratication and functional differentia-
tion, whether the differentiation between centre and periphery is a form
of social differentiation in its own right is less clear and more disputed.
The basic idea behind seeing it as such stems from the empirical
observation that the consolidation of empires relies on a distinction
between a core and a periphery that structures relations of power (as
domination) and economic extraction. However, while
centreperiphery differentiation is always at work in addition to
other forms of differentiation, it still seems to operate on a different
level. It can to some extent be argued that centreperiphery always was
more than a kind of differentiation secondary to the other forms,
segmentation, stratication and functional differentiation. Asserting
its primacy, however, usually entails the corresponding move of declar-
ing one function system to be more important than others (like, most
notably, the economy in the case of Wallerstein 19741989), or draw-
ing a strict level distinction between multiple (national) societies and
some form of international society (or, as in Buzan 2004a, a society of
societies). This points to a more general problem: while the theory of
social differentiation, which counts segmentation, stratication and
functional differentiation as the historically relevant forms, was devel-
oped with forms of society in mind that were spatially relatively
enclosed (yet not necessarily clearly territorially demarcated),
centreperiphery differentiation originally refers to larger-scale social
formations. This in turn means that the problem lies probably less in
the difference between a centre and a periphery and more in the fact
that sociological theory thus far has paid only scant attention to the
10
The two reviewers of the manuscript both raised a point regarding how strati-
cation is treated in this book. One said it was downplayed; the other praised the
book for emphasising it. They are, in a sense, both right. This book stresses the
fact that stratication continues to play an important role throughout social
systems, thus departing from the often narrow emphasis on functional differ-
entiation in works drawing on systems theory. But though it agrees that strati-
cation exists in many different forms (less in terms of estate now, but more in
terms of access to basic goods, gender, class etc.), the point here is that in modern
(world) society functional differentiation has successfully undermined its pri-
macy over all other forms of differentiation (so that in spite of class background
or gender it is possible to vote or win a case in court although this does not
suggest at all that inequalities on the basis of heterogeneity do not persist and are
not widespread).
62 World society theory

issue of how the main forms of social differentiation relate to such

larger-scale formations (international societies, world society). As will
be discussed later, this seeming problem with centreperiphery differ-
entiation, as well as the possible importance of regional differences it
indicates, disappears if social differentiation is read in a world society
context.11
Before we turn to the differentiation of world society, however, one
thing needs to be made clear: neither historically nor in the contempor-
ary world, should we see forms of differentiation as mutually exclusive.
Most forms of differentiation can be found in most forms of society
most of the time. The important question is their importance in relation
to each other. Each form of differentiation stands for a specic ordering
principle (see also Albert and Mahlert 2013). As a rule, different
ordering principles cannot be maximised at the same time and in the
same place (the exception here probably being periods of epochal
turnover and crisis). This means that it is highly unlikely to nd
a society segmented to the same degree as it is stratied, or stratied
to the same degree as it is functionally differentiated.12 Nevertheless,
different forms of differentiation are usually present simultaneously in
society, though the intensity (see also Clark 1989) of specic forms of
differentiation within a society varies historically and seems to vary
from society to society as well. This leads directly to the question of
whether, and to what degree, these forms of differentiation, observed in
historical societies, can actually be used to describe world society
used, that is, in relation to society as a singular social system. While this
issue has, to some degree, recently been addressed in terms of
a regional variation of functional differentiation, more is at stake
here, probably, than simply acknowledging that differentiation works
differently in different regions of world society. If some kind of
regional differentiation were so important in and for world society,
then the claim that world society is primarily differentiated

11
See Luhmann (1997: 663678). But, unlike in the Luhmann passage just
referred to, the notion of centre and periphery in relation to function systems
need not necessarily have any geographical connotations at all. It is meant more
in the sense that, for example, court verdicts would seem to be more central to
the legal system than the contract concluded between two parties when buying
a can of soda.
12
I have elsewhere also made the argument that areas of society where incompa-
tible ordering principles directly associated with forms of differentiation are at
work are preferred sites for the emergence of conict; see Albert (2008).
World society and social differentiation 63

functionally and not primarily differentiated into regional segments

would start to sound somewhat odd.

Regional variations of differentiation?

There can be little doubt that functional differentiation is a dening
feature of modern society. Although its importance vis--vis other
forms of differentiation varies over time and from society to society,
it also seems safe to assume that, for modern society, functional
differentiation usually constitutes the primary form of differentia-
tion (as mentioned earlier, this observation is, in a sense, part of the
emergence and the raison dtre of sociology as a scientic disci-
pline). This means, most notably, that in modern society functional
differentiation usually trumps stratication. In other words, while
stratication continues to play a very important role, if there is
a clash, functional differentiation wins out. The rich and powerful
can be subjected to police interrogation; court verdicts cannot be
formulated in accordance with how much money someone pos-
sesses; political power does not translate into the ability to enforce
scientic truth claims and so on.
It is without doubt possible to identify many historical and contem-
porary states of affairs in which functional differentiation breaks
down, either in totalitarian systems or in wartime. But
a breakdown of this kind must not be confused with a situation in
which functional differentiation would not be available in society as
a dening characteristic of modern society, it is not something which
could simply be switched off, though different ordering principles
might be temporarily maximised at its expense.
Nonetheless, these observations all point to the differentiation the-
ory repertoire of sociological thought and refer rst and foremost to
forms of differentiation and the primacy of functional differentiation
within societies. There can be little doubt that differences exist and
always have existed. These differences in the historical evolution and
the relative importance of functional differentiation have been
addressed as multiple modernities (Eisenstadt 2000) or as differences
in the process of civilisation (Elias 2009). It is certainly also possible to
detect many variations in the relation between different forms of dif-
ferentiation. However, the interesting question remains whether the
picture changes profoundly if society is world society.
64 World society theory

It does not matter too much whether the contemporary global con-
dition of modernity is seen as the successful spread of one specic,
Western form among multiple modernities, or as a more far-reaching
meshing of these multiple modernities into one (see Eisenstadt 2000).
It does not matter much either if specic social practices and structures
result from varying sociocultural adaptations of global function sys-
tems. Neither matters greatly as it remains a different question alto-
gether whether the notion of a primacy of functional differentiation can
easily be applied to world society. If it is the case that signicant
regional variations of differentiation characterise world society, then
the question arises as to whether world society can indeed be charac-
terised as being primarily differentiated functionally, whether large-
scale segmentation trumps functional differentiation, or whether some
kind of an as yet unspecied form of regional differentiation repre-
sents a form of (meta-)differentiation of world society.13
That this question has been and is being debated quite intensively
(see Stichweh 2000; Japp 2007; Stetter 2007) is quite understandable,
as the entire diagnosis that there is only one society today, world
society, hinges on the observation that this is a modern society primar-
ily differentiated functionally. To put it more bluntly, in the emergence
view of society and functional differentiation, world society only exists
as functionally differentiated. It would thus pose a direct challenge to
the very idea of world society if it were characterised by a form of
regional (meta-) differentiation that inuenced the importance of var-
ious forms of social differentiation in relation to each other.
This issue may seem rather scholastic at rst. However, in the end it
can be resolved without recourse to any notion of regional differentia-
tion in world society that is somehow above functional and other
forms. It is nonetheless highlighted here as it helps to illuminate a basic
point which needs to be considered when we are talking about world
society in terms of differentiation theory.
Different forms of differentiation have always been at work in all
societies or other enclosed social formations, and there has always been

13
The possibility of some kind of meta-differentiation was hinted at by Luhmann
(1997: 618634) with respect to inclusion in and exclusion from function
systems, but not elaborated systematically. I would tend to read a putative
meta-differentiation as a sign of the possible emergence of a new form of social
differentiation, for whose observation and description no semantic apparatus is
available (hence the somewhat inelegant recourse to meta).
World society and social differentiation 65

a tremendous amount of variation in their relative and structuring

importance. Even if there is a primacy of functional differentiation
in modernity, other forms of differentiation are always present as well.
A primacy of functional differentiation per se says nothing about how
the functionally differentiated realms of society themselves are differ-
entiated internally. Yet the most important point that follows if an
emergence, instead of a decomposition, view of society is applied is that
world society, pre-modern regional international societies, or other
historical forms of society are never pre-existing units that then some-
how happen to differentiate. Rather, it is the very specicity of the
overall ensemble of forms of differentiation, and their importance in
relation to each other, that actually makes a society what it is. There is
no modern society without functional differentiation. This observation
also holds for specic social forms. There is no empire without strati-
cation and there is no modern international society of states without
segmentation within the political system of world society. Thus, to pose
the question as to which forms of differentiation are in play and how
important they are in relation to one another is to directly address the
question of what the social formation thus described actually is.
This is not to deny that important regional variations can and do
exist. Yet they remain regional variations within a world society that is
primarily differentiated functionally. These variations can be due to
different forms and modes of cultural adaptation (in the sense envi-
saged by Thomas 2013). More generally, they also are continuing
repercussions of the consolidation of world society in the structural
sense of world, being indicators of (borrowing the terminology from
Eisenstadt) the merger of multiple modernities into one. However,
these variations do not undermine world society by erecting regional
boundaries which would mean, in the extreme case, that in one region
there would be functional differentiation, while in another there would
be none.14
It follows from this that differentiation is certainly more than
a purely analytical device. Yet referring back to Alexanders observa-
tion that while differentiation is everywhere, not everything is

14
For the sake of completeness and clarity, it should be noted that the kind of
regional variation discussed here pertains to world society and has nothing to do
with the question of regions or regionalisation which refers to a specic com-
bination of segmentation and functional specication (as discussed in
Chapter 3); see also Albert and Stetter (2015a).
66 World society theory

differentiation it is important to point out that using a differentiation

theory perspective to describe the evolution and current state of world
society does not allow us to identify the driving forces behind the
formation of social structure. It does, however, allow us to identify
the enabling and restraining conditions and the ordering principles
under which specic forms of structural innovation can be successful
(while others cannot). It is in such a sense that it becomes immediately
clear why differentiation theory is a useful tool for describing the
evolution of the system of world politics, but not, for example, for
analysing foreign policy. Yet before turning to this task more speci-
cally in the next chapter, it is necessary to address a number of theore-
tical and conceptual cornerstones, since they underlie the analysis
undertaken later. These cornerstones are the relation between function
systems as expressions of the functional differentiation of world society
and other forms of social systems, on the one hand, and assumptions
about social evolution, on the other hand.

Function systems interaction organisation and social

evolution
In a systems theory account, the functional differentiation of society
means that there are specic function systems operatively closed
against their environment. This, and what follows from it for concep-
tualising other aspects of society, is a point notoriously misunderstood
by analysts from different theoretical backgrounds. The simple key to
its understanding is to recall that, in the present theoretical context, it is
communication that constitutes social systems, and that what is differ-
entiated is nothing but communication. This means that a person or an
organisation does not somehow belong to a function system (yet both
can be included in it or excluded from it as a relevant address of
communication).15 Put in more abstract and formal terms, a function
15
Barry Buzan here raised the intriguing question of whether machines that talk to
each other could count as addresses. The general answer to this question is yes,
as what counts as an address for any kind of system is an internal operation of
the system. So the machine could count as an address for a specic social system;
it could also count as an address for a non-social system (that is, the other
machine). Whether or not we are in a situation where machines themselves could
be seen as social systems is, however, quite another, and obviously also
a philosophically very tricky question. My own spontaneous answer would be
that machines cannot be social systems. However, we might be approaching
World society and social differentiation 67

system is a system which is operatively closed and which produces all its
elements within itself (autopoiesis). An important part of system
differentiation and operative closure is the evolution of a functionally
specic code, for example legal/illegal in the legal system, powerful/
non-powerful in the political system, true/false in the scientic system
and so on. Communication as code-based communication within the
system continues on the basis of systemic programmes that utilise
specic symbolically generalised media of communication (such as
power in the political system, money in the economic system etc.).
The environment of the system (or specic systems within the environ-
ment) play(s) an important role, but only through the observation of
the environment by the system on the basis of its own code and
programme(s). The legal system cannot observe something in other
than legal terms. If observation takes place in economic terms, it is
part of the economic system and so on. Figuratively, function systems
could be imagined as huge, separate streams that somehow cut through
much of the universe of communication that is society. Yet not all
communication takes place within function systems. Quite the
contrary:

The concept of forms of system differentiation in society only relates to cases

in which new differentiations [Ausdifferenzierungen] take place within
society in relation to the systems of society; whether society is expressed in
the form of the relations between the particular system (equality, rank order),
or whether it discerns itself in singular functions which catalyse the new
differentiation of function system. This, however, does not go near to
exhausting what can be observed as system differentiation in society.
(Luhmann 1997: 812)

Probably the most common, evolutionarily basic, and historically ear-

liest form of social system is the interaction system: the large forms of
partial systems of society oat on a sea of small systems which are
permanently formed and dissolved again. (Luhmann 1997: 812) Such
small systems most notably are interaction systems.16 Interaction
systems require the presence of those involved. They may be routinised
and sequentialised (although they need not be), and they may be

a point where, in addition to psychic and social systems, some machines

resemble systems which primarily function on the basis of processing meaning.
16
See Luhmann (1997: 847865) for the special case of protest movements.
68 World society theory

remembered by those involved in other contexts, but they exist as such

only as long as the condition of presence is given:

In contrast to society, interaction systems have a beginning and an end. Their

beginning happens, and their end certainly will arrive, although at the beginning
it is not yet certain when and on which occasion. The limitation in time can take
very different forms, up to sequences of meeting again (e.g. for the purpose of
teaching in school) planned well in advance. (Luhmann 1997: 818)17

Interaction systems quite clearly comprise a wide range of temporally

limited social systems, ranging, for example, from meetings in pubs to
university lectures. To varying degrees, they can be connected to orga-
nisations; and they use and actualise the communication of function
systems in different ways and degrees. However, interaction systems
without exception cease to exist at the moment when the condition of
presence is no longer given. This does not mean that the communication
taking place within the interaction system is not referred to and remem-
bered (often quite differently, such as when different accounts of the
results of a meeting are given by different participants). However, this
also means that, in order to attain and retain relevance, interaction needs
to be memorised, and recalling it needs to be communicated (and most
interaction systems are either not noticed by society or are forgotten).
The zillions of interaction systems (meetings between people) not noted
by society or forgotten are not crucial here, however. The crucial ones
are those which are sequentialised, that is, restaged and re-enacted, and
particularly those which through this process become the seeds for the
formation of function systems in which interaction is still there and
required, but where the system continues beyond interaction.
To reiterate and reinforce this point: an interaction system is a system
that takes place within, enacts and continues society. Yet it is not a rst
encounter situation it presupposes society at least in the phenomen-
ological sense alluded to in the rst chapter. Likewise, it is neither
a function system nor an organisational system. An interaction system
ceases to exist if the condition of presence no longer applies meetings,

17
An interaction system is eeting in the sense that it ends the moment that the
condition of presence (in some location, a chatroom etc.) is no longer given:
A highly differentiated society as well knows a lot of free interaction.
As a consequence of this, there is a differentiation between the social system and
interaction system which varies according to the form of differentiation of
society (Luhmann 1997: 598).
World society and social differentiation 69

classes, and (even the best) parties are at some point simply over.
An interaction system, issues addressed therein, or its results may be
memorised and referred to in different contexts or among participants in
subsequent meetings and a string of such memorisations and referrals is
what traditionally is called institutionalisation. But the next meeting
(with possibly a change in the participants, the agenda, and the roles and
scripts followed) will mean that a new interaction system is created.
No old interaction system as such can be re-created.
Unlike interaction systems, organisations as social systems are char-
acterised by duration irrespective of presence:

Modern society dispenses with being an organisation (corporation) itself. It is

the closed (and thereby open) system of all communication. And, at the same
time, it sets up within itself autopoietic systems whose operation consists in
self-reproducing decision making, which are, in other words, organisations
in a sense which needs to be differentiated from both interactions and society.
Organisations are able to co-ordinate huge numbers of interactions. They
achieve the miracle of synchronising interactions, in spite of the fact that
these always and necessarily take place simultaneously, in their pasts and in
their futures. (Luhmann 1997: 836837; italics in the original)

Modern society is a society of (formal) organisations.18 Particularly

under the condition of functional differentiation, an increasing amount
of synchronisation is required. Organisations full this demand
throughout society. There is little in society that is not subject to
synchronisation by organisation. To briey short-circuit the discussion
and cut to the system of world politics: in the theoretical context
described here, the increase in the number of organisations (interna-
tional organisations, international non-governmental organisations)
active in international relations since the nineteenth century is not
something specic to the system of world politics, but a pervasive
feature of a functionally differentiated society.19 To avoid any

18
See Heintz and Tyrell (2015) for a recent overview of the relation between
interaction systems, organisations, and society.
19
Organising takes place before the nineteenth century, but is not yet the regular
form of structuring social relations which becomes pervasive in a society
together with ongoing functional differentiation. It is in this sense (and in this
sense legitimate) that the standard story of the emergence of international
(governmental but particularly also non-governmental) organisations begins at
a point after which a progressive development can be observed, basically leaving
aside earlier, more isolated forms of organising.
70 World society theory

misunderstanding at this point, organisations are not parts of function

systems. Communication in and by organisations (the latter mostly
taking the form of decisions) is to a large degree communication which
is functionally specic and, as such, part of a specic function system.
Yet, for example, while a lot of scientic communication, of course, goes
on in a university and a lot of economic communication goes on within
a company, this does not mean that the university is part of the scientic
system of society, or the company part of the economic system. Scientic
communication within the university takes place within the function
system of science. The companys monetary transactions take place as
communication within the economic system. Yet neither the university
nor the company as types of organisation are parts of one function
system only. As organisations, they can, and often do, utilise, for exam-
ple, legal communication or political communication as well.
While systems theory and differentiation theory provide particular
answers to the question of how communication (and thus society) can
continue, they say little about the specic processes by which specic
systems and forms of differentiation emerged in the rst place. This
requires an account of how social evolution takes place. The form of
social evolution, if social evolution pertains to communication alone, is
a sequence of variation, selection and re-stabilisation. Variation refers
to the variation of elements, meaning new and unexpected communi-
cation. Selection refers to the selection of specic variations that seem
apt for repeated use and could thus support the formation of structures.
Re-stabilisation refers to the state of the evolving system after
a selection has taken place (see Luhmann 1997: 454; and re-
stabilisation in turn again produces variation20). Understanding social

20
It should be noted that re-stabilisation is necessary after both positive and
negative selections. Luhmann nicely illustrates this in relation to the revolutions
at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries:
In the case of positive, structure-changing selections this is obvious.
The innovated structures need to be tted into the system and become
compatible with its environmental conditions, without it being possible to say
beforehand (at the time of selection) whether and how this will be successful.
In 1789 the Paris riots were observed as revolution and described with a term
modied especially for this purpose. The consequences could neither be stopped
nor controlled and could probably best be described as a century-long failure of
further revolutions which, however, as a consequence resulted in the shift of the
French political system into a representative democracy . . . However even in
instances where revolution was selected negatively, i.e. rejected, such as in
World society and social differentiation 71

evolution in these terms implies that neither teleological accounts nor

forecasts are possible in relation to evolutionary processes. It also
implies that many evolutionary processes take place at the same time.
This is not to say that the evolution of a specic system is completely
independent of social evolution elsewhere. On the contrary, co-
evolution goes on all the time, although not necessarily neatly synchro-
nised with other evolutionary processes (something also visible in the
considerable time lag between the evolution of structures, on the one
hand, and the evolution of ideas and semantics, on the other). Yet it
would probably be wrong to imagine world society continuing through
one single evolutionary process.21

Differentiation theory and the system of world politics

The main purpose of this book is to use a differentiation theory per-
spective to understand the evolution of a system of world politics and
its present state. The purpose of this exercise is to establish an analytical
vocabulary that helps to map the contemporary system of world pol-
itics. Such an exercise differs from most accounts that seek to provide
a description of world politics on a macro-level within the context of
the discipline of International Relations, although it is quite possible to
reread some of these descriptions in the context of differentiation
theory (see Chapter 5). At this point it is, however, necessary to mark
a few central points in which the differentiation theory perspective
adopted here is related to specic families of thought about world
politics.
First, situating world politics within a functionally differentiated
world society is an exercise in systemic theorising. Systemic here
does not necessarily refer to a specic kind of systems theory, but
primarily to an approach which sees itself as belonging to a tradition
of thinking about politics and international relations not only on
a systems level (see Kaplan 1957; Waltz 1959) but also as systems of
communication. While the latter view in political science and IR

Prussia, re-stabilisations were necessary, for example in the sense of a culture

state programme for schools and universities. (Luhmann 1997: 487)
21
Strictly relating social evolution to communication is what sets this version of
evolutionary theory apart from other, usually non-communication-related
attempts to think about evolution in relation to a comprehensive social system;
see the essays in Preyer (1998).
72 World society theory

remains inextricably linked to the name and works of Karl Deutsch (see
Deutsch 1963), it is probably fair to say that much of IR theory,
particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, can be characterised as represent-
ing a discontinuation of systemic theorising in IR. For quite a while the
study of international relations has, to a large degree, converged at
what could be termed a micro-consensus and ignored systemic theo-
rising (see Albert and Cederman 2010). This diagnosis, while necessa-
rily oversimplifying, arguably holds true for both the so-called
(US American) mainstream of the discipline and the many forms of
theorising critical of this mainstream since the mid-1980s. Systemic
theorising retained its presence in IR mostly in the more rigid structur-
alist forms of Waltzian neo-realism or world systems theory or, more
indirectly, in historical sociological treatments of the origins of the
international (Westphalian) system. Only recently have IR scholars
begun to take up the wide eld of systemic and process-oriented theo-
rising, to apply discussions of complexity (see, for example, Harrison
2006; Root 2013), and take into account the literature on boundary
formation (Abbott 1988), relational thought (Emirbayer 1997), mor-
phogenesis (Archer 1988), emergence (Sawyer 2005) and so on.
The present contribution situates itself within this context. However,
it does not seek to apply systemic theorising to a neatly demarcated
subject matter of world politics which somehow happens to already
be there. Rather, by pursuing systemic theorising it asks how a system
of world politics emerges and situates itself in the socially differentiated
system of world society in the rst place.22
Second, in the narrower jargon of IR theory such a systemic view of
world politics would at rst glance seem to belong squarely to what has
variously been called the third image (Waltz 1959: 159ff) or the
international system as level of analysis (Singer 1961: 80). However,
this seeming similarity evaporates if the systemic level is seen as more
than a mere level of analysis, in fact, as a distinct level of structure
formation. It also evaporates if levels are seen as inclusive rather than
exclusive. Both views stem directly from a conceptualisation that does
not start with action, but rather with communication as the funda-
mental operation constituting society:

22
By doing so, it follows the broad denition that systems theories strive to
account for large-scale social forms by uncovering their structural logic and the
processes that (re)generate them (Albert and Cederman 2010: 7).
World society and social differentiation 73

Both Singers (1961) treatment of the issue of levels, and even more
so Waltzs classic introduction of the levels-of-analysis issue as images
in Man, the State, and War, reveal that, despite assertions to the
contrary, levels are usually not simply analytical cuts through some
reality unaffected by these cuts.23 To varying degrees, all discussions of
the problem assume that levels of analysis mirror the most important
structural layers of such a reality on which the relevant forces driving
change are located. Although numerous studies operate only on one
level, most explicit treatments of the subject argue that, in the end, only
a combination of analyses on various levels can provide satisfactory
results. To quote Waltz: Some combination of our three images, rather
than any one of them, may be required for an accurate understanding of
international relations (Waltz 1959: 14). However, if levels are seen as
purely analytical devices, then it seems to be an almost universal
feature of their conceptualisation in IR theory that they are taken to
be exclusive. Phenomena and structures in such a view exist on one
level only, not on two or more, meaning that, for example, an indivi-
dual is included in the group of individuals, but not in the group of
states; states can be found on the level of states, but not on the level
of the international system and so on. However, while the image of
exclusive levels gains some of its prominence from its simplicity, the
social world usually does not conform to such clear-cut demarcations.
It would, of course, be possible to argue that, out of almost innumer-
able distinctions in level, some are more important than others (such as
the distinction between a national and an international level). Yet,
although the notion of levels-of-analysis (if only implicitly) contains
claims that these levels of analysis somehow refer to quite important
levels of social reality, there seems to be a persistent difculty in map-
ping one onto the other. Part of this difculty may stem from the mostly
unresolved ambiguity in the concept of levels in IR theory. Seeing them
as levels of analysis only makes them exclusive in a way that, as relevant
levels of social order or structure formation, they are not and cannot be.
Thus, for example, interactions among a few individuals may primarily
be taking place at the level of groups, yet at the same time at a global
level. This is very much what is at stake in notions such as global
microstructures (Knorr Cetina 2005) or glocalization (Robertson

23
This paragraph is based, and expands on the elaboration on levels in Albert and
Buzan (2013); see also Onuf (1995).
74 World society theory

1992). Levels, in such an understanding, are inclusive, that is commu-

nication can simultaneously take place on different levels. This inclu-
sivity hinges on a denition of micro and macro implicitly where
these do not pertain to questions of scale, but to principles of con-
nectivity and association (Knorr Cetina 2005: 231).24
Third, systemic theorising is not theorising about systems bare of
actors and agency. However, in a theoretical framework in which
communication (and not people) forms the basic constitutive opera-
tion of society, actors and agency enter the picture through observa-
tions and ascriptions of actorhood and agency (Albert and Stetter
2015b). It is at this point at which particularly sociological neo-
institutionalism has offered a theoretical and empirical account on
how modern actorhood is in fact the creature of specic structural
connes within the world polity. While empirically the story of
actorhood in modernity is basically the story of the global spread
and dominance of the originally Western idea of (instrumental)
rationality, theoretically actorhood is neither an ontological feature

24
Luhmann argues that world society is primarily differentiated functionally
and, following from what has been said so far, only exists on the basis of this
functional differentiation because this form is the one through which social
systems primarily observe their difference from other social systems. This does
not preclude other forms of differentiation serving as forms of self-observation
of social systems. Thus, Luhmann (2000a: 189ff) argues that the function
system of politics primarily observes itself as being internally differentiated in
a segmental fashion (into formally equal sovereign states). In addition, this
gure of thought allows him to identify the relation between, and the changing
relevance of, different forms of differentiation as one of the most interesting
questions for analysing macro-historical change on a global level. Seeing society
as a world society which is differentiated functionally, with other forms of
differentiation having a secondary character or being the main forms of differ-
entiation within individual function systems, means that the entire logic of this
kind of theorising barely leaves any space for the traditional notion of levels
commonly employed in IR theory. The argument here is most denitely not that
territoriality (segmental differentiation) would provide the most powerful and
constraining environment for all social systems, but that this is only the case for
the internal differentiation of some function systems (most notably the political
system, partly the legal system). Within function systems, different levels of
structure formation exist, but these are mostly conceptualised in terms of
inclusive rather than exclusive hierarchies. (Communicative) operations within
the political systems thus understood are not operations on either the nation-
state, or the local, or the international etc. level, but, at least in principle, could
operate at all levels at the same time. Levels in this sense are forms through
which a system observes and through semantic gures describes itself.
World society and social differentiation 75

of the Self nor primarily the result of a Self distinguishing itself

from an Other. In fact, actorhood constitutively depends on its
recognition by others.
The last point also refers to the fact that there is an inextricable
link between functional differentiation and processes of rationalisa-
tion. The world society approach adopted here is thus (contra
Thomas 2010, but see Thomas 2013) compatible with the world
polity/world society approach of the so-called Stanford School.25
However, the latter takes functional differentiation as a given and
asks about developments within and most notably the globalisation
of functionally differentiated realms of society. The present
approach, on the other hand, is about world society as a social
whole, which, however, does not resemble a totality (either in the
Wendtian or the German idealist version), but whose unity is estab-
lished because it is primarily differentiated functionally. In addition,
this approach is more specically about the ways in which various
forms of differentiation within a functionally differentiated system of
world society relate to each other and thus provide restraining or
enabling conditions for the variety of structure formation and the
evolution of historical semantics in relation to the system of world
politics.
Although this book is a thematic continuation of a book that
I published in German many years ago, Zur Politik der
Weltgesellschaft (Albert 2002), in terms of content it is about some-
thing quite radically different. Zur Politik der Weltgesellschaft told
a relatively simple story. It started from (and basically bought) the
observation that in the Westphalian system segmentation was the
prime form of differentiation within the political and the legal systems
of world society. It then demonstrated how functional differentiation
could increasingly be observed within these systems. This book shares
the motif with Zur Politik der Weltgesellschaft, but breaks entirely
with both its starting assumption (the unquestioned primacy of seg-
mentation) and with the linear story unfolded on this basis. The theme
here is not merely how the mode of differentiation within the political
system of world society changes (and even less so how it does this in
25
The incompatibility which Thomas observes hinges on the difference between
seeing social systems as open as opposed to closed systems, which in his argu-
ment, however, hinges on quite a different assumption about what constitutes
society.
76 World society theory

a unidirectional fashion). It is rather how, in the process of changing

modes of differentiation, world politics was established as
a subsystem of the political system of world society in the rst place
and how its form can be described as an interplay between different
forms of differentiation.
 part ii

Emerging world politics

The rst part of this book set the stage for understanding world politics
in the context of a world society characterised most notably by func-
tional differentiation, although by other forms of social differentiation
as well. The second part turns to world politics as a subsystem of the
political system of world society. Chapter 3 is about the historical
emergence of world politics as a specic subsystem in a co-evolving
societal context. Chapter 4 uses social differentiation as an analytical
tool to describe the contemporary variety of forms of organising poli-
tical authority within the system of world politics.
Chapter 3 deals with the emergence of world politics as one impor-
tant mode of communication and observation within the political
system of world society. It follows four thematic threads.
(1) The emergence of a system of world politics in the context of
functional differentiation and global orientation.
(2) The formation of the system through its reliance on specic new
types of interaction as well as through the adoption of the balance
of power as a systemic programme.
(3) The expansion of the system from a European to a global one.
(4) The evolution of a semantics of world politics.
The rst two of these threads, in particular, but to lesser degrees also
the latter two, underline that what we have to deal with are intertwined
evolutionary processes. Neither the political system of world society
nor the system of world politics is simply there within modern world
society waiting to be differentiated internally. They co-evolve and,
within a functionally differentiating world society, they do so in com-
plexly staggered and asynchronic processes.
The rst thematic thread directly connects to the preceding chapters
in that it reconstructs the underlying theme of the emergence of world
horizons in various functionally differentiated realms. The appearance
of world in relation to politics happens in a larger (world) society

77
78 Part II Emerging world politics

context and thus needs to be seen alongside the evolution of references

to world, particularly in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The main argument here is shorter than those in the other thematic
threads, but it forms the background to them and is mainly about the
rapid expansion of global horizons that allowed for a formulation of
the both particularistic and universalistic idea of a nation society-cum-
state. It basically means that the simultaneity of increased efforts at
international standardisation on the one hand and the rise of national-
ism on the other should not be read as a paradoxical development (see
Osterhammel 2009: 120). Rather, it needs to be understood as an
expression of the simultaneous presence of different forms of
differentiation.
Following on from this, the second thematic thread deals with the
evolution of world politics as it assumes systemic characteristics of its
own, thus becoming a subsystem within the political system. The main
argument here is that, despite some proto-systemic features in the past,
world politics before the nineteenth century by and large retains the
main characteristic of a purely interaction-based system, that is, a system
which needs to be constantly re-enacted through physical presence and
interaction and can hardly continue to operate without that. While the
Holy Roman Empire was probably the most complex of these mainly
interaction-based systems, there were many others. Indeed, it is these
systems that Buzan and Little (2000) describe in their International
Systems in World History, using interaction capacity as one of their
main characteristics. However, it is only during the nineteenth century
that world politics emerges as a system that continues to operate without
being permanently reconstituted through interaction. Of course, the
system of world politics does utilise interaction as well. In fact, it does
so to an unprecedented degree. Yet now interaction is channelled,
routinised and observed in a different fashion. The culture of presence
gives way to a systemic culture of routine and protocol as well as
a common mode of observation. This development builds on two
basic elements. The rst is the institutionalisation of interaction, which
is negotiated through numerous congresses and conferences and leads to
a system architecture in which diplomacy works on a routine basis in
contrast to the need to negotiate basic issues of status and rights at each
and every meeting. The second is the evolution of a systemic programme
which allows communication in terms of power (as a symbolically gen-
eralised medium of communication) to continue on a routine basis and
Part II Emerging world politics 79

which stabilises the system. In this sense, world politics only emerges as
it becomes observed in terms of a balance of power.
The third thematic thread then follows the structural evolution of
forms of world politics. The central argument here is that this evolution
must not be read as a linear story of the global unfolding of
a Westphalian system although it is centrally also the story of the
global spread of Western standards of rationality and rational actor-
hood (the Stanford School world polity argument). Rather, the story
of the consolidation of world politics in the political system of world
society concerns, on the one hand, the co-existence and competition of
different forms of organising political space (most notably territorial
states and empires) that express the different ordering principles of
different forms of differentiation. On the other hand, it is a story
about the emergence of a distinct form of world politics out of
a European-centred core political system.
The fourth thematic thread briey takes up the evolution of a semantics
of world politics which goes along with the emergence of a system, most
notably (but not exclusively) following up on the notion of world power.
Dealing with semantics has a systematic place in the present argument, as
it is here that the evolution of a boundary between the specic subsystem
of world politics and its environment becomes visible. The emergence and
stabilisation of a specic distinction between system and environment in
this case underpins the possibility of observing politics as world politics.
While not being able to offer a full-blown exercise in historical semantics,
this is also the thread that provides an opportunity to reect upon the
varying uses of world in relation to international politics.
Against the background of this account of the evolution of world
politics as a system, Chapter 4 then uses the lens of differentiation
theory to describe the contemporary state of this system in terms of
its internal differentiation. By this means, it arrives at a more abstract
typology of possible forms of organising political authority within the
system of world politics and, by going through this typology, endea-
vours to enrich its account of them. What this chapter seeks to demon-
strate is that accounting for differentiation within a system of world
politics can take us a long way towards a coherent description of those
forms. It also tries to show that it is possible to do this without resorting
to the common device of seeing this variety as some kind of deviation
from a world of states, or that of seeing it through the lens of one single
form (a world of regions, of empire, of regimes etc.).
80 Part II Emerging world politics

The map drawn in Chapter 4 is not static in the sense of only present-
ing a snapshot of the present. Rather, it tells the continuing story of an
evolving system of which Chapter 3 traced the beginnings. This continu-
ing story is one in which the system of world politics, like every other
complex system, continuously builds up and reduces complexity and
thereby permanently transforms itself. Forms of differentiation, and com-
binations of different forms of differentiation, are central means of estab-
lishing order in complex systems, although every reduction of (unordered)
complexity thereby effected at the same time builds up new complexity.
The aim of the chapter is to illustrate that a differentiation theory
approach can make coherent sense of what would otherwise seem not
a variety of forms of organising political authority expressing internal
system differentiation, but a bewildering mess of different phenomena in
a vaguely specied eld of international relations. What such a more
formal-deductive description based on differentiation theory in and for
itself cannot do is to give an exact assessment, going beyond impressio-
nistic observations, of the relative importance of these different forms of
organising political authority (as well as of trends over time regarding
changes in this relative importance). This points to a signicant gap in the
landscape of empirical research, which will be discussed further in
Chapter 6. While there exist many older and newer studies on the relative
importance of one or other form (regionalisation, de-nationalisation
etc.), there is neither completed research nor an existing research pro-
gramme which would permit a more detailed empirical assessment of the
situation regarding their relative importance.
3 The system of world politics

The emergence of world politics can be traced through two mutually

entangled processes: on the one hand, the establishment of a specic
kind of political communication which underpins the evolution of
a (sub)system of world/international politics within the political system
of world society; on the other, the (changing) forms of internal differ-
entiation within this system. Given that they are so closely intertwined,
it is probably best to approach both processes together by distinguish-
ing them from two markedly different storylines deeply entrenched in
the IR theoretical imagination storylines which are not fundamentally
wrong, but which both commit the error of universalising particular
developments. The rst of these is the Westphalian/realist one, in
which there is a real or imagined state of anarchy until pre-existing
units start to interact with each other in order, at some point, to form
what can then be called an international system. The second storyline
is the one in which world politics only comes into existence with the
emergence of inter-national relations, in the sense that the latter
logically requires the appearance of a number of nation-states between
which an inter can be established.
As the seminal studies by Christopher Bayly and Jrgen
Osterhammel on the making of the modern world and its global
turn in a long nineteenth century emphasise, the ve or six decades
around the turn of the nineteenth century form a kind of world histor-
ical watershed.1 That was when the structural contours of world
society still visible today were established. With regard to politics, the
most important of these are:

1
Koselleck (1992) famously coins the notion of a Sattelzeit (derived from
mountain saddle) in order to describe the transition from early to high moder-
nity, that is the time roughly between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth
centuries as an era of profound social change; see on the meaning of the notion in
Kosellecks work: Olsen (2012).

81
82 Emerging world politics

The emergence of global empires after a period of partly co-existing

and partly competing regional empires in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries;
A strengthening of the white position in the world due to continued
(colonial) settlement;
The increasing importance of nationalism, meaning the emergence
of inclusive forms of solidarity on the basis of a new ideal of equality
among citizens (Osterhammel 2009: 106).
Although nationalism in particular would take at least another century to
develop to a position where it underpinned a situation in which nation-
states had become core features of the system of world politics, the
important development during the nineteenth century was that national-
ism became available as a possible form on which to base state legitimacy.
For most of the nineteenth century, nationalism and nation-states
remained only nascent structural features of the political system of
world society. The real importance of nationalism throughout this period
was that it emerged as a challenger to empire as a means of legitimising
order (and, as it turned out, became a much more successful form, as
imperial order was never able to mould collective identities).
Historically speaking, it is impossible to disentangle the consolida-
tion of nation-states as a form of organising authority within the
boundaries of territorial states from the emergence of international
relations whether the latter is considered as a form of interaction
only weakly structured at rst or as a mode of communication and
observation. Neither nationalism nor the evolution of nation-states
appears before the international arrives on stage. The discourse of
nationalism is inherently international (Calhoun 1993: 216).
Similarly, drawing on a core argument of the world polity approach,
it can be argued that, while the evolution of individual nation-states
and the global model of the nation-state are closely linked to each
other, the evolution of the model takes place in, and constitutes,
a sphere beyond individual nation-states.

The assumption of an abstract model which can be adapted by all nationalist

movements to be moulded according to their individual needs, territorial
locations and cultural traditions permits (and requires) us to sharply
distinguish between the history of the model and the development of single
states and nations. The model is no less real than those, but it has a history of
The system of world politics 83

its own which cannot be subsumed under the sum of their individual
histories. (Werron 2012: 3)

The political system of world society in global knowledge

orders and imaginations
There is no political order and there is no evolution of forms of political
order independent of a broader social context. The extent to which this
context needs to be taken into account varies with the specic research
interest in question. It might be necessary, for example, to closely
examine the particular dynamics of other functionally dened realms
of modern (world) society, such as the economy, law, art, science and
so on, or to trace the ideational forerunners of later developments in the
sense of embarking on a history of ideas. In a very broad sense, the
context here is that of modernity (or indeed of multiple modernities),
understood not only as a specic frame of social order but also as a way
of cognitively framing the world. Alternatively, the context could be
framed as a history of politics and the state stretching not merely over
centuries but over approximately three millennia (going back at least to
the Axial Age2). While these various forms of contextualising the
analysis of political order have generated a signicant body of litera-
ture, it is particularly the literature which puts political order in the
context of a multidimensional analysis of an evolving order of moder-
nity under the rubric of global history which has attracted signicant
attention in recent years. This literature works in novel ways in two
directions. On the one hand, it has added considerable historical depth
to the globalisation debates that started in the 1990s, showing that
globalisation is not an economically driven post-Second World War
fashion, but a secular trend inherent in modernity. On the other, it has
opened a number of new avenues for history as a discipline which itself,
historically, has been strongly characterised by the politico-scientic
task of writing (national) history and thus professes quite a high
degree of methodological nationalism.3
Although the present analysis frequently draws upon works of the
kinds mentioned (and does so particularly in the case of a few that it
takes to be outstanding in this context), its purpose is not to contribute
2
Cf. Jaspers (2010); Eisenstadt (1986). For a recent addition to the literature on
the long-term evolution of political authority, see Fukuyama (2011).
3
The term originates from the work of Ulrich Beck (1997).
84 Emerging world politics

to this genre. Rather, by examining the emergence of world politics as

a specic form of politics, expressed in social structures and semantics,
it addresses a specic, yet largely neglected issue in the literatures on
both global history and world society. Comprehensive social con-
texts and orders of knowledge necessarily appeared as a theme in the
discussions on world society and functional differentiation in the rst
part. At this point it sufces to pick out only two highly important, but
in a sense also rather specic, reminders of the ideational and epistemic
backgrounds against which, and in interaction with which, the emer-
gence of world politics will be described in the major parts of this
chapter. The rst pertains (1) to a specic representation of (global)
space; the second (2) to the changing modes of self-observation within
the political system:
(1) Natural obstacles to the movement of people and goods always
were, and continue to be, important boundary conditions for the
evolution of social and political orders. The history of world society
is as much a story of the advancement of the means of bridging the
distance between localities, as it is a history of the evolution of, and
competition between, images and representations of space.
The relations between perceptions and representations of space and
the formation of social and political order form a large theme, an
extensive treatment of which is far beyond the scope of the present
argument (but see Lefebvre 1991; also Albert 1996: 131ff). Sufce it to
say at this point that the nineteenth century served as the time in which
the contemporary image of global space and forms of its (quasi-)nat-
ural order were established. This particularly pertains to the general
representation of the globe and to what Lewis and Wigen (1997) have
called the metageography of the myth of continents.4 To claim that
this metageographical frame of reference is still by and large valid today
(despite the appearance in the 1960s of the global gaze the earth,
that is, seen as a ball through the eyes of astronauts and cosmonauts;
see Lazier 2011) is not to deny that important and ongoing changes
have been occurring somewhere below the meta-level.
The naturalisation of subcontinental geographic areas as politically
relevant units primarily took place through the cognitive order
4
Nicely put, in a different context, by Alan James (1993: 269): Thus, when the
term Europe was rst employed it was simply a way of designating a certain
geographical area. The term Africa might have been chosen instead and indeed
it was possible to confuse the two.
The system of world politics 85

imposed by the invention of area studies during the Cold War (cf.
Szanton 2004). Issues of spatial representation remain at the heart of
important political questions (such as whether Turkey does or does not
belong to Europe; see Walter 2008; Walter and Albert 2009). Yet the
consolidation of this metageography of the globe, together with the
transformation of the European system of states into a world system
during the nineteenth century, provides the basis for the emergence of
geopolitics as a mode of both political and academic thought. At the
core of traditional geopolitical thought lies the idea that regularities of
world politics can be inferred from characteristics of physical geogra-
phy (or, following the notion of metageography, from naturalised
images of space), thus, for example, predicting political regularities
from the global geographical arrangement of heartland, rimlands,
world island and so on (see Mackinder 1904). However, the emer-
gence of such a geopolitical mode of thought depends on the consolida-
tion of a metageographical representation of the world as a whole. It is
not surprising that it emerges and thrives at the beginning of the
twentieth century, a time when competition and conict could no
longer be externalised from a European balance to colonial expansion
and competition. Identifying geopolitical regularities thus, in a sense,
depends on the geographical closure of a system of world politics
which cannot be expanded geographically any more.5
(2) Linked to this changing representation of global space, yet dif-
ferent from it (though also setting important conditions for the evolu-
tion of the system of world politics), are changes in how the political
system observes itself and particularly how specic modes of compar-
ison are introduced. Standardisation and quantication (e.g. the intro-
duction of national statistics) both within the political system and
beyond (e.g. in the world of sports with the establishment of leagues
and international competitions, such as the modern Olympic Games;
see Werron 2010) mean that political units are increasingly compared
or use comparing operations in the way they observe themselves.
The formation of the world polity in the Stanford School sense is at

5
The exception here probably being the Arctic and, to a lesser degree thus far, the
Antarctic; I have argued elsewhere that this logic of geopolitical expansion and
segmentation underlies much of the current Arctic hype (see Albert 2015b). It is
noteworthy that there are also attempts to apply the logic of geopolitics to
segments of outer space; see a range of contributions for example in Astropolitics.
The International Journal of Space Politics and Policy.
86 Emerging world politics

its core a process of establishing the comparison (and comparability) of

political spaces.6 The formalisation of comparing power within the
system of a balance of power plays the crucial role here. While the
idea of thinking about politics in terms of balance goes back at least to
the Investiture Controversy in the twelfth century, the use of the notion
of a balance in which the different forces potentially cancel each other
out in order to describe a systemic state is a decidedly modern phenom-
enon (see below). In addition, starting in the nineteenth century (the
attempt to achieve) a standardised and quantiable comparison of
power within a balance of power was established as a standard mode
of self-observation for the system of world politics. The fragility of this
mode of observation and the problems associated with it can be seen in
detail in the protracted discussions on how to measure power, which
elements needed to and could be included in such a measurement, the
fungibility of power and so forth. This probably reached its apex
during the Cold War in calculations and equations to determine the
conditions of strategic stability.7
Notions of world politics and world powers did not develop inde-
pendently from the increasing number of world references in other
functionally dened areas of world society (such as the world economy,
world culture etc.; see Gollwitzer 1972: 14).8 Even so, each of these
functionally differentiated realms of world society has its own globa-
lisation history, so to speak, which means that world semantics and
global structures did not develop simultaneously. As far as the political

6
This possibility of comparability is closely linked to the evolution of the modern
episteme and its technologies of knowledge; cf., for an overview, Headrick
(2000).
7
See, as two examples from a vast literature, Merritt and Zinnes (1988); Tellis
(2000).
8
I draw quite extensively on Heinz Gollwitzers Geschichte des weltpolitischen
Denkens [History of World Political Thought] here and later in this book.
Gollwitzers book, which appeared in two volumes published in 1972 and 1982
respectively, is still little known in IR (and has, to my knowledge, not been
translated into another language, denitely not into English). Despite the title, it is
more than a simple history of ideas, but indeed more like a comprehensive history
of world political discourse. The prominence given to Gollwitzers book here is due
to the fact that, as also noted by Osterhammel, it is probably fair to speak about it
not as an example of a distinct genre, but as an outstanding single piece of work:
Internationally unique and unsurpassed to date is Heinz Gollwitzers Geschichte
des weltpolitischen Denkens . . . Gollwitzer in actual fact achieved the goal of
a contextualisation of the history of political ideas, before it was even formulated
by the famous Anglo-Saxon theorists (Osterhammel 2012: 417).
The system of world politics 87

system of world society is concerned, it was always a twofold process.

On the one hand, a system of world politics was consolidated as
a relevant system of meaning and structure out of a European order
with imperial references. On the other, there were and still are pro-
cesses of centreperiphery differentiation within the political system of
world society which undercut simple images of an insideout develop-
ment from a European centre to a global periphery. Thus, colonial
practices (see Branch 2012) served as elds of experimentation with
ideas and practices of strict territorial delimitation not seen to such
a degree before even in Europe. Yet it needs to be emphasised that both
semantically and structurally, the emergence of world politics was at its
core the story of the globalisation of Western notions and structures.
It was essentially the story told in various facets by the world polity
approach. However, while in the end world politics has its roots in the
globalisation of Western notions and structures, there is no doubt that,
historically, there was at least one other proto-form of world politics.
This, however, did not lead to the emergence of a global system of
world politics in the end, but became subsumed under a system of
world politics that essentially emerged from the European one. Thus,
one could argue that for many centuries an Islamic system of world
politics existed, extending from South Eastern Europe at one end to the
Philippines at the other, for which the umma at least provided the
semantics of unity (cf. Gollwitzer 1972: 45).
More important than this Islamic world political system, however,
is the fact that a proto-system of world politics could arguably be seen
to exist in the literally bipolar global opposition (Weltgegensatz)
between orient and occident, which forms the starting point for any
world political analysis of early modernity (Gollwitzer 1972: 47).
This, arguably, also represents an important, but usually untold, aspect
of the world polity story of the consolidation and global spread of
Western ideas of rational actorhood, the spread of norms and institu-
tional scripts (and the social forms that go along with these processes)
and, in particular, the emergence of the nation-state as a globally
dominant form for legitimately organising political authority. This
untold aspect is the centuries long struggle between very different
forms of organising political authority (see most notably Spruyt
1994; Haldn 2011, 2013), a struggle only won (briey) by the nation-
state in the mid-twentieth century. Another untold aspect of the world
polity story is that the global success story of the nation-state was built
88 Emerging world politics

on the precondition that the Islamic world (particularly in the form of

the Ottoman Empire) was not able to reconstitute itself as a relevant
global counterforce to the Christian powers after the seventeenth
century.
World politics, as pointed out in Chapter 1, evolved in an environ-
ment in which many other world composite terms become prominent.
Of those with a direct or a very close relation to politics after Kants
Weltbrger the Weltstaatensystem (world system of states) men-
tioned by Heeren (1811) is probably one of the earliest. Gollwitzer
points out that while notions of world empires (Weltreiche), world rule
(Weltherrschaft), world government (Weltregierung) and so on can be
found much earlier, it was only with and after the French Revolution
and the Napoleonic era that such world composite terms began to
impart a systemic meaning to world politics through, for example,
the notion of world revolution. We are interested in the increasing
new appearance of related word innovations as a mirror image of
a change of consciousness and the fact that more than a few of these
took decades, in the cases of world revolution and world war even
about a century to assert themselves and have a lexical impact
(Gollwitzer 1972: 328f).
The history of the evolution of a European into a global system of
states during the nineteenth century is largely a secular history. Yet it is
no overstatement to say that the self-understanding of Europe in terms
of a universal Christendom, particularly in the late eighteenth century,
provided an important ideational background for that transformation:
Europes self-understanding as Christendom is still there and the
world horizon of this Christendom is dominated by wishful thinking
about a universal Christian realm on Earth [. . .]. In all this the
European-centred aspect of this epoch is expressed, which, however,
presupposes a relation to the entire world and basically provides the
possibility for universalistic or world political thought (Gollwitzer
1972: 214).
At this point, it is useful to distinguish between ideational and
semantic evolution. Although always intertwined, the two are consid-
ered separately for analytical purposes in the present context. The main
difference between analysing the evolution of ideas and analysing the
evolution of semantics is that, for the purposes of the former, their
history can always be woven together into a story which, ex post,
unfolds over the centuries (if not the millennia), while, with respect to
The system of world politics 89

the latter, it can be argued that (leaving aside more specic linguistic
interests) they can usefully only be described as embedded in the con-
text of comprehensive modes of thought. This means that the semantics
which emerged for the description of (world) politics during the eight-
eenth and nineteenth centuries, although interspersed with many refer-
ences to the past (which serves as an almost endless repository of
meaning which can always be reappropriated), was inextricably linked
to the emerging epochal order of modernity. Thus, to use only one
prominent example, the idea of a balance of power between states,
though its ideational roots went back to the twelfth century, could only
be expressed in terms of a rational construct. Under conditions shaped
by a modern Newtonian worldview, it could no longer be tied to
a balance between the sacred and the profane (see for an elaboration
of this: Albert 1996). For present purposes, this means that, rather than
pursuing a history of ideas of world politics, which might entail long
arguments about the time from which it became possible to speak
about the idea of world politics, this book will restrict its focus
to the actual use of various notions of world politics. As I have said,
this is not to argue that it would be possible to separate ideational and
semantic evolution. It is, however, to argue that only the explicit self-
observation of the political system of world society in terms of world
politics allows for its structural consolidation. An analysis of the
semantics of world politics thus does not cut ties to preceding ideas;
nevertheless, the notion of world politics brings political facts perceived
and formulated earlier into new perspectives (Gollwitzer 1972: 27).
The following account of the consolidation of a system of world
politics will rst focus on its systemic character. At the core of the
argument is that, as a separate subsystem of the political system, world
politics came into being during an approximately century-long period
between the mid-eighteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries. It was in
roughly this period that sufcient conditions existed for this specic
form of politics to be differentiated within the political system, partly
building on, and partly in conjunction with, the necessary condition of
the functional differentiation of politics as an autonomous social sys-
tem in society. Of course, there were many international systems of
a kind before (see Buzan and Little 2000). However, these were mostly
settings that constitutively relied for their continuance on being perma-
nently re-enacted through interaction systems and presence. It was only
the increasing functional differentiation and operative autonomy of the
90 Emerging world politics

political system that allowed for the routinisation of interaction, which

took place through the evolution of specic systemic routines and
scripts (diplomacy, regular conferences, international law). It also
allowed the formation of a specic programme for communication
(balance of power) that established world politics as an autonomous
subsystem of the political system of world society. Only on the basis of
the formation of world politics as an autonomous subsystem was it
historically possible for comparisons between qualitatively different
and geographically distant forms of organising political authority in
terms of power to emerge in the rst place. This story is incomplete
without an account of how, during this process of system-formation,
the structures within the system evolved: such an account entails
a history of the competition between different forms of social differ-
entiation, combined with that of more specic struggles between social
forms compatible with one or the other ordering principle.

The evolution of world politics as a subsystem of the political

system I: from interaction to system
How did world politics develop a systemic character, a form that
incorporates more than what individual powers do? Initially, this was
exactly how the notion of world politics emerged: world politics is
what world powers do (see below on the semantics of world power).
Yet the emergence of a systemic quality out of mere point-to-point
interaction is not a linear or one-dimensional process. Rather, it
extends over a long period and more than one developmental thread
(and one could even argue over whether it is in any sense complete
today): World politics is already pluralistic in itself (inasmuch as its
emergence can never be brought down to one denominator)
(Gollwitzer 1972: 14). To put it differently, world politics is
a complex subsystem within the complex system of politics. This is
something that Gollwitzer, in his seminal study of the evolution of
world political thought, acknowledged when he connected the history
of world political thought to the discussions on cybernetics in the
1960s. In terms of political cybernetics, one could describe the
functioning of world politics as a self-regulating communication sys-
tem or an integrative system of steering, which constantly changes as
a result of goal-changing feedback and learning processes (Gollwitzer
1972: 16).
The system of world politics 91

In this sense it is possible to classify world political processes as means to the

ends of claiming interests and attempting to assert specic ideologies,
conceptions, programmes: many of these programmes not only clash
because of the size and spheres of inuence of the powers proposing them,
but are formulated consciously and from their very inception with a world
political range in mind. (Gollwitzer 1972: 17)

The role of notions of balance in the development of images of the

system of world politics cannot be overestimated. Its global extension
has its roots in the gradual (or, in the case of England, already existing)
expansion of the European powers playing elds to other world
regions: Since England threw in the full weight of its trade and sea
power, a political-commercial world dimension became intertwined
with the European balance (Gollwitzer 1972: 245). It is important to
point out that while thinking in terms of a worldwide balance of power
is something that can be traced back to the eighteenth century, the
explicit notion of a world balance of power appears only later (with
Simon Bolivar being one of the rst documented users in 1815). For
much of the nineteenth century it remained a European balance, and
there was no balance between the European powers on a global scale
(cf. Baumgart 1999: 149f).
In a highly abstract and formal sense, the system of world politics
forms when the political system reaches an emergent level that allows
for the internal differentiation of a subsystem world politics. This
internal differentiation and the concomitant evolution of a distinction
between a subsystem of world politics and its environment (which is
primarily the rest of the political system) become visible through the
semantics of world politics.9 Put differently, world politics is a part of
the political system, constituted through communication based on the
9
It should be noted that this is an account which many adherents to Luhmannian
systems theory would nd unacceptable as they would rst of all demand that the
function served by the emergence of a particular subsystem should be identied.
In order to full such a demand, one would have to identify a specic problem
regarding the coordination between states that is solved through such a function.
Very much in line with traditional IR thought, that coordination problem would
probably pertain to issues dealing with conict and war. The present account, by
contrast, takes the non-teleological character of social evolution more seriously,
inasmuch as it is based on a conviction that world society is a far messier affair
than acknowledged even by most systems theorists. The point in this book is to
show that a system of world politics emerges as a subsystem of the political
system of world society (and how it does so), yet that this subsystem produces its
function as it operates. I owe this point on the function of the subsystem of world
92 Emerging world politics

basic distinction powerful/non-powerful. It is a subsystem of the poli-

tical system which uses the (in)famous Inside/Outside distinction (cf.
Walker 1993) to differentiate itself from its environment (creating
a systems boundary within the political system); and as a subsystem,
it operates on the basis of its own evolving programmes and routines.
The following pages develop this formal understanding more system-
atically and historically. However, one issue needs to be re-emphasised.
When talking about the formation of a subsystem as indicating an
emergent level of the political system, the use of the term subsystem
should already indicate that what is not meant here is an exclusive
level in a social world that is taken, or analytically imagined, to be
made up of distinct layers (as in levels-of-analysis). Figuratively
speaking, the system of world politics, understood as a subsystem of
the system of politics, must not be seen as the top slice of bread in the
still quite common (and prevalent) IR view of a sandwiched world.
If we are looking for a more appropriate metaphor from the world of
food, it is probably less like a slice of something and more like grated
cheese sprinkled throughout a dish it somehow hangs together when
melted, but sits neither only at the top or only at the bottom.
Rather than focusing on the development of distinct layers, the
important point here is how successive symbolic interactions among
autonomous individuals result in the emergence of collective phenom-
ena (Sawyer 2005: 2122; emphasis added).10 Symbolic in this con-
text underlines the fact that it is not the mere fact that interaction is
taking place (or the intensity of interaction) which gives rise to emer-
gent phenomena. It is not the basic wiring or possible connectivity of
a system that underpins the emergence of collective phenomena. What
is required for the emergence of large-scale and enduring collective
phenomena is routinised interaction on a basis of symbolic general-
isation (see Parsons and Smelser 1956; see also the discussion of the
notions of interaction system and interaction capacity later). For the
purpose of the present argument, it makes little difference whether one

politics to a discussion with Stefan Khl and I am indebted to Tobias Werron

for a full clarication of what the persistent problem in this discussion was.
10
While Sawyer (2005) provides a quite useful overview over various theories on
social emergence in various branches of the social sciences, his identication of
three waves in social systems theory (1026) is somewhat muddled, particularly
when it comes to the second and third waves. Placing Luhmanns work squarely
into the second wave (14) is quite odd.
The system of world politics 93

subscribes to concepts of either strong or weak emergence. What

both invariably share is the basic insight that the shape of the collective
phenomenon that results from symbolic interaction is unpredictable.
Where both differ is on whether it is possible, in retrospect, to reduce
the emergent phenomenon to its ingredients or not. If it were possible,
then, in principle, emergence could be reconstructed in miniscule
steps just as, in principle, it might be possible to reconstruct why
a dice shows a certain number if all the forces at work in rolling it were
known (though it would not be possible to predict the number before
rolling the dice11).
While emergence is a pervasive process in the social (as well as in the
natural) world, world politics forms a subsystem and characterises an
emergent form (or stage) in the evolution of the political system.
The emergence of a specic subsystem within a function system is
characterised not by exclusiveness, but by inclusiveness. This means
that a particular instance of political communication can be a relevant
instance of communication in different subsystems of the political
system at the same time. This, compared in particular to notions such
as glocality, is both a more complex and also a theoretically more
elegant way of saying that things can, for example, be relevant both in
the context of local and global politics. This also means that the
appearance of a subsystem does not happen in isolation within an
otherwise given, static and non-evolving system. On the contrary, the
emergence through differentiation (Ausdifferenzierung) of new subsys-
tems is part of the evolution of the wider system. In our case, this means
that world politics does not simply pop up and start operating in an
otherwise unchanging world of politics or, to put it differently, that
both the political system of world society and the system of world
politics continue to evolve at the same time.

(Beyond) Interaction
The system of world politics emerged in a process with no denite
beginning or end, although the Congress of Vienna certainly marks
an important apogee in the process. What was novel about this system,
11
It remains open to debate whether the distinction between strong and weak
emergence contains different claims as to characteristics of social reality, or
whether it is, in the end, a difference between an ontological and an episte-
mological notion of emergence.
94 Emerging world politics

however, was not that it formed the rst international system, but that
it was the rst system which relied on a specic form of interaction and
the expectation of its repetition, that is, system continuation, as well as
on the observation of interaction through a common scheme (the
programme, in systems theory terms). In order to take this argument
further, it is helpful to distinguish it from what, at rst glance, is
a seemingly similar, yet upon closer inspection conceptually quite
different, approach to thinking about international systems.
In their seminal work on International Systems in World History,
Barry Buzan and Richard Little (2000) provide an account of how
international systems evolved over a timespan of millennia. While the
present argument wholeheartedly joins with Buzan and Little in criti-
cising a (still continuing) propensity of the discipline of International
Relations to presentism and ahistoricism (Buzan and Little 2000: 18ff),
it signicantly departs from them when it comes to the understanding
of what a social system entails. The main weakness of Buzan and
Littles account from this perspective is that, while it goes to great
lengths to situate itself in relation to and beyond behaviourist,
neorealist and constructivist conceptualisations of an international
system (Buzan and Little 2000: 36ff), it shares with these conceptuali-
sations a relatively static notion of what a system actually is. As is
quite common in contemporary IR theorising (see also Albert and
Cederman 2010; Albert and Walter 2005), they basically ignore
much of social systems theory in its various forms (see again: Sawyer
2005: 10ff), and rather follow established IR practice in basically
seeing the regular and patterned interaction between units as forming
the main characteristic of a social system (Buzan and Little 2000: 79).12
Static because such an understanding only allows one to describe
differences between international (that is, inter-polity) systems
throughout history in terms of intensity and structure, but not in
terms of kind. That is like seeing no difference between a simple elec-
tronic pocket calculator and the computer cloud consisting of millions

12
It should be noted that this practice is not limited to contributions to
International Relations in the narrower sense, but even can be found in seminal
works in adjacent elds. See Hobden (1999) for a criticism of the works of
Theda Skocpol, Charles Tilly and Michael Mann in this respect. Also, for a quite
insightful discussion of several kinds of systems of states in history, which
similarly does not enquire further into the systemness of the systems, cf.
Watson (1990).
The system of world politics 95

of computers connected through the World Wide Web, although, with-

out doubt, both are in the end electronic calculating machines, only
diverging widely in the characteristics and intensities of their wiring
(ranging from copper cables to nanochips). It is, put somewhat simply,
like asserting comparability of the hardware while ignoring much of
the software running on it.
On a theoretical level, there are two basic aws in such a view.
Firstly, while it is in good company, following a long tradition in
social (systems) thought in seeing systems as wholes composed by
the interactions of parts (cf. Albert and Buzan 2013), the very
concept of interaction is underspecied when it comes to reecting
on the necessarily symbolic dimension required if an interaction is
to be meaningful (see Mead 1992; Blumer 1986). This is not to say
that no reection of this kind is present in International Systems in
World History; yet it remains more or less implicit when specifying
that, historically, several types of interaction in this case military,
political, economic and societal (see Buzan and Little 2000: 91ff)
can be observed. Yet, what this means, and how exactly they arrive
at the enumeration of types, remains, not surprisingly, rather
unclear (see on this problem in relation to the notion of sectors:
Albert and Buzan 2011).
Secondly, like all systems theories which characterise a system as
a whole composed of parts, which ends up being more than the sum
of its parts (otherwise it would not make sense to speak of some-
thing other than the sum), such an approach relies on an under-
specied notion of what actually constitutes the system. This is
a point that in most systems theories that follow the partswhole
scheme either remains unspecied (as arguably in most theories that
deal with the international system) or is given a mystical solution, as
rst and most notably introduced by Adam Smith with the famous
invisible hand, which is taken to explain why the market as
a system is somehow more than the sum of economic interactions.
At this crucial juncture, modern systems theory departs from tradi-
tional forms, replacing the parts/whole scheme with the system/
environment scheme.

Only in the context of the experience of a world society and worldwide

global cultures, i.e. maybe in the nineteenth and really only in the twentieth
century, is the cosmologically founded scheme of a whole and its parts
96 Emerging world politics

denitively abandoned (which does not exclude there being semantic

survivors). World society has too little visible harmony for it to be
understood according to it. (Luhmann 1997: 930931; see also Albert and
Buzan 2013)

These two basic aws in Buzan and Littles understanding of systems

do not invalidate many of their important insights in characterising
specic international systems or, more precisely, inter-polity cong-
urations in world history. Yet, it makes them miss two important
points that play a central role in the present account of the evolution of
a system of world politics. They miss, rstly, the relevance of the
difference between various kinds of systems, most notably between
interaction systems and organisational and functional systems.
Secondly, they at least partially miss the difference between the various
ways in which interaction takes place, in other words, the difference
between dissemination media (wires, steamships, newspapers etc.) and
symbolically generalised media of communication (power, money, law
etc.) as the carriers and enablers of (always symbolic) interaction.
To illustrate the latter point, it is useful to take a closer look at
Buzan and Littles concept of interaction capacity, whose deni-
tion is worth quoting here at length:

It refers to the amount of transportation, communication, and organisational

capability within the unit or system: how much in the way of goods and
information can be moved over what distances at what speeds and at what
costs? It is about the technological capabilities (e.g. caravans, ships, railways,
aircraft) and the shared norms, rules, and institutions, on which the type and
intensity of interaction between units in a system, or within units, depends . . .
It refers to the carrying capacity of a social system, its physical potential for
enabling the units within it to exchange information, goods, or blows.
If process denes what units actually do when they interact, interaction
capacity denes what they can do. (Buzan and Little 2000: 80; rst emphasis
added)

Although interaction capacity in this denition is characterised as

physical potential, more is actually meant here than mere material
capabilities as there is also a clear mention of the (non-physical)
norms, rules, and institutions which enable interaction. It would
probably be wrong to say that the concept of interaction capacity
refers solely to the material wiring of the system in question (and
Buzan and Littles reference to physical potential here is something of
The system of world politics 97

a misnomer). But, to again use a gurative analogy with the world of

computers, what Buzan and Littles interaction capacity means is
the (physical) cables connecting computers, as well as the (non-
physical) standards that allow distant computers to exchange data
bilaterally. However, establishing repeated point-to-point connections
is quite a different thing from software that enables the regular
exchange in the World Wide Web. That is a commonly shared soft-
ware, which allows us to create commonly shared meaning and mark
a specic communicative difference beyond individual interaction sys-
tems. Although it is possible to nd similar elements in a number of
earlier congurations, it is here that one of the crucial characteristics
if not the crucial characteristic of the system of world politics
that emerges in a long process can be located. Together with and
within a functionally differentiated political system, world politics
forms a subsystem of its own. It processes communication by means
of a specic programme (a software), and it builds up complexity
and a semantics of its own. The semantics in this case constitutes the
visible marker of the distinction between system and environment at
the moment when it becomes possible to address some politics as
world or international politics.
In order to arrive at this point and form a system of world politics,
inter-polity relations rst needed to move to a stage where they did not
rely on repetition in and as interaction systems. Also, the protocols of
diplomatic interaction needed to be developed into a programme
allowing a continuous processing of meaning. This required not only
the carrying capacity of dissemination media (such as print, modern
mass media that is, pretty much, Buzan and Littles physical aspect
of interaction capacity) but also increasing complexity on the basis of
symbolically generalised media of communication (that is, most nota-
bly, an abstract and exible notion of power; see the discussion on the
balance of power below). It is quite likely that a system of that kind
could only emerge as part of modern (world) society. However, if one is
seeking to embark on a comparison of international systems across
epochs (and to do so on the basis of a more open understanding of what
a system is compared to the present approach), then Buzan and Littles
interaction capacity probably still provides one of the most reliable
compasses available.
Referring back to the concept of an interaction system as introduced in
Chapter 2, within and beyond any realm of international relations,
98 Emerging world politics

myriads of underlying interaction systems are to be found. The crucial

question is whether this results in some kind of proto-system which can
only be continued through specic kinds of interaction and which mostly
requires presence, or whether a system formation already exists that still
sees quite a lot of interaction, but where system continuation does not
depend on specic kinds of interaction taking place. The former covered
more or less all international relations before the differentiation of
a subsystem of world politics. The analysis of politics as an ensemble
that is mainly based on interaction systems and that requires presence can
draw on a rich literature (still more prevalent in historical than in IR
studies). This literature not only emphasises diplomatic practices as prac-
tices of statecraft (see Cohen 1987; Der Derian 1987; Neumann 2012) but
also the substantive importance of ritual and ceremonial in face-to-face
meetings. Rather than seeing the latter as additives to some real content,
this strand of research argues that, to a large (if, over time, changing)
degree, the expressions conveyed in rituals and ceremonials are the con-
tent: State action . . . to a substantial degree is symbolic action in the form
of political ritual (Paulmann 2000: 21). Ceremonial serves a crucial
function in establishing and re-establishing the orders of hierarchy:
Since disagreements over ceremonial occurred so frequently, an exam-
ination of them enables us to discover the changes in practice which reect
and reveal changes in the relative position of states (Roosen 1980: 462).13
The seminal study of how political power is organised in and through
a culture of presence is Barbara Stollberg-Rilingers Des Kaisers alte
Kleider [The Emperors Old Clothes], which studies the changing
forms of ritual and the ceremonial enactment of power in the Holy
Roman Empire, analysing constitutional history as being primarily
ritual history. In an analysis of the situation at the end of the fteenth
century, the argument goes as follows:

The fundamental issues who actually belongs to the empire, how do those
involved relate to each other, which rank they take relative to each other and,
most importantly, how from their collective action decisions binding for all

13
In what, to the best of my knowledge, is also one of the rst uses of the notion of
a theory of international relations, Brougham and Vaux (1803: 242) seems to
capture the difference between an interaction system and a system beyond its
actualisation in interaction: It must be evident to everyone, that the only reason
why the theory of international relations has been supposed incapable of being
reduced to xed principles, is the apparent small number of men concerned in
regulating the external policy of states.
The system of world politics 99

can emerge could not be answered in an abstract fashion; the answers to

these question were nowhere xed in writing; they rather emerged from
concrete practice. (Stollberg-Rilinger 2008: 25f)14

Thus, in important gatherings the empire was represented in a twofold

sense: it was not only depicted (dargestellt), it was also made and
enacted (hergestellt) (Stollberg-Rilinger 2008: 26f). Generally, the
fteenth century witnessed an intensication of the frequency of meet-
ings: What was called das Reich was further developed into a more
stable political-social system of classication (Stollberg-Rilinger 2008:
89). It was, however, not until the mid-seventeenth century that the
representation of the Empire was more rmly underpinned by
a network of permanent representatives at rulers courts, a network
that also became more complex in that an ever more precise system of
different ranks of emissaries was established (Stollberg-Rilinger 2008:
151). It could be argued that it was the Peace of Westphalia that set in
motion a long journey towards what was in the end to become a system
that was no longer based on presence and increasingly relied on
repeated and routinised interaction. The Peace of Westphalia did not
establish a system right away, but it planted the seeds of the demise of
the Old Empire based on a culture of presence that faced more and
more difculties in representing itself. Probably more important than
the proceedings in Mnster and Osnabrck in this connection was the
1653/54 Regensburg Reichstag that sought to address the issues left
open in Mnster and Osnabrck. It was here that the logic of imperial
hierarchy and the logic of legal sovereignty began to clash openly.
As Stollberg-Rilinger shows, a conict emerged in that, on the one
hand, electors and princes remained vassals of the Emperor, while, on
the other hand, after the Peace of Westphalia they also claimed to be
sovereign:

But the imperial meeting [Reichsversammlung] was hopelessly unable to

cope with all these conicts over the political-social system of
classication . . . The means by which the old culture of presence dealt with
conicts which could not be solved in an amicable and consensual way were
twofold: public, ritual protestation or complete absence. That, however, led

14
See Scales (2012) for an instructive analysis of the situation from the mid-
thirteenth to the early fteenth century, and again the observation of an absence
of any single, established mausoleum and place of memory-keeping for the
rulers of the Reich (Scales 2012: 133).
100 Emerging world politics

to a communicative dead end. It led to endless protestations and re-

protestations but rarely or never to nal solutions. Nearly all questions of
rank and status from the seating order in the curiae to the exercise of the
arch ofces remained untackled and permanently in limbo. (Stollberg-
Rilinger 2008: 223f)

The Empire was almost exclusively based on interaction systems, with

the written memory of the systems remaining in the background.
In that sense, it could be characterised as having a (proto-)systemic
character: The Empire of late medieval times and the beginning of the
modern age followed the logic of a culture of presence, i.e. it was
integrated into a whole by the fact that the actors met from time to
time personally at the same place (Stollberg-Rilinger 2008: 299f).
What starts from here is a long evolutionary process. As an evolu-
tionary process, it knows no denite historical beginning or end. It was
a process in which different logics of organising political authority
(allegiance to the emperor versus sovereign autonomy) competed
with one another for a long time.15 At the same time, interaction
increasingly took place on a routine basis, in the end underlying the
formation of a distinct system of politics as the latter itself became more
autonomous as a functionally differentiated system of society. This
process was not a one-dimensional one comprising merely an intensify-
ing density of interaction systems. Rather, interaction systems became
increasingly plugged into routines, rules and procedures, which then
become the lubricants for the emergence of a system of world politics.
As hinted at already, the Peace of Westphalias role in this process at
rst was a more negative one, in the sense that it helped to create
a logic of sovereignty that could not be reconciled with the logic of
empire.16 However, it did not by itself establish a practice of routinised
exchange between sovereigns (let alone sovereign equals) through

15
While in the long run the Peace of Westphalia laid the seeds for the demise of the
logic of Empire, at the time of its conclusion it was at rst an important
contribution to the stabilisation of its constitution; cf. Dickmann (1972).
16
While it hollowed out the logic of empire, it did, however, contribute a great deal
at rst to stabilising the Empire after the turmoil of the long war; not only
internally, but particularly also against a party which maybe lost most of all . . .
without having participated in neither the war nor the peace negotiations the
Holy See (Schilling 2007: 583). Indeed, the Peace of Westphalia needs to be seen
as an important part of, and signpost for, an increasingly autonomous political
system (cf. Schilling 2007: 593ff). Regarding the continuing co-existence of
Empire and European system, also see Schilling (1991: 26ff).
The system of world politics 101

diplomacy. Rather than Westphalia representing a new point of depar-

ture for European diplomacy, it was the need to address current and
new issues in the second half of the seventeenth century that encour-
aged the use of diplomats for reporting and negotiation (Black 2010:
65). For a long time after 1648, trafc between the states was char-
acterised by complexity. Given the lack of formal rules of interaction, it
would be hard to argue that this trafc had a systemic quality. Rather,
setting the rules and standards anew for each interaction (system) was
the rule, usually requiring the help of a third party to get things going in
the rst place. The complicated diplomatic ceremonial with its still
unarbitrated quarrels about precedence and title on the one hand and
the fact that peace congresses always convened during the war and not
after a ceasere on the other . . . made the action of neutral mediators
a necessity (Duchhardt 1976: 20). What 1648 did, however, was to
give a signicant boost to the acceptance of the usefulness of permanent
diplomatic exchange and permanent representation.
The idea of permanent representation did not arrive out of nothing,
but had been constantly evolving since the mid-fteenth century.
As Black (2010: 27f, also 43) points out in his History of Diplomacy,
distinguishing between late medieval and modern practices in this
regard is not entirely helpful when trying to understand the evolution
of the practice of permanent representation. He stresses that the Peace
of Lodi in 1454 proved to be a catalyst in the establishment of perma-
nent embassies (between the Italian city-states). Yet he also points out
that the extension of this practice of permanent representation through
embassies on a wider scale did not necessarily mean that permanence
was also durable in reality: Emphasis . . . on the creation of an inte-
grated diplomatic network through these embassies underplays the
extent to which such a network did not in fact exist across all of
Europe (Black 2010: 47).17
Still, with regard to the part played by diplomatic interaction in the long-
term evolution of system qualities, Westphalia was important. With it

began a sequence of lengthy peace congresses ending major wars, and these
congresses demonstrated the value of diplomatic skill. The congresses, and

17
See also Kienast (1936: 12) on the idea that the amount of interaction between
states in late medieval times is not enough to warrant speaking about a system.
On the differences to a Mid-East system (confessional issues, no second- and
third-rate powers), see Black (2010: 54).
102 Emerging world politics

the diplomacy that led to them, also encouraged a continuing appreciation of

the multiple interactions of states comprising an international system that
was not only multilateral, but also where distant issues could have a direct
consequence for those not directly involved. The congresses, moreover, led to
an emulation of the style and methods of French diplomacy, methods which
were seen as particularly effective. (Black 2010: 66)

While a stable network of embassies had evolved by the end of the

seventeenth century (see Black 2010: 67), it would take another two
centuries for the system of world politics to evolve on the foundations
of this basic wiring.18 To grow into a fully-edged system, it had to
undergo a further signicant evolution of its social hardware and its
matching to the appropriate balance of power software (see below).
To reiterate: as this is an evolutionary process, there are no denite
beginnings, ends or turning points, although the Peace of Westphalia,
the Congress of Vienna and the Congress of Berlin may very well pass
for the latter.19 To again borrow a crude analogy from the history of
computing, never in the history of the evolution of a system of world
politics was there a point at which some kind of predecessor calculat-
ing machine was invented. Nevertheless, Westphalia marks an impor-
tant point where it becomes visible, in this highly gurative sense, that
mechanical calculating aids which have a very long history from the
abacus to the slide rule are being slowly displaced by the invention of
electronic calculators and then computers. Though later turning
points in the evolution of the system of world politics may equate to
new-generation operating systems, higher programming languages or

18
It is only in the second half of the eighteenth century that the system of perma-
nent diplomatic representation evolves from a basically Western European
system to one covering Europe in its entirety: the completion of Europes
diplomatic network, with the full incorporation of Russia (1760s1780s), its
tentative extension to include the Ottoman Empire in the 1790s and 1800s, and
the reincorporation of France after the upheavals and warfare of the 1790s and
1800s (Scott 2006: 2). Thanks to Thomas Mller for making this particular
point.
19
Since its rst appearance in 1917, Satows Guide to Diplomatic Practice (Satow
2011) has served as the standard handbook for diplomatic code and practice; its
sixth edition succinctly identies the Peace of Westphalia as the beginning of
classical European diplomacy, the Congress of Vienna as the beginning of the
modern equivalent (see Roberts 2009: 1012). Regarding the development of
semantics, the very notion of diplomacy does not appear before the end of the
eighteenth century towards the end of the ancien rgime cf. Paulmann (2012:
4753).
The system of world politics 103

the World Wide Web, there is no revolutionary event whereby the

system is invented.20 Although many gures of thought appear in
the seventeenth century that, seen retrospectively, seem to feed into or
be taken up in the evolution of a system of world politics, at the time of
their appearance they still do not refer to anything like such a system
(cf. Gollwitzer 1972: 146). Incidentally, it was only at the time of the
Congress of Vienna that contemporary commentators observed expli-
citly that what was at stake was the creation of a comprehensive
political system (Klber 1966: 11; emphasis in original [orig. 1816]).
If there is anything resembling a point of completion of the system of
world politics in the sense of its becoming fully operational, it is
probably the Berlin Congress in 1878, at which point it is clear that
the system is fully established because it observes itself vis--vis
a specic environment in the form of a public.21 After Berlin at the
very latest, there is no turning back to a non-reective (world) politics
that takes place without at least imagining that it is being observed by
a public.22 This brought to an end a long phase in the establishment of
the sovereign state, which, since the eighteenth century, had been
enacted and constituted through congresses and ceremonials mainly
at and between (royal) courts and which now operated on the basis of
outside public observation.23

20
Much as there has, for example, never been an exact point at which the internet
came into existence; see, for example: Blum (2012); Townes (2012).
21
Novotny stresses that the Congresses of Vienna and Berlin can, in fact, be seen as
the two poles of the historical development of the nineteenth century (Novotny
1958: 285). In the process of the expansion of a European system into a system
of world politics, the Berlin Congress as the last of the European Peace
Congresses of the classic age of the old high diplomacy since 1648 once again
represented a type of politics of Europe in its entirety [gesamteuropische
Politik] (Novotny 1958: 287). On the importance of established protocol as
a means of establishing communication (and efciently excluding the Ottoman
Empire) during the Berlin Congress, see Schattenberg (2010).
22
In a quite colourful description, von Treitschke (1943: 10) also notes the
inuence of the public on the deliberations at the Congress of Vienna: It never
returned, however, the nave undiscerning attitude of those good old times that
had known with such certainty that the human race only started at the rank of
baron and that the happy simple-minded crowd could never learn the mockery
and the free-thinking play of thought that characterised the higher orders. See
also Kieling (2012) on the increasing involvement and constitution of a global
public towards the end of the nineteenth century.
23
See Kuntz (2015) on the establishment of the sovereign state and international
relations as historical practice, understood as a practice of encounter.
104 Emerging world politics

The important point in the present context is the institutionalisation

of interaction, its envisaged repetition. After Vienna, it became more
and more common not simply to conclude conferences with an agree-
ment, but to at least express the intention of having a follow-up con-
ference. Looking back from the experience of dashed hopes after the
First World War, Gruber (1919: 36) reects on the importance of this
periodisation: These regularly occurring congresses were envisaged
after the foundation of the Quintuple Alliance of 1815 and were staged
over a number of years. They might also have been the seed for an
Aeropagus of the peoples and thus for a legal organisation of the
community of international law [Vlkerrechtsgemeinschaft].24 This
routinisation changes the horizons of expectations in relations between
states. Protocol becomes increasingly independent of specic interac-
tion systems whereas previously its lack had been shown by the need to
establish it ad hoc this being particularly evident in the common
practice of negotiating a preliminary peace (Prliminarfrieden) before
the real negotiations could take place (cf. Gruber 1919: 29).
A necessary supplement to this stabilisation of future expectations
was the stabilisation of references to the past as signposts setting
precedents: this is probably the root of the myth of the Westphalian
system (see Osiander 2001; also Glanville 2013). Many negotiations
and treaties referred to the Peace of Westphalia.

An element which led to a kind of structuralisation of peace treaties after

1648 can be seen in the permanent recourse to the Peace of Westphalia, in the
endless referencing of the Treaties of Mnster and Osnabrck which in
combination with the Peace of the Pyrenees were without doubt treated as if
they functioned as a European basic law. (Duchhardt 1976: 80f)

Even more important in terms of the routinisation of interaction was

the establishment of stable protocol by abstraction from specic meet-
ings, and the establishment of stable rules on who was entitled to speak
to whom and on behalf of whom. During the Congress of Vienna, the
idea of organised delegations was still almost non-existent. Although
there were a number of envoys for each party, the idea of forming
24
There is an obvious error here when Gruber talks about the foundation of the
Quintuple Alliance of 1815. The original text suggests that he refers to the
foundation of the Quadruple Alliance of 1815 (and not the foundation of the
Quintuple Alliance of 1818). I owe this point to Stephen Curtis who spotted
Grubers mistake.
The system of world politics 105

a collective was strange to them, inevitably leading to quarrels about

status and entitlement among the envoys of particular countries. Thus,
for example, Castlereaghs distaste for his colleagues has frequently
been noted: There were three other British plenipotentiaries in addi-
tion to the Foreign Secretary. Castlereagh did not see them as posses-
sing an authority in any way equal to his own (Nicolson 1946: 128).
In general, the principle was one of subjective singular representation
rather than collective delegation (see Gruber 1919: 150; and 134147
on the entire problem of procedure at the start of the Congress).25
The establishment of xed systems of collective delegation in the dec-
ades after Vienna went hand in hand with the establishment of proce-
dures governing who was entitled to invite others and procedures
regarding the actual invitation process.26 These play an important
role in consolidating positions and further orienting action towards
the regularities of systems operation (see extensively Gruber 1919:
48ff). As already noted, this process reaches maturity with the 1878
Berlin Congress: Up until this point the notes of invitation were . . .
entirely condential (Gruber 1919: 56). For Berlin, however, the
German government invited all relevant parties at the same time,
based upon previous agreement, by means of a circular note:
The progress in this direction marked by the Berlin Congress inu-
enced the way in which all later political and law-making conferences
were summoned (Gruber 1919: 58).27
Gruber aptly describes the entire sequence of peace negotiations and
conferences as reecting the emergence of an international common
interest, which, however, was only partly reected upon as such, and
only in the years before the First World War openly addressed as the
goal of a Weltverstndigung (world accommodation; Gruber 1919:

25
The rst instance of a delegates congress was probably the Peace Congress of
Cologne in 1636/37; see Schilling (2007: 565).
26
Michael Erbe (2004: 335) draws a straight line from the Vienna (1815) and
Aachen (1818) agreements that settled questions regarding the rank of diplo-
mats to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961. While the
Congress in Vienna was only the starting point in many respects, it also set
concrete precedence in some respect it certainly never was the entertainment-
oriented dancing Congress as which it has been portrayed in its aftermath; see
Gruner (2014: 11).
27
Keene (2012) makes a similar argument regarding routinisation through an
analysis of treaty making, which, he observes, increased massively between
1830 and 1860.
106 Emerging world politics

45). In this context, he refers to some of the bigger conferences (most

notably the Hague conference) as world conferences
(Weltkonferenzen; Gruber 1919: 6). In terms of system formation,
this reects an end point to a history of conferences and congresses that
were ad hoc in nature: The congresses and conferences thus far were
not really organs of the international community of states (Gruber
1919: 7). The long history of conferences and congresses after 1648 is
a history of meetings about issues of war and peace, assembled on
specic occasions on the initiative of parties to the conict, or, quite
often, third parties, for lack of established protocols and procedures to
enable the conicting parties to get together in the rst place (cf. Gruber
1919: 714). In quantitative terms, it is (only) in the second half of the
nineteenth century that conference activity over issues other than war
and peace increases. In the context of the present argument this might
immediately lead us to conclude that this indicates that systemic pro-
grammes were consolidated to such a degree that states could now
come together regularly in order to deliberate on many different issues.
However, despite advances in programme and protocol, such meetings
often still also relied on the initiative of private parties (cf. for example
the 1864 Geneva conference and the role of Henri Dunant).
By the nal quarter of the nineteenth century, there was an estab-
lished procedure for staging meetings between states that had become
largely independent of specic interaction. It was important that these
interactions now took place under the eyes of a public. As Msslang
and Riotte (2008) point out in their general overview of the evolution
of diplomatic protocol and ceremony, there is a massive turning point
when diplomacy is no longer a secret affair. It is increasingly directed to
(mass) public audiences, and increasingly includes theatrical elements
in the meetings of heads of state up until the First World War (see the
detailed study by Paulmann 2000).
Of course, interaction systems continue to play an important role in
the operation of the contemporary system of world politics.
To paraphrase Luhmann, the big social systems of society oat on
a sea of myriads of interaction systems. In addition, ceremonial and
ritual have not disappeared, as can be witnessed on a daily basis in news
reports of meetings between high government ofcials and heads of
state either bilaterally or in the context of the summit meetings that
occur with ever-increasing frequency. However, the meeting of heads
of state, given the presence of world politics as a system within the
The system of world politics 107

political system of world society, and a meeting of, for example, princes
with the Emperor in a Reichstag differ fundamentally in respect of
the systemic quality of the gathering. In the latter case, the Empire
was literally made through being enacted in the interaction of
the meeting. Written titles or prearrangements were of small value.
At contemporary meetings, on the other hand, where everything is
often prearranged and very rarely is anything actually decided during
the meeting, the international community represented to the public
through ritualised forms is, for the most part, operatively independent
of this ritualised enacting, although the latter does symbolise the sys-
tems unity (cf. Wesel 2004).
The establishment of world politics as a subsystem of the political
system of world society did not happen overnight. It had at its core two
developments: on the one hand, the routinisation and formalisation of
interaction through diplomatic practice at and beyond congresses,
conferences (and later international organisations), which made the
need for relations or earlier forms of international systems to be
permanently enacted and recreated in interaction systems and through
presence redundant; on the other, the transformation of the balance of
power from one regulative idea among others into the programme of
the system of world politics through which power is observed as the
symbolically generalised medium of communication in the political
system.

System closure: balance of power as systemic programme

Approaching the concept of a balance of power in world politics is
difcult given its long and very complex history. It would seem to entail
a high risk of becoming repetitive, given the enormous literature deal-
ing with the subject in both history and IR. However, while the present
account needs to put forward a few basic points about the concepts
history, it parts company with previous accounts in that the interest
here is primarily in reconstructing the qualitative transformation of the
function of balance of power in the context of the emergence of
a systemic quality in world politics.
The origins of balance of power practice can be located in the rela-
tions between the city-states in fteenth-century Italy (see Nelson
1943). However, the rst broad use of the notion of a balance of
power in the interactions between states appears in and around the
108 Emerging world politics

negotiations leading to the Peace of Utrecht (1713). Here, the notion

was used in European politics, diplomacy and publicity on an unpre-
cedented scale in order to create a legitimate basis for a defence against
Louis XIVs ambitions for a universal monarchy (Duchhardt 1976:
20).28
The Peace of Westphalia played an important role in supporting the
notion of balance that emerged out of the notion of parity. But the
Peace was not, primarily, about the balance between states in Europe,
but about a balance between the religious denominations and between
the different principalities in Germany. Its most essential precondition
was the ction of the aequalitas exacta mutuaque . . .; parity did
not mean equal treatment, equal rights or equal value (Fenske
1975: 963).
Generally, the balance of power and the historically related notion of
the Concert of Europe have a mythical structure, although they are not
fully developed myths (see Krger 1999: 100; see notably also Little
2007: 5087). Krger gives a useful account of the history of the concept
and its relation to the mythical, which is worth quoting here at length:29

1. Balance in general developed into a myth as a guideline for rational

behaviour and regulator of international politics. The formation of the
myth took place after the late fteenth century in the form of a nostalgic
view of the destroyed Italian balance system as a lost ideal.
2. Time and again the opportunity arose to transcend the concrete notion
of balance through mythical connotations, i.e. through opening, debordering
and connection with meaning that could not be conrmed.
3. This happened, for example, when balance was viewed as a symbol for,
or the goal of, an eternal interplay between powers.
4. Particularly between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries
balance was elevated to mean a state of harmony, law, morality, reason
and humanism, and also of calculability and scientic orientation.

28
For a general overview, see Kaeber (1907); Dehio (1948); Buttereld and Wight
(1966); and see Wright (1975) for a useful overview of central documents. For
a good abridged account of the emergence of balance of power thought in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see Anderson (1993: 149203). Arno
Strohmeyer (1994) thoroughly analyses the nineteenth-century balance of
power in his Theory of Interaction, yet with a quite different notion of interac-
tion (i.e. interaction is not an interaction system) from the one used here.
29
Good overviews of the many meanings and uses can also be found in Haas
(1953); Sheehan (1996); Wright (1975).
The system of world politics 109

5. With this went an extension into the abstract. The societal and political
balance among the states was related to the one in the state system and
presented as a kind of ideal of the middle way between extremes.
6. Negative myth formation took place primarily in the twentieth century:
the balance was seen as driving war, benetting the strong, driving arms
levels to unbearable heights and
7. The balance of horror on the brink of nuclear war in the opposition
between East and West. (Krger 1999: 109110)

Much of the difculty in studying the concept of the balance of power

derives from its historical and semantic evolution as aptly summarised by
Krger (and from the fact that the seven points in the quotation above do
not refer to neatly demarcated historical episodes; the latter ones invari-
ably entail traces of the former). Even more difculty stems from the fact
that much of the literature on the balance of power distinguishes only
weakly (if at all) between its two inextricably linked roles that are very
different in their functions: on the one side, its role as a practice, ordering
principle and institution; on the other, its role as mode of thought,
language and commonly shared term of reference. The difference can
be illustrated from Schroeders seminal contribution to the study of the
concept. In his earlier work, Schroeder identies balance of power as
being an important cornerstone of the post-Vienna order, yet emphasises
that it is only possible to understand this order if important additional
elements are taken into account. These are, most notably: (1)
The conservative spirit reigning among the great powers, their common
determination to maintain the treaties, preserve the status quo, and resist
revolutionary wars of aggression or bids by any one for European empire
(Schroeder 1972: 404). (2) The Concert and the system of congresses that
was its instrument (which survived it, only to be destroyed by the
Crimean War (see Schroeder 1972: 407).30 (3) And the organisation of
Germany and Italy into an independent centre for Europe under Austrian
hegemony (Schroeder 1972: 406). While sticking to these three points,
twenty years later Schrder proposed discarding the balance of power
diagnosis. In the seemingly endless debate on whether Vienna established
30
This point is probably overstretching it very considerably. There was no full
destruction of the Concert and its principles, otherwise the 1878 Berlin Congress
would probably not have taken place; cf. Baumgart (1999: 160). To mark the
continuity as well as the qualitative transformation, Doering-Manteuffel (1991:
11) proposes to speak of a Viennese system up until the Crimean War, and
a Viennese order after it; for one among the many more pronounced diagnoses
of discontinuity, cf. Conze (2007: 61f).
110 Emerging world politics

a balance of power or a hegemonic order (cf. Dehio 1948), he came down

rmly in favour of the latter view: any balance of power interpretation of
the Vienna settlement is misleading and wrong (Schroeder 1992: 684).
Schroeder actually argues that the Vienna settlements

essential power relations were hegemonic, not balanced, and a hegemonic

distribution of power, along with other factors, made the system work.
A move away from eighteenth-century balance of power politics to
a different kind of politics was an essential element in the revolutionary
transformation of European international politics achieved in 18131815.
(Schroeder 1992: 684)

Schroeder cites the lack of any existing balance in terms of capabilities

and the fact that the major powers understood the order as being
hegemonic as evidence that the main ordering principle after Vienna
was hegemony and not the balance of power. Even on the basis of raw
power, resources, and capabilities, one can hardly speak of a balance
of power in 1815 (Schroeder 1992: 686). And in addition:
The Russian understanding of the European balance was equally
hegemonic (Schroeder 1992: 690). Nonetheless, Schroeders work
provides a very good example to illustrate the two different roles
played by the balance of power. In seeking to substantiate the claim
that the post-Viennese order was hegemonic, he has to acknowledge
the other role it played, which directly points to the argument made
here. Britains and Russias pursuit of hegemony under the guise of
balance of power was thus normal and traditional, merely less
obvious after 1815 than it had been in the late eighteenth century,
when it had been pursued overtly (Schroeder 1992: 690). But:
Britain and Russia were not alone in saying balance while meaning
hegemony. Almost everyone did (Schroeder 1992: 691; emphasis
added). This is exactly the point. It is one thing to ask whether balance
of power was strongly institutionalised and served as a forceful orga-
nising principle alongside, or rather in lieu of, hegemony (or, for that
matter, whether the distribution of capabilities between the powers
was in any way balanced). But it is quite another thing to note that it
becomes impossible to speak about order even if that order was
predominantly hegemonic in terms other than balance of power.
Even if some powers may have pursued hegemony and the main
ordering principle was hegemonic, [t]he Vienna system was not
designed and set up as a hegemonic great power system (Gruner
The system of world politics 111

1992: 725), let alone described as such.31 Order could increasingly

only be spoken of and thought about in terms of a balance of power.
For the balance of power to attain this role as the only proper
language in which to talk about the order between European powers
for the better part of the nineteenth century, it needed to be under-
pinned by a long ideational and semantic evolution. This evolution
cannot, and need not, be recounted here in detail. However, it is
important to stress that, until the mid-seventeenth century, the notion
of balance was insufciently well dened in practical usage to support
negotiations about an order between powers. That in the end it could
be used by a system required its evolution through the heydays of the
balance literature in the eighteenth century (starting off with the Peace
of Utrecht when the balance was rst publicly brandished as
a regulative ideal by the European states; cf. Fenske 1975: 971ff).
Although the language of balance of power is different from balance of
power as an ordering principle, they are linked in a complex fashion that
undergoes permanent change over time. The notion of balance of power
has always raised (and still raises up to the present day) the question of
whether and how this abstract principle can be translated into more
specic terms. At the time of and before the Congress of Vienna, and
despite reections on the shortcomings of such measures then, the only
specic term available seems to have been a reference to the absolute
number of men under arms (cf., for example, Nicolson 1946: 13f, 30ff).
Yet, even though such measurements were attempted (most notably in the
Statistical Committee during the Congress of Vienna), the balance of
power always also served as a regulative idea in terms of equilibrium
which could not be calculated or measured in any strict sense. On the
contrary, one could actually say that in the end it boiled down to one
simple guideline: not pursuing any policy that led to one state of the
Pentarchy nding itself alone within it.32 Indeed, balance in that context
was almost an emancipatory idea in the sense that it sought to liberate
the states from the recurring spectre (and the real threat in the form of
Napoleon) of a universal monarchy (see also Paulmann 2000: 68). It was
this at least temporarily emancipatory character of the idea which

31
See also Duchhardt (1976: 173): In the Napoleonic Wars and in the renewed
danger of a European universal monarchy the original meaning of the idea of
balance got a new lease of life.
32
See Klueting (1986) generally on the origins and (relatively sparsely developed)
attempt to quantify and measure power in the late eighteenth century.
112 Emerging world politics

underpinned a system which, until the Crimean War, can be characterised

as being more consent- than conict-oriented (see Pyta 2009: 6).
However, the point here is not only the character of the balance of
power as an emancipatory idea but also in fact, even more so the
emancipation of a specic role of the concept from being about order
and the distribution of power capabilities, to being a pervasive regula-
tory idea through which inter-state politics was described. It became
almost a belief in national and international balance (Nicolson 1946:
37), with equilibrium as a general idea of what the order in politics is
and should be. After the Congress of Vienna, allusions to the operation
of the balance of power can be found time and again in a context which,
as a result, comes to appear as a coherent social realm. This is what
happens when, for example, Metternich talks not about some ensemble
of interacting, but otherwise isolated units, but about a Society of
States (Nicolson 1946: 37). As Baumgart (1999: 153) observes:
The Great Powers now dene[d] themselves not only as part of
a whole, but together as the whole itself.33
Yet, apart from the important role played by the Statistical
Committee in Vienna, the balance of power as a regulatory idea
expressed in terms of equilibrium was not calculated or measured
in any sense (that was an operation mostly left to the twentieth century
culminating in its extreme form, the strategic nuclear balance and the
very specic science of force comparison). But it guided how politics,
particularly in the Concert of Europe, was described and observed,
most notably in the Congresses which followed the one in Vienna in
short order (1818 in Aachen, 1820 in Troppau, 1821 in Laibach, and
1822 in Verona).34 In becoming a specic form of processing power as
a symbolically generalised medium of communication, the balance of
power had this particular quality, that it was and needed to be very
open towards various specications:

In comparison to the Concert of Europe and European integration, the idea

of balance is the oldest, the most ambiguous in the variety of its

33
Von Treitschke (1943: 14) observes a European common sense and talks about
a society of states in this context as well.
34
The important point here is caught by Daugherty (1993: 87): The fact that
Concert principles were the subject of so much attention, clarication, and
interpretation indicated their impact on the thinking of the powers. And:
The nature of the international system can depend on the ways that actors think
about it (Daugherty 1993: 97).
The system of world politics 113

interpretations, and also the . . . simplest. Once differentiated and unfolded

into a complex system, it basically suspends itself and transforms into other
possibilities of grasping the international system and its structural
formation particularly into the Concert of Europe, which hitherto has not
usually been seen as the emergence of something new, or even as something
opposed to the balance. (Krger 1999: 105)

The role of the balance of power as a specic programme, underpinning

the differentiation of a specic subsystem of world politics within the
political system of world society, was only possible on the basis of the
ongoing functional differentiation that had been in full swing since the
eighteenth century. Political power became a generalised, positively
abstracted and uniformly applicable substance (Thornhill 2011: 159).
Yet, to reiterate this point: the issue here is the differentiation of
a subsystem, and not the emergence of some kind of new system along-
side and in addition to the political system.35
In order to function as a programme for (sub)systemic specications of
power, balance of power depends on not being clearly dened. Rather,
as Schroeder aptly observes, the balance of power and balance of power
rules were never written down like the Ten Commandments . . .
Discussing the rules means examining unarticulated premises, making
unspoken assumptions explicit, inferring rules and mutual understand-
ings from common practices (Schroeder 1994: 6).36

35
It is in this sense that, for example, Poggis (1978: 8799) assertion is rather
misleading, that in the nineteenth century the order of things changes and the
states no longer presuppose but rather generate the system.
36
To reiterate this point: although it might seem paradoxical, balance of power
can work as a systemic programme to a signicant degree only by receding into
a background. It remains invisible in routine operations (much like the com-
mand lines of a computer programme that are useful only if they do not openly
appear on the screen while the programme runs). As a corollary to the simulta-
neous xation and uidity of the concept of balance of power, power itself
assumes a similar form. Power becomes standardised and for decades activities
aimed at learning how to measure and compare power take place, including
debates about power resources and fungibility. Like money that is manifest in
different currencies, power has different manifestations. Probably the biggest
mistake made in the debates about the comparability/fungibility of different
forms and resources of power was to look for some kind of common denomi-
nator, when the question, in a sense, was really about the existence and change
of regulations and regimes that limited or facilitated the exchange of currencies
of power. The gold standard always was hard military power. Yet what this
meant and how it could be measured and compared is a story in and for itself.
114 Emerging world politics

This means, in particular, that, while it is certainly instructive to

trace the uses of the term balance and related terms (most notably
equilibrium) in various languages, after studying much of the relevant
literature, one would probably still nd oneself very hard-pressed to
come up with any meaningful distinction, particularly between the
notions of balance and equilibrium as used in political or public
language. Thus, for example, Schroeder claims that equilibrium
meant a balance of satisfaction, a balance of rights and obligations,
and a balance of performance and payoffs, rather than a balance of
power (Schroeder 1989: 143). However, the detailed study by Fenske
(1975) in the tradition of conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte)
clearly shows that it is difcult to sustain such an unequivocal
separation.
The present argument in the end sides with Schroeder when he
maintains that international politics needs to be understood and
approached primarily from the standpoint of its own system and
structure, and not as a dependent variable of any other systems or
structures in society (Schroeder 1994: ix). However, the argument
here is about system closure as an important part of the functional
differentiation of world society. Although it is not possible to describe
the political system and the system of world politics as forming
a dependent variable of other systems in society, their evolution and
autonomy cannot be accounted for without looking at the differentia-
tion of society into separate systems. The present argument acknowl-
edges the vast differences between various uses of the term system.
It also acknowledges that the uses of the term international system in
political and scientic language were and remain broad and vague (cf.
Schroeder 1994: xii). What it points out, though, is that, in the forma-
tion of the system of world politics, such vagueness rst and foremost
highlights the role of balance of power as a systemic programme for
processing communication when power is the specic symbolically

Measuring military power and relating it to varying denitions of balance

became a highly sophisticated trade, particularly during the Cold War.
However, the history of military force comparison from crude enumerations of
manpower in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, on the one hand,
to the minuscule calculation of the relative value of, for example, mirved SLBMs
in relation to strategic bombers still remains to be written.
Inis Claude (1969: 2537) aptly observes that in Morgenthaus work balance
of power always remains ambiguous, which is exactly to the point made here.
The system of world politics 115

generalised medium of communication. It is one of the greatest con-

tributions of Schroeders magnum opus, The Transformation of
European Politics 17631848, that he leaves behind many of the
often simplistic notions of an international system used in political
science/IR/diplomatic history. Referring to Michael Oakeshotts
understanding of the constituent rules of practice, he sees the interna-
tional system as being the understandings, assumptions, learned skills
and responses, rules, norms, procedures, etc. which agents acquire and
use in pursuing their individual divergent aims within the framework of
a shared practice (Schroeder 1994: xii). Yet Schroeder in the end lacks
a clear-cut understanding of the relevant criteria for systems, a lack that
constitutes a serious obstacle to placing the evolution of international
politics in a wider (world) society context.
Throughout its history, the balance of power constantly changed its
form. One could probably say that the most important change in our
context was that having become increasingly pervasive in the politics
governing relations between states in the eighteenth century, with the
Congress of Vienna it became inevitable. In addition, there were always
different scales and logics of balance, which can easily be seen in the
Congress of Vienna itself, which was never about the European balance
of power alone.37 As explicitly stated in the rst negotiations between
the Four Powers on 22 September 1814, this was only the rst of two
classes of subjects up for negotiation; the other was the organisation
of Germany (deutsche Bundesverfassung; see the protocol in Dyroff
1966: 3234).38

37
The European balance was composed . . . of a number of elements . . . In its most
general form it consisted of all ve (later six) great powers, where two need to be
considered as heavyweight (England, Russia), one as mediumweight (France),
two as lightweight (Prussia, Austria; Prussia-Germany from 1871 on was
reckoned mediumweight). In addition there was a balance between England
and France in Western Europe (Belgium, Iberian Peninsula, Western
Mediterranean); the balance in Central Europe between Prussia and Austria,
the German dualism; the balance relation of the Holy Alliance or the three
Nordic Courts Russia, Prussia and Austria; and nally the oriental balance in
which all ve Great Powers (Prussia in much-reduced form) participated.
(Baumgart 1999: 150)
38
It should be noted that here, like in much of the literature on the subject, the
Congress of Vienna is used as a shorthand for the establishment of the exten-
sive Congress system, but that this establishment is by no means nished with
the end of the Congress of Vienna, but probably only with the Congress in Aix-
La-Chapelle in 1818. See Jarrett (2014) for an excellent analysis in this respect.
116 Emerging world politics

And there is an argument to be made that what has been identied here
as a systemic programme underwent substantial changes during the rest
of the nineteenth century. As mentioned already, in contrast to the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the balance of power in the post-
Vienna years, at least until the upheavals of 1848 and the Crimean War,
was a consent-oriented system. This, in turn, gave way to a more con-
ictive one that went hand in hand with the discovery of realpolitik (see
Paulmann 2000: 152ff). Yet the effect of this realpolitik turn on the
foundations of the system of world politics as a system should not be
overemphasised. It did not (and could not) roll back the rm establish-
ment of something that was by now entrenched as a specic subsystem of
the political system. The important point is not the transformation of
balance of power practice and semantics; it is the coincidence (or co-
evolution) of this semantics with the systemic closure which relied on and
utilised interaction systems for the reproduction of inter-polity politics in
different ways from the proto-systems that historically preceded it.
It is only from such a theoretical perspective that an insistence on the
role of balance of power makes sense. Otherwise, the present analysis
would have landed in the wrong century. After all, the nineteenth
century saw the demise of the concept after its heyday in the eighteenth
century, which is when most talking and writing about it took place.
The balance of power literature diminished in the nineteenth century,
and balance of power as an openly discussed concept receded into the
background. However, the point here is that at the same time balance
of power became the sediment, the standard programme on which the
system ran; and precisely because of this it did not need to be and
indeed could not be addressed openly all the time. Again, to borrow an
analogy from computer systems: a programme cannot be rewritten
while it is running!39

The evolution of world politics as a subsystem of the political

system II: the structural expansion of world politics and the
consolidation of forms
World politics as a subsystem of the political system of world society
emerged in the European context. As in all processes of social
39
In fact, taking the analogy a bit further even, balance of power here almost
resembles an operating system.
The system of world politics 117

evolution, the structural changes accompanying system formation and

the change in semantics do not occur simultaneously or proceed syn-
chronically. Allusions to world politics and related terms precede, go
together with and follow the differentiation of world politics as
a distinct subsystem. The next section of this chapter will address the
semantics. This section will focus on two aspects integral to the evolu-
tion of the subsystem of world politics, namely its global expansion and
the consolidation of forms of exercising authority (most notably the
gradual rise of the nation-state). Historically, both of these aspects, as
well as the processes described in the previous section, are inextricably
related. They can be only partially separated for analytical purposes.
It seems fair to say that, before more complex and nuanced accounts
appeared in the elds of post-colonial studies and global history, the
prevalent view of the formation of a truly global international system
was strictly unidirectional. First, the consolidation of a European
states-system based on balance of power, and later the global expan-
sion of this system into more remote areas. While these remote areas
were parts of empires and thus certainly not unaffected by the opera-
tions of the European system, they were not a part of that system.
There is nothing inherently wrong with such a view. One could
actually say that it forms the main line of reference, the attractor, in
the course of system evolution. However, it is important to reect that
the consolidation and global expansion of the European into a global
system of states was never strictly unidirectional. Instead, it was char-
acterised by experiments in various directions and systemic feedback
loops (most notably when colonial peripheries inuenced imperial
cores; cf. Anghie 2007; Branch 2012). While the history of European
imperial and colonial expansion might be quite unequivocal in its results,
it never was the linear process as which it has often been depicted.

Instead of thinking about relations between Europe and the world in terms of
some irresistible and inevitable colonial/imperial drive and triumph, it is
necessary to stress the ebb and ow of events and power, imperial defeats
as well as victories, partial successes and setbacks, and the gradualism of
European encroachment, above all in Africa, but also in many parts of Asia.
(Black 2002: 1)40

40
In addition, this expansion never was an expansion of a European West, it was
always rst and foremost the expansion of a more specic, that is British, West
(cf. Black 2002: 139)!
118 Emerging world politics

It needs to be stressed here again that evolution cannot be accounted for

in a teleological fashion, nor is social evolution Darwinian in the sense
that it results in the selection of a better alternative evolution is
simply the continuous three-step process of variation, selection and
restabilisation. At the core of the story of the evolution of world politics
is an account of the consolidation and the global proliferation of the
modern territorial state, which, from the mid-nineteenth century
onwards, with its apex in the extreme nationalism of the early twen-
tieth century, takes the form of the nation-state. Yet this consolidation
and global proliferation of the territorial-cum-nation-state is an uneven
process, and it takes place in waves rather than in a linear fashion.41
Simple Westphalian accounts of a more or less linear spread of the
sovereign territorial (and later nation-) state are indeed a disciplinary
myth of IR, and the notion of the Westphalian system is a product of
the nineteenth- and twentieth-century xation on the concept of sover-
eignty (Osiander 2001: 251; see also the accounts of Spruyt 1994 and
Bartelson 1995). Osiander convincingly argues that this xation on
Westphalia and the story of a linear spread of the sovereign state has
much to do with the nation-state-oriented historiography that goes
hand in hand with the emergence of the nation-state (Osiander 2001:
269). Yet it comes at the price of misunderstanding and largely ignor-
ing the Holy Roman Empire in the last century and a half of its
existence (Osiander 2001: 269). Osiander shows how the Empire
existed during an era that, from a Westphalian perspective, would
primarily seem to be characterised by the emergence and consolidation
of the modern nation-state system. However, the Empire was neither
modern nor a state-system (let alone a modern state); it was also not

41
See Mann (2012a) for one of the best reminders that the organisation of power
in and through polities throughout history could by no means ever be depicted as
a linear evolutionary process. Any account of the formation and spread of the
modern nation-state within an international system of states given in such a way
would thus always be highly counterintuitive; see also Tilly (1975b); Siegelberg
(2000).
Similarly, Brunkhorst remarks that:
once the age of globalisation begins, and world society emerges, globalisation no
longer is a Protestant and European endeavour, but an endeavour of entangled
histories and modernities, of a new mix of archaic, proto- and modern
globalization that is no longer centred in Europe or the Western hemisphere,
even if it nally did lead to Western hegemony (but never to Western control)
over the rest of the world. (Brunkhorst 2014: 216; italics in original)
The system of world politics 119

composed of like units, but rather comprised very different entities,

and it certainly had no central government. It was, however, contrary
to Osianders view, more than a regime (Osiander 2001: 272), as it
always embodied claims to universal statehood. Nevertheless, it did
play an important role in the formation of the European political
system, alongside and in addition to a nascent and emerging system
of states. Osiander is certainly right to follow Spruyt in de-emphasising
the role of military power and conquest in the consolidation of this
system and to point to the fact that the Empire for a long time provided
the large-scale order in and through which legitimacy and actorhood
were bestowed.
The global extension of a European states system results from two
different, though closely related, developments: rst, the increasingly
global reach of European Empires, and, second, the rise of important
non-European powers (the USA, Japan; see Osterhammel 2009: 570).
This is at its core the rather linear and in specic, but varying
senses Euro-centric account of what the title of a famous English
School collection calls The Expansion of International Society (Bull
and Watson 1984).42 Of course, this account has to be, and has been,
supplemented by one which also looks at important feedback loops
within the processes of expansion. It is probably overdoing it a bit to
argue that clear territorial demarcation of political space was somehow
learned by the European powers mostly through their colonial prac-
tices, only then to be reimported to Europe (see Branch 2012).
Nonetheless, regularised encounters between the imperial cores and
peripheries left many imprints not only on the latter but also on the
former, and not only in the political, but also in the legal system.
As Anghie (2007) has convincingly argued, the evolution of interna-
tional law as a central concept which allowed the stabilisation of
relations between the European states as a system of sovereign states
was centrally inuenced by the process of negotiating the status of non-
European, non-sovereign state polities (and thereby largely excluding
them as illegitimate). Essentially, the globalisation of the European
system in the end required non-European polities to be constructed as
legitimate entities endowed with rational actorhood. Only on this basis
was it possible to apply the programme of balance of power globally.

42
For a more detailed discussion of the issue of Euro-centrism in this and other
respects, see Chapter 6.
120 Emerging world politics

For most of the nineteenth century, and particularly for the time before
the Crimean War, these European/non-European encounters and
exchanges did not lead to the expansion of a European system of
powers/states into a worldwide system.43
This is similar to the argument advanced by the world polity
approach of the Stanford School. While the European system of states
was not yet globalising (most notably in the sense that colonial posses-
sions were not prime factors in how the European balance was per-
ceived), the form of the territorial state was. What took place was the
global spread of a specic form of state organisation (with reference to
the idea of a territorially xed sovereignty), even if for a long time this
happened within and under the formal auspices of colonial rule.
The social mechanisms behind this spread were various forms of iso-
morphic adaptation, ranging from the coercive implementation of
European-style bureaucracy to more mimetic (and voluntary) adapta-
tions of practices observed to be more advantageous than established
routines. The global spread of Western forms of rationality and con-
ceptualisations of legitimate actorhood in the long run led to the
establishment of a specic, relatively centralised and bureaucratised
form of the territorial state as the sole legitimate form of statehood in
the international system. However, the merger of this form with the
ideas and ideology of nationalism proceeded at a different pace.
The history of the world polity is not only a history of the creation of
formally similar nation-states but also the history of colonial organisa-
tion. It helps to put these two developments into perspective if we take
a brief look at the pace of the creation of formally independent terri-
torial-cum-nation-states in the nineteenth century. Historically, this is
not a linear process at all. On the one hand, the nineteenth century is an
age of imperial expansion in which the number of autonomous political
units in the world (though not of those formally organised as nation-

43
Duchhardt (1976: 3) argues that a global expansion took place with the peace
accords of Paris and Hubertusburg that ended the Seven Years War in 1763, as
these drew the colonies into the logic of European wars and peace negotiations.
However, the important thing here is to see that this is not to be equated with
a globalisation of a European balance. Rather, it is striking that the double war
between England and France/Spain in the colonial world, on the one hand, and
the Seven Years War in the narrower sense (on the European continent), on the
other hand, were not ended by one combined peace accord (which probably
would have accelerated the globalisation of the European balance of power), but
by two different yet simultaneous accords (see Duchhardt 1976: 90126).
The system of world politics 121

states) actually decreases. On the other hand, the formation of nation-

states follows rather different trajectories, where nation building
through independence (of former colonies) is something rather differ-
ent from the (forced) unication of formerly largely independent units
(see Osterhammel 2009: 586ff). Primarily, though, the evolution of
nation-states remains a process co-constitutive with the emergence of
a system of world politics (and international law). If the system (the
world polity) did not establish commonality and comparability, it
would make little sense to put entities that are literally worlds apart
into the same nation-state basket. In this basket, one then nds exam-
ples as different as the Haitian nation-state (founded through the
integration of North and South Haiti in 1820) on the one hand, and
the German nation-state (founded through the accession of the
Southern states to the Northern League in order to form the German
Reich in 1871) on the other.
Notwithstanding these observations on the historically uneven pro-
cess of the consolidation of the territorial and nation-state, the world
polity approach goes a long way to explaining both the emergence of
a formal conformity of states to one single form and the vast differences
in the actual organisation of state practice. The world polity postu-
lated by the Stanford School is best seen as a kind of symbolic reposi-
tory, serving as a resource for establishing organisational forms, but
being permanently actualised by the practice of enacting state actor-
hood. The Stanford School account convincingly shows that the mod-
ern world polity at its core is based on the global spread of Western
notions of rationality and legitimate actorhood. However, for the
purposes of the present argument, this remains a limited account in
that it can only show how segmentation becomes the prime form of
differentiation within the political system of world society over time.
It leaves little to no space to account for the simultaneous presence of
different forms of differentiation. It also neglects the existence or
emergence of a specic subsystem of world politics.
Even though segmentation over a course of about 150 years or so
its apex being reached with the second big wave of decolonisation in the
mid-1960s seemingly asserted itself as the prime form of internal
differentiation in the political system of world society, it did not
become the only form. As the system built up and dealt with complex-
ity, the criss-crossing of various forms of differentiation led to a variety
of structure formation. The ensuing contemporary variety of forms of
122 Emerging world politics

organising political authority will be the main theme of the next chap-
ter. However, it is important to emphasise again that the emergence of
a system of world politics is an outcome of both the increasing impor-
tance of segmentation within the political system of world society and
the expansion of a European system of world politics into a global one.
In addition, it should be obvious that neither the change in importance
between different forms of differentiation nor this expansion itself was
a short-term affair that miraculously took off at some point during the
nineteenth century. Looking back to the beginning of the nineteenth
century, it is possible to see that the practical extension of the European
system of power to a global realm was already very much on the
political agenda. Thus, in 1803, Czar Alexander I offered to divide up
spheres of rule with Britain on a global scale (although what was
formalised was a division on a European scale only four years later,
and then with Napoleon rather than Great Britain; see Gollwitzer
1972: 316).44 The rst decades of the nineteenth century, in particular,
marked a phase in which extra-European developments began to fully
impinge on the European system, yet without taking precedence in the
sense of replacing a European-centred logic by a global one.
The global expansion of a system of world politics is set within the
history of struggles between different forms of organising political
space and inextricably linked to them. The consolidation of world
politics as a subsystem of the political system of world society and the
global expansion of this subsystem, however, took place at a point in
time when some of the contenders such as city-states were already no
longer part of the game (see Spruyt 1994 extensively on this; also Tilly
and Blockmans 1994). By the time of the Congress of Vienna at the very
latest (which means also by the time of the small wave of nation-state
formation that took place particularly in South America), the struggle
was limited to the one between a territorial (nation-)state logic of
organising political space on the one hand, and an imperial logic on
the other. In terms of social differentiation, this struggle indicates that
the emerging subsystem of world politics was not characterised by the
primacy of one specic form of differentiation from its inception.
Rather, in Europe it was a mix of segmentation and stratication

44
Although Napoleon in fact tried to suggest something similar to England in
1803, without this suggestion being taken seriously at the time; see Roberts
(2014: 319).
The system of world politics 123

(between the greater and the smaller powers),45 and on a global scale
a mix of segmentation and stratication (between imperial cores and
colonial peripheries). Although the latter only came into the picture, as
far as the operation of the system was concerned, over the course of the
nineteenth century, it is arguably this guration of the interplay
between various forms of differentiation which partly accounts for
the relative messiness of attempts to explain systematically the relation
between nation-states and empires up to the present day.46 This strug-
gle has always expressed changes in the form of social differentiation
within world society. Yet, although in a direct comparison it seems to
have resulted in one of the two sides winning, focusing too much on the
relation and struggle between these two tends to obscure the fact that
there were never only two contestants in the ring to begin with.
Although much subdued, the logic of cosmopolitan statehood never
disappeared completely; and the inception of forms of international
organisation from the mid-nineteenth century onwards points to an
increasing assertion of specialisation (functional differentiation) as an
ordering principle within the system of world politics.
Osterhammel quite convincingly develops the argument that, though
the history of imperial expansion and the history of the rise and fall of
a European order of states (European balance of power) have largely
been told as separate narratives in history/IR history (Osterhammel
2009: 570ff), both are, in fact, inextricably intertwined. The present
argument generally follows this line of reasoning, yet additionally seeks
to understand it as an expression of competing ordering principles that
correspond to different forms of social differentiation. In that sense, the
European balance of power, stabilised as a pentarchy in the second half
of the eighteenth century and restored at the Congress of Vienna after
an imperial challenge by Napoleon, was never simply an arrangement
to maintain order between units in a segmented structure (as traditional
balance of power theory would read it; see Kissinger 1973). It was
increasingly also a common attempt by political elites to avoid

45
This is just to re-emphasise that stratication does not necessarily imply that
there must only be a single actor at the top of the hierarchy: The system of states
had some hegemonic characteristics, whereby, however, no one power acted as
hegemon, but the ve great powers or a majority of them (Schulz 2010: 117).
46
For recent accounts on the variability of the concept of empire, see Jordheim and
Neumann (2011); Parker (2011); for its elasticity as a geopolitical gure, see
Parker (2010).
124 Emerging world politics

revolutionary change and preserve a stratied social order. The balance

of power system was thus always essentially a conservative society-
building project aimed against nationalism and the accompanying
uprooting of social order. It survived because it took account of the
Westphalian moment, which planted the seeds for the evolution of the
political system of world society as a segmented order.
It is probably only at such a level of abstraction that it makes any
sense to mention the multitude of historically and culturally vastly
different forms of empire that go under one and the same name:
The semantics of empire has very different meanings in different
countries and civilisations. It needs to be studied as a discourse and
cannot be used for a clear denomination of historically real phenom-
ena (Osterhammel 2009: 579, see also 603ff for a typology of
empires). One could actually go so far as to say that empires can only
be characterised through their common form, while their content varies
extremely. However, it is probably more important in the present
context to point out that no modern empire, not even the British
Empire as the most powerful example, ever achieved (or, in fact, tried
to achieve) a universal dominion of the known/civilised world (cf.
Osterhammel 2009: 660ff; thus marking a signicant difference to
ancient empires). The British Empire had, at most, a functionally spe-
cic global reach. It was singular in that a territorially dened core (the
formal empire) was surrounded by two additional concentric circles:
the not clearly bounded sphere in which Great Britain was able to exert
signicant inuence informally, as well as the global space of a world
economic and a world legal order strongly inuenced, but not con-
trolled by Britain (Osterhammel 2009: 661).
The global spread of the form of the nation-state is, at its core, an
instance of an intertwined structural and semantic process.
On a macroscopic scale, it expresses the primacy of segmentation as
the form of differentiation of the political system of world society. John
W. Meyer (with the Stanford School) has convincingly argued that
this global establishment of the nation-state as the dominant form of
organising political authority was always a world society process as
well. It is completely implausible to imagine that the vastly different
trajectories taken in the formation of nation-states could have resulted
in formally comparable results without the norms and institutions of
a world polity, which provided the role model for modern statehood.
However, the necessary corollary to the neo-institutionalist account of
The system of world politics 125

a global spread of Western rationality, institutional forms and norms,

which makes it all but inescapable at some point for a segment of the
political system to organise and describe itself as a nation-state, is the
emergence of a system of world politics. This system does not become
possible only as a result of the emergence of nation-state segments as
its relevant elements, but evolves at the same time, providing
a powerful additional rationale for the formation of nation-states by
its circumscription of legitimate actorhood through the legal gure of
state sovereignty.
The age of empires is not to be confused with an age characterised by
a lack of differentiation. On the contrary, in relation to the political
system of world society, it exactly expresses an ongoing functional
differentiation, as empire mainly remains a political and economic
phenomenon. Unlike the modern nation-state, which is ideologically
built on the claim that it contains a society consisting of various func-
tional realms held together by a collective identity (the container
model), an empire has no society, only an imperial political system
and a colonial economy. In addition, there was always a great variety of
empires both diachronically and synchronically. In the nineteenth cen-
tury, this observation particularly pertained to the role of colonies.
While all empires are characterised by a differentiation between core
and periphery, this periphery consisted of colonies to highly varying
degrees. The common image of a European system of states, some of
which were imperial states, and a global arena made up of the latters
colonies depicts an important part of the landscape of forms of author-
ity in the political system of world society in the nineteenth century.
This picture, however, is by no means exhaustive.
While the First World War formed the culmination of imperial
clashes, it only marked the end of some empires; others continued to
exist. The transition from the nineteenth century as the age of empire
(Hobsbawm 1987) to the twentieth century as the age of nation-
states was a long and incomplete one. In addition, empires continued
to exist. In so far as the United States towards the end of the twentieth
century constituted an empire, it was probably the most global one
ever.47

47
No empire in history was ever global in the geographical sense (save maybe in
ambition, cf. Darwin 2008; and although ancient empires may have been world
empires in the sense of stretching over most of the world known to them).
126 Emerging world politics

International and world politics: a note on semantics

The previous sections of this chapter have traced the emergence of
a system of world politics. A system only exists as and through com-
munication. In a sense, semantics provides the transmission belt
between structure and practices. Social structures are always re-
enacted: without continuing communication, social systems would
stop. Without social systems, communication would not make
sense. Social structures and semantics are deeply interwoven, and one
cannot evolve without the other.48
There is no social system without a distinction between system and
environment. Yet there are no clear and always unambiguous bound-
ary markers distinguishing system from environment. What exists is
a semantics which includes central and neighbouring terms (most
notably the central terms world politics, international politics,
international relations, later also the family of nations, the interna-
tional community etc.), which indicates that a distinction between
system and environment has been established, yet does not preclude
specic terms of that semantics being available to and used by other
social systems. Social systems are specic modes through which society
observes and reproduces itself as communication. They are not exclu-
sive lexica of words and terms available to them alone.
The main point here is that the evolution of a semantics of world and
international politics accompanies the emergence of a system of world
politics. It serves the function of providing the reexive terms through
which the system describes itself. It should be emphasised again at this
point that, in terms of differentiation theory, the process is one of
increasing functional differentiation. However, in terms of semantic
and structural evolution, and in terms of the frames of reference which
allow for the recombination of ideas and the emergence of meaning, the

48
Whenever . . . unspecied meaning occurs, efforts start to get rid of the anomy
and nd an orderly, typifying meaning. Interpretations, attempts at allocation
or displacements are used in order to normalise the problem into regular
practice. From the point of view of evolution theory, this is selection, and
selection orients itself, at rst at least, mainly according to the available set of
types and to what can be stabilised in relation to known and trusted patterns.
We shall call the entirety of the forms of a society which can be used for this
function . . . the semantics of a society, its semantic apparatus being its repo-
sitory of available rules for processing meaning. (Luhmann 1993: 19)
The system of world politics 127

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries marked the time in which the full
realisation of the world in its phenomenological sense provided the
necessary background for these developments.
While the notion of world politics is not used before the nineteenth
century, the semantic possibility of such a use would have existed
through a combination of the single terms world and politics. Even
this possibility would not have existed in the case of international
politics. It simply makes little sense to speak about inter-national
politics before the nineteenth century given the absence of any modern
idea of a nation related to a people (Volksnation; see on the complex
history: Schulze 1994: 94126). Within Europe, what in contemporary
terms would be described as international politics always was, rst
and foremost if not solely, intra- or inter-dynastic politics (see
Osterhammel 2009: 567f). In fact, if anything the eighteenth century
is characterised by a remarkable retreat of the non-monarchical-
republican polities (Duchhardt 1997: 407). During the late nineteenth
century, and in the early twentieth century, the system of world politics
gradually became detached from intra- and inter-dynastic politics.
However, it remained only an imperfect international system as long
as it was at least as much an imperial system as an inter-nation-state
one. Issues of large-scale, mass collective self/other distinctions as
motors and addresses of inter-power rivalry remain mostly absent
until late in the nineteenth century (with the 1870/71 Franco-German
Wars marking the most notable turning point). If there is a political
inter-system at that time, it is one of inter-power relations.
The notion of power lies at the roots of the emergence of the notion
of world politics. Put simply, world politics rst was what world
powers did. Yet structural and semantic evolution were not (in fact,
probably never are) synchronised. Structurally, the transition from
a European to a global system of states was complete by the early
twentieth century at the very latest. This transition was characterised
by both the decay of the European system which did not fully restabilise
itself after the Crimean War (see Osterhammel 2009: 573ff) and which
in the end brought about a war of hitherto unseen proportions in 1914.
It was also characterised by the entry most notably of the United States
and Japan onto the great power stage and particularly the evolution of
what started as a European War into a World War.
The roots of world political thought can be traced far back in history
(see Gollwitzer 1972: 56ff). However, it was only the introduction of
128 Emerging world politics

world horizons in different realms (and most notably in the area of

emerging global trade relations and the necessity of their legal stabilisa-
tion) that provided the fertile soil on which the semantics of world
politics as well as the concrete utopias of international order and world
statehood could emerge (the latter in contrast to the world state utopias
of a universal monarchy on the basis of the Catholic Church that played
an important role until the seventeenth century; see Gollwitzer 1972:
83ff). Generally, the notion of a world state seems to play an important
role in the semantic eld in which the notion of world politics appears
as well. There was at this point in time also a remarkable disjuncture
between the notions of international and world, which practically
mirrors the different historical logics of cosmopolitan versus particu-
laristic state formation, as ideas about a world state are usually dis-
cussed with reference to Kant and are formulated in juxtaposition to
ideas of an international order constituted by sovereign states.49
It would, however, be going way too far to suggest that the evolution
of the semantics of world and international were marked by
a permanent and ongoing competition between the two terms.
Generally, for most of the time (except maybe in parts of the second
half of the nineteenth century), international seems to have served as
the prime notion through which the political system of world society
observed itself. As an alternative to international politics, the notion
of world politics only seems to take the front seat again in the
immediate aftermath of the two World Wars, quite possibly reecting
and expressing desires for global order against the experience of break-
down and chaos.50
A comprehensive account of the historical semantics of world pol-
itics and international politics still remains to be written.51 Probably
the best and most concise review of the changing semantics of world
politics, in the context of the realisation that what is essentially
a European system of states evolves into a global system of states, is
provided in a small appendix to a historical study of Russia in the
European perspective. In that study, Dieter Groh (1988) studies the

49
The exception here being ideas which see an existing state as growing or having
grown into some kind of world state, such as in J. R. Seeleys late-nineteenth
century vision of a supraparliamentary global polity, a United States of Great
Britain (Bell 2007a; see also Bell 2007b: 108).
50
I owe this point to Detlef Sack.
51
For international relations, see the research note by Suganami (1978).
The system of world politics 129

emergence of the notion of a world power (Weltmacht). Most remark-

ably, he observes that it takes about a century from the rst appearance
of many notions important in this context to their widespread use in
political vocabulary. The emergence of a global system of states
(Weltstaatensystem) was identied as early as the opening years of
the nineteenth century (see Heeren 1811). However, it was not until
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the consolidation
of a full-edged global imperial order that the notion of a European
balance of power was more widely translated into that of a global
balance of power. It is in this sense that the nineteenth century marks
an era of transition between two different kinds of systems of states,
although transition here must not be read as if one kind of system fully
re- or displaced the other. Although notions such as world balance,
world power, world state system, world politics etc. reect the shatter-
ing of the European state system in the age of Napoleon and the Euro-
centric spatial order in general, both systems are rooted so deeply,
materially and intellectually, that they continue to exist for about
a century (Groh 1988: 401).
The notions of world politics and world power, which lead to the
contemporary vocabulary describing the system of world politics
mostly seem to have formed between 1840 and the Crimean War (see
Groh 1988: 406). In his inquiries into the European balance of power,
Konstantin Frantz remarked in 1859 that one can now put forward the
undisputable claim that a new politics is starting to develop which can
be termed world politics . . . Those states which appear to be primarily
called to participate and capable of participating in such politics may be
called world powers because of that (Frantz 1968: 83). He adds only
a little later that the term world power seems apt to replace the earlier
one great power, as the latter is tied to a more formal status within the
Pentarchy (Frantz 1968: 83).
Two points of clarication need to be inserted at this point, one on
language, and one on the relation between historical semantics, the
history of ideas, conceptual history and the history of discourse:
(1) A systematic conceptual history of the notions of world politics,
international politics and international relations, as well as associated
terms, is still outstanding. Also outstanding (and perhaps more
urgently required) is a conceptual history that would differentiate
among the major languages both synchronically and diachronically in
this respect. Such a conceptual history would need to take into account
130 Emerging world politics

different historical trajectories in the evolution of the meaning of

specic terms within a language, as well as the changing relative
importance of the use of these languages in comparison to each other.
Regarding the former, it is easy to see that different trajectories matter
in contemporary differences between English, German and French.
In the case of English and German, the degree of novelty evident in
globalisation/ Globalisierung in public and academic debates in the
1990s and early 2000s was arguably possible only because the term
was dissociated from established notions of world/Welt and their
associated composite terms (world politics/Weltpolitik; world econ-
omy/Weltwirtschaft). Whereas in the case of French, the sense of
novelty was probably somewhat diminished by the fact that there
remained a direct link between la mondialisation and le monde.52
Regarding the relative importance of languages, any such multilingual
conceptual history would also need to reect that the lingua franca of
political communication changed twice from the seventeenth to the
twentieth century, rst from Latin to French, and then from French to
English, with the preceding language continuing to be used for quite
a long time. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that
German played a complex role, being more used in academic contexts
and rst underlying the emergence of many of the world composite
terms (such as Kants Weltbrger). However, even without conducting
such a complex multilingual conceptual history, it seems safe to say
that, in the early twentieth century, internationalism became the
accepted name for any form of interaction across nation-state bound-
aries in English, French (linternationalisme), and German
(Internationalismus).
(2) More generally, it is important to remember that vastly different
opinions, often supported by different philosophies, persist on whether
the best units of language to study are concepts, discourses, speech
acts and so on. However, drawing a clear boundary between these
analytically is probably useless if the aim is to study (the evolution of)
semantics and its relation to (the evolution of) social structure. On the
one hand, the study of semantics alone can rightfully be equally inter-
ested in the sources of variation and the outcome of selection, that is in
a study of both conceptual history and the history of ideas in

52
On the invention of the world and its globalisation (mondialisation) in
French, see Dagorn (2008).
The system of world politics 131

a narrower sense. On the other hand, the study of semantics in relation

to social structure will always need to put the emphasis on the use of
concepts (while not completely ignoring their conceptual origin and
history).53
While more detailed studies on the evolution of the semantics of
world and international politics are still outstanding, it seems safe to
say that in the twentieth century, and after the two World Wars at the
very latest, both international and world politics were used almost
interchangeably.54 From the late twentieth century onwards, how-
ever, the situation changes with the increasing use of the term global
in relation to politics. It is in this sense that this brief intervention on
semantics also serves as a precursor to a follow-up in Chapter 5. Just
as a semantics of world and international politics accompanies the
emergence of world politics as an autonomous subsystem of the
political system of world society, so a semantics of global politics
and global governance accompanies far-reaching changes in the inter-
nal differentiation of the system of world politics. With a view to
historical semantics, it is to some degree arbitrary whether we call
a theory a theory of world politics or a theory of international politics.
However, it is not entirely arbitrary. In this book, world politics takes
precedence because the evolution of the system of world politics takes
place in a semantic eld that is characterised by the emergence and
prominence of various world composite terms. In any case, such
a choice is less arbitrary than reserving international politics for
a realm comprising political relations between states and world

53
Interestingly, Osterhammel (2012: 416418) distinguishes between a history of
the classics, a disciplinary history (of IR), a history of discourses, a history of
issue areas, and histories of globality, all of which he sees as basic types of
a history of ideas of the international. I have great difculty in seeing how
a history of discourses could only be one kind of history of ideas although the
latter, of course, has a part to play in the former.
On a more theoretical note, Quentin Skinner in particular has repeatedly
sought to establish some kind of via media between conceptual history and the
study of historical semantics (though the latter is addressed more as language
and speech acts); see, for example Phillips (2013).
54
A small in-house study on the use of the terms in IR journal articles supports this
point; cf. Blanco (2010). A supercial run of the terms international politics
and world politics through Googles NGram Viewer (18 November 2014)
covering books in English between 1800 and 2000 showed no signicant
discrepancy in the frequency of their usage, apart from a slightly increased
prominence of international politics in the 1880s and 1890s.
132 Emerging world politics

politics for a realm beyond that. Other good reasons aside, this
distinction has no foundation in historical semantics.

Summary: the differentiation of the system of world politics

The system of world politics emerges in a long process in which specic
forms of interaction are routinised and strongly tied to the balance of
power as an observational scheme (programme). The gure of the
balance of power loosely integrates the system (which is not to be
confused with social integration). This does not mean that there is
somehow less interaction in the system. Yet the relation between
interaction systems and society is rephrased through the newly emer-
ging social system, which establishes world or international politics as
a specic mode of operation and observation within the political sys-
tem of world society, supporting and being in turn supported by the
evolution of a specic semantics. Both within the system of world
politics and beyond, the rephrasing of the relation between interaction
systems and society, which less and less requires a culture of presence
for the system to be constituted and continued, is supported by the
emergence of formal organisations.
Differentiation theory helps to identify forms of organising political
authority within the political system, including the subsystem of world
politics. These forms are an expression of social differentiation, as
much as they perpetuate specic forms of it, namely, segmentation,
stratication and functional differentiation. As society (except in
archaic societies) is never characterised by one form of social differ-
entiation only, it is highly unlikely that within the political system (and
subsystems thereof) only one form of organising political authority
would be present at any one time. The simultaneous presence of
a variety of forms would seem, therefore, to be expected as the rule.
It is a different question, however, whether at any given historical
moment a specic form of differentiation dominates the others.
Structurally, different forms of organising political space overlap.
Thus, most notably, nation-states may form mini-empires, and
empires may function more like nation-states writ large (see Kumar
2010). It makes little sense to claim that something is either an empire
or a nation-state. In fact, many of the changes in the forms of organis-
ing political authority in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can be
understood as a struggle between the form empire on the one hand
The system of world politics 133

and that of the nation-state on the other. Although there can be little
doubt that the evolving structure of the system of world politics in the
nineteenth century was characterised by segmentation, it exhibits
a high degree of stratication too both through the claim to dominate
inherent in the imperial order and through the emergence of hegemonic
forms of empire.
Within the system of world politics, stratication never disappeared,
although segmentation established itself as the primary form of differ-
entiation, attaining full primacy in and through the big waves of
decolonisation after the Second World War. Yet empire as a form of
organising political authority (corresponding to stratication) per-
sisted throughout the second half of the twentieth century and still
exists today, although it manifests itself not in formal empires, but in
hegemonic nation-states. The differentiation theory perspective will be
used to map the contemporary and evolving variety of forms of orga-
nising political authority in the system of world politics in Chapter 4.
At this point, it needs to be emphasised that this chapter has primarily
been dealing with system evolution in the sense of the formation of
world politics as a distinct subsystem of the political system of world
society, while Chapter 4 will deal more with the internal evolution of
the system of world politics. As should be clear from the argument
made thus far, this does not imply that there was a single date that
marked some kind of turning point, with system formation before and
internal system evolution after. World politics emerged as
a functionally differentiated subsystem of the political system in the
course of the latters ongoing functional differentiation within world
society in a drawn-out process during the long nineteenth century,
rst within Europe, then globally. There is, in a sense, internal evolu-
tion even before the system is fully consolidated. In addition, after its
consolidation, there is always the question of whether and how the
subsystem can be upheld in light of the ongoing differentiation of the
political system of world society.
4 Forms of world politics

This chapter describes the various forms of organising political authority

in the system of world politics as an expression of different, and to varying
degrees, overlapping manifestations of the internal differentiation of that
system. It uses differentiation theory as the main perspective from which
to map this variety, without merely seeing any of these forms as some kind
of deviation from, or transcendence of, an international system of
(nation-)states. Within the system of world politics, each of these forms
of organising political authority is treated as a form in its own right. Each
has its own evolutionary history, though these histories are interwoven,
and the evolution of the entire system is to a large degree characterised by
ongoing processes of displacement between various forms.
In order to avoid misunderstandings, a clarication needs to be added
regarding the notion of the state at this point. In the following, there will
be allusions to both the national/territorial and the world state. However,
the present analysis has carefully chosen the term form of organising
political authority (hereinafter abbreviated to FOPA) in order to avoid
both discussions about when it is really possible and necessary to talk
about a state and the problem which always resides in backward histor-
ical projections of semantic concepts like that of the modern state.1

1
See also Finer (1997: 134) for a conceptual discussion on whether and to what
degree it is possible to apply the notion of state to different entities in history.
Although Finer does not use a differentiation theory approach in the narrow
sense, it is quite interesting to see that, in his three-volume History of
Government, he uses a gure taken from differentiation theory when he seeks to
account for the difference between the medieval and the modern state. He notes
that whereas the medieval state was differentiated territorially and consoli-
dated functionally, the modern state is differentiated functionally and conso-
lidated territorially (Finer 1997: 1266). This use of notions of differentiation is
not easily compatible, however, with their usage in the present context. While
one could translate the observation on the medieval state (if there was such
a thing) into the present context by saying that there was no functional differ-
entiation, and that stratication trumped segmentation, the proper translation, in
the case of the modern state, would be to say that segmentation gains in

134
Forms of world politics 135

Forms of organising political authority (FOPAs) is thus meant to pro-

vide a exible concept which includes notions such as state, statehood,
state practice and so on, but not to join in discussions about the concept of
the state (cf. Bartelson 2001).2 That said, when different forms of state-
hood are discussed in what follows, it will be important to distinguish
between allusions to a trans-historical universal notion of the state, on
the one hand, and a historical-concrete notion, on the other
(see Mnkler 2010). The former refers to the general idea of a formal
hierarchical organisation of political authority; the latter to specic
expressions of this idea in various state forms, ranging from ancient
empires to the modern nation-state. Only on the basis of the trans-
historical universal notion does it make sense to compare vastly different
expressions of statehood and is it possible to do so without committing
the fallacy of unwarranted backward projection. To illustrate this with
a somewhat harsh analogy, comparing the modern nation-state with the
Sumerian empire is in a way like comparing a spaceship with a bicycle.
The comparison makes sense if both are seen as expressions of the trans-
historical universal concept means of transportation. Yet this hardly
legitimises seeing a bicycle as an early form of a spaceship!
Chapter 3 dealt with the emergence of world politics as a subsystem
of the political system; the mapping exercise pursued in this chapter
may look more static. This is primarily due to its being mainly
a typological endeavour that seeks to demonstrate how the vocabulary
of differentiation theory can be used to provide a coherent account of
the variety of FOPAs that can be identied in the system of world
politics. While this does not require the provision of the specic his-
tories of the specic FOPAs,3 there is still an inbuilt evolutionary
account. The emergence and co-existence of different forms of social

importance in the context of a functional differentiation of society in which the

political system increasingly assumes a status and role of its own.
2
It seems doubtful whether the backward projection of other specic contempor-
ary terms describing the exercise of political authority is warranted. Thus, for
example, Nagl and Stange (2009) are highly sensitive to avoiding contemporary
understandings of statehood when describing the situation of early modernity,
yet at the same time seem to have no problem with treating governance as
a practically ahistorical concept when describing technicalities of ruling.
3
Such specic histories would tell completely different stories. This book is about
the system of world politics. A book about, for example, the history of the nation-
state, or the history of empire, would need to deal with the question of how these
are addressed in different subsystems of the political system and in different
function systems.
136 Emerging world politics

differentiation, and the FOPAs nested in such forms, express how the
system addresses its own complexity. A complex system has to deal
with such a task permanently, and this task both underlies and is
fostered by differentiation. Yet it is a task which cannot be depicted
in terms of an overall increase or decrease in complexity.
Differentiation can reduce system complexity but by so doing can
also increase it in other respects. As with cartographic maps, there
can never be a true perspective without distortions of any kind, and
a map in that sense always shows a system in a specic state of
complexity, but not as containing a specic amount of it.
Choosing a specic perspective as well as a specic scale for a map
depends on the use envisaged for it. In this sense, the map drawn in this
chapter resembles the usually double-paged map The World Political,
to be found in most atlases right after The World Physical. However,
in atlases this political map is a multi-coloured patchwork with different
colours assigned to different territorial states, and thus depicts only one
FOPA in the system of world politics. The present map, by contrast,
seeks to depict the variety of these forms. As such, it probably does
not lend itself to cartographic representation, as this variety includes
organisational forms that cannot easily be imagined in terms of geomor-
phological features (if at all!).4
This chapter, then, seeks to map the full variety of FOPAs, though it
is likely to miss out on nascent forms which may only become more
visible in the future. It is, nevertheless, an attempt to map the most
important contemporary FOPAs alongside and in addition to the
nation-state, which, to varying degrees, struggle with it for recognition
and dominance. Needless to say, this struggle is always a struggle for,
and a question of, legitimacy as well. This chapter, however, is not
4
The cartographic analogy also serves as a reminder of what a theoretical under-
taking like the present one can never be about, and what it actually is and does.
It can never be an account of specic processes or courses of action in the system
of world politics, such as the foreign policies of specic states. Using this book in
that way would amount to using the world political map in an atlas to navigate
a boat (it would tell you that at the end of the day you are likely to hit a continent,
and also which one, but not much else). Instead, what this book proposes to do is
to see things like (nation-) states, regions, forms of global governance, elements of
global statehood and so on in a comprehensive light, and not as aberrations from
the standard model of the world political map depicting a system of states.
By using a perspective informed by a theory of differentiation, the map can be
drawn without resorting to more nebulous concepts such as spheres of authority
(see Rosenau 2007; also Parker 2010).
Forms of world politics 137

primarily concerned with legitimate FOPAs, but more with factual

ones on a global scale. The one and the other are closely intertwined,
of course. However, there was probably no point in history where the
former and the latter fully corresponded to one another (in fact, such
a situation would arguably bring the evolution of political systems to
a standstill). A good illustration is the issue of empire. Although no
longer a legitimate way of organising political authority in the political
system of world politics after 1945, few would doubt that many forms
of (informal) empire still exert a signicant structuring effect on global
politics. Similarly, the intensive discussions about, and the literature
on, the legitimacy of various forms of global governance (beyond the
state) and regional integration, all of which operate on the basic
assumption that these FOPAs have some degree of factual relevance
vis--vis the nation-state, illustrate that a gap remains between the
facticity and the validity of power. The present approach is primarily
interested in the shift in the structures whereby political authority is
organised. While organising political authority always entails
a struggle for legitimacy, it is both possible and necessary to distinguish
analytically between how political authority is organised, on the one
hand, and whether and how specic FOPAs are legitimate, on the
other. To illustrate the point: if legitimacy is the analytical focus, the
end of the Second World War and the collapse of European empires
meant the end of empire as a legitimate institutional form of organising
political authority. However, this cannot by any means be equated with
the end of empire as a factual form of organising political authority
(informal empire) although the mode in which such organising takes
place is, in turn, always also inuenced by the shifting semantics of
legitimacy.
The next sections of this chapter will describe forms of organising
political space in the system of world politics as expressions of ordering
principles that correspond to the three forms of social differentiation,
as well as the clash and the overlap of these ordering principles. This
follows the argument developed in Chapter 2 that world society, func-
tion systems of world society (politics, law, economy etc.) and subsys-
tems of these function systems (world politics in the present case) are
never characterised by one form of social differentiation alone.5

5
See also Mahlert (2012: 57) for exactly this argument in the context of a study of
global inequality: [A]lthough the thought of a primacy of functional
138 Emerging world politics

Empirically, in social systems most forms of differentiation overlap

most of the time. The question is rather whether and to what degree
specic forms of differentiation and specic overlaps between differ-
ent forms of differentiation are expressed in specic FOPAs. Only
then can the question of whether and to what degree it makes sense at
any given point in history to speak about a primacy of a specic
form of differentiation be posed and answered empirically.
Following the identication of the three main forms of social differ-
entiation, it is possible to deduce seven logical possibilities that could
underlie different forms of political authority in the system of world
politics:
segmentation
stratication
functional differentiation
a combination of segmentation and stratication
a combination of segmentation and functional differentiation
a combination of stratication and functional differentiation
a combination of segmentation, stratication and functional
differentiation.
These seven possibilities form a theoretical grid for analytical purposes.
Any of them might underpin one or more FOPAs in the system of world
politics. However, it is not necessary for there actually to be even one
form which corresponds to each possibility (as will be argued later, the
form of order corresponding to the last of these seven possibilities
mentioned would usually be perceived as a breakdown of order and
thus constitute an order only in a very formal sense). Specic
addresses can be addressed and in this sense belong to more than
one FOPA. For example, a specic state can be both an address in
a segmented order of sovereign territorial equals and part of a stratied
order of hierarchy between states.
This chapter takes up each of the seven possibilities and illustrates
how specic FOPAs express the ordering principles (or the combina-
tion of ordering principles) that go along with these possibilities.
In a nutshell, the empirical argument is that:

differentiation continues as a leitmotif throughout Luhmanns contributions on

modern society, yet what this thought exactly means has never been system-
atically elaborated upon either by him or anybody else.
Forms of world politics 139

segmentation is primarily expressed in what is usually termed the

international system (of states);
stratication in great power balance of power and hegemonic
congurations;
functional differentiation in international organisations and global
governance;
the combination of segmentation and stratication in the coexis-
tence of empires;
the combination of segmentation and functional differentiation in
organised regional orders;
the combination of stratication and functional differentiation in
a world state;
and the combination of all three forms of differentiation leads to
unorganised forms of organising political authority (ungoverned
spaces, failed states etc.).

The purpose of this exercise is to provide a typology with references to

contemporary instantiations of the various types identied therein. As is
always the case with abstract typologies, there are no pure ts. This partial
lack of t is reinforced in the present case by the understanding that FOPAs
are not neatly separated realms, but inclusive expressions of structure
within a social system. The purpose of the present typology is to express
the variety of FOPAs in the system of world politics, not to claim that this
system is carved up into separate realms solely populated by clearly dened
types. The following list of FOPAs in world politics in relation to different
forms of social differentiation, or combinations thereof, might at rst
glance bear some resemblance to Jack Donnellys adaptation of forms of
differentiation to political structures (see Donnelly 2009; also Donnelly
2013). However, upon closer inspection, the differences are quite pro-
found. The main difference probably stems from the fact that the present
approach sees forms of social differentiation in a clearly dened social
system (namely that of world politics) and contextualises this system in
a social environment (the political system of world society), whereas
Donnelly applies forms of social differentiation to an only vaguely dened
international system, drawing on Waltzs understanding of that term.
This leads him, on the one hand, to limit forms of differentiation to kinds
of vertical and horizontal differentiation, as well as contra most
understandings in the sociological literature to subsume functional
differentiation under vertical differentiation. This is not to say that
140 Emerging world politics

Donnelly does not provide a quite insightful typology, which in a few cases
overlaps with some of the account given below, yet his use of differentia-
tion theory remains selective. A major difference to my argument particu-
larly in this chapter is that, although Donnelly correctly emphasises the
simultaneous presence of different forms of differentiation in a system at
any given time (see Donnelly 2012: 153), he does not draw the conclusion
that the overlap of corresponding ordering principles leads to a greater
variety of FOPAs (or, in his parlance: structures).
Before embarking on the inspection of the map of the system of world
politics, the next section will address the temporal dimension embedded
within it. This temporal dimension lies in the transformation of system
complexity as both a driver and result of social differentiation.

System complexity
Complexity is Janus-faced. The notion of the complexity of a system
primarily refers to structures and possibilities within the system, and
not to the complexity of the environment of the system, although the
former observes and reacts to the latter (cf. Luhmann 1997: 134ff).
This statement, of course, only makes sense if there has been successful
system closure (in the case of world politics the process described in
Chapter 3). In fact, system closure itself is a way of both reducing
complexity it relieves the rest of the political system from having to
deal routinely with world politics by delegating it to a specic subsys-
tem and increasing complexity as the evolution of the system of
world politics produces new complexity through, and leading to, its
internal differentiation:

The distinction constituting complexity then has the form of a paradox:

complexity is the unity of a multiplicity. An issue is expressed in two
distinct versions: as unity and as multiplicity, and the notion [of
complexity] negates the idea that these two are different from each other.
Thus the easy solution of talking about complexity as a unity at one time and
as a multiplicity at another is blocked. (Luhmann 1997: 136137)

The consequence . . . is a non-nality of communication which cannot be

eliminated. There is no nal word. (There are, of course, ways to make people
shut up). This also means that the representation of the complexity of the system
and its environment within the system can remain open as a phenomenon
always in continuous need of being addressed. (Luhmann 1997: 141)
Forms of world politics 141

Put differently, a systems complexity is, in a sense, both the form and
motor of its evolution. A system will always experiment with new ways
of reducing complexity, thereby building up complexity. While this
does not make a system immune to its dissolution because of changes in
its environment, this dissolution will never take the form of some kind
of reverse system formation, with the system disintegrating into the
form of its pre- or proto-systemic state.
Chapter 3 argued that the system of world politics emerged out of
a state of affairs in which world politics was constitutively dependent
on simple interaction and an accompanying culture of presence.
Interaction-based social order is both structured and complex, yet its
structure and complexity cannot be sustained without specic interac-
tion. Granted all difculties of, and possible objections to, a graphic
display of social differentiation, for heuristic purposes Figure 4.1 seeks
to depict such an interaction-based social order.6

6
The idea of illustrating social differentiation in the way done here has aroused
a remarkable range of reactions among colleagues with whom I discussed the
possibility and appropriateness of such an undertaking. Therefore, some more
elaborate clarifying remarks seem to be in order: Trying to illustrate social differ-
entiation graphically carries both risks and potential benets. It is certainly unusual
given that, to the best of my knowledge, nobody in the vast literature on forms of
social differentiation has attempted to visualise the differentiation of society, if
only for illustrative purposes (the main exception here, in a way, being the usual
maps which project a segmented order of territorial states on a geomorphological
background). The risks of such an illustrative visualisation lie in the possible
oversimplication of a complex subject matter, a possibility which every illustra-
tion invariably entails. The benets, on the other hand, are equally obvious, in that
a simplifying illustration of a very complex subject matter makes it more accessible;
and in that it helps to draw attention to the shifts and frictions entailed in changing
forms of differentiation in the system of world politics.
The illustrations here try to depict basic forms of social differentiation in an
abstract fashion. They use a three-dimensional space purely for purposes of
illustrative convenience. Not too much conceptual or philosophical baggage
should be attached to either the three-dimensionality of the depiction of a social
system, or on the exact meanings of the individual axes. The most important
purpose the illustration needs to serve is to depict the difference between different
forms of differentiation, and this purpose is served well enough by a three-
dimensional rendition.
The original idea for these illustrations came from looking at depictions of
magnetic elds, in which some kind of magnet serves as an attractor which
structures the eld around it. The attractors here are the various forms of
differentiation. However, and much like in the case with magnets, differentiation
must not be misread as structuring a pre-existing and independent sea of inter-
action systems. Although in society much interaction goes on and remains
142 Emerging world politics

Figure 4.1 The proto-system of world politics: interaction

unaffected by differentiation, a great deal of interaction goes on simply because it

is interaction within a differentiated social system.
As mentioned above, these illustrations serve to imagine how different FOPAs
in the system of world politics express specic ordering principles that corre-
spond to a specic form of differentiation, or a combination of such forms. They
also serve as a reminder that the complexity of the system in its entirety dees
a simple illustrative depiction in this fashion. To represent that would require
amalgamating all the above illustrations into one, while still preserving their
difference. Although one could, in principle, go further at this point and seek to
somehow graphically capture the relative importance of different forms of orga-
nising political space (for example, through different intensities of colouring,
shading etc.), this would probably overstretch what is meant to be an abstract
illustration of forms for heuristic purposes. Such illustrations can visualise the
simultaneous presence of different FOPAs in the system of world politics, but are
not intended to replace accounts of how these forms emerge, disappear or become
more or less relevant in relation to each other over time.
Forms of world politics 143

In this illustration, interaction systems are the small drops. These

drops are not mere dots as they usually involve in themselves rather
complex interaction settings (e.g. meetings at congresses, peace
negotiations). The assemblage of interaction systems is not entirely
without order, nor does this order lack complexity. It characterises
a system in the making, a proto-system. The patterns and strings
which can be identied indicate the formation of order before
system closure (in what could be described as institutionalisation).
Yet there is no system closure and therefore no system differentiation
yet: take away a chunk of the dots and the shapes of structure begin to
dissolve.
The difference is visible in the three following illustrations that seek
to depict the three main forms of social differentiation. Although they
primarily serve heuristic purposes, it should be noted that in this case
the x-, y- and z-axes of the coordinate system used for illustrative
representation could also be seen as representing some kind of system
boundary, whereas, since system character is lacking, such a boundary
does not in a strict sense exist in the case of Figure 4.1.
Figure 4.2 represents a stratied system. Interaction takes place on
and, to a lesser degree, between the different strata of the system. Yet
the boundaries between the different strata, represented here by the
different planes, and the structure of the system effected and described
thereby are not constitutively dependent on interaction in the same way
as in the proto-systemic case described above. Taking away chunks of
interaction on any stratum will not make the differentiation between
strata go away. The same holds true for the segmented system in
Figure 4.3.
Taking away a segment does not affect the segmental differentia-
tion of the system. The illustration in this case has deliberately chosen
not to fully carve up the illustrative space with segments but has left
some room for interaction between the segments. This is probably as
close as an illustration of a system based on its social differentiation
can get to a traditional depiction of world politics being about rela-
tions between states, where most interaction goes on within states, yet
with ample channels for communication between them.7 The picture

7
There is an associative resemblance to the billiard ball model described by Easton
(1979), the difference here being that the balls in the present case do not move
against each other in a more or less random (anarchic) fashion.
144 Emerging world politics

Figure 4.2 A stratied system

is a little different when it comes to functional differentiation

(Figure 4.4).
In functionally differentiated systems, communication is primarily
functionally specic (e.g. political, economic and legal), irrespective of
strata and segments. Although there might be some degree of func-
tional or role specication present without functional differentiation
(as indicated by the different shades of grey of the different drops in
Figure 4.1), in a functionally differentiated system the functionally
specied drops invariably cluster together. Illustratively speaking,
there could be no political drops scattered among economic drops,
for example.
Of course, the illustrations of the different basic forms of differ-
entiation are both idealised and stylised to a signicant degree and
Forms of world politics 145

Figure 4.3 A segmented system

cannot do full justice to the way in which the system of world politics
is differentiated. All forms of social differentiation are present (which
would, for illustrative purposes, require merging all the above illus-
trations into one which would, however, lead to an image of such
graphical complexity that it would not in any meaningful sense be
illustrative at all). The system deals with its own complexity by using
and actualising all of these forms of differentiation and combinations
thereof to build different kinds of order. The next section of this
chapter will make use of this insight in drawing a map of contempor-
ary world politics, while the nal section will reect on what this
means for future possibilities of order-formation within the system of
world politics.
146 Emerging world politics

Figure 4.4 A functionally differentiated system

Differentiation and forms of organising political authority

in world politics

Segmentation
Historically, segmentation into bands and tribes forms the oldest form
of social differentiation. However, it needs to be emphasised that it
would be wrong to apply the notion to a situation where individual
groups co-exist next to each other with little or no contact. As with all
other forms of social differentiation, segmentation is always the seg-
mentation of something. It only makes sense to see something as
a segment if there is a sufcient degree of interaction so that, for
example, a tribe can see itself as a tribe vis--vis other tribes. There
Forms of world politics 147

has to be an at least implicit understanding that one is merely a specic

(even if, in ones own self-understanding: chosen, superior etc.) part of
a larger social whole (undiscovered tribes with no contact with, or
even knowledge of, the outside social world would thus not qualify as
a segment). In modern society, the main instance of segmentation
remains the family. Again, while bonds of blood may have existed for
a long time, the notion of a family only emerges and makes sense as an
expression of an internal differentiation within society; there may have
been biological kinship, but there is no family without or outside of
society (Luhmann 1997: 634ff).8
There are many different, though not necessarily mutually exclusive,
accounts which can be given of the evolution of the modern system of
states as a segmented order; all are inextricably intertwined with the
formation of the modern state. There is, for example, the story of
modern governmentality (Foucault 2006) a story of the centralisation
of authority, of bureaucratic rationalisation, taxation, conscription
and the development of statistical tools as a precondition for and
a result of modern warfare. There is the story of structural change in
the world economy and the consolidation of the core in the form of
European states (cf. Wallerstein 19741989). In addition, there is the
story of the consolidation of a model of rational actorhood, seen as
concomitant with the bureaucratic organisation of state authority,
which becomes a world cultural model of what is required to count
as a rational actor and is copied as such (Meyer et al. 1997).
At the core of these stories lie processes of territorial separation, only
later to be coated in but not displaced by a semantic of nationality.9
Of course, territoriality is not an ahistorical given, as not only practices
of demarcation but also the social meaning invested in the concept of
territoriality (and its relation to the notion of property) vary widely
over time (cf. Teschke 2006). Yet, whereas segmentation historically
always carried an element of territorial demarcation, the Peace of
Westphalia remains the symbolic take-off point where exclusive
8
It would be interesting to explore in more detail the specic historical semantics
of the family in world politics. However, it is extremely likely that such an
exploration will reveal that the reference from the family of nations to the family
of persons is through the nature of their mutual bonds, and not through the
segmental order (families are segments of society whereas the family of nations is
the unity of a segmented order of states).
9
For one of the most concise statements of the emergence of the nationality norm
in world history, see McNeill (1986).
148 Emerging world politics

territoriality and its link to sovereignty established itself as the major

ordering principle for the formal organisation of political authority.

The structure which became dominant in Europe after 1500, the national
state, differed from these alternative possibilities in several signicant
ways: (1) it controlled a well-dened, continuous territory; (2) it was
relatively centralised; (3) it was differentiated from other organisations;
(4) it reinforced its claims through a tendency to acquire a monopoly over
the concentrated means of physical coercion within its territory. (Tilly
1975a: 27)

Aside from the fact that referring to national states regarding devel-
opments between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries is probably
an unwarranted retrospective historical inference, and while the evolu-
tion of the modern order of territorial (later: cum-nation-) states is
a complex story, it is also important to bear in mind Tillys observation
that what we are looking at today is only partly the success story of the
territorial state. This success story is also a story of alternatives not
actualised: [m]ost of the European efforts to build states failed (Tilly
1975a: 38). Tilly also points out that, in addition to a number of
general conditions that predict the existence and survival of specic
state projects (such as availability of resources and homogeneity of
population; cf. Tilly 1975a: 40), from early on (and only formalised
with the Peace of Westphalia) state formation also relied on mechan-
isms of mutual acknowledgment and recognition (cf. Tilly 1975a: 45).
In terms of systemic evolution, this rmly set the order of states on its
way towards becoming a segmented order gradually displacing other
forms. It is in that sense that the rst big wave of territorial state
formation outside of Europe needs to be seen as the systemic assertion
of one ordering principle against the others. Thus, the formation of
nation-states in Latin America in the early nineteenth century happens
in a spirit contrary to the restoration embodied in the Congress of
Vienna, and it became possible because of the decisive repudiation of
two powers, Britain and the United States, of the post-Vienna concep-
tion of dynastic legitimacy (Fabry 2010: 49). Given that they rely on
clear territorial demarcation, and more and more evolve a (politico-
legal) semantic of sovereign equality, segmented orders more than
others require procedures of and for mutual recognition. This is why
recognition becomes central between states: The nexus linking the
inside (or the internal aspect of sovereignty) with the outside (its
Forms of world politics 149

external aspect) is recognition. State recognition is thus a constitutive,

foundational practice of modern international society (Fabry 2010: 7).
Mikulas Fabry in his study on Recognizing States (2010) posits
a signicant change in recognition practices between the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries and the age of decolonisation after the
end of the Second World War. However, it is possible to argue that
this change in recognition practices does not alter but actually rein-
forces the effectiveness of segmentation as an ordering principle.
Fabry maintains that international recognition roughly up until
the Second World War depended on the existence of some de facto
kind of statehood, that is rst and foremost a proven ability to govern
oneself, whereas with decolonisation the practice shifted from ascer-
taining the fullments of de facto criteria of statehood to virtually
unreserved embrace of a specic category of entities. International
law no longer required statehood to be tangible but merely posited it
(Fabry 2010: 168). However, as Roeder (2007) in his study on Where
Nation-States Come From convincingly argues, most nation-states
which were created in the long history of state-making are what he
calls with a different theoretical background from the present one,
but still aptly the segmental state. The basic argument here is that,
regardless of underlying claims to national or ethnic self-
determination, mostly those state-building projects are successful
that can draw on pre-existing administrative boundaries that demar-
cate established segments of an internally segmented order of already
existing territorial states or empires. This is not a terribly new insight
when it comes to the decolonisation process in Africa. It remains
visible in the straight-lines-in-the-sand boundaries between former
colonial administrative units depicted on the political map of that
continent. Yet, as Roeder is able to show, it also pertains to the newest
large wave of state-building after the collapse of the Soviet Union: pre-
existing territorial-administrative boundaries and thus, in a sense,
institutional inertia were the main factor in explaining which claims
to self-determination and which nation-building projects were suc-
cessful in the end. Summarising the evolution of nation-states over
time, Roeder concludes: Of the 177 sovereign states that joined the
international community between 1901 and 2000, more than 86 per-
cent had been segment-states immediately prior to independence . . .
Independence represented an administrative upgrade of a jurisdiction
that was already in existence (Roeder 2007: 341).
150 Emerging world politics

The merger of territorial statehood with the discourse of nationalism

over time further stabilised the segmental order by adding a new thread
of legitimacy to it. The territorial state-as-nation-state gradually
became the global norm. The decisive tipping point here is probably
the 1878 Congress of Berlin. Although it did not actively advocate
nationalism as such, it used it in order to address geopolitical problems
in the European East (eventually thereby also laying the seeds for the
demise of the Russian and Ottoman Empires; cf. Reynolds 2011).
The fullment of the national idea was not the goal of the great
powers, whose diplomats were woefully ignorant of even basic ethno-
graphy. Rather, the national idea emerged as a principle around which
the powers organised their competition (Reynolds 2011: 14).
The point here is that an (inter)national order always remains part
of an order of territorial segments. There has not been, arguably,
a single national project in history conceived or narrated without
reference to, or an aspiration towards, territorial-sovereign indepen-
dence or at least territorial autonomy (and de facto deviations from
this expectation are conceived as exceptions in the form of
a diaspora or transnational communities). However, that state
formation, as a result of the operation of the ordering principle of
exclusive territorial demarcation, was increasingly supported by the
semantics of nationalism does not explain the segmentation of the
system of world politics itself. What it does explain is the success and
prominence of segmentation against other FOPAs most notably the
stratied order of empire, but also all the other FOPAs discussed in
the following pages. Only nationalism thus far has been successful in
orienting a durable form of collective identity towards a specic
FOPA, that is the segments of territorial states. It is probably in
this and only in this sense that it is possible to say that there is
some kind of primacy of segmentation in the system of world poli-
tics. Although other forms of organising political space have perma-
nently challenged it, none of these has been able to support
a semantics which would fundamentally undermine the basis of
legitimacy of the segmented order by providing alternative orienta-
tion points for narratives of collective identity (whether, for example,
of an EU-regional identity or a cosmopolitan identity). The thought
experiment by Meyer et al. (1997) nicely captures this situation.
Imagine the discovery of an inhabited island in present times. There
would be little alternative for the island and the islanders, they argue,
Forms of world politics 151

than to copy world cultural models. Swathes of advisors would ock to

the island, busily helping the locals to establish specic kinds of formal
organisation (a school system, a health-care system etc.). In addition,
there is little alternative to imagining that such an island would be
organised as a sovereign territorial state. Sooner rather than later, the
indigenous people would start to describe themselves as belonging to
a nation (although up to that point they might have never heard of the
concept). Thus, without knowing anything about the history, culture,
practices, or traditions that obtained in this previously unknown
society, we could forecast many changes that, upon discovery,
would descend on the island under the general rubric of develop-
ment (Meyer et al. 1997: 146).
The system of world politics is segmented. The corresponding
ordering principle of exclusive territorial demarcation underlies
what is traditionally called the Westphalian system. Yet it needs to
be emphasised that the important role which segmentation plays in
the system of world politics constitutes a contingent evolutionary
outcome. It is neither some kind of natural form of differentiation
of that system10 nor is it the result of a unidirectional evolution
without turning points or alternatives. Segmentation was maximised
over time against other forms of differentiation and corresponding
FOPAs (such as the Holy Roman Empire, colonial empires).
The success story of the segmented order of territorial states is
a story of historical waves of state formation. It largely built on
institutionalised, pre-existing segmental orders, and stabilised
because of the, in evolutionary terms, highly successful combination
of a segmental order with a semantic of collective identity and legiti-
macy in the form of the nation, a combination fully mirrored in and
coupled to the international legal system.11 The success of that com-
bination and its continuing claim to primacy in the system of world
politics was nowhere clearer shown than in the aftermath of
the Second World War and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
At both historical junctures, the undiscovered island story told by
Meyer and colleagues in their thought experiment prevailed and there

10
Which is also to say that the organisation of societies into nation-states does not
mirror some kind of inherent normative order of society; cf. McNeill (1986) for
an argument in that direction.
11
On the relation between the system of world politics and the international legal
system also, see the pertinent subsection in Chapter 6.
152 Emerging world politics

was no conceivable alternative to organising former colonies or for-

mer Soviet Republics as exclusive territorial states underwritten by
a national narrative.

Stratication
Hierarchies remain a fact of international politics (Lake 2009: 3).
However, hierarchies are only one among many FOPAs in the system
of world politics, rather than being the sole alternative to an ordering
principle of anarchy.12
Stratied orders are hierarchical orders where roles, entitlements,
social recognition and status are not dened through belonging to
a specic segment of society, but through belonging to a specic stra-
tum (such as an estate, class or caste). Classical examples are the
different forms of feudal society in history. In stratied societies, one
exclusively belongs to a specic stratum, and usually does so for life.
Moving from one stratum to the other is next to impossible. However,
at least in pre-modern European societies rituals existed which allowed
the obvious contradiction between the xed hierarchical order and the
impenetrability of status boundaries, on the one hand, and the idea that
all men were created equal on the other hand to be processed (most
notably in various carnival traditions which enact a temporal suspen-
sion of the stratied order13).
The system of world politics is a stratied one in as far as there are
durable hierarchies that dene roles, entitlements, social recognition
and status. Unlike the segmented order of territorial states, stratica-
tion is usually not formalised to the same degree. Probably the post-
Vienna Pentarchy was the formation that came closest to a formalised
stratied order in that it dened the special responsibility of the Great
Powers for maintaining system stability. In his study on The Hierarchy
12
Lakes (2012: 570) proposal to read great power politics as being about
a specic dimension of power makes little sense in the present conceptual
vocabulary.
13
Cf. Schmittner (2013: 19). The knowledge of this background is absolutely
essential for foreign (including Northern and Eastern German) observers hap-
pening to watch one of the carnival sessions on German TV at a certain time of
the year, so as not to (prematurely) conclude that German politicians have gone
completely insane, sitting in costumes before other costumed people and
a council of eleven fools, the politicians being expected to laugh when told they
are pretty useless.
Forms of world politics 153

of States, Ian Clark (1989) points out that there is nothing inherently
good or bad about such a stratied order qua stratied order, but
that it can be valued in two ways: it can either be viewed positively as
the commencement of a more conscious phase in the Great Power
management of the international system, or negatively as the nal de
jure recognition of the inequalities that had always existed de facto in
the balance of power system (Clark 1989: 2). The form corresponding
to stratication that has been most prevalent since the twentieth cen-
tury is hegemony. Both formal and informal empires, although clearly
exhibiting a stratied order internally that is expressed in terms of
centre and periphery, are not expressions of stratication only.
As there is usually always more than one empire, imperial orders within
the system of world politics express a combination of segmentation and
stratication (see below). Hegemony, arguably, is another case of the
combination of segmentation and stratication, although much less
pronounced on the segmentation side than empire.14
Clarks denition of hierarchy is inclusive and, unlike Waltzs, does
not acquire its meaning from juxtaposition to anarchy but from its
direct reference to stratication: hierarchy means
a social arrangement characterised by stratication in which, like the angels,
there are orders of power and glory and the society is classied in successively
subordinate grades. This hierarchy is commonly assigned in terms of
politico-strategic power, yielding to traditional groupings of Great Powers,
medium powers, and small powers. (Clark 1989: 2)15

There is no objective rule that determines which entity belongs to which

stratum in a hierarchical order. The insignia of status vary not only over
time (see notably Luard 1976: 201228); at any given time, there is
room for some variety in and contestation of these insignia mostly
within a stratum (one could say that much of the realist debate about
14
For an excellent overview over the varying forms of hegemony, cf. Clark (2011).
In fact, it is not necessary for only one hegemon to exist in a hegemonic relation.
Maybe the Concert of Europe and much of nineteenth-century great power
politics could be described as a kind of collective hegemonic practice (Watson
2007: 101). For a recent contribution on the (in)formality of American empire,
see Baker (2015).
15
In an interesting historical study, Schulz (2009) proposes to read the Concert as
a kind of Security Council. For a criticism of Ian Clarks argument that the
Concert functioned primarily through its post-hoc legitimation of violent
change, hinting at many instances where the Concert actually drove changes, see
Schulz (2009: 558559).
154 Emerging world politics

the fungibility of power is about this issue; cf. Baldwin 1979 in

overview).16 Despite the fact that moving between the main strata is
difcult, it happens sometimes nonetheless. Status rests on certain
capabilities and on recognition. The main FOPA corresponding to the
hierarchical ordering principle of stratication is the scheme of great,
medium and small powers.17 Addressing a state as one of these implies
formulating a general expectation of its role and communicative pur-
chase in the system of world politics.18 In the words of Jeremy Black
(2008: 1): a great power is perhaps best dened as a power (of some
sort) that people at the time thought was great. Put differently:
[S]tatus reects collective beliefs (Larson et al. 2014: 8). However,
as it expresses generalised expectations, it would probably be going
a little too far to dene hierarchy as a relationship between two (or
more) actors whereby one is entitled to command and the other is
obligated to obey (Hobson and Sharman 2005: 70). While the notions
of command and obligation are not, strictly speaking, wrong, they
imply a degree of activity which is absent if hierarchy expresses a form
of social differentiation: stratication works and is stabilised because it
does not need to be addressed openly all the time. In fact, comparatively
little communication goes on across the boundaries of strata (put
simply: in a stratied society one knows what one is expected to do
from where one stands, and not from being told what to do all the
time).19 Surrounding the scheme of greatmediumsmall powers is
a semantics that expresses the hierarchical order. With various ups
and downs since the Congress of Vienna, yet with remarkable staying
power particularly when it comes to describing the United States role

16
Yet, to reiterate, it is mostly variety and contestation of the insignia of status
within any given stratum. If I ride a bicycle because I cannot afford a car, this is
not a symbolic status contestation with someone else who is driving an expen-
sive Italian sports car. It would be status contestation, though, if I could afford
an Italian sports car as well, but let it be known (this is important!) that
I preferred riding a bicycle for environmental reasons.
17
The scheme is the important thing here, not the exact denomination; one of
many alternative denominations is Martin Wights (2002) distinction between
dominant, great, world and minor powers.
18
The point here is that a stratied order upholds such a differentiation of rank
and status; it is in this context of only marginal interest how exactly the different
ranks are described; see Buzan (2004b: 4676) for one proposal.
19
This is what Adam Watson refers to in terms of core and periphery:
The determining nexus of a coreperiphery system is not the relations with the
periphery but the relations between the core powers (Watson 2007: 73).
Forms of world politics 155

in the contemporary world, this semantics varies around the theme of

special responsibilities for managing global politics that go along with
great power status (cf. Bukovansky et al. 2012).20
It may seem a theoretical nuance, but in this book the presence of
hierarchy (or other forms of differentiation) is not taken to indicate that
within the system of world politics there are further distinct subsys-
tems, each corresponding to a specic form of differentiation.21 A good
illustration of this is the organisation of various fora between groups of
states (from G8 to G20 to Gx).22 The most powerful states group
together in what, in all but name, are formalised organisations, though
nobody would conclude from this open display of the presence of
a hierarchical order in the system of world politics that those states
should also have, for example, the front row seats at the UN General
Assembly or more speaking time there. Yet this does not lead to the
conclusion that there are two neatly separated subsystems (one strati-
ed-hierarchical, one segmented-equal). On the contrary, the presence
of a hierarchical order in spite of an order of sovereign equality between
segments needs to be justied (usually by giving the G a functional
specication, such as economic, nancial). A single communicative
address can be addressed and included in different FOPAs, which

20
Bukovansky et al. (2012: 50) remark: special responsibilities do not just reect
an already existing distribution of material power, but actively reshape it in
important ways. This is a function of their social power, and their potential to
create new social facts on the ground. A praxis of special responsibilities is thus
inescapably about power, but is as much about power generated by special
responsibilities, as it is about the material power that establishes them in the rst
place. This observation, in fact, ts nicely into the theoretical vocabulary used
here, yet it needs to be translated: of course, political communication is com-
munication related to power, there are no two fundamentally different kinds of
power to which political communication could refer. In more formal systems
theory terms: the code is having power/not having power. The further speci-
cation of the meaning of power is a question of semantics. It is in this sense that
I think that what Bukovansky et al. (and others) actually mean in terms of the
present book when they distinguish between material and social power is
the difference between a specic social structure and the semantics which
describes it at any given time. See Fox (1944) for an early formulation of the link
between special responsibilities and superpower status. For a special treat-
ment of small powers in the hierarchical order, see Vital (1967).
21
I read the remarks by Hobson and Sharman (2005: 64) as indicating such
a possibility.
22
For the role of the G7 and G20 in a stratied order, see Cooper (2010)
(steering committee for the world) and Bailin (2005) (group hegemony).
156 Emerging world politics

means that, for example, a state can be the core of an empire, a great
power and a sovereign equal to other states all at the same time.

Functional differentiation
Talking about functional differentiation in conjunction with world
politics will probably never be possible without referring back to
Waltzs famous dictum that states are like units and that there is no
functional differentiation in the international system, meaning that no
state has a specic task to full for the system. However, Waltzs
understanding of functional differentiation is along the lines of
a simple division of labour or role differentiation between states, not
about the distinction between functionally specied operations within
a system. Thus, in a sense, Waltz is right. Insofar as the system of world
politics is a segmented one, it is not a functionally differentiated one.
However, in addition to segmentation, there is also functional differ-
entiation in play. It is not the attribute of something, but the way in
which political communication is structured.
Although the underlying theoretical approach is different, the under-
standing here is similar to Jessops general denition of the term gov-
ernance as the reexive self-organisation of independent actors
involved in complex relations of reciprocal interdependence (Jessop
2003: 101).23 It is in that sense that there is no functional differentia-
tion between states (although they may very well assume different roles
and agree upon a division of labour). However, there are independent,
yet interwoven, logics and dynamics in which economic, environmen-
tal, military, health and so on issues are addressed, dealt with and
processed in the system of world politics. Although the term is not
always used, functional differentiation and individual expressions of it
have been the subject of an enormous body of literature dealing with
the evolution of international organisations, regimes, and with devel-
opments specic to sectors or policy areas.24
There is an issue about the novelty of functional differentiation in
this respect: These new political processes are differentiated more by
sector and issue area than by physical, geographical and territorial
23
Cf. also the title of the volume containing this article: Governance as Social and
Political Communication (Bang 2003).
24
See Pea (2015) for the suggestion that standardisation is a method of political
steering under the conditions of global functional differentiation.
Forms of world politics 157

space. They therefore involve the construction of new boundaries

between issue areas a horizontal restructuring of institutions and
policy domains (Cerny 2009: 29). There is no doubting the fact that
international organisations, the formation of regimes and other trans-
national regulatory arrangements increased signicantly, if not expo-
nentially, after the Second World War and again after the end of the
Cold War (see Manseld and Pevehouse 2006). Yet functional differ-
entiation of the system of world politics is not something that somehow
happened to it at a later stage. From its inception, the system of world
politics was differentiated functionally. International organisations
from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards represent
points around which political communication crystallises in
a functionally specic manner.
Of course, international organisations, international regimes and var-
ious arrangements of global governance can empirically refer to quite
different things (and most notably include different classes of social
phenomena, ranging from formal organisations at one end to half-legal
rules at the other), and they certainly have been dealt with under quite
divergent theoretical perspectives. From the present perspective, how-
ever, they primarily express the circumstance that functional specica-
tion and optimisation provides an ordering principle in world politics as
an expression of functional differentiation. The functionally differen-
tiated system of world politics is not aterritorial, and territorial refer-
ences refer to the same geographical points that are the points of
reference in the segmented order of sovereign states. However, territori-
ality under the condition of functional differentiation plays the role of
communicative nodal points in functionally specied networks (cf.
Opitz and Tellmann 2012), rather than that of a contiguous space
unambiguously marked off from its neighbouring segment.
Although this general point will be addressed again at the end of this
chapter and subsequently, it is particularly in the relation between
functional differentiation and segmentation of the system of world
politics the relation between global governance and the order of
sovereign territorial states that the inappropriateness of any kind of
zero-sum metaphor becomes plainly visible.25 While much ink was
25
Any such zero-sum image often hinges on the more or less explicit idea that the
realm of states is the realist area of power politics, whereas global governance is
the idealist area of technical cooperation. However, to the extent that global
governance is about political communication within the system of world
158 Emerging world politics

expended in the globalisation hype of the 1990s and early 2000s on the
diminishing importance of state boundaries, and almost as much again
on the subsequent discovery that state boundaries are here to stay,
setting one FOPA in world politics against the other misses the point
twice. It rst misses the other forms (and combinations of forms) of
differentiation in play. It also misses the fact that, in that context, it
may well be that both segmentation and functional differentiation
become more important.26 There is no linear move from segmentation
to functional differentiation in the system of world politics.27 There are
only adjustments in their importance relative to each other in
a continuing competition about which mode of differentiation is best
suited to dealing with systemic complexity.

Segmentation and stratication

Empires are hierarchies (Reus-Smit 2011: 216). Indeed, empires are
a very specic form of hierarchy in the system of world politics, namely
one primarily organised through a distinction between (unequal)
imperial cores and peripheries. Empires are also highly complex con-
structs in terms of the ordering principles that they exhibit internally
and externally in the system of world politics. Regarding the former,
core and periphery are always also differentiated against each other
segmentally, although in contrast to a more or less pure form of seg-
mental differentiation, clear-cut territorial boundaries are not always
needed, and zones of undetermined status can be tolerated to some
degree.28 The latter applies to the way in which empires are differen-
tiated against each other in the system of world politics: they are
segments in relation to each other, but know more forms of demarca-
tion than clear-cut territorial boundaries, such as, most notably,

politics, it is communication with reference to power. In the theoretical context

of the present analysis, this is a truism. For an elaboration of the role of power in
global governance in the IR literature, see Barnett and Duvall (2006).
26
In the context of these debates in the early 1990s about the declining or
persisting importance of territorial boundaries of the state in the light of glo-
balisation, Lothar Brock and I used the notion of debordering. This sought to
express much of what is being said here, yet at that time did not do so using
a theory of social differentiation; see Albert and Brock (1996).
27
It is in this sense that I need to retract if not the ndings, then at least some of the
emphasis of Albert (2002).
28
See also Benton (2010) for the analysis of many anomalies in this respect.
Forms of world politics 159

spheres of inuence with no formal colonial relation (cf. Kratochwil

1986). Empires always point to internal and external stratication.
That the relation between core and periphery is hierarchical seems
obvious. Historically there seems to be no case where an empire was
not also a hegemon or part of a club of great powers and thus of
a stratied order. However, both statuses do not have to be synchro-
nised: thus, both the British and the French colonial empires formally
outlasted the two core states great power status after the end of
the Second World War. On the other hand, there have been states
playing the great power game without a colonial empire, or without
a signicant one (most notably, Germany), and empires where the core
state is a small or medium power (e.g. Belgium).29
In the contemporary system of world politics, there is no formal
empire in existence. With regard to formal empires as a legitimate
FOPA, it is important to note that it was not only through the
expansion of individual rights and their subsequent embedding in
national(ist) projects that empires came under stress (as suggested by
Reus-Smit 2011). Rather, particularly at the beginning of the twen-
tieth century, additional challenges to empires emerged from an
intensifying internationalism: imperialism itself . . . became even
more internationalised than it had been before 1914. Always
a transnational endeavour, European imperialism, though demar-
cated along national lines, came under collective stress from the
nascent language of universality encapsulated in the internationalist
ethos (Gorman 2012: 3). Nonetheless, Reus-Smit (2011) captures
an important point when he links imperial crises of legitimacy to
revolutions in rights. In each of the cases examined, imperial legiti-
macy eroded as the regime of unequal entitlements that sustained
imperial hierarchy came under challenge (Reus-Smit 2011: 218).30
In contrast to formal empires, informal ones are alive and well.
The main point here is not the exact form that the latter take.
The point is that, irrespective of issues of legitimacy, the combination
of stratication and segmentation in the system of world politics still is

29
On the related issue of states with relatively low power assets gaining great
power status, see Heimann (2015).
30
It is an entirely different issue whether the changes aptly described by Reus-Smit
actually constitute revolutions. Certainly, the rights revolutions he refers to
works on a different (and somewhat smaller) scale than the legal revolutions
which Brunkhorst describes (cf. Brunkhorst 2014).
160 Emerging world politics

expressed in some form of empire (and using the term also seems to be
warranted by its prominent use in political language in references to
imperialists, imperial practices etc.). Although these informal forms
of empire can rest on historically preceding colonial relations (for
example Frances prominent role in Western Africa), there have been
suggestions that interventions and forms of direct rule form a new form
of empire and that in a sense trusteeship and the civilizing mission
never went away (so the subtitle of Wilde 2009).
Another frequently mentioned example of a new form of empire is
the European Union. The question here is the nature of the beast (cf.
Risse-Kappen 1996). Is it a collective resurrection of older forms of
European empire (An empire once again; Anderson 2007), or is it
a new form, whose power rests not on might but on setting a good
example for others (normative power Europe; cf. Manners 2002;
Whitman 2011)? The interesting question then is not whether Europe
displays features of an informal empire, but rather and this is where
the extensive discussions on both the normative power Europe and
the democratic legitimacy of the European Union come into the pic-
ture whether the EU manages to establish its specic type of informal
empire as a more or less legitimate FOPA alongside the nation-state.31
A relation of global inequality between states also expresses
a combination of segmentation and stratication. As Speich (2011)
has shown in his analysis of the emergence of national income account-
ing, the modern, post-colonial system of states is to a signicant degree
founded on many imperial techniques of governmentality. Up to the
present day gross national product (GNP), in particular, a highly arti-
cial and abstract measure remains one of the main instruments for not
only registering but also producing durable inequality between seg-
ments. On a global scale, GNP serves as a main mechanism behind the
xation of a specic form of global inequality, transforming the hier-
archical relations between imperial cores and peripheries into
a difference between the so-called First and Third World. This kind
of more informal technique of governmentality seems to come closer
to the notion of empire used by Hardt and Negri (2000) than do
established notions of formal empire. The most important point,

31
An even more abstract notion of Empire is employed by Hardt and Negri
(2000), who see the term as denoting an entire socio-political order of
knowledge.
Forms of world politics 161

however, is that the combination of stratication and segmentation

continues to underlie specic FOPAs in the system of world politics and
that these forms may have altered their shape, but certainly did not
vanish with the de-legitimisation and ultimate demise of formal
empires.

Segmentation and functional differentiation

Although many of the concepts which designate FOPAs are contested
and cover a wide range of meaning, the notion of a region probably
stands out as a concept notoriously ill-dened (see Fawn 2009: 10ff;
also Hameiri 2013). However, regions without doubt are an important
feature in the system of world politics. They result from the overlap of
segmentation and functional differentiation. As Osterhammel (2009:
156) remarks: With every space there is the central question about the
factors which underlie its unity and allow us to talk about an integrated
spatial context. With regions, this question is answered by a reference
to function. Denitions of region (and related terms like regionalisa-
tion, regionalism and regional integration) vary widely. Yet invari-
ably regions are characterised by a contiguous territory and a territorial
delineation against their spatial environment on the one hand
(although they do not necessarily require extremely clear-cut bound-
aries), and a functional specication of what they are about, for exam-
ple a political, an economic, a security, an industrial region. In the
context of the system of world politics, the important point is not
necessarily whether and to what degree a region is organised, that is,
underpinned by some project of regional integration however nar-
rowly or widely dened (e.g. the European Union, the Association of
South East Asian States etc.). The important point is whether and to
what degree a region serves as an important reference for structuring
communication. In that sense, although lacking any kind of integrat-
ing project or organisation, the Middle East and its connotation as
a region of permanent turmoil in and for world politics is probably
a much more important organising feature than some little-known
subcontinental regional integration project. Within the system of
world politics regions are always political regions, though specied
according to varying functional criteria. Yet they can overlap, which
indicates that they are not an expression of segmentation.
162 Emerging world politics

There is no doubt that some regional integration projects, and most

importantly the European Union, are important as formal ways of
organising political authority as an expression of both segmentation
and functional differentiation (although, that said, the EU as ever is
a special case, approaching some kind of regional statehood; see the
next section below). However, much like, and possibly even more so
than, most of the other FOPAs in the system of world politics discussed
in this chapter, most regions do not require any or a high degree of
formal organisation. It is because of this that many analysts leave them
hanging somewhere between international regimes and would-be
polities.32 It might be helpful to borrow from English School thought
at this point, and conceive regions as primary institutions which
underpin and legitimise specic actions and actors in world politics
(for example, regional organisations), as well as to see the many regio-
nal organisations as secondary institutions which draw on the primary
institution, the region, as a source of legitimacy.33
As was the case with global governance and international organisa-
tions, regions may have started to ourish in the system of world politics
over the last couple of decades (The New Regionalism; cf. Hettne et al.
1999). Yet they are generally not a recent phenomenon, but tied to the
emergence and consolidation of the system of world politics in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They, in fact, often emerged as
a kind of alternative to a segmented order through a combination of
regionalist and internationalist ideas, as in the Pan-American Union
(founded in 18891890) or, to some degree also, in the Comintern (and
later in Pan-Africanism or the European Communities; cf. Gorman
2012). In that sense, seen in historical and global contexts, there may
not be so much that is terribly new involved in the new regionalism of
the post-Cold War era, apart from the semantics of novelty.34

32
And also for the fact that quite often the literature on regional integration asks
whether regional integration actually either reects a dense network of (func-
tionally specic) international regimes or rather approaches the character of (a
segmented territorial order of) a polity; cf. Laursen (2004).
33
The idea of regions as a primary institution, drawing extensively on world polity
theory, is developed further in Albert and Stetter (2015a). It should be empha-
sised at this point, however, that, while that article also refers to the more
general issue of regions and regionalisation in world society (see also the dis-
cussion in Chapter 2 above), the issue here is strictly FOPAs as an expression of
differentiation within the subsystem of world politics.
34
See Gamble and Payne (1996) on the role of regionalism in the world order.
Forms of world politics 163

Stratication and functional differentiation

Where stratication and functional differentiation meet, global state-
hood emerges. Functionally specic regulations or global governance
regimes in general can develop a degree of authoritativeness and con-
stitute a hierarchical order that is not necessarily a hegemonic or
imperial one. Rather, global constitutionalism and a global public
constitute a hierarchical order that underlies the authoritativeness of
global governance. Except for the theoretical possibility of the evolu-
tion of a single world empire, other FOPAs in the system of world
politics in addition to the modern territorial nation-state may also
exhibit characteristics of statehood, with the most notable candidate
here being the European Union as a kind of region state (cf. Ohmae
1993). Yet such a state necessarily remains part of the segmented order
of nation-states where at some point the legal question arises where the
sovereignty underpinning such a form of statehood actually resides (an
issue repeatedly emphasised by the German Constitutional Court and
an issue of high contention in the United Kingdom35).
The notion of a world state (or, alternatively: a global state) is
tricky in that it tends to at rst invoke images of a single nation-state
writ large. In fact, most of the politico-philosophical debates about the
desirability of such a state (cf. Hffe 2002; Kant 2008), as well as
empirical and theoretical deliberations about the likelihood (or indeed:
inevitability; cf. Wendt 2003) of its emergence (see Chase-Dunn and
Inoue 2012; Patomki 2012), operate with the image of a single global
political authority that displaces other forms of statehood (though
possibly allowing for internal organisation as a federation). Yet to
look for a possible future world state thus conceived misses the point,
as it implies reducing the trans-historical universal notion of the state to
one single historical-concrete manifestation, namely the modern sover-
eign territorial state, which is then projected to a global scale.
Irrespective of the numerous normative arguments that have been
raised since Kant against the idea of such a kind of world state, even
the differentiation theory approach adopted here would make the
35
This refers to a number of verdicts by the German Constitutional Court, most
recently in relation to the Euro crisis, but most notably in the verdict on the
Maastricht Treaty where the court emphasised that the entirety of EU legislation
applies in Germany only because of and through the order to apply the law
(Rechtsanwendungsbefehl) of the German Parliament; see the German
Constitutional Courts ruling BVerfG 89, 155 of 12 October 1993.
164 Emerging world politics

emergence of such a world state look highly implausible. The form of

organising political authority in sovereign territorial states remains
rmly tied to the segmentation of the system of world politics.
However, a singular world territorial state could not be a segment in
a segmental order (except in Star Trek). Yet, this is also precisely the
point that needs to be considered: whether and to what degree on
a global scale the trans-historical universal idea of the state could
become manifest in an FOPA quite different from the segmental state.
As Hauke Brunkhorst convincingly argues, history is characterised
by the co-evolution of different forms of statehood:

[U]niversal and plural statehood since the earliest beginnings of a modern

society in Europe are emerging in co-evolution. This co-evolution was
activated by the universal legal state of the church. Only a short time later,
however, did the powerful European kingdoms start copying the path-
breaking administrative and legal innovations of Canon Law . . .
The universal state of the Church, the new and renewed kingdoms, the
Empire and the predominantly new republican city states are socially
integrated by a kind of universal constitutional law. As opposed to the
standard reading of the emergence of modern statehood through
absolutism and Protestantism since the 16th century, on the basis of studies
of Berman, Moore, Brundage, Strayer, Tierney, Fried and others attempted
to develop an alternative thesis that modern statehood emerged from the co-
originality of the cosmopolitan or universal state and the territorial state,
which rst became the modern nation-state much later. (Brunkhorst 2012:
186; italics in original)36

Without doubt, the form of the sovereign territorial state combined

with the idea of a national identity has been top of the league for quite
a while. However, at the same time, the evolution of other forms of
statehood has not come to a halt: the nation-state is a borderline case
of statehood, a very specic historical case that is by no means the
perfect form of the state or the telos of 3,000 years of state evolution
(Brunkhorst 2012: 178). Brunkhorst argues that the world state may
not even be a state in any strong sense. It may be more like a republic
although in the present context and broadly speaking this would still
qualify as a specic manifestation of the idea of the state: the argument
here is that there already is a global res publica, public affairs which

36
For the notion of an historical evolution of different World Governing
Councils, see Pouliot and Thrien (2015).
Forms of world politics 165

concern all world citizens and are recognised by everybody. It is (just

like the old Roman one) a republic without a state. The republic is far
older than the state and could easily survive its demise (Brunkhorst
2009b: 910). One crucial point here is whether international institu-
tions and various forms of global governance actually are only derived
from the authority of nation-states, or whether they actually take over
genuine functions of statehood. Brunkhorst here argues that inter-,
trans-, and supranational organisations increasingly not only supple-
ment state functions, but, even if still organised intergovernmentally,
start to replace them (and not only in purely technical matters) (2009a:
105; italics in original). Indeed, while the semantics are changing
slowly in this respect, issues of global governance are increasingly
addressed as issues of government too.37 In addition, although the
terms world state and world statehood are usually avoided, the
idea seems to be gaining support in the global governance literature
that the current global political system can be characterised as
a weakly confederal world (Stein 2008).
The notion of statehood, however, comes into play not simply
because of an increasing regulative density of global governance
regimes, but because of a related process of norm hierarchisation that
has the characteristics of a global constitutionalisation (see also Wiener
2014). This constitutionalisation relies on two interrelated develop-
ments: rstly, the juridication of the global citizen in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the constitutional text of the UN
Charter in the historically most recent rounds of legal revolutions:
The global legal revolution . . . has transformed human rights into
world citizen rights and thus recognised the legal subjectivity of
human individuals in international law (Brunkhorst 2009a: 107; ita-
lics in original); and secondly, the broad process of legalisation and
juridication that norms of global governance have undergone (see
Albert 2002). Through an increasingly tight structural coupling with
the legal system, it is here that the functionally differentiated order of
global governance is increasingly also stratied (cf. Zrn 2007, with
the strata presumably represented by constitutional law on the one side
and regular law on the other). To some degree, the constitution of
politics in this sense might remain invisible (Wiener 2008), but it is

37
See Enroth (2014) for the relation between the terms governance, governing
and governmentality.
166 Emerging world politics

present to a high degree in an ever denser network of basic global law

(see, for example, Tomuschat 1997; de Wet 2006; Fassbender 1998).
However, the use of the notion of the state in this context is not only
justied by the processes of constitutionalisation, legalisation and
juridication that underlie the evolution of global governance. It is
also justied because the system of world politics contains the reexive
factor of a global public. The function of a public in this context is
assumed by the international community (cf. Jger 2004). The under-
lying notion of public in this regard is not an idealised one, in which it
would be necessary to have an ongoing public discourse. The important
point is that political communication reects upon itself as taking place
in the eyes of the international community and a world public (cf.
Werron 2013). It is in that sense that Jennifer Mitzen (2013), translated
into the terms employed here, describes the Concert of Europe in the
nineteenth century as an early form of world state in that it constituted
a public power. In that case, however, the Concert might most appro-
priately be seen as situated in an evolution from a stratied and seg-
mented order, into what then became a stratied and functionally
differentiated order.38
The zone of combined functional differentiation and stratication in
the system of world politics brings about and hosts a world state.
Nobody calls it a state. Semantically, it only appears through the surro-
gates of (human) rights language and the notions of international com-
munity and world opinion. Maybe this could be the zone of the system
of world politics where the most dynamic structural and semantic inno-
vation can be expected in the future (but see next section). However, for
want of a better term, the notion of state will be preserved here as what
we are witnessing can be placed in an evolutionary context as forming
one specic, and changing, expression of the universal idea of the state.39

38
And in this sense Mitzen is certainly right not to read the Concert as an early
form of global governance, but as being about the origins of the latter.
39
The similarity to Shaws account in his Theory of the Global State is that global
statehood here as well as there can be imagined as some kind of global layer in
what could be imagined as a continuum of different kinds of statehood (Shaw
2000: 251255).
Generally, the use of the notion of state in the present context serves as a good
illustration that FOPAs do not necessarily have to be formalised. They are
probably best understood as attractors of some kind, as structuring mechanisms
for political communication, in which specic manifestations of the trans-
historical universal form of the state are different from the modern territorial one.
Forms of world politics 167

Segmentation, stratication and functional differentiation

When no single form of differentiation or combination of two forms of
differentiation can be maximised, and three forms of differentiation
overlap, it becomes quite difcult to speak about a form of organising
political authority. This difculty expresses itself in the fact that forms of
organising political authority characterised by such an overlap are
usually described as being somehow defunct. However, it is important
to note that what are variably called areas of limited statehood, failed
states or ungoverned spaces are not archaic residues somehow outside
the system of world politics (or world society, for that matter). Warlords,
armed militias, terrorist networks and maa-like structures are, in their
own ways, FOPAs (always in the sense of a form being an attractor for
political communication). Yet, guratively speaking, they provide an
order in those corners and faults within the system that are not covered
by any of the other forms mentioned thus far. Like those, however, they
do express, underlie and are formed on the basis of social differentiation.
They cannot be reduced to mere interaction systems alone.
Of course, states do occasionally fail although one could argue at
some length in the individual case whether the states in question ever
worked in an all but the formal sense (see Ehrenreich Brooks 2005),
and although what lies at the basis of failure might actually be rather
different gaps of capacity, security and legitimacy (Call 2011:
304).40 The basic problem with the notion of failure in the present
context is that it is usually seen in relation to the functioning of a state
in a specic segmented order only, in a sense threatening the underlying
presupposition of this order, namely that all its segments are like
units. While this likeness obviously tolerates many different forms
of government and rule, it does not tolerate the obvious and visible
breakdown of (even only rudimentary forms of) central authority.
The notion of state failure only makes sense against the background
of a Westphalian-Weberian ideal model of the state.41 In fact, the

40
See Schneckener (2004) on the variety of failure.
41
Brzel (2012) draws a distinction between state and statehood, in which the
former refers to a structural FOPA and the latter to a processual one. See also the
discussion of statehood (with no difference to the notion of state) in this context
in Jackson and Rosberg (1982). In the present case, the difference between state
and statehood would only loosely translate into Brzels, with the main differ-
ence being that the latter lacks the semantics that serve the self-description of the
former! See also Brock et al. (2012).
168 Emerging world politics

alleged functioning of post-colonial states might have been more an

expression of their stable position in a remaining imperial stratied
order, than of their being like units in a segmented order (cf. Bilgin
and Morton 2002). However, the important point here is that fragile
or failed states, or areas of limited statehood (see Risse and
Lehmkuhl 2006),42 express a situation at the crossroads of competing
ordering principles that, in turn, express different forms of differen-
tiation. They are not either parts of the segmental order of nation-
states or addresses in stratied (post-) imperial orders. They are both,
as much as they are relevant addresses in numerous functionally
specic governance attempts (governance in areas of limited state-
hood). They are to varying degrees addressees of the whole sway of
ordering principles and attempts to restore or erect effective political
authority, whether in terms of regime-specic governance or of com-
prehensive territorial control in formal or informal international
trusteeship (see in overview Krasner and Risse 2014). With regard
to their position in the system of world politics which is of interest
here, this makes them into an FOPA which cannot be easily repre-
sented next to the other forms described above, and in this sense they
indeed represent a fundamental challenge to conventional thinking
(Newman 2009: 422).43 From a formal or evolutionary perspective,
the expectation is that as single addresses, areas of limited statehood
will be drawn under the umbrella of other more stable FOPAs
whether through being (re-)consolidated as nation-states or through
some formal or factual form of international trusteeship.
Alternatively, they might provide the breeding ground for some com-
pletely new FOPA (see Ehrenreich Brooks 2005). However, although
the latter development constitutes an evolutionary possibility, its
occurrence is rather unlikely as long as a restabilisation of evolution-
ary selections (that is the establishment of an evolutionary novelty)
remains bound by the prevailing forms of social differentiation.

42
The notion of areas of limited statehood (which is the title of a large-scale
research project which has been going on for about a decade at Berlins Free
University) is probably more precise as it takes account of the fact that the
geographic areas in question do not always neatly conform to legal territorial
boundaries.
43
In the literature attention is often drawn to the thesis that the failure might
often pertain to established modes of social scientic analysis; cf. the contribu-
tions in Fischer and Schmelzle (2009); also Ayers (2012).
Forms of world politics 169

The enduring variety of world politics

The evolution of the system of world politics does not follow a linear
path. This also holds true for the appearance and importance of various
forms of social differentiation within it, and for the way in which
FOPAs crystallised along these forms of social differentiation. There
are well-known historical trajectories (the rise of the nation-state, the
decline of formal empire, the emergence of global governance), yet the
important point about embedding these trends within the present map
of a complex system is that they do not combine into a single trend of
systemic evolution. Although how to measure the relative importance
of particular FOPAs in the system of world politics more exactly is
a question open to debate and further research (see Chapter 6), the
simultaneous presence of different kinds of social differentiation within
that system ensures that a variety of such forms will persist. Some will
become more important, some less. At one point, some might even
disappear, and new ones emerge. The latter is impossible to predict.
The most that could be done is to identify possible seeds which might
(but do not have to) lead to the emergence of a new form. Thus, for
example, it is open to speculation whether the trend of
G-proliferation, meaning the emergence of seemingly ever more
clubs or groups of states, could grow into such a new form. Yet if it
turned out that the various G-clubs dened themselves more and more
in functionally specic terms, then this G-proliferation might actually
indicate the emergence of the rst stable form of organising political
authority that combines stratication, segmentation and functional
differentiation. It might equally well not, and the Gs might disappear
as quickly (on a historical timescale) as they arrived. The point is that,
in a complex evolving system of world politics, it is impossible to know
the details of any future variety of FOPAs. Only that such a variety will
persist.
The illustrations of social differentiation used above demonstrate
that these various forms do not neatly t together like pieces in
a puzzle which could then be imagined as a somehow integrated
system, or indeed as a system somehow put together from its indivi-
dual parts. Most social systems, including the system of world politics,
are far more complex than that. This is also the reason why the present
typology is difcult to imagine in terms of clearly separated categories
or classes, or as entities nicely demarcated vis--vis one another.
170 Emerging world politics

However, it needs to be emphasised that this does not mean that some
kind of unchecked complexity could characterise the system of world
politics. Differentiation is a continuous reduction and simultaneous
production of complexity without which any complex social system
could not continue to operate. Put another way, differentiation under-
pins specic complexity within the system, which helps to prevent
unspecic complexity from overburdening the operation of the system.
However, while in this sense differentiation allows for a smooth run-
ning of the system in terms of its operative continuation, this does not
imply any kind of reduction in the conicts within the system. What it
might imply, however, is that where forms of differentiation are
expressed through different FOPAs, these point to a specic set of
systemic rift zones in which it could be expected that communication
might become conict communication.44
The variety of FOPAs in the system of world politics depicted in this
chapter will continue to change, yet will not go away. What this chapter
has attempted to show is that this variety is a systematic expression of
different forms of differentiation, and the interplay of these forms in the
system. It is not meant to contribute to the often rich variety of theore-
tical and/or historical literatures which have thus far dealt with the
individual FOPAs alluded to. Yet it offers a possibility of relating them
to each other within a system of world politics as a subsystem of the
political system of world society. Empires, political regions, an emer-
gent form of world statehood, global governance and great power
arrangement are not merely either predecessors to, aberrations from
or challengers to the system of nation-states. All are historically specic
and co-evolving expressions of the differentiation of the system of
world politics.

44
See Albert (2008) for an earlier elaboration of this specic line of thought.
 part iii

Reections and roads ahead

The rst two parts of this book have developed a theory of world
politics. The third part reects on this theory and on its possible uses.
The reection on the theory takes place in Chapter 5. For this pur-
pose, it starts with a highly condensed account of the theory presented
thus far, before it addresses its understanding of theory. This takes place
in a substantive rather than in a meta-theoretical fashion, meaning that
the theory is identied as an example of a specic type of systemic
thought, and to be about a specic combination of an evolutionary
account with an account in terms of differentiation theory. What then
follows is a section that deals with similarities between the present
theory and a range of theories of international relations, and with the
question of where these similarities end. There is a reason that this
section appears in this part, rather than at the beginning of the book.
Although many different theoretical contributions ow into the under-
standing of world politics developed here, it started from a basically
sociological, and not from an IR theoretical, concept of world society,
from which it developed an account of the emergence and the form of
a system of world politics. IR theories in that sense are not the prime
perspective on the subject. Rather, they provide spotlights that shed
a different light on the system of world politics.
Such an understanding leaves the present theory open enough for
points of contact and overlaps with many different theoretical accounts
from various theoretical and disciplinary traditions. It also means that
it is open theory. It is open in the sense that it is not a closed axiomatic
system which then can somehow be applied or not. It evolves in and
through processes of its application. This results in an open attitude
towards using it as a vehicle for specic research endeavours. It also
results in an open attitude towards critically questioning its own
assumptions. These various kinds of openness are the theme of
Chapter 6 that addresses some important issues that arise in such
a context. Reecting on, and critically engaging with, the possible

171
172 Part III Reections and roads ahead

limitations of a theory while it is developed might not fully conform to

the, by now quite common, style of academic self-efcacy and asser-
tiveness. In the present case, these reections and critical engagements
are taken to be an integral part of a body of theory that is conceived as
evolving rather than static. It is in that sense that Chapter 6 rst
addresses some possible limitations of the present theory. The rst of
these deals with the possible Euro-centrism of its views. This limitation
is addressed in a differentiated fashion regarding which aspects of the
theory could be seen to be Euro-centric, and which ones cannot.
The second limitation is the relative neglect of the issue of law. This
neglect is relative in the sense that the evolution of the political and
legal systems of world society are so tightly coupled that particularly
a theory of international law (or better: a theory of global law) which
started from the same theoretical premises as the present theory would
have looked very similar. However, it is still possible to tell the story of
the evolution of the system of world politics independently from telling
the stories of the evolution of other systems in this systems environ-
ment, much alike as these stories might be. The chapter then briey
pursues three possible avenues for further research. One leads to an
increased attention towards the relation between the system of world
politics and organisations. The second poses the question of whether
and how the differentiation of the system of world politics is something
that could actually be somehow measured in an effort utilising quan-
titative approaches. The third raises the question of whether the system
of world politics is so rmly wedded to its underlying balance of power-
programme that a change of the latter could only occur through
a demise of the former.
5 Reections on theorising world
politics

While the previous chapters sought to develop a theory of world

politics, this chapter takes stock and further elaborates this theory by
reecting on it. It does this in three main steps. The rst provides
a highly condensed recollection of the main elements of the theory
assembled thus far, preceded by a more explicit statement of the
relative importance of differentiation theory as an analytical lens,
particularly in relation to systems theory and evolutionary theory.
Building on these deliberations, the second step turns to the central
issue of the theorys purpose and outlook. This will, in particular,
require spelling out in more detail what can (and cannot) be done
with a theory like the present one. In addition, it will require laying
out some prospective possibilities of how it could be used in support of
more specic research programmes. The third and nal step then
examines the present theory in relation to other theoretical proposals
for seeing world politics/international relations.

On the theory condensed

The present theory assembles and recombines a number of building
blocks from other bodies of theory in order to provide a specic
reconstruction and understanding of a particular aspect of the social
world. It is not an exercise in formal theorising. When describing the
emergence and contemporary form of the system of world politics, the
present account combines elements of differentiation theory with ele-
ments of a theory of social evolution and of systems theory with
a clear emphasis on the rst of these three. Even within that triangle of
theoretical elements, a different theory of world politics would have
emerged if the emphasis had been more on either evolutionary or
systems theory. Of course, it would look even more different had it
used other theoretical building blocks. While many possible theoretical
approaches to a similar subject might exist (although never in a strict

173
174 Reections and roads ahead

sense to exactly the same subject, as the latter can never be entirely
independent from its observation), the specic approach chosen is not
entirely arbitrary, but depends on where the prime interests of under-
standing lie. In the present case, these interests were, rstly, under-
standing how world politics emerged over time as a distinct sphere
within the wider social realm of a political system, which in itself is an
expression of the functional differentiation of world society, and,
secondly, understanding the variety of forms of organising political
authority (FOPAs) within the contemporary system of world politics.
The direct embedding of the emergence of world politics in the
context of the functional differentiation of world society, as well as
the effort to describe the state of affairs in the contemporary system of
world politics in the least complex way, made the focus on differentia-
tion theory an almost natural choice. The systems theory perspective,
consequently, is more marginal here.1 It appears primarily in relation to
the differentiation of world society into function systems and the
emergence of world politics as a specic subsystem of the political
system of world society, as well as to the systemic evolution of world
politics on the basis of, and out of, interaction systems. This perspective
could have been vastly expanded to include, most notably, analysis of
the roles of formal organisations as systems. But this would have been
required only if the primary aim had been to understand detailed
processes within the contemporary system of world politics, rather
than the form the latter has taken.
In contrast to systems theory, social evolution as a theoretical
approach is more of a leitmotif here, though not as prominent as the
theory of social differentiation. It is present in the frequent allusions to
processes of emergence. This means that, while all the constitutive
elements of new forms of meaning might be in place at a given time,
the emergence of a new form is a highly contingent process that
depends on which variations are selected and then restabilised as new
forms (and thus cannot be predicted beforehand). Regarding the pre-
sent analysis, what this primarily implies is that, while the account of
the emergence of world politics given here is entirely reliant on histor-
ical processes, it is not a historical analysis. The difference is captured,

1
Alex Wendt, after reading the manuscript, suggested that A Systems Theory of
World Politics would be a better title for the book. For the reason stated, I think
that it would be a misleading title though.
Reections on theorising world politics 175

very much to the purpose here, in Brunkhorsts introductory remarks

to his Critical Theory of Legal Revolutions:
unlike history, evolution does not necessarily need a narrative structure.
In contrast to history, for evolutionary theory it does not matter who rst
invented the wing, the eye, the brain, the hand, bureaucracy, religion,
democracy, constitutions, or human rights. These are all evolutionary
universals (or advances) that have proved to be useful for many, if not all
societies and therefore have been exported, copied or re-invented again and
again in the course of history. From the beginning, evolutionary theory is,
therefore, based on a radical decentring of all kinds of (for example)
Eurocentrism. This is so because even if the (probably wrong) story that
Athens was the cradle of modern freedom were right, or if the claim that
Virginia or Rhode Island rst invented modern constitutions were true, the
origins (which do matter for Virginians, Eurocentrics and their respective
identity, whatever the latter term means) do not matter for social evolution.
It does not matter who invented modern democracy in the same way as it does
not matter which animal species once invented the brain. Moreover, there are
huge cultural and other differences between the brain of a cockroach and that
of a human being, but it makes no sense to call the human brain better, further
developed, or more progressive than that of cockroaches, and the same is true
for different constitutions of different societies or types of societal and political
organization. (Brunkhorst 2014: 45)2

A ne but clear line should be drawn between evolution and the notion
of learning. In Luhmanns use of social evolution in his theory of society
both are detached from one another, in the sense that there seem to be
no normative constraints imposed on the former by the latter. Yet it
might be worthwhile to consider Brunkhorsts take on the subject. He
argues that, in fact, there are signicant normative constraints to
evolution. To be sure, these do not pertain directly to the process of
2
Actually even more to the point is the passage which I found on page 7 of
the September 2012 version of the manuscript of Brunkhorsts book a passage
which disappeared in the later versions:
[H]istory and evolutionary theory are not the same. Evolutionary categories are
related only contingently to specic places in historical time and space. They are
abstracted from history, and in this way they are relying on historical research,
but they are not history . . . Different from history, evolutionary theory uses
categories such as communication, differentiation, evolutionary advance,
negation, segmentation, functional differentiation, communicative
variation, social selection, systemic stabilisation, relations of production,
relations of understanding etc. without any concrete time and space index, and
applies them to divergent historical data. (Italics in original)
176 Reections and roads ahead

evolutionary variation and selection which is completely immoral,

brutal, and gruesome, a process that (described from the observers
perspective) experiments with everything, even with totalitarian rule
and concentration camps (Brunkhorst 2014: 38). But there is also
evolutionary learning (and unlearning) which is both expressed and
constrained by normative constraints, primarily in the form of law:
[T]he revolutionary advances of normative learning processes are
normative constraints that shall protect us from certain kinds of evolu-
tionary experiments, such as, in our days, totalitarian rule or concen-
tration camps (Brunkhorst 2014: 38; italics in original). What this
means, particularly in relation to the variety of FOPAs in the system
of world politics described in the previous chapter, is that these forms
and the relation between them must not be seen as entirely contingent
results of processes of evolutionary selection and restabilisation.
Rather, and particularly as far as the international legal order is con-
cerned, there is a specic pressure of normative expectations, less
regarding future selections than the non-repetition of previous selec-
tions (e.g. in the form of seeing formal empire as a legitimate form of
organising political authority).3 However, even this observation does
not, in the end, support long-term expectations of progress. Unlearning
(and forgetting that past mistakes were mistakes) remains an ever-
present possibility in world society.
That said, and at the risk of being somewhat repetitive at this point,
the contours of the present theory of world politics are quite simple.
World politics takes place within world society. World society is the
encompassing and exclusive order of the social world, and everything
social takes place within world society. Yet, the story of the emergence
of world society is as much a story of the consolidation of global
interconnectedness as it is a story of the differentiation of society, and
particularly of its functional differentiation.
It is necessary to recall again that the basic theoretical view adopted
here is one in which society cannot be thought of independently of its
differentiation. World society is not something which at some point

3
This is not the place to list the vast literatures on the international legal order, but
for one of the most succinct statements, see Onuf (1979). Generally, theories of
social evolution thus far have not been widely applied to the realm of interna-
tional relations/world politics, and, when they have, it has often been with
concepts of evolution that differ from the strictly communication-related one
underlying the present argument. See, for example, Modelski et al. (2008).
Reections on theorising world politics 177

happens to be there, only then to be somehow overtaken by (a poten-

tially disintegrating) differentiation. There is no world society some-
how before or outside its specic differentiation. Nevertheless, while
the functional differentiation of society is a central part of the evolution
of world society, functional differentiation never was (nor is) the only
discernible form of differentiation. And while this holds true for world
society, it pertains even more to its individual function systems, in this
case the political system of world society, which has always been
shaped by a strong moment of segmentation. Its territorially dened
segments themselves then take on the characteristics of individual,
highly stratied subsystems (national political systems). Even so, the
main interest of this book is not with this ensemble of subsystems of the
political system of world society, but with world politics as a distinct
subsystem, one that does not emerge somehow after or on top of the
other subsystems, but in conjunction with them in an intertwined co-
evolutionary process. (To put this differently, there never has been
a national political system before or without an international one and
vice versa). It is necessary to reiterate at this point that the relation
between different subsystems and individual communicative addresses
is inclusive. This means simply that, for example, a state can always be
both a subsystem of the political system of world society itself and
a segment in the system of world politics as a distinct subsystem of the
political system of world society.
The main concern above was with the emergence of the system of
world politics based on two processes. These were: (1) a process of
system formation through which world political communication
became routinised and thus constitutively independent from its enact-
ment in specic interaction systems, which had characterised much of
international relations up until the seventeenth and eighteenth centu-
ries; and (2) the emergence of a formula of system operation through
the programme of balance of power, for which the semantic ground
had been well prepared during the eighteenth century and which thus
was ready to be used to actually run the system from the Congress of
Vienna onward at the latest. Much of the rest of the long nineteenth
century can then be portrayed as the consolidation of this system of
world politics and its gradual global extension.
This global extension, however, does not lead to a situation in which
system complexity is reduced to such a degree that it relies on one single
FOPA for its internal organisation. As a result of the presence and
178 Reections and roads ahead

interplay of different forms of differentiation, the system is always

characterised by and experiments with various forms. While
there is no linear story at this point, the development within the system
of world politics between the nineteenth century and today is quite
probably one of increasing variety. After a long period primarily char-
acterised by segmentation and stratication, functional differentiation
makes a forceful entry into the system of world politics. It has fore-
runners in the late nineteenth century, a rst show of structuring claims
in the inter-war years, and a breakthrough after the Second World
War. It increases the possibilities of organising political authority in
accordance with specic ordering principles, or combinations thereof,
which go along with the different forms of differentiation. These
observations led to the enumeration of various FOPAs in the contem-
porary system of world politics and their three-dimensional visual
representation.

Theory: purpose and limits

The present theory is a radically constructivist theory in two senses.
Firstly, there is an in-built theoretical assumption that the social world is
made of, and differentiated from the non-social world by, communica-
tion. This means that, minuscule as its contribution might appear to be,
every form of communication (and this includes everything from shout-
ing at the referee on a football eld to publishing theory books) takes
place within and continues world society. In addition, theory can never
observe world society from outside.4 Secondly, it is constructivist in the
4
This, incidentally, is the place at which constructivist theorising in the social
sciences and contemporary quantum physics meet (see for IR: Wendt 2010).
The most notable contribution on this is Alexander Wendts Quantum Mind and
Social Theory (Wendt 2015). This book, on the one hand, arrived on my table far
too late to be taken into account here systematically. However, on the other
hand, it would not have changed much since it is about something completely
different. The big question it raises though is whether a theory of quantum mind
and a radically constructivist-formal theory of society such as Luhmanns can be
related (most notably through the gure of observation and the observer).
The following remark is quite tting in this context: If a system is forced to
recognise with the help of using distinctions and cannot recognise other than
thus, then this also means that everything which is world for the system and thus
has reality needs to be constituted through distinctions. The blind spot of the
specic observation, its distinction used at the moment, is also its guarantee of
world (Luhmann 2005: 39).
Reections on theorising world politics 179

pragmatic sense that a theory can ultimately never be about the truth. It is
always about advancing truth claims, bound together in a story which
should be as coherent and convincing as possible, but on the basis of the
ironic reection that stories can (and will) always be told differently.5 It is
in this sense that this section of this chapter reects on the character and
the limits of this theory of world politics. The next section then compares
the present story to other theoretical stories told about world politics,
showing a greater interest, however, in substantive and analytical issues
than in methodological or in (meta-) theoretical ones.
Although its title emphasises that it is a theory of world politics,
thus probably marking a somewhat different epistemological persua-
sion, this book shares its abstract character with Waltzs Theory of
International Politics (Waltz 1979).6 Yet, in stark contrast to the latter,
it openly conceives world politics as embedded in a wider social envir-
onment. It is much more oriented towards history (although it is not
historical, but looks at history through the lens of social evolution), and
unlike Theory of International Politics, its elements are taken from
social (differentiation, systems, evolutionary) not economic theory.
Unlike Waltzs theory, whose (in)ability to mirror systemic change
has been often noted (and debated; cf. Ruggie 1998; Albert and
Brock 1996), the present one is centrally built on the observation of
continuous systemic change through social evolution. It makes good
company for Waltzs theory, however, in that it cannot be used for
making predictions, but only to identify the contemporary boundary
conditions for potential further systemic evolution.7
The present theory places itself in a tradition of thinking about
international relations that has arguably not been too fashionable
recently. This is the broad tradition of systemic thought in IR (see

5
This is much in the spirit of Rorty (1989). See recently Koschorke (2012) for the
most elaborate theory of narration in this respect. Referring back to Wendts
(2015) Quantum Mind book, he asserts on the closing pages that his hypothesis is
too elegant not to be true. By being told in a convincing fashion, it certainly
advances a strong truth claim whether it is true is an entirely different question.
6
Allegedly Waltz originally entitled his book The theory of international politics
and the publisher wanted to rename it A theory of international politics.
The compromise was then to drop the article altogether. I owe this story to Ole
Wver.
7
In this sense, it provides a possible input into modelling possible futures, most
notably as applied to different aspects of world politics in the works of Heikki
Patomki (2008, 2012).
180 Reections and roads ahead

Albert and Cederman 2010). Most proponents of this very diverse

tradition were always rmly embedded in, or at least applied, theories
which were not theories of international relations in the narrow sense
and to various degrees borrowed from general systems theory and
cybernetics (Deutsch 1963; Kaplan 1957), evolutionary theory
(Modelski 1972), or theories of modernisation (Nettl and Robertson
1968). However, and all the similarities and (sometimes small but
fundamental) differences to these and other approaches notwithstand-
ing (see also the section on Theoretical Fits and Mists below), the
present theory shares with most approaches in this broad tradition of
systemic thought the conviction that, as a theory about a specic part or
aspect of the social world, it needs to ask how this specic part or aspect
relates to a social whole. Every theory on a part or aspect of the social
world has to make operative assumptions, if only deeply implicit ones,
about a social whole (see Albert and Buzan 2013). Yet the present
theory is based on the conviction that laying open these assumptions
is far from being a trivial, additional good-to-know point for the
interested reader. Rather, investigating how the system of world poli-
tics works, how it is shaped and how it has evolved is all but impossible
without rst asking how it is embedded in a wider social environment
and how it is distinguished or differentiated from this environment as
a system of its own. It is because of this that this book started with the
notion of world society. If box ling were necessary, world society
research rather than IR theory or social theory would probably be
the most tting box in this respect (thus in spirit, though not in content,
the book is similar to Burton 1972: 19ff).8
The present theory ventures deep into sociological thought and con-
sults much of historical literature. While in this sense it fully acknowl-
edges that making sense of the present is completely impossible without
a proper sense of the past, it is not to be read as an integrated approach
involving history and international relations (cf. Yetiv 2012).
As mentioned repeatedly, history in the present context is seen through
the lens of social evolution and the latter is impossible without
referring to history, but it is not historical research.

8
Not, however, theory of world society. In the present context, world society is
the social whole against which the system of world politics is oriented and thus
the former assumes a prominent role when theorising the latter; for an overview
of various lings in the theory of world society box, see the contributions in
Albert and Hilkermeier (2004).
Reections on theorising world politics 181

Like any theory, the present one can be expanded and used as
a background for more specic research endeavours, thus being of
more indirect use (see the subsection on supplements and research
programmes in the next chapter). However, and in a sense turning
Robert Coxs famous dictum that theory is always for somebody
and for some purpose (Cox 1981: 128) on its head, it could be said
that the present theory can be of immediate use only if applied for the
right purpose. This purpose is to gain an understanding of the
evolution, the internal differentiation and the operation of the sys-
tem of world politics as a subsystem of the political system of world
society.
Although a fair number and diversity of processes and phenomena
are observed and interpreted under the lens of the present theory, it is
rst of all a theory about the system of world politics. As such, it is
complementary to theoretical approaches that focus on these pro-
cesses and phenomena more specically (e.g. theories of empire,
regionalism or regional integration). It is also complementary to
historical-theoretical accounts of European and (post-)colonial state
formation, although these histories can themselves also, to varying
extents, be read as histories of differentiation processes (see Tilly
1975b; Mann 2012b).
It should be clear that the present theory is a theory of international
relations in a rather specic sense. The next section will situate the
present theorys account in relation to some selected others from the
eld. However, there is probably no theoretical perspective on interna-
tional relations/world politics that ab initio could not be examined for
theoretical, analytical and substantial ts and mists with respect to the
present account, although in many cases a range of intermediate steps
of translation would be necessary. Thus, for example, the present
theory might not be immediately useful to those interested in theory
for the purpose of explaining (or even predicting) the specic foreign
policy behaviour of certain states at certain times. Yet it would be
wrong to conclude from this that this is due to the present theorys
being too abstract and removed from practice. Nobody would think of
consulting an analysis of global trafc ows if the question was
whether to turn left or right at the next intersection in order to avoid
trafc congestion ahead. Yet one might conclude from the former, in
the light of the experience of the latter, that in the long run it might be
worth considering using trains more often if the aim is to arrive on
182 Reections and roads ahead

time.9 Put somewhat less guratively, there is a tremendous difference

between a theory of the emergence and the contemporary form of the
system of world politics, and, for example, a theory of the foreign
policy of states. Yet it would be wrong to conclude that they have
absolutely nothing to say to each other. Every story told by every theory
can, however likely or otherwise, perturb every story told by every
other theory. Thus, for example, a theory that analysed the foreign
policy of states, and found that balance of power plays absolutely no
role as an underlying logic or script, would pose questions for the
present theory. On the other hand, the present theory would prompt
theories of foreign policy to question their assumptions about who
does foreign policy, meaning the processes of social evolution leading
to historically condensed narratives of who actually counts as an actor
in this context (see Albert and Stetter 2015b). However, when the next
section reects on some substantive ts and mists between this theory
and other bodies of theory in IR, this is less an exercise in possibly
building narrow bridges over deep gorges, such as the ones just hinted
at, and more a modest exercise in nding one among a number of
possible ways across a river delta with numerous anabranches.

Theoretical ts and mists

Even if striving to deliver on the often-heard demands for and promises
of inter- or even trans-disciplinarity, a text can never fully discount the
organisational-epistemic environment within the system of science in
which it has emerged (and its authors academic socialisation is an
important part of that). In the present case, this environment remains
primarily that of International Relations, with sociology following
in second place, and history coming in much later and possibly philo-
sophy. Regarding the last of these, the present theory does not seek to
make a contribution. It works from the basis of a constructivist view of
world society seen through the analytical triangle of systems theory,
social evolution theory and differentiation theory (with a strong
9
Although it is more likely that rather than due to such pragmatic misjudgements,
the often heard opinion that a theory is too abstract and doesnt say anything
about the real world is mostly due to a persistent failure to include a thorough
reading of Kants ber den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein,
taugt aber nicht fr die Praxis (On the common saying: That may be correct in
theory, but it is of no use in practice) in the syllabi of PolSci or IR 101 classes.
Reections on theorising world politics 183

emphasis on the latter). Intensively discussing this basis is not part of

the present theory, which hopes to provide a useful view of world
politics rather than a philosophical investigation (let alone
a contribution to the business of philosophising in IR). Regarding
both sociology and history, this theory hopefully serves as a reminder
that both disciplines, particularly (but not exclusively) sociological
theories of (world) society and global history, have already contributed
much to our understanding of world politics, yet have persistently
managed to ignore it as a social system or as a realm in its own right.10
Regarding the present theorys positioning in IR, it has been men-
tioned already that it is probably in close company with a particular
mode of thought about world politics, which sees it as a comprehensive
realm of and within the social world, which has to be analysed and
mapped as such. The purpose of delineating some aspects of the present
theory in relation to some aspects of theories within and outside this
tradition is to identify possible bridges for, and obstacles to, not only
further theoretical dialogue but also possibly tapping into research pro-
grammes operating with different theoretical background assumptions.
What follows is thus not a systematic account of theoretical ts and
mists. Some theoretical approaches in IR fully t within the present
one, even though they might actually use different theoretical vocabul-
aries. Some might t more in the minimal sense of at least not being
mutually exclusive with the present one, though not necessarily being
complementary either. Many, however, t to various degrees, but have
various degrees of mists as well.11 Against this background, the next
10
In a contribution otherwise quite well-attuned to the mutual deciencies of both
history and IR theory in understanding world politics, Conze replicates a typical
reductionism, when he observes that [t]he international system is not an
extraterritorial area between the state, but it constitutes itself through the action
of actors and through institutions which also have relevance in the domestic
political system (Conze 2004: 35). The entire idea of emergence, system dif-
ferentiation and system closure would, however, not permit mapping the inter-
national (in this case: political?) system onto national political systems.
11
It would be possible at this point to enter into a discussion about what actually
qualies as a theory of international relations. It should be clear, however, that
the present book is not overly interested in discussing issues from the realm of
the theories and the sociologies of knowledge and science which would need to
be considered in such a discussion. The interesting and operative distinction is
between theories of international relations on the one side, and what is com-
monly referred to as IR theory on the other. The former provides a theoretical
approach to something that, at least in an implicit sense, sees this something as
being a specic substantive realm in the context of a social whole (see also Albert
184 Reections and roads ahead

paragraphs will deal rst with realism/neorealism and the English

School as comprehensive approaches to international politics, and
then with some selected works which seek to situate international
relations within some kind of global system or society.
Some points of contact and disjuncture between the present theory
and Waltzs neorealist one have already been mentioned at a number of
points. Regarding the classical realism, particularly of Hans
Morgenthau, a striking similarity between the present approach and
Morgenthaus reading of world politics is that both are characterised
by a high degree of awareness that world politics is not an isolated
realm of the social world, but part and parcel of a wider system or
realm of politics.12 And one could actually go so far as to claim that an
important part of Morgenthaus analysis of how politics among
nations actually works provides a quite adequate description of how
balance of power, as a systemic programme in the sense described
above, operates in the system of world politics. That said, this latter
depiction of Morgenthaus work is pretty much a caricature the IR
textbook rump realism that is the condensed version of the principles
of political realism at the beginning of Politics Among Nations (which
were always more like bullet points to boost book sales than an
adequate summary of the book itself). The entire reading of world
politics by Morgenthau exhibits a high sensitivity to context, both
historical and social. Although the basic analysis of political power in
a realist sense is very much at the heart of that book, the better part of it
(in terms of length) is concerned with both the radical historical trans-
formation of international order and with contemporary and possible
future limitations of national power. Regarding the rst, for
Morgenthau the rise of nationalist universalism as the prime organising
principle of political authority is, at the same time, the story of the long-
term decline of an (aristocratic-cosmopolitan) international society and
its standards of international morality (cf. Morgenthau and Thompson
1985: 248ff). Regarding the latter, Morgenthau is very much con-
cerned with (though not overly optimistic about) limitations to nation-
alism set by world public opinion and international law. He is also

and Buzan 2013). The latter often covers an almost endless eld of using some
theoretical approach in order to somehow address some aspect of something in
order to arrive at so what.
12
A political science which knows nothing but its own subject matter cannot even
know that subject matter well (Morgenthau 1955: 449).
Reections on theorising world politics 185

concerned with the possible future prospects for the emergence of

a global political authority (world state), for which, however, some
form of cultural integration (community) is seen to be necessary (see
parts ve through ten of Morgenthau and Thompson 1985).
Morgenthau is sensitive to historical and social context. Despite his
insistence on some unalterable features of political power (and indeed
human nature), he accounts for an autonomisation of a sphere of
politics among nations, and the long-term trend of a rise of nationalist
universalism (which, with its starting point in the French Revolution, is
a universalisation of nationalism at the same time; cf. Morgenthau and
Thompson 1985: 177ff). Much of what Morgenthau writes about the
way in which the balance of power works adequately captures the
systemic programme described above. However, this is where the t
ends. While clearly sensitive to historical events (Morgenthaus work is
an expression of a particular and personal sensitivity to the historical
events of the 1930s and 1940s), these events are not analysed as an
expression of contingent processes of social evolution. They are seen as
only partially contingent results of the unfolding of law-like processes
ultimately grounded in the peculiar characteristics of human nature
(and a specic Augustinian moment; cf. Albert 1996). Despite a clear
understanding that international politics must be analysed as
embedded in a wider realm of politics, Morgenthaus understanding
of the distinction between an international and a wider realm of politics
remains based on a simple insideoutside (cf. Walker 1993) distinc-
tion, between matters within states, on the one hand, and matters
between states, on the other. There is no account of either the emer-
gence or the contingent form of this distinction. This also explains why
there is very little sensibility in Morgenthau (or other authors in the
classical realist tradition) to the variety of FOPAs in the system of
world politics. This variety, in their eyes, is limited to the historical
variation between empires and nation-states, on the one hand, and the
utopian variation between nation-states and a globally centralised
FOPA (world state), on the other. While it remains a recurring subject
for realist thinkers (cf. also Aron 1986) that a world state is something
to be hoped for in order once and for all to end violent conict between
nations, but highly unlikely ever to be achieved, it is notoriously absent
as a theme in structural/neo-realism. This relates directly to the often
observed and debated inability of, in particular, Waltzs theory to
conceptualise a change in the international political system: variation
186 Reections and roads ahead

occurs in relation to the polarity of (i.e. the distribution of power

within) the system. There is no account of possible pathways that
could lead to a change in the systems structure (from anarchic to
hierarchic). It is in that sense that sensitivity in relation to a possible
variety of FOPAs in the system of world politics is even more limited in
neorealism than in classical realism. One could hypothetically say that
this is due to the fact that, in the Waltzian understanding of what
a systemic theory is about, the characteristics of the units do not
play much of a role, so long as they remain like units. In practice,
however, neorealism knows only one kind of unit in world politics, that
is, the sovereign nation-state. As mentioned already, Waltz uses the
notion of functional differentiation to describe something that is not
present in a segmented system. However, his understanding that
beyond that system functional differentiation plays an important role
is probably even more pronounced than in classical realism, particu-
larly through his insistence on the fact that the international political
system is exactly that, a political system (and not, for example, an
economic system). With classical realism, on the other hand, he shares
a relatively basic insideoutside view in which the realm of national
political systems (under the condition of sovereignty and centralised
authority) differs markedly from the realm of international politics.
When it comes to studying the variety of FOPAs in the system of
world politics, the present account is probably closest to what has
become known as the English School of International Relations
although, beyond that similarity in observing a variety of forms,
many differences in basic theoretical terminology prevail. This is even
true in a highly selective reading of English School contributions.
The English School itself is diverse and, particularly in its solidarist
version, far removed from the theoretical framework adopted here. Yet
what English School contributions widely share, though to varying
historical depths (see Buzan and Lawson 2013), is a high sensitivity
to varieties of organising political authority in the system of world
politics. Wight (1977) refers to this variety in order to identify different
types of international society, each corresponding to a specic form of
social differentiation. In contrast, Buzan, in a programmatic article on
the English School, probably offers the rst bridge between English
School thought and a theory of social differentiation. Without using
these terms at that time, he observed in relation to stratied, segmented
and functionally differentiated orders, that [p]ure forms of any of these
Reections on theorising world politics 187

may be rare, and nuanced analysis will focus on the mix and balance
amongst them (Buzan 2001: 483).13
There is an obvious similarity between English School views on the
overlap between, or simultaneous presence of, different forms of differ-
entiation in the international system/international society and the pre-
sent theory, which openly draws on social differentiation,14 but beyond
this similarity differences abound. However, apart maybe from the
more solidarist version of English School thought, which argues that
international society is held together by shared norms and values and
ultimately subscribes to a view of society that requires some form of
community to hold it together,15 these differences do not necessarily
lead to unbridgeable analytical divides. They express basic mists in the
underlying theoretical terminology. These mists are to no small degree
due to the fact that most of the rst-generation English School thin-
kers had quite a laissez-faire approach to employing notions like sys-
tem, society, or institution. They certainly did not overload
themselves with the baggage of the sociological theoretical tradition
that comes with these terms, leaving it to following generations of
scholars working in the English School context to inquire more deeply
into the exact meanings of these basic terms.
One of the most systematic attempts in this respect remains Barry
Buzans From International to World Society (Buzan 2004a). Like all
English School contributions, it works on an underlying notion of society
which differs from the one used in the present book, because it under-
stands society as a somehow socially integrated facility (see Chapter 1).16
Yet it pays to take a closer look here as From International to World

13
See also the observation of a possible differentiation between units: If this
development continues, it points towards an international system that has no
single, clearly dominant, multipurpose, multi-sectoral type of unit, but instead
has a variety of more sector specialised units. The state still retains its unique
multisectoral role, and it still remains the primary source of political legitimacy
(Buzan and Little 1999: 94).
14
It was the observation of this similarity which led to the articles by Buzan and
Albert (2010), Albert and Buzan (2011), Albert and Buzan (2013); also Albert
et al. (2013).
15
As mentioned, English School thought is in itself quite diverse and heteroge-
neous as, indeed, is the solidarist view of international society so this
statement necessarily abstracts from a range of nuanced individual arguments;
cf. Linklater and Suganami (2006); Dunne (1998).
16
However, Buzan (2004a: 15) cautions that the term society should not be
read as in itself carrying any necessarily positive connotation.
188 Reections and roads ahead

Society scrutinises a range of English School contributions that often

proceed without making explicit the denitions underlying basic concepts.
The starting point for Buzan is the three traditions of English School
thought, namely Hobbesianism (realism, international system),
Grotianism (rationalism, international society) and Kantianism (revolu-
tionism, world society) (see Buzan 2004a: 6ff). He rmly opts for seeing
these three traditions as different analytical concepts (rather than, for
example, as cognitive schemes of statesmen). From this starting point,
Buzan offers four revisions of the three traditions scheme. After the rst
revision (Buzan 2004a: 90ff), the three traditions are seen as describing
three structural pillars, namely an international system of states (interna-
tional system), an international society of states (international society),
and the group of transnational actors and individuals (world society).
The second revision then drops the rst of these pillars with the argument
that the international system represents only one (Hobbesian, anarchical)
form of international society in a range of possible such forms (Buzan
2004a: 98ff). The third revision (Buzan 2004a: 128ff) then makes the
double move of identifying two pillars, interhuman and transnational
societies, instead of a single world society pillar, and ascertaining that the
difference between interstate, interhuman and transnational societies is
not gradual, but constitutive in accordance with the actors which make
them up (states, individuals, transnational collective actors). The fourth
revision retains this layout, but somewhat modies the international
society spectrum (Buzan 2004a: 158ff).17
Invariably, the three traditions and their revisions are represented
as changes in the way in which something depicted as a circle is carved
up. One of the main differences between the present approach, which
takes world society as a social whole, and the one in Buzan is that, in the
latter, there is no account of the status of the circle. What is being
carved up, the social whole represented by the circle, remains unspe-
cied (see also Albert and Buzan 2013 on this issue). In addition, what
is thrown out of the entire account in the course of the four revisions is
any notion of a system, which is, however, due to a rather peculiar
understanding of system as referring to non-social, physical relations

17
For a very useful overview of the variety of ways to carve up some kind of
(unspecied) whole in English School thought, see Little (2009), who insinuates
a link between this variety and the methodological pluralism within the English
School; see also Keene (2009) in the same volume for the identication of
international society as an ideal type.
Reections on theorising world politics 189

(system as representing a distinctive physical, asocial form of inter-

state relations; Buzan 2004a: 107).
It is this missing notion of social systems that constitutes a major
difference between the present account and Buzans. The latter exhibits
a high degree of sensitivity to possible internal differentiations in some-
thing (the unspecied circle), but without using differentiation theory at
that point. In the end, there is a degree of overlap between international
society as described in From International to World Society and the
system of world politics analysed here though conceptual differences
remain. While international society, in the end, is based on specic units
(states) and (primary and secondary) institutions, the system of world
politics here is described through system formation, forms of differentia-
tion and social evolution. Although there is a high degree of historical
sensitivity built into the concept of an international society, it is more
static than the present approach both with regard to FOPAs and in
relation to changes in generalised sets of expectations (institutions).
Without going into detail on the concept of an institution at this point,
the present approach would not see institutions as things that emerge (or
evolve and dissolve) between a set of units, but as things that co-evolve
with various FOPAs in world politics. In English School jargon, the
institutions of international society are not independent of some con-
stituent elements of this society (states). Rather, they change together
with the quality of these elements and thus dene what this ever-
changing society looks like at any given moment. There is a great deal
of difference between, for example, a society framed in terms of dynastic
rule with a low degree of formal organisation, and one with a high degree
of formal organisation framed in terms of nationalism (cf. Mayall 1990).
While many similarities, and some differences, could be listed
between a number of English School approaches and this book, the
differences in the end mostly boil down to differences in the underlying
understandings of the basic concepts of system and society. English
School notions of society usually see it as a somehow integrated society
of something (states, individuals, corporate actors). The term world
society is usually reserved for a more or less integrated amalgam of
individuals, but in most cases excludes states.18 Probably for lack of

18
I am grateful to Barry Buzan for pointing out that some versions of world society
in English School thought include states (though I remain not entirely convinced
about his point that John Vincents work unambiguously ts in here).
190 Reections and roads ahead

a tting theoretical vocabulary, the English School then usually shies

away from studying such a society, and turns its attention to the
international society of states.19 The notion of system in English
School thought often remains underdeveloped and the word is taken
to refer to some kind of non-social arrangement. Buzans contribution
in From International to World Society has been to point out that it is
not very helpful to imagine a non-social international system of states
that somehow stands apart from an international society of states and
that what is commonly referred to as an international system is
a specic instantiation of a social order (international society) among
states. Yet his argument proceeds by effectively excluding the notion of
system from the conceptual vocabulary. The system is relegated to
a realm of the physical.20
This is the point where English School contributions differ markedly
from the very broad and loose tradition of systems theorising in IR.
With its heydays in the 1960s and 1970s (cf. Albert and Cederman
2010), and in contrast to many unconsidered uses of the term system
in much past and contemporary IR literature, systems theorising
usually builds on some explicit account of what a system is, with

19
Although Evan Luard is not considered to be a part of the English School, he
provides a good example of the confusion surrounding the different concepts
that ensues if no suitable theoretical vocabulary is available. He states that the
whole world today could be regarded as one single, immensely complex,
variegated, subdivided, yet at the same time interconnected, society, of vast size
and many-sided character (Luard 1976: 50). He then goes on to say that the
international system can also be regarded as a society in a different sense:
a society of states (Luard 1976: 50), and then, that [t]hese are two alternative
pictures of the same society (Luard 1976: 50). He gives no reasons why the two
views should pertain to the same kind of society. Also, the terminology used is
not very coherent: the second picture is introduced with the remark that the
international system can also be regarded as a society in a different sense (Luard
1976: 50), although no claim is made earlier that the rst picture would relate to
the international system (which is thus introduced as being the more general and
inclusive term as compared to society). Later on in the same page, the two
pictures are described as two types of world society. This amounts to saying
that the international system consists of two pictures of world society which
seems somewhat confusing.
20
This idea in the end, however, remains quite unclear. It is not specied further
what a distinctive physical, asocial form of interstate relations (Buzan 2004a:
107) could actually be. What is presumably meant are exchange relations that
somehow involve the movement of physical objects across boundaries. Yet such
movements do not occur in a social vacuum, but take place only because they are
imbued with meaning, that is, because they are inherently social.
Reections on theorising world politics 191

consequences for the analysis that follows. Particularly when combin-

ing general systems theory and issues of learning, approaches from this
tradition come quite close to the present one. However, before further
elaborating on this issue, it seems worth noting the extremely wide
range of approaches within this broad tradition of systems theory
thought. Although all contributions to this tradition ourished in an
intellectual climate inspired by the prominence of general systems21
and Parsonian theory, the specic theoretical traditions and specic
denitions of system vary widely. Some see a system in the more
traditional way as being composed and constituted by relations
between parts; some prefer the more modern understanding, seeing
a system as constituted by its differentiation from an environment.
Perhaps the most striking work in this context in terms of its some-
times remarkable overlap, at least terminologically speaking, with this
book is George Modelskis Principles of World Politics (Modelski
1972). It provides a systematic evolutionary account of the emergence
of world politics although evolution in Modelskis case is neither
strictly social evolution nor a three-step of variation, selection and
restabilisation and it involves quite a long-term evolutionary perspective
(putting, for example, the emergence of the Milky Way and the emer-
gence of modernity on the same scale; Modelski 1972: 25). Its study of
the Politics of World Society (cf. Modelski 1972: 9ff), however, then
arrives at an understanding of contemporary (in this case early 1970s)
world politics which is characterised by the dominance, if not almost the
exclusivity, of the nation-state system as the outstanding FOPA in the
system of world politics. Modelski does not allow for contemporary
variation in this respect. That said, he is in accord with a basic premise of
the present book when he states that [i]n clear contrast with all other
historical societies, the contemporary world society is global. The pro-
cess by which a number of historical world societies were brought
together into one global system might be referred to as globalisation
(Modelski 1972: 41).22 The main difference from the present account is

21
For a good sense of this climate, see the various General Systems yearbooks that
were published from 1956 onwards.
22
It is worth noting that the chapter on globalisation (Modelski 1972: 4157) is
both one of the earliest succinct statements of the expansion of Western FOPAs
using the term globalisation and probably also one of the most systematically
overlooked contributions to the 1990s globalisation literature, which claimed to
have discovered something new.
192 Reections and roads ahead

then, however, that Modelski applies an evolutionary account not to

world society as a social system but to some interwoven social-cum-
physical world as a general system, a move that is enabled (or, in any
case, not prevented) because further specication of what constitutes
a system and its boundaries is missing.
Such an explicit specication can be found in one of the most inu-
ential books on IR using systems theory terminology. Morton Kaplans
System and Process in International Politics provides one of the most
succinct formal understandings of the characteristics of a system
dened as a system of action. A system of action is a set of variables
so related, in contradistinction to its environment, that describable
behavioural regularities characterise the internal relationships of the
variables to each other and the external relationships of the set of
individual variables to combinations of external variables (Kaplan
1957: 4). What is remarkable about Kaplans account is that, although
he has a clear sense that a system is constituted by a basic difference
between system and environment, the system boundary is in a sense
only inferred ex negativo by the observation of relevant relations
between a given set of variables. There is no further specication of
how a system emerges and differentiates (a lack of specication that
also leads to the use of the term subsystem in a somewhat arbitrary
fashion throughout the book). In contrast to Kaplan, this understand-
ing of the central importance of the difference between a (political)
system and its environment is very pronounced in David Eastons
work, and in this context the notion of system boundaries is empha-
sised in order to analyse the system in question (cf. Easton 1965). Yet,
as in Kaplans case, Eastons systems are not primarily communication-
based systems, and what both lack is an understanding of the impor-
tance of differentiation as well as the operation of systems through
programmes on the basis of symbolically generalised media of commu-
nication (Kaplan, in fact, sees balance of power as a state of system
equilibrium).
The work of Karl W. Deutsch remains outstanding in the context of
systems theory thought about world politics (see Deutsch 1963; also
Deutsch 1953). Of all the approaches in the classical tradition of
systems thought in IR, it comes closest to the systems theory under-
standing of social systems adopted here, seeing systems as constituted
by communication (see also Albert and Walter 2005). Social systems,
including the political system, are constituted by social communication;
Reections on theorising world politics 193

they are, following the reasoning of cybernetic theory, self-controlling

systems which become operatively autonomous (self-referential, or self-
enclosed in Deutschs terms), and they continue through the mechanism of
goal-changing feedback, thereby constituting learning systems. In the
terms of his systems theory, one could probably say that Deutsch concep-
tually occupies a halfway position between a Parsonian understanding,
and the primarily Luhmann-inspired understanding adopted in this book.
What Deutsch lacks is an explicit understanding of social differentiation
much as in Waltz, such an understanding remains implicit in that the
political system is portrayed as a system of its own (and thus, by implica-
tion, differentiated somehow from other systems in its environment).
Deutsch has a highly developed sense and concepts for the analysis of the
evolution of learning social systems. However, he remains one step short of
acknowledging the radical contingency associated with social evolution.
In relation to evolving systems, it is impossible to predict which in a myriad
variations will be selected and then possibly lead to system change and
which variations will not be selected (that missing step, incidentally,
probably accounts for quite a number of the problems encountered
when using cybernetic systems theory for modelling large-scale complex
systems; cf. Deutsch 1977).23
It is probably safe to say that most overlaps between the present
theory and English School thought (most notably, but not exclusively
in the Buzan version) are to be found on the differentiation theory side
of things, whereas the overlap with the tradition of systems theory
thought in IR are to be found unsurprisingly on the systems theory
side. In both realms, there are differences, and both theoretical elds
remain weak in terms of the others relative strengths. Both, however,
have one advantage, as far as representing them is concerned, in that
they are, however loosely, held together by some form of common
understanding of international society, on the one hand, and the
importance of thinking about (international) politics in terms of
a social system, on the other. Far more blurred in terms of a possible
common representation is the vast eld of studies which has, since the
end of the Cold War (and sometimes earlier), proposed a vast range of

23
The impression should be avoided, however, that all explicit inquiries into the
nature of the international system in and around the 1960s were inspired by
systems theory. Thus, for example, the famous collection The International
System. Theoretical Essays by Knorr and Verba (1961) contains very little on
what actually makes a system a system in the rst place.
194 Reections and roads ahead

(conceptual) vocabularies to describe some kind of global system and

society, yet which usually would not count as systems theory. Without
being able to claim comprehensiveness when it comes to surveying this
eld, it is possible, at least heuristically, to distinguish between two sets
of literatures. One works in the interstices of a number of disciplinary
elds, including sociology, IR, anthropology, cultural studies and so
on. By now it increasingly populates what has become an institutiona-
lised academic eld of globalisation studies.24 The other works more
on the IR side of things and is a range of approaches which seek to
comprehensively think through what international relations com-
prises in a global context. This literature increasingly has also turned
to the historical reconstruction of the emergence of contemporary
world politics.
Along with inspirations drawn from world systems theory broadly
dened (and the works of Modelski referred to above could also be
counted here), the most prominent gure in the eld of globalisation
studies is probably Roland Robertson. Beginning in the late 1960s in
his work with John Peter Nettl (Nettl and Robertson 1968), he sought
to scrutinise the evolution of the international system in the context of
modernisation. Yet, despite explicit discussions about boundaries and
subsystem interchanges and differentiation at the international level
(Nettl and Robertson 1968: 166ff), these remain fully Parsonian and
oriented towards the AGIL scheme. Yet they come closest to fullling
the demand for a global sociology at the time, a demand raised by
Moore in 1966 (Moore 1966) and certainly not fullled by most
scholars in the Parsonian tradition (or, for that matter, Parsons him-
self). In his later work, Robertson goes beyond the analysis of an
international system in a Parsonian fashion. He increasingly sees the
global as a category in and for itself, forming a complex social whole
underpinned by the formation of a global consciousness and various
(cultural and political) practices which articulate it at the interfaces of
the global and the local (see in overview Robertson 1992). However,
Robertson remained somewhat sceptical about applying the notion of
society to a global context (and, notably, seeing it through the lens of
differentiation theory; cf. Robertson 2009). Others in the consolidating

24
In practice sometimes mixed with the eld of global studies, which often,
however, designates an institutional mix of IR and area studies, sometimes
enriched with other disciplinary perspectives.
Reections on theorising world politics 195

eld of globalisation studies more openly adopted the notion of

society in this context (see, for example: Shaw 1994), or thought
about it indirectly in terms of reexive modernisation and the risk
society (cf. Axford 1995: 11ff). Yet, although quite a few of these
accounts share some vocabulary with this book, what they invariably
lack (apart from some indications in the early Robertson) is an account
of social differentiation which would allow them to spell out how the
different social systems within a global system/global society are differ-
entiated from each other.25 The merits and beauty of telling individu-
ally convincing stories notwithstanding, many contributions in this
context remain insightful mlanges about some global condition, yet
would hardly seem to qualify as theories of either a global society or
a global system.26
Although often different from the present account in theoretical
terms, a number of approaches in the eld of International Relations
are close to it in their emphasis on the historical origins of modern
international relations. This observation at rst pertains to a range of
contributions that have over recent years increasingly focused on the
origins of the contemporary system of world politics. They have done
so through historical accounts that are sensible of the complex process
of competition between different kinds of organising political author-
ity, and of their co-evolution, rather than telling a more or less linear
story of Westphalia (see for example, Bartelson 1995; Spruyt 1994;
Haldn 2011; see also Osiander 2001; Duchhardt 1999; Teschke
2003). Despite similarities, many of these works often represent
another mode of thinking about world politics than the one used
here. They tell the story of the emergence, or the making, of modern
international relations as a realm in and for itself. The mode adopted
here is different in the sense that it tells the story of the evolution of
world politics within a co-evolving global social system (world society).
This observation is just to identify the difference between these two
modes of thinking about world politics. Both are possible, and both can

25
An observation that, incidentally, also pertains to one of the most developed
historical reconstructions of global system formation, namely Wallersteins
The Modern World System (Wallerstein 19741989, 2011). Wallersteins in fact
is an account of modernisation and functional differentiation, but seen under the
lens and also assuming a primacy of the economic system.
26
See also Albert (2007) as well as the ensuing debate in the forum section of
International Political Sociology vol. 3, no. 1 (2009).
196 Reections and roads ahead

be used in a complementary fashion. What they both emphatically

share is the conviction that cutting off history in much of contemporary
IR research is lamentable, and in dire need of reversal. This need is
addressed, and to a signicant degree remedied, by Barry Buzan and
George Lawsons recent The Global Transformation. History,
Modernity and the Making of Modern International Relations
(2015). As indicated by the resemblance between this title and
Osterhammels The Transformation of the World: A Global History
of the Nineteenth Century (2014), historically conscious IR scholarship
and scholarship in global history begin to overlap in a substantial and
potentially fruitful and productive fashion. The specic difference
between these two books and the present one is that
The Transformation of the World has no place for world politics or
international relations as a distinguishable social realm or system of its
own. Whereas in The Global Transformation the only thing not treated
historically is the concept of the international itself, it remains
a concept somehow ahistorically given.
The present theory emphasises systems theory, social differentiation
and evolutionary theory in order to understand the emergence and
contemporary form of the system of world politics. It has points of
contact with approaches, such as, most notably, those within the context
of English School thought, that emphasise the historical reconstruction
of contemporary world politics. It has fewer points of contact with
approaches that try to accomplish similar things on the basis of the
history of ideas, or of a deconstruction and reconstruction of basic
epistemological and ontological premises of thinking about world poli-
tics (cf. most notably Wendt 1999; Walker 2010). Engaging works of the
latter kind in a dialogue with the present one might be worthwhile, but
would at rst require quite a lot of energy to be devoted to relating
the present theorys constructivism to, for example, the form of con-
structivism espoused by Wendt, which is based on rather different
theoretical traditions (in this case symbolic interactionism). Yet the
purpose here is not to engage in the drawn-out (meta-)theoretical debate
on constructivism in IR.
Rather, most theoretical and conceptual points of contact with the
range of contributions in IR and beyond referred to above generally
arise from their conceptualisation of the historical development and/or
current state of world politics as some kind of system or as some kind of
society. They also pertain to some mainly implicit uses of basic gures
Reections on theorising world politics 197

of thought in a theory of social differentiation. This underscores

a situation in which in contemporary IR theory, as well as in the
neighbouring elds of, most notably, global studies, globalisation
studies and so on, the notion of society in various guises (interna-
tional, world, global, global civil) puts in an appearance in a largely
post-state-centric mindset, in which systems theory thought (though
less in the traditional cybernetic fashion) in different guises stages at
least a moderate comeback and in which the theory of social differ-
entiation has been more openly and explicitly used in thinking about
world politics.27
The situation is a little more complicated in relation to work on
the history of world politics (or international relations, for that
matter). There are many thematic and programmatic overlaps
between the present account and many accounts in the broad
eld of the historical sociology of international relations.28
As mentioned already, there seems to be a broader trend in the
eld of International Relations towards engaging more with the
(particularly nineteenth-century) historical underpinnings of con-
temporary world politics. What is quite remarkable in this context
is that this literature thus far has only modestly related to the
expanding approach of global history in history (the same holds
more or less true in the other direction as well). Yet, as remarked
early on in this book, global history provides an important back-
ground for the present undertaking. In contrast to the (teleological)
tradition of universal history (in the sense of Schiller and Kant; cf.
Maier 2005), and the more diverse tradition of world history, global
history can be seen

as a type of its own in that it completely abstains from a claim towards

temporal totality (from the beginnings to the present) characteristic of
world history. Global history means the search for the beginning and early
development of the global interconnection [Weltzusammenhang] nowadays
constituted by globalisation. It is thus teleologically related to the present in
a similar way to universal history, but cannot possibly go further back than

27
See, in overview: Albert et al. (2013); particularly also the articles by Donnelly
(2009, 2012, 2013); see Chapter 4 above on the fundamental differences
between Donnellys and the present approach.
28
See, most programmatically: Hobden and Hobson (2002); and more recently
Buzan and Lawson (2015).
198 Reections and roads ahead

the beginnings of signicant global interconnection in historical reality.

(Osterhammel 2005: 460)29

Regarding the concept of world society employed in this book, global

history is the history of the structural consolidation of world society.
It is less interested in its phenomenological dimension, and, because of
this, also not particularly much in the relevant history of ideas or in
early interconnections between different structurally consolidated
realms which are not yet consolidated into a permanent global inter-
connection (the Weltzusammenhang). It is in this sense that global
history is different from long-term historical accounts in IR, which
still borrow more from the tradition of world history.30 What it does
share with such accounts, however, is that it leaves little or no room for
large-scale qualitative transformation (apart from the inception of
globality). There is little or no room for a concept of (world) society;
no room for processes of system formation and differentiation; and no
evolutionary perspective. Yet it is the latter in combination with the
former which provides an important safeguard against the tempting
fallacy of describing the past entirely in terms of the present, projecting
back analytical terms and cognitive maps (methodological national-
ism is a specic and prominent form of this fallacy). This safeguard can
never be complete, in the sense that the past can never be described in
terms of past orders of meaning alone, but is always described partly in
terms of the present. However, it is safeguard enough to caution against
the backward projection of the notions of a states-system or an
international system to refer to historical congurations or

29
For overviews on the debates about global history, see, for example: Mazlish
and Buultjens (1993); Conrad et al. (2007); for global history as history of
globalisation and the global, and the relation between the local and the global:
Hopkins (2002, 2006); Berg (2012); Grandner et al. (2005).
30
World history mostly simply assumes such global interconnection. See again
Buzan and Little (2000); Little (2005); for a general discussion of the problem of
periodisation in history, which stems from projecting Western historical periods
onto world historical contexts, cf. Bentley (1996). It is quite remarkable that
recently some scholars attuned to the importance of thinking historically about
world politics have begun to probe deep questions from the philosophy of
history in their works, yet without paying much attention to the long discussions
on exactly that subject in philosophy an excellent example of the still very wide
and deep disciplinary divides in this area; cf. the article on benchmark dates by
Buzan and Lawson (2014); and also the discussion of the basic theme of
historical singularity vs. historical continuity by Musgrave and Nexon (2013) in
response to Buzan and Lawson (2013).
Reections on theorising world politics 199

arrangements which are largely incommensurable with modern ones.

As Keene (2002: 2) puts it succinctly,
the increasingly popular idea of a post-Westphalian order does not make
much sense unless one begins from the proposition that the modern pattern
of international order was itself Westphalian. Very few analyses of
contemporary world politics have managed to break free from this
conventional way of thinking about international relations in the past, and
that signicantly limits their capacity to think about the present and the
future in a genuinely original way.

Nonetheless, it should be re-emphasised at this point that the contribu-

tion of global history can hardly be overstated and not only in the
present context. While fundamentally different from the theoretical
account given here, due to a lack of both a general idea of the systemic
character of the social (or its internal differentiation) and a notion of
social evolution, global history provides an important backbone for
any such account. It transgresses both the limitations of the nation-
state-centred historiography that has dominated the discipline of his-
tory for a long time and the limitations of the very broad, yet therefore
also rather unspecic, approach of world history.
6 Limitations, loose threads,
further research

In keeping with a theory that is open, reexive and evolving, this

chapter addresses two sets of questions. The rst set pertains to obvious
possible difculties faced by any theory of world politics and, more
specically, by the present one. The questions cover issues of Euro-
centrism, and a concentration on world politics at the seeming expense
of other important areas, most notably international law. These issues
will be briey addressed in the following. Although they could be seen
to constitute reections on the theory, they are also part and parcel of
its own self-understanding, and are thus, in a sense, part of it.
The second set essentially contains some reections on possible uses
of the theory in formulating further research questions, both theoreti-
cally and empirically.

From limitations . . .
On (Euro-)centrism
Many theories and theoretically informed accounts in the social
sciences are based on and biased towards European or (more broadly)
Western categories of knowledge and tend to tell stories of world
politics through open or hidden narratives of an outward European
(and, consequently, to a large degree colonial-imperial) expansion.
This insight has by now informed an enormous body of literature on
the practice of Orientalism (Said 2003), broadly speaking, as well as on
possible counter-narratives to hegemonic Euro-/Western-centric
accounts in post-colonial studies. Without going into the details of
this vast body of literature at this point,1 it seems that the issue
of Euro-/Western-centrism is relevant to the present account in three
distinct, yet related aspects: rstly, general issues regarding the status of
1
For a good overview of the many and new ways of writing imperial and
colonial history/histories, see Howe (2010).

200
Limitations, loose threads, further research 201

theory (which are related to epistemological issues as well); secondly,

the issue of a possible bias in the very notion of world society; and,
thirdly, a possible bias inherent in the global expansion story of
Chapter 3.
The rst of these aspects is, in fact, an issue for every theory, since
every theory is rooted in some tradition (and even radical deconstruc-
tivist readings that seek to undermine the very basic logo-centric con-
stitution of knowledge are about as deeply rooted in an occidental
philosophical tradition as they can possibly be2). The specicity of
the roots varies greatly, as does their nature. Thus, for example, it is
not very difcult to discern a basically Augustinian and eschatological
motive in classical realism, which bases its theory on a decidedly
Christian view of the nature of man (cf. Albert 1996: 1733), whereas
considerably more complex argumentation is obviously required to
decipher the underlying assumptions in the theory of Waltz (cf. Ashley
1984).3 The complexity would probably be even greater in relation to
the present theory, given its reliance on a radically constructivist
approach which takes a communication-based view of society and
emphasises the radical contingency inherent in social evolution.
Of course, such an approach is very much Western-centric if the non-
groundedness of radical constructivist approaches in itself is seen as
something deeply rooted in Western, secularised modernity. However,
the present theory is happy with this insofar as alternatives (Western
and non-Western) that provide rmer grounds invariably lead back to
the rather fruitless tradition of ontological (if not, in the end, metaphy-
sical) thought. This is not to deny that there are many different theore-
tical stories that can be told, but just to assert that deliberations about
ontology may not be the most innovative way to proceed. It is also not
to deny that there are completely different stories to be told about
world politics from the perspective of other function systems (e.g. the
arts) or from the perspective of different and partly incommensurable
cultural backgrounds. Yet, the emphasis here is on the stories: differ-
ent stories about world politics are not necessarily different theories of

2
In this sense, to some degree poststructuralism can be read as a radical form of
neo-structuralism (cf. Frank 1984) to some degree as such a reading does not
cover poststructuralisms role as an ethical concept.
3
And even that elaborate criticism does not criticise Waltzs theory for its Euro-
centrism, but for a lack of emancipatory potential.
202 Reections and roads ahead

world politics, and it is the notion of theory which rmly anchors its
use in the modern function system of science (cf. Luhmann 1992).4
The issue of Euro-centrism in relation to the concept of world society
employed in this book relates to the rst part of the composite term, the
world, and not to society. As the latter here is not conceived in relation
to some kind of normative background, collective identity or community,
it is insensitive to cultural specications of those terms and the resulting
differences and incommensurabilities that usually underpin (divergent)
notions of a (normatively) integrated society. Regarding the world, it is
useful to recall the three dimensions of the term elaborated in Chapter 1.
It is impossible to see the world in the phenomenological sense as an
expression of a Euro-centric gure of thought, as long as it merely refers
to the extension of horizons of meaning, in the sense that different world
societies learn of each others existence and can thus no longer pretend to
be world society themselves.5 There is probably also little Euro-centrism
involved in the structural sense of world, which refers to the intensica-
tion and consolidation of global interconnectivity (it is an entirely differ-
ent thing to note that this intensication and consolidation was, to quite
a large degree, based on and driven by oppressive colonial practices on
the part of the European states). The world in world society is
rather Euro-centric, however, when it comes to its semantic dimension.
It is here that notions and images fully grow and emerge out of (if only in
contrast to) the Judaeo-Christian tradition, in effect cutting off or displa-
cing other concepts of world from different religious-cultural back-
grounds. The systematic history of this process, which will always be
a history of the mixing of different repositories of ideas and world views,
however, still remains to be written.6
Much has been written about the third aspect of a possible Euro-
centrism discussed here, namely a one-sided and unidirectional

4
The issue is nicely captured in Chakrabartys excellent account of Provincializing
Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference: One simply cannot
think of political modernity without these and other related concepts that found
a climactic form in the course of the European Enlightenment and the nineteenth
century (Chakrabarty 2000: 4).
5
This statement should not be misunderstood as meaning that phenomenology is
not a part of the Western philosophical tradition, which it most certainly is.
6
The emphasis is on the systematic here. There are numerous individual accounts
of greatly different cosmologies, social imageries and so on; see, for example, the
highly instructive reading of international orders in relation to different social
imageries by Phillips (2011).
Limitations, loose threads, further research 203

account of the outward expansion of a European system of states

growing into a global system. This book uses a version of such an
account as well. However, two things need to be distinguished in
this respect. It is one thing to ask whether the general thrust of the
expansion argument is wrong. It is another, if closely related, thing
to ask whether this argument has unduly (and possibly even grossly)
understated non-Western inuences in this context. Regarding the
former, the thrust is not wrong if it takes into account that what is
at stake is not merely an expansion of international society (Bull
and Watson 1984; Schwarzenberger 1964: 2741), conceived as
a simple structural expansion of a European system of states
through conquest and coercion and a mix of forced and voluntary
adaptation. It also has to take account of a global proliferation of
models of organisation and scripts of legitimate, rational actorhood,
which displace non-territorial models of statehood and subjugate
the traditional and non-instrumental forms of rationality and the
different embodiments of actorhood that go along with them (cf.
also Hobson 2012). However, to emphasise this point again: the
fact that this expansion process uses colonial practices of European
states as its primary vehicle does not mean at all that its account is
analytically Euro-centric. What is pretty Euro-centric analytically in
both the world polity approach and the English Schools account of
expansion is the neglect of the variety of this expansion. This
refers to the many inuences and feedback loops from the colonies
or other polities to the European cores, and indeed the role of
relations between peripheral states in the expansion of the system.
However, things have begun to change, albeit slowly, in these areas.
Works in the English School tradition pay more attention to the
varied ways in which different parts of the world were integrated
into international society (cf. Suzuki 2009). The newer literature on
colonialism and imperialism has, likewise, addressed the great vari-
ety of colonial practices (Osterhammel and Jansen 2012), covering
both the feedback between organisation in the colonies and the core
(Anghie 2007; Branch 2012), and the role of relations between the
peripheral states in the global consolidation of the segmented order
of the system of world politics (with the Bandung conference as its
symbolic apex; cf. Ballantyne and Burton 2012: 422431).
The present theory exhibits, to some degree and in its own sense,
a Eurocentric conception of world politics (cf. Hobson 2012).
204 Reections and roads ahead

However, as should be clear from the last few paragraphs, it aims to

reect on the kind and degree of such a Euro-centrism. Particularly
with regard to the former, it does so by seeking to identify
unavoidable Euro-centrism based on the Euro-centric history of con-
cepts and knowledge orders and their global expansion, and the
avoidable Euro-centrism that remains part of many specic historical
accounts.7 Particularly the sensitivities raised by postcolonial studies
and the surge in writings on the subject of global history have started to
provide good prospects of remedying the situation somewhat with
regard to this avoidable Euro-centrism in the future.

And what about law and legitimacy?

That this theory is a theory of world politics has consequences for the
way it treats (international) law as much as it has consequences for
the way it treats the world economy, religion, science, politics other
than world politics and so on. Of course, nothing at all in world politics
happens without reference to, or some sort of coupling with, other
parts of society indeed, the whole purpose of this theory is to think
about world politics as something that takes place within society and
does not somehow exist independently of it.8 Yet the entire point of
thinking about society in terms of social systems constituted by com-
munication is to analyse them as operatively closed systems, with
system boundaries, specic codes, systemic programmes and so on.
None of this implies that law, economics or religion are unimportant,
quite the opposite. What it implies is that a theory of world politics is
something different from a theory of the political system of world
society, from a theory of global trade as a subsystem of the economic
system of world society, or, for that matter, a theory of international
law as a subsystem of the legal system of world society. It is also
something else than a theoretical account of the co-evolution of
world politics and international law. The relation between a theory

7
The story of European centrality in the emergence of modern knowledge orders
is, at its core, also a history of the drawing of maps, in which Europe came out on
top and was greatly overrepresented compared to other parts of the globe
considering its size; cf. Black (2002: 2238).
8
I use the notion of coupling in a loose sense here, deliberately avoiding going
deeper into the quite complicated issue of structural coupling in systems theory
at this point.
Limitations, loose threads, further research 205

of world politics and a theory of international law is somewhat akin, to

use a somewhat loose analogy for the purposes of illustration, to
accounts of how motor engineering and motor trafc developed on
the one hand and accounts of the evolution of the rules of the road on
the other. One is completely unthinkable without the other. Yet we can,
and to quite a signicant degree even must, treat them separately.
Much of what happens in the system of world politics also happens
in the system of international law, and there are certainly many good
reasons for analytically weaving together what happened together (it is
just that the outcome would not be a theory of world politics or
a theory of international law). There are good reasons for assuming
that, if there are two social systems that are tightly coupled to one
another, then these are the systems of world politics and international
law. Much here depends on perspective, as obviously many would
argue that both politics and law pale beside, or are at least secondary
to, developments in a capitalist world economy.9 The jury is still out on
whether different emphases in the end all come down to different
worldviews, or whether many of the differences could not, in fact, be
resolved through empirical research. Since arguments about the relative
importance of legal, economic, political and so on accounts all at least
implicitly acknowledge that the functional differentiation between
these different realms forms an important, if not the dening, feature
of modern society, an argument could probably be made for devising
research strategies which seek to empirically trace and map forms of
differentiation and their specicities (see below).
The close connection between world politics and international law
means that a theoretical reconstruction of the latter in the context of
world society would bear many structural analogies to the reconstruc-
tion of the system of world politics provided in the preceding chapters.
Like the expansion story of world politics, the story of the evolution
and global expansion of international law often remains biased.
It excludes the manifold ways in which European/Western
9
For different theories which give preference to either the economy, or to politics,
to law and so on as the main driving force, the tricky and telling question usually
is: the driving force of what? It is somewhat trivial to privilege economic factors
in explaining the evolution of the world economy and legal aspects when
explaining the evolution of international law. Hampered by the absence of
differentiation theory thought and a concept of world society that is differen-
tiated, most primacy arguments in the end are not expressions of reection on
the relevant social whole but of different ideologies or worldviews.
206 Reections and roads ahead

international law was also shaped through colonial encounters, feed-

back loops between peripheral and core law, and excludes indepen-
dent developments of legal thought and practice beyond the purview of
Western colonial empires. The path-breaking study in this respect
remains Anghies (2007) Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of
International Law, although by now there is a much broader research
stream in this direction, most notably also studying the emergence of
international law in the context provided by global history (see
Fassbender and Peters 2012; also Koskenniemi 2011; Lorca 2010).
Closely interwoven with the system of world politics, international
law as a subsystem of the legal system of world society10 is
characterised by the variety of its forms that also reects specic
forms of social differentiation. Adopting a differentiation theory
lens would probably go a long way towards resolving the debate as
to whether international law is characterised by fragmentation, or
rather by integration and constitutionalisation (cf. Fischer-Lescano
and Teubner 2004; Fischer-Lescano 2005; Albert and Kessler 2013).
There is an ongoing evolution of the traditional public international
law of states (segmentation), for which the emergence of functionally
specic legal orders (functional differentiation; auto-constitutional
regimes in Fischer-Lesanos and Teubners sense) must look like
fragmentation. There are quickly growing bodies of regional inter-
national law. And there is a legalised hierarchy in the international
legal order (stratication; cf. Simpson 2004) and all this happens at
the same time, so that here, as in the case of the variety of forms of
organising political authority (FOPAs) in the system of world politics,
the question is not one of an eitheror, but one of variety and relative
importance.
The systemic programme of the system of international law, evol-
ving and stabilising over the nineteenth century (for a good overview,
see Vec 2012), is provided by the concept of sovereign equality.
It penetrates all international legal thought and language and, com-
bined with the doctrine of national self-determination, becomes uni-
versally pervasive with the 1945 UN Charter (which paradoxically
also enshrines inequality and stratication through the permanent
10
I am quite reluctant here to refer to some kind of system of world law.
In contrast to world politics, world law (as opposed, most notably, to the law
of nations) has left barely a dent in the relevant semantics of either the nine-
teenth or the twentieth century.
Limitations, loose threads, further research 207

membership of ve states in the Security Council). This is not to deny

that there are other legal developments going on which affect the
evolution of international law and, through that, world politics. Yet
although, most notably, the content and status of individual rights
undergoes tremendous changes throughout the nineteenth century
(cf. Reus-Smit 2013), individual rights continue to play out on the
stage of international law only if ltered through and processed by
the programme of sovereign equality. It is only with the human rights
revolution after the end of the Second World War that individual
rights take on a life of their own and begin to challenge sovereign
equality as the prevailing (though, empirically, probably still not the
dominant) programme of the international legal system.
Regarding the differentiation of a subsystem of international law from
a legal system of world society, it is quite easy to trace its autonomisation
in terms of the practices of treaty making and codication throughout the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries in particular. However, as in the case
of the system of world politics, there is no linear development to be
observed here, nor is there a clear-cut point at which international law
establishes itself as an autonomous subsystem. Rather, as in world pol-
itics, this is a drawn-out process in which many forms of law co-evolve.
It is particularly in this sense that nineteenth-century international law
never was only, and possibly not even primarily, international law in the
sense of a law for (and between) sovereign equal states.11 Before being
international, nineteenth-century international law was primarily con-
stitutional and constitutive law and this in the historically inextricably
interwoven sense of being about the legal constitution of emerging
nation-states and the emerging system of world politics, as both were
built on and drove the legal principle of the self-determination of
nations.12
A theory of international law as a theory of the evolution of inter-
national law within world society, the contours of which have very
roughly been sketched in the preceding paragraphs, would usefully
complement a theory of world politics such as the one proposed here,

11
See Kennedy (1996) for a criticism of the illusion of a more or less, linear
development of international legal thought in the nineteenth century (and for an
account of how this illusion results from some kind of backward projection of
contemporary thought); see also Craven (2012).
12
See Mller (2014) for an overview of the quite different strands of literature on
global constitutionalisation in this context.
208 Reections and roads ahead

yet it would remain a separate theory. The same applies to questions of

the legitimacy of FOPAs in the system of world politics. Legitimacy is
always generated by reference to a normative order, which often takes
the form of a legal order. Legitimacy is primarily an operation that
takes place within, or with reference to, the legal system, it is never
generated within a political system, including the system of world
politics, alone. (Likewise, democratic elections are usually not simply
held but are based on some legal framework.)13 The enumeration of
different FOPAs in Chapter 4 was not primarily about legitimate
forms, but about factual ones existing in the system of world politics.
Certainly, in the long run, no FOPA can persist without being consid-
ered legitimate. However, such forms do often appear before they are
widely accepted as legitimate. Thus, the segmented order of territorial
states did not appear only after the doctrine of sovereign equality was
fully developed. Global governance regimes appeared before anybody
started to worry about the legitimacy of governing beyond the nation-
state (see, e.g., Zrn 2004). On the other hand, imperial orders out-
lasted the legitimacy of empire. The history of the system of world
politics can be told in terms of the appearing and disappearing legiti-
macy of forms of organising political space. Such an account is given in
Christian Reus-Smits Individual Rights and the Making of the
International System (2013; note that in the present terminology even
the title suggests that this is an issue of developments originating within
the legal system). However, such a history is different from the present
one, which focuses on system formation, differentiation and social
evolution. The overlap and transmission between such different his-
tories would be social evolution, where legitimacy provides the main
condition for the positive or negative selection of variation within the
system.

13
[O]rganic constraints of natural evolution are replaced in social evolution by
normative constraints. These normative constraints in modern societies are, in
particular, legal constraints of constitutional law (written or unwritten, material
or formal). They are the path-opening direction-givers of evolution. In social
evolution, as in organic evolution, the role of historical and structural
constraints is that of channelling directions of evolutionary change. All great
revolutions are legal revolutions that create a new level of normative constraints
which are implemented through legal and constitutional norms. Insofar as the
results of evolution consist in new normative constraints, they are internal to our
rational expectations and the intersubjective justication of our actions and
plans. (Brunkhorst 2014: 2)
Limitations, loose threads, further research 209

. . . to loose threads and further research

The purpose of this section is to provide some thoughts on possible
further expansions and uses of the present theory of world politics.
While this distinction is not always clear-cut, it is used here to distin-
guish between work which would further expand (and thereby possi-
bly amend) the present theory, and work which builds on the theory
as is, in order to formulate an empirical research agenda (and of
course the results of the latter can always impinge on the former).
The following identication of sites for further work is an integral
part of the present reexive understanding of a theory which is
designed as an open and evolving form of observation (rather than
as an axiomatic system).

Differentiation and organisation

The rst possible expansion of the present theory to be discussed here
concerns the relation between forms of differentiation, organisation
and interaction. The account provided in the previous chapters primar-
ily described system formation and drew on the forms of social differ-
entiation in order to describe the contemporary state of the system.
It thus, to a large extent, left aside types of social system other than
function systems (and, in the present case, only one subsystem of one
function system). Yet, as pointed out in Chapter 2 (world) society
consists of more than communication specic to function systems.
Interaction systems happen all the time. Although organisation systems
may utilise communication specic to function systems most of the
time, as communicatively constituted social systems they can never
fully be part of a specic function system (thus, for example,
a company does not communicate economically when it takes an
employee to court, a university does not communicate scientically
when it buys new ofce furniture14).
Such a concentration on function systems is legitimate up to a certain
point. It is possible to register the presence of various forms of

14
In fact, although most people would agree that universities occupy a central
place in the scientic system, the amount of scientic communication (commu-
nication based on scientic truth-claims) which can be attributed to the uni-
versity as an organisation (rather than to the scientists for whom it serves as an
employer) is next to nil.
210 Reections and roads ahead

differentiation, and possibly also to somehow measure their impor-

tance relative to one another (see below), without engaging too clo-
sely with the operation of organisations or interaction systems.
Although the latter always operate within society, no operation or
interaction is powerful enough to lead to a change in the forms of
differentiation of society. To put it more bluntly, it is quite difcult to
conceive of anything an organisation does (or anything that happens
in an interaction system) that might lead, for example, to the disap-
pearance of the distinction between law and science or between pol-
itics and the economy as a relevant distinction in society.15 However,
no shift in the forms of differentiation, and no FOPA which reects
a specic form of differentiation (or an overlap thereof), takes place
without organisation and interaction either. Communication is, in
a sense, constantly enacted through interaction and ltered through
organisations. Modern society is, after all, an organisation society.
Modern society, in fact, would not be what it is without the rise and
spread of formal organisation. It is in this sense that, although the
present theory is able to trace system emergence and map states of the
system, an expanded version which focused on the transition between
different states of the system would need to involve a systematic
analysis particularly of the facilitating role of organisations in this
context.
The most obvious candidate for providing theoretical input in this
respect is sociological neo-institutionalism (the world polity
approach) with its proven research record regarding the role and
operation of formal organisations in producing and sustaining
a specic form of (rationalised, bureaucratic) world culture with its
typical forms of (rational) actorhood. While such an expansion is
beyond the purview of this book, it sufces to say at this point that,
at least within the context of a theory of world politics, it would not
necessarily need to run up against the walls of alleged theoretical
incompatibilities on a grand scale. Any theory which is more than
a scholastic exercise, or a manifestation of plain dogmatism, must be
able to incorporate and speak to (at least elements of) other theories

15
The exception here, possibly, being extreme cases such as starting a nuclear
war. There is also a high likelihood that social evolution at some point will come
up with an entirely new form of social differentiation although, given the
limited numbers which can be identied throughout history (three so far), there
seems to be little rush involved.
Limitations, loose threads, further research 211

with something interesting to say about the subject in hand.16 In the

present case, this would, for example, require an exact mapping and
tracing of the trajectories in which processes of institutional isomorph-
ism and the copying of world cultural scripts (although with often
different outcomes on the ground due to organisational decoupling)
are intertwined with various forms of social differentiation.17

Social evolution
Whereas incorporating world polity approaches into the present theory
would add elements generated in a different theoretical tradition,
a second possible expansion would involve an increased emphasis on
the social evolutionary dimension already discussed. It would thus, in
a sense, less resemble an expansion through the addition of new elements
and more an expansion through elaborating on already existing ones.
There are, to the best of my knowledge, no treatments of any subject
thus far which give equal weight to a differentiation theory account and
a social evolutionary one.18 And the most rigorous recent application
of social evolution to (geographically and time-wise) large-scale
change, the repeatedly mentioned Critical Theory of Legal
Revolutions by Hauke Brunkhorst, turns the present Theory of
World Politics on its head by reversing the order of importance
between a social evolutionary and a differentiation theory account.19
16
For examples of attempts at pragmatically combining approaches from the
background of system/differentiation theory, on the one hand, and sociological
neo-institutionalism/world polity theory, on the other, see Albert and Stetter
(2015a), as well as the contributions in Holzer et al. (2015).
17
The assumption being that the relation between forms of social differentiation
and the worldwide spread of organisational forms is, basically, one of recursive
feedback loops (in a sense similar to the relation between social structure and
semantics). Despite some conceptual thoughts on how to combine the two
approaches (see the references in the previous note; also Thomas 2010, 2013),
there is as yet no empirical work in this direction; see Martin Kochs (2009,
2014) work on world organisations for some ideas as to where such a research
agenda might lead.
18
Although, when looking at his published uvre in its entirety (but not at any
single publication), one could probably make an argument for Luhmanns
having accomplished this feat.
19
I very much look forward to reading Emanuel Adlers next book, provisionally
entitled Cognitive Evolution: Change and Stability of International Social
Orders. Although set in a different theoretical framework, I would expect quite
some resonance between that book and the present one. Judging from his
212 Reections and roads ahead

What would distinguish an account based primarily on the analysis of

social evolution from the one presented here, particularly in relation to
the emergence of the system of world politics, is that it would allow
a more comprehensive understanding of the particular characteristics
of such a system. This refers not only to positive selections made but
also to the many negative selections (or failed restabilisations of the
system along the line of positive selections) throughout history (in other
words, the many possible roads not taken). It would, in other words,
greatly increase the historical depth of the analysis, yet do so not by
unduly expanding historiographical detail, but by recounting coherent
evolutionary stories of emergence. This is, to clarify this point, some-
thing different to using historical counterfactuals. It is not about think-
ing what would have happened if things had happened that did not
happen. It is about seeing things that did happen in the light of other
developments which might very possibly have happened when there
was an observable variation in the system but which, for contingent
reasons, were not selected.
The present theory is in good company with both the vast majority of
social science theorising with historical sensitivities and the vast major-
ity of works in (global) history which recount history as a history of
positive selections (and successful systemic restabilisations on that
basis). But any comprehensive account of how systemic emergence
and change take place (as opposed to accounts that emergence and
change have taken place20) remains incomplete if it does not embed
a reection of things as they have unfolded into an account of historical
possibility, meaning a history of variations which were available and
which could have been selected. A history of major turning points in
history, such as major revolutions, could always also be written as
a history of major revolutions attempted but not succeeding (or failing
to have much of an effect!). Such social evolutionary accounts

previously published thoughts on the subject (Adler 1991), I would assume the
main difference between his and Brunkhorsts or my approach to lie in Adlers
strong humanist focus. His focus is on cognitive evolution. Ours is on social
evolution. Cognitive evolution is one of the main features distinguishing social
from natural evolution, but social evolution is not reducible to cognitive evolu-
tion. From the little I know about the forthcoming book from what the author
has told me about it, his strategy to get from cognitive evolution to the analysis
of social structure will be linking cognitive evolution to the concept of interna-
tional practices (and not to theories of social evolution).
20
Let alone questions as to a why?
Limitations, loose threads, further research 213

invariably lead to greater historical depth (and quite long books); but
their employment in a theoretical account such as the present one
would require more than just adding historical detail. A social evolu-
tionary account of world politics of the kind envisaged here marks
a blind spot in the literature.21 Either evolutionary traces remain impli-
cit in works of global history or they are conceptualised on the basis of
combined social and natural evolution, in which evolution is about
something other than solving the problem of communicative connec-
tivity. Yet any account of social evolution cannot be about anything
except communication if the social and society are conceived of as
being constituted by communication.22
The remarks on more nuanced accounts from a social evolutionary
perspective could also be read not only as pointing towards
a theoretical expansion but also as requiring an application of the
theory to historical circumstances and thus supporting a (historical)
empirical research programme. The two applications of the theory to
possible empirical research to be discussed below point more directly to
subjects involving the empirical analysis of more contemporary
developments.

Measuring differentiation?
The rst of the possible applications of the present theory to empirical
research relates to the relation between various forms of social differ-
entiation, or alternatively the variety of FOPAs in the system of world
politics. This, at rst glance, may not seem to involve anything other
than a thorough collection of existing research on the way in which
these forms have emerged historically and have developed individually
and in relation to one another. Put differently, there exist many
accounts of the emergence of the various FOPAs in the system of
world politics described in Chapter 4 imperial order, the territorial/
nation-state, regionalism in world politics, global governance and so

21
Although attempts to remedy this blind spot could probably benet from linking
to studies in the Foucauldian tradition. See Vasilache (2014) for one of the rst
attempts to link the latter to the study of world society.
22
For a recent account of the social evolution of international politics, working
with entirely different basic theoretical premises, see Little (2013); for a more
(post-)Darwinian approach which, however, has some overlaps with the present
account, see Neumann (2016).
214 Reections and roads ahead

on and quite a number of accounts that relate some of these forms to

each other. The contribution of the present theory is to provide
a conceptual framework that allows these various forms to be linked
to each other by identifying them as the expressions of specic forms of
social differentiation within a specic social system. One could, in
a way, read the theory as an encouragement to do no more (but also
no less!) than reread and combine the existing literature using the
conceptual spectacles proposed.
Yet there is also the possibility of pursuing rather less well-surveyed
paths of research in this direction, particularly by combining research
strategies using qualitative with those using quantitative methods.
The prime task here is original research using historical material
(which is increasingly digitally available) to trace both the dynamics
of the emergence of specic FOPAs in world politics and their relation
to each other in more detail than would be possible through purely
qualitative reconstructions.23 Questions of interest here would cover
a more specic identication of discursive dynamics and turning points
in the emergence of specic FOPAs. In relation to the current state of
affairs, such a research strategy could help to develop methods and
specic approaches to assessing and measuring the current relative and
possible future importance of various forms of differentiation and
related FOPAs. The novelty, the difculty (and the associated risk) of
such an approach lie, to reiterate, in the fact that differentiation per-
tains to communication. Yet ascribing communication to a specic
form of differentiation does not boil down to an easy act of somehow
counting, for example, stratied as opposed to functional commu-
nication. In addition to some basic counting of numbers of specic
keywords which could serve as an entry point here, each keyword
would have to be multiply coded in its textual context in order to
account for the fact that one and the same keyword can serve as an
expression of different forms of order.
The idea and promise behind this kind of research would not be to
come up with exact indicators, but to complement qualitative research
methods in order to arrive at a more differentiated picture of how social
systems develop. Research of the kind envisaged here is quite common
in the social sciences nowadays. Mass-text analyses using discourse or

23
This is in contrast to the quite common practice of constructing datasets that
code events or properties from a reading of the secondary literature.
Limitations, loose threads, further research 215

network analytical models have benetted from the advances in data

availability, computational power and the further development of ana-
lytical software.24 Yet, pursuing research like that in large-scale con-
texts is, for the time being, way beyond the possibilities afforded by the
research infrastructures of the social sciences. The text corpora in ques-
tion would be extremely large. Put less abstractly, crunching through
a few decades of newspaper coverage (all in one language) or through
a few decades of UN Security Council Resolutions and related materials
is already a time- and resource-consuming thing. Crunching through the
number of all the kinds of documents required to trace changes in the
form of social differentiation (or changes in the relative importance of
different forms of social differentiation) is something else entirely.
The suspicion is that pursuing such a project would mark a point
where the social sciences came close to requiring research infrastructures
more akin to those common in some of the natural sciences.
These remarks about the possibilities of measuring differentiation
are of necessity imprecise. This is not only due to their very preliminary
character in the present context. These preliminary remarks should also
serve as a reminder that, beside many other divisions along theoretical,
epistemological and (academic) cultural lines, the gap between the use of
qualitative and quantitative methods in the social sciences has become
extremely deep. Quite often, methodological afliations seem to dictate
the substantive questions asked (or to prevent questions being posed
about which methods best serve the substantive questions in hand25).

Programme changes?
One substantive question which follows directly from the analysis
presented in this book is whether, and under what conditions, one
could expect a change in the systemic programme of the system of
world politics.26 More specically, the question would be whether such
24
This does not amount to discarding, for example, hermeneutic or discourse-
analytical approaches in favour of positivist or empiricist ones. On the contrary,
the reading here is that the exponential increase in material available provides
both challenges and opportunities for theoretical approaches of any colour.
25
Or, unfortunately, often prevent those with deep methodological afliations
from posing meaningful substantive questions in the rst place.
26
See Albert (2015a) for some further thoughts on whether and in what sense it is
possible to speak about something new happening in foreign policy under such
a perspective.
216 Reections and roads ahead

a shift from balance of power to another type of programme is under-

way, or has taken place already. If the answer to either of these ques-
tions is yes, then the further question would ask what this other type
of programme is. If the answer is no, then the further question would
be whether the system of world politics is so tightly wedded to the
programme of balance of power that it constitutively depends on it.
A systemic programme is a primary mode of observation. It is the
way in which a system makes sense of the world. As such, it bestows
particular credibility on scripts and phenomena that conform to it.
This, incidentally, is also the main reason why political realism has
always been able to make such strong and intuitively correct claims to
conform to reality: it is the mode of observing world politics semanti-
cally most similar to the systemic programme of balance of power and
the thick semantic layers that have evolved on the basis of it.27
Can systemic programmes change and balance of power be
replaced by, for example, global governance or a global commons?
Could different systemic programmes, in fact, be running within the
system of world politics at the same time? While in the end the answer
to these questions might only be attainable through empirical research
on the scale and along the lines described in the preceding section, the
answer given here, owing to theoretical considerations, is a rather
cautious and tentative one. What is probably impossible is the simulta-
neous running of two systemic programmes on the same systemic scale
at the same time. A systemic programme, to return to an analogy I have
used previously, is quite like an operating system. Only one can run on
any computer system at any given time and if the operating system is
changed, this mostly requires changing the software running on the
computer as well. In contrast to the world of computing, however,
a change of systemic programme does not simply involve developing
(and selling) a new one. It is a result of long and complex processes of
social evolution. It remains to be seen whether a systemic programme
could actually be changed while the system as such remains intact.28
27
However, while semantic similarity may account for a theory being intuitively
plausible, it says nothing about it being theoretically appropriate after all,
theoretical appropriateness is a label bestowed in the system of science, and not
in the system of world politics.
28
I am grateful to Barry Buzan for questioning this analogy to computer operating
systems on grounds of the suspicion that world society or specic subsystems of
social systems cannot simply shut down like a computer in order to allow the
installation of a new operating system. Yet I remain only partially convinced:
Limitations, loose threads, further research 217

If the suspicion, therefore, is that balance of power still serves as the

systemic programme in the system of world politics, this does not mean
that the system of world politics is a balance of power system in the
traditional sense of the term. Nineteenth-century great-power politics
and contemporary world politics in this sense have as much to do with
each other as MS-DOS has with the latest version of Windows. What
this means is that, in the case of differences arising, the logic of balan-
cing (and competition) between different powers (be they states,
regions, regimes or whatever) still trumps other logics such as the
orientation towards a common good. This is, however, not due to the
malign nature of human beings (as traditional political realists would
have it), but rather to the fact that the logic of forces balancing each
other out still draws its intuitive appeal from its direct reference to the
imagery of a Newtonian world view. While in the realm of physics this
world view may have been replaced long ago by an Einsteinian one or
by quantum theory, it still resonates strongly with the semantics of the
contemporary social world.
Other programmes can run, but more as subroutines within the
system than as competing systemic programmes. The systemic pro-
gramme can change as well. However, the suspicion would be that
such a change would not leave the system intact. Maybe there can be
no system of world politics without balance of power quite a strong
claim that must, however, be read against the theoretical background
adopted here (in order not to appear straightforwardly realist).
The emergence of a new systemic programme might actually not point
to a change within the system of world politics, but indicate the differ-
entiation of a new subsystem of the political system of world society
alongside the system of world politics. However, the difculty of making
sense of any such new subsystem in other than vague (and often norma-
tive rather than analytical) terms of global or transnational civil society
has little to do with the so-called methodological nationalism still char-
acteristic of much of the social sciences. It has to do with the staying
power of the system of world politics as a highly complex, internally
differentiated subsystem of the political system of world society.

one could, in fact, imagine that further technological development at some point
allows operating systems to be changed without shutting down the computer;
pulling the plug on the entire computer (shutting down world society) is of
course a different matter altogether.
 Concluding remarks
Scrambles amongst world politics

This book understands theoretical work as an attempt to provide

openings, not closures. It is in that sense that A Theory of World
Politics is primarily the unfolding of an argument, or rather, the
tracing of a basic theme through the various chapters (a phrase bor-
rowed from Hobsbawm 1987: xi). For a book like this one, that means
it cannot have a conclusion in the traditional sense due to its open
architecture and open-ended design.
For the most part, theories of international relations have not
thought systematically about how their often quite nebulous
object of study is embedded in, and differentiated from, its environ-
ment, how it emerged historically, and how the bewildering variety of
forms that characterise its contemporary shape can be explained
theoretically. Contrariwise, for the most part, sociological
approaches to world society have shunned most of the things that
go on in that often quite fuzzy area commonly referred to as
international relations. For the most part too, contributions to glo-
bal history have not conceived of world politics as an identiable
realm of its own which evolves in conjunction with the functionally
differentiated political system of world society. The present theory
seeks to build bridges over these gaps in the various disciplinary
landscapes, but for that reason it is probably not easily led in dis-
ciplinary boxes. It certainly is not a contribution to historical science.
Theoretically and conceptually, it is probably more sociological when
it comes to the overall framework of world society, but closer to IR
when it comes to the realm of world politics. It hopes to be as inter-
disciplinary as possible.
Insofar as this book clearly also belongs to the wide and open realm
of IR theory, it should have become clear as well that it is an expression
of considerable dissatisfaction with some of the ways in which the
discipline of IR contributes to, or proceeds with, understanding
world politics. The understanding of historical background by most

218
Concluding remarks: scrambles amongst world politics 219

students of IR is still relatively limited, leading to a widespread pre-

sentist (post-World War II) bias. Similarly, although IR claims compe-
tence to say something on almost everything, reection on how world
politics is embedded in, or relates to, its social environment is rarely
systematic. While the use of quantitative methods in the discipline has
reached an unprecedented level of methodological sophistication, the
price paid for that all too often is an absurd reduction of social reality
(or the questions asked about it) to the limited constructed reality of
a specic data set.
These somewhat polemical remarks are not meant to belittle spe-
cic research endeavours. Rather, they seek to express a feeling that
IR as a discipline might have had more than its share of debates which
are not substantively about world politics. In addition, they suggest
that this situation is also produced and perpetuated by how IR is
generally taught with little history, and quite often with no sociol-
ogy at all. Of course, to share this diagnosis requires sharing with this
book the idea that studying IR is primarily about studying world
politics. In spite of a number of arguments to the contrary, or about
an end of IR (cf. Dunne et al. 2013), A Theory of World Politics,
although possibly not a typical specimen in the exhibition hall of IR
theory, is based on the conviction that there are such things as sub-
stantive issues at the centre of disciplines. For IR, world politics is at
the centre.
Contributions like the present one, that do not introduce new empiri-
cal ndings but provide a description of the world in different theore-
tical terms than others, are invariably confronted with the so what?
question or with questions about the value added. Regarding the
rst of these, the claim is that, unlike many IR theories and theoretical
treatments of world politics, the present theory describes world politics
in its social and historical context, while still treating it as a distinct
realm of its own. Unlike the notoriously blurred realm of international
relations, where the degree of blurring seems to increase rather than
decrease when the subject is put into historical and social context, it still
preserves a substantively dened and demarcated description of its
subject matter.1 On the value added, this book does not claim to

1
Although this is not to dispute the observation that the discipline of International
Relations (IR) is likely to continue whether or not international relations
(i.r.) remains a distinct or delineable object (Wver 2007: 288).
220 Reections and roads ahead

have discovered a new mountain or to have made the rst or even the
fastest ascent of a known one. Anyone who has ever climbed
a mountain knows that, quite often, the most rewarding experience is
not to be gained from reaching the top, but from scrambling off the
main routes.
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Index
actorhood 7475, 119, 121, 203, 210
legitimate actorhood 120121, 125
rational actorhood 79, 87, 119,
147, 203
Adler, Emanuel 211n19
agency 36, 7475
Aron, Raymond 40
autopoiesis 55, 67
balance of power 1011, 79, 8586,
107116, 124, 132, 139, 153, 182,
192, 217
as systemic programme 77, 90, 102,
107, 113116, 172, 177, 184186,
215217
balance of power literature 11, 116
balance of power politics 11, 110
European balance 85, 91, 110, 115,
117, 120, 123124, 129
world/global 91, 119, 129
Bayly, Christopher 21, 81
Berlin Congress 102103, 150
Braun, Hermann 2224, 26
Brunkhorst, Hauke 38n19, 164166,
174176, 211
Burton, John 17, 180
Buzan, Barry 17, 193
centre-periphery 5859, 6162, 87,
125, 153, 158160
Clark, Ian 153
code 5, 29, 55, 6667
collective identity 9, 16, 32, 40, 49, 125,
150151, 202
colonies/colonialism 120121, 125,
158159, 202203, 206
colonial expansion 85, 117
colonial peripheries 117, 123
colonial practices 87, 119,
202204
250
communication (continuation of/
connectivity) 2, 35, 8, 11, 2122,
28, 36, 42, 5455, 70, 126
communicative action 3336
community 9, 16, 17, 34, 36, 4041, 44,
49, 185, 187, 202
Gemeinschaft 32, 4041,
4950
international See international
community
societal community 36, 40, 50,
5354
world See world community
comparison (as a mode of observation)
8586, 90
complexity 10, 12, 42, 72, 80, 97, 101,
121, 135136, 140141, 143, 145,
158, 169170, 177
composite terms 7, 19, 23, 24, 27, 29,
130, 131
Comte, Auguste 34, 48
conceptual history 23, 30, 32, 114,
129130
Congress of Vienna 93, 102105,
111112, 115, 122123, 148
congresses 78, 100107,
112, 143
Berlin See Berlin Congress
Vienna See Congress of Vienna
connectivity 2122, 2829, 74, 92, 202,
213
constitutionalisation 165166, 206
cosmopolitan citizen 19, 30
Crimean War 109, 112, 116, 120,
127, 129
Critical Theory of Legal Revolutions
175, 211
Critique of Pure Reason 22
cybernetic/cybernetics 12, 90, 180,
192193, 197
Index
decolonisation 121, 133, 149
decomposition (of society) 32, 38, 47,
4951
Deutsch, Karl 25, 72, 180, 192193
diplomacy 78, 100103
diplomatic practice 11, 107
diplomatic protocol 78, 97, 104106
permanent representation 11, 99,
100101
diplomatic practice 98
division of labour 49, 156
Division of Labour in Society 49
Donnelly, Jack 139140
Durkheim, mile 39, 4951
emergence 47, 50, 72, 90, 9293, 174,
211213
emergence of (world) society 2728,
49, 51, 176, 210
emergence of system of world politics
8, 11, 30, 77, 84, 87, 100, 107,
120122, 126, 162, 173175, 177,
182, 191, 196, 212
emergence view 38, 47, 49,
6465
empire 82, 88, 100, 123125, 132137,
149, 160, 170, 185, 206, 208
and core-periphery 61, 117, 156
and hierarchy 158159
and stratication 10, 65, 133, 139,
150, 153
British Empire 124
formal empire 33, 124, 133,
159161, 169, 176
Holy Roman Empire 78, 98100,
107, 118, 151
informal empire 137, 153, 159160
Ottoman Empire 88, 150
English School 12, 17, 41, 119, 162,
184, 186188, 189190, 193,
196, 203
equilibrium 111114
Euro-centrism 13, 119, 129, 172,
200204
European balance See balance of power
European system 30, 85, 117, 119121,
125, 127128
expansion of 20, 120, 122,
202203
European Union 160162
251
failed states 12, 139, 167
functional differentiation 16, 25,
5055, 58, 60, 63, 65, 66, 69, 75,
77, 89, 113, 123, 125, 139, 144,
156158, 161163, 166, 169, 176,
178, 186, 205, 206
and decomposition 32, 33, 3438,
51, 56
and emergence 32, 38, 46, 4951,
64, 75
and global governance 139, 156, 165
and modern society 34, 46, 49,
5859, 6365
as one form of social differentiation
23, 10, 34, 47, 5859, 60, 132,
138, 177
between states 156
in sociology 9, 37, 48, 58
of political system 7, 97, 100,
133, 218
of world society 63, 64, 66, 71, 77,
84, 114, 174, 177
primacy of 6365
theory in Luhmann 38, 5455
theory in Parsons 5154
within the political system 10, 126
geopolitics 25, 8485
Geschichte des weltpolitischen Denkens
86n8
Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (Die) 5n1,
36n18
global balance See balance of power
global civil society 32, 3940
global governance 2, 12, 131, 137, 139,
157158, 162166, 169, 170, 208,
213, 216
global history 21, 83, 84, 117, 183,
196199, 204, 206, 213, 218
global microstructures 73
globalisation 29, 75, 83, 87, 119, 130,
158, 191, 197
globalisation studies 194197
Gollwitzer, Heinz 86n8, 8891
Habermas, Jrgen 3338, 49
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 19,
30, 43
hegemony 110111, 152153
Heintz, Peter 17, 4445
252
hierarchy 98, 99, 152156, 158, 206
between levels 67
between states 138
history (as discipline) 5, 15, 83, 107,
182, 219
Holy Roman Empire See empire
Husserl, Edmund 2728
imperialism 159, 203
institutionalisation 69, 78,
104, 143
interaction capacity 78, 9697
interaction systems 10, 47, 52, 6769,
89, 9698, 104, 106107, 116,
132, 143, 167, 174, 177, 209210
internal differentiation 4, 37, 65, 77,
147, 189, 199
of political system of world
society 121
of system of world politics 79, 81, 91,
131, 134, 140, 181
of world society 8, 24, 31, 43,
45, 47
international community 106107,
126, 149, 166
international law 54, 90, 104, 119, 121,
149, 165, 172, 184, 200, 206
as subsystem 204208
international organisation 25, 123,
156157, 162
international relations 1, 6, 7, 12, 26,
32, 69, 71, 72, 73, 80, 82, 97, 129,
173, 177, 179, 184, 194, 195196,
199, 218, 219
discipline of 15, 39, 71, 94,
180, 197
international society 6, 61, 65, 149,
184, 186190, 193, 203
international system 6, 12, 17, 3940,
45, 5354, 73, 81, 89, 9396, 97,
102, 107, 113, 114115, 117, 120,
127, 134, 139, 153, 156, 187188,
190, 194, 198
International Systems in World History
78, 94, 95
Kant, Immanuel 19, 2223, 30, 88, 128,
130, 163, 197
Kaplan, Morton 192
Khler, Oskar 2526
Index
learning 90, 175176, 191, 193
legal system 3, 7, 16, 55, 57, 67, 75,
119, 151, 165, 172, 204208
levels 2, 4, 67, 45, 48, 61, 7274,
9192
lifeworld 3436, 50
Luhmann, Niklas 8, 10, 2425, 27, 31,
33, 4955, 175, 193
Marx, Karl 19
meta-differentiation 64
meta-geography 20
methodological nationalism 32, 39, 42,
83, 198, 217
Meyer, John W. 17, 44, 124,
150152
Modelski, George 191192, 194
modern society 1, 3, 32, 33, 38, 46, 48,
4950, 52, 5859, 63, 69, 147,
164, 205, 210
Morgenthau, Hans 40, 184185
multiple modernities 44, 6364,
65, 83
nationalism 78, 8283, 118, 120, 124,
150, 184, 185, 189
nation-states 11, 20, 49, 54, 8182,
8788, 118121, 132133,
148149, 160, 163165, 168, 170,
185186, 207, 213
nation-state societies 9, 32, 33,
3842, 51
neo-institutionalism 17, 4445, 74,
124, 210
Nettl, John Peter 194
Nietzsche, Friedrich 24
ordering principles 47, 49, 59, 62, 63,
66, 79, 90, 109111, 123,
137139, 140, 147152, 154, 157,
158, 168, 178
organisations 1012, 26, 48, 58, 6670,
121, 132, 148, 151, 155, 157, 162,
172, 189, 203
as social system 47, 58, 6870, 96,
174, 209211
international See international
organisation
Osterhammel, Jrgen 21, 25, 81, 123,
161, 196
Index
Parsons, Talcott 3435, 40, 5054, 194
Peace of Westphalia 99, 102, 104, 108,
147148
political communication 4, 11, 70, 81,
93, 130, 156157, 166167, 177
political system of world society 12,
67, 1011, 1617, 45, 65, 75,
7782, 87, 8990, 93, 106107,
113, 116, 121122, 128, 131,
132133, 139, 170, 174, 177, 181,
204, 217, 218
post-colonialism 117, 160,
168, 200
powers 88, 90, 108, 110, 111, 120, 217
difference between great, medium
and small 10, 123, 153, 154
European 20, 91, 111, 119
great 109110, 112, 150, 152, 159
world 23, 79, 86, 90, 127129
Principles of World Politics 191
psychic systems 30n11, 36, 37, 55
public 103, 106107, 166
global or world 163, 166
Quantum Mind and Social Theory
178n4
rationalisation 48, 75, 147
realism 184, 188
classical or political 183186, 201,
216
structural or neo- 12, 72, 184, 185
regional differentiation 62, 64
regional integration 12, 137, 161, 181
regionalisation 2, 80, 161
regionalism 161162, 181, 213
regions 62, 79, 161162, 170
ritual 9798, 106, 152
Robertson, Roland 194195
Schroeder, Paul W. 109110, 113115
segmentation 23, 10, 47, 5862, 64,
65, 75, 121122, 124, 132133,
138139, 146152, 153, 156,
157158, 159162, 164, 169,
177, 206
Simmel, Georg 31n13, 50
social differentiation 2, 8, 910, 32, 43,
46, 47, 54, 62, 77, 122, 132, 140,
141, 167, 169, 187, 193, 195, 196
253
forms of 13, 10, 12, 47, 6061, 64,
77, 90, 123, 132, 136, 137140,
143146, 154, 168, 186, 206, 209,
211, 213, 214, 215
theory of 11, 15, 61, 62, 174, 186,
196197
social evolution 12, 42, 47, 48, 58, 66,
7071, 117, 118, 175, 179, 180,
182, 185, 189, 191, 193, 199, 201,
208, 211213, 216
theory of 15, 48, 173, 182
social system 25, 910, 25, 35, 3638,
40, 46, 47, 5158, 6768, 89, 94,
96, 99, 106, 126, 132, 138, 139,
170, 189, 192195, 204205,
209, 214
and communication 4, 66, 192, 209
and lifeworld 34
global 4142, 47, 195
society as 2
world politics as 1, 7, 16, 139,
169, 183
world society as 6, 89, 16, 41,
4345, 47, 62, 66, 192, 195
Social Systems 5n1, 36
social whole 8, 9, 30, 32, 37, 50, 51, 75,
147, 180, 188, 194
societal community See community
sociology 5, 8, 9, 15, 17, 32, 33, 36, 42,
44, 50, 58, 63, 182, 183, 194, 219
classical 6, 16
sovereign equality 59, 148, 155, 208
Spencer, Herbert 34, 48
Stanford School 17, 79, 85, 120,
121, 124
statehood 135, 149, 203
cosmopolitan 123
forms of 39, 135, 163165
global 163
limited 167168
modern 124, 164
regional 162
territorial 120
universal 119
world 128, 165, 170
Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara 98100
stratication 23, 10, 17, 46, 47, 49,
5862, 61n10, 63, 65, 122, 123,
132133, 138139, 152154,
158161, 163, 166, 169, 178, 206
254
Structure of Social Action 52
symbolic interaction 9293
symbolically generalised media of
communication/exchange 45, 52,
54, 57, 67, 78, 96, 97, 107, 112,
115, 192
System and Process in International
Politics 192
system boundary 11, 92, 126, 143, 192
system/environment 9, 11, 24, 37,
4243, 45, 5558, 67, 79, 95, 97,
103, 126, 140, 172, 180, 191193
systemic programme 11, 67, 77, 78, 90,
92, 94, 97, 106, 113116, 119,
132, 184185, 192, 204, 215217
systemic theorising 7172, 74
systems theory 1, 45, 15, 4243,
5558, 66, 70, 71, 94, 95,
173174, 182, 191194
cybernetic 12
general 180, 191
world systems theory 72
territorial state 2, 10, 33, 49, 53, 59, 79,
82, 118, 120121, 122, 134, 136,
148152, 157, 163165
The Emperors Old Clothes 98
The Expansion of International Society
119
The Global Transformation 196
The Hierarchy of States 153
Index
The Transformation of European
Politics 17631848 115
The Transformation of the World 196
Theory of Communicative Action 34,
36, 38
Theory of International Politics 179
Theory of Society See Gesellschaft der
Gesellschaft (Die)
theory/theories of international
relations 9, 12, 171, 180, 218
Tnnies, Ferdinand 40, 50
Waltz, Kenneth N. 47, 7374, 139, 153,
156, 179, 184186, 193, 201
Weber, Max 50
Weltbrger 19, 30, 88, 130
Weltstaatensystem 88, 129
Wendt, Alexander 196
world balance See balance of power
world community 1516, 54
world culture 86, 210
world exhibitions 1920
world market 19, 30
world polity 17, 7475, 79, 82, 8588,
120121, 124, 203, 211
world power/world powers See powers
World Society Research Group 17
world state 23, 3940, 127128, 134,
139, 163164, 184185
world statehood See statehood
Wright, Quincy 26
 CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS

129 Friedrich Kratochwil

The status of law in world society
Meditations on the role and rule of law
128 Michael G. Findley, Daniel L. Nielson and J. C. Sharman
Global shell games
Experiments in transnational relations, crime and terrorism
127 Jordan Branch
The cartographic state
Maps, territory and the origins of sovereignty
126 Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.)
The persistent power of human rights
From commitment to compliance
125 K. M. Fierke
Political self-sacrice
Agency, body and emotion in international relations
124 Stefano Guzzini
The return of geopolitics in Europe?
Social mechanisms and foreign policy identity crises
123 Bear F. Braumoeller
The great powers and the international system
Systemic theory in empirical perspective
122 Jonathan Joseph
The social in the global
Social theory, governmentality and global politics
121 Brian C. Rathbun
Trust in international cooperation
International security institutions, domestic politics
and American multilateralism
120 A. Maurits van der Veen
Ideas, interests and foreign aid
119 Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot
International practices
118 Ayse Zarakol
After defeat
How the East learned to live with the West
117 Andrew Phillips
War, religion and empire
The transformation of international orders
116 Joshua Busby
Moral movements and foreign policy
115 Sverine Autesserre
The trouble with the Congo
Local violence and the failure of international peacebuilding
114 Deborah D. Avant, Martha Finnemore and Susan K. Sell
Who governs the globe?
113 Vincent Pouliot
International security in practice
The politics of NATO-Russia diplomacy
112 Columba Peoples
Justifying ballistic missile defence
Technology, security and culture
111 Paul Sharp
Diplomatic theory of international relations
110 John A. Vasquez
The war puzzle revisited
109 Rodney Bruce Hall
Central banking as global governance
Constructing nancial credibility
108 Milja Kurki
Causation in international relations
Reclaiming causal analysis
107 Richard M. Price
Moral limit and possibility in world politics
106 Emma Haddad
The refugee in international society
Between sovereigns
105 Ken Booth
Theory of world security
104 Benjamin Miller
States, nations and the great powers
The sources of regional war and peace
103 Beate Jahn (ed.)
Classical theory in international relations
102 Andrew Linklater and Hidemi Suganami
The English School of international relations
A contemporary reassessment
101 Colin Wight
Agents, structures and international relations
Politics as ontology
100 Michael C. Williams
The realist tradition and the limits of international relations
99 Ivan Arregun-Toft
How the weak win wars
A theory of asymmetric conict
98 Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall
Power in global governance
97 Yale H. Ferguson and Richard W. Mansbach
Remapping global politics
Historys revenge and future shock
96 Christian Reus-Smit
The politics of international law
95 Barry Buzan
From international to world society?
English School theory and the social structure of globalisation
94 K. J. Holsti
Taming the sovereigns
Institutional change in international politics
93 Bruce Cronin
Institutions for the common good
International protection regimes in international security
92 Paul Keal
European conquest and the rights of indigenous peoples
The moral backwardness of international society
91 Barry Buzan and Ole Wver
Regions and powers
The structure of international security
90 A. Claire Cutler
Private power and global authority
Transnational merchant law in the global political economy
89 Patrick M. Morgan
Deterrence now
88 Susan Sell
Private power, public law
The globalization of intellectual property rights
87 Nina Tannenwald
The nuclear taboo
The United States and the non-use of nuclear weapons since 1945
86 Linda Weiss
States in the global economy
Bringing domestic institutions back in
85 Rodney Bruce Hall and Thomas J. Biersteker (eds.)
The emergence of private authority in global governance
84 Heather Rae
State identities and the homogenisation of peoples
83 Maja Zehfuss
Constructivism in international relations
The politics of reality
82 Paul K. Ruth and Todd Allee
The democratic peace and territorial conict in the twentieth century
81 Neta C. Crawford
Argument and change in world politics
Ethics, decolonization and humanitarian intervention
80 Douglas Lemke
Regions of war and peace
79 Richard Shapcott
Justice, community and dialogue in international relations
78 Phil Steinberg
The social construction of the ocean
77 Christine Sylvester
Feminist international relations
An unnished journey
76 Kenneth A. Schultz
Democracy and coercive diplomacy
75 David Houghton
US foreign policy and the Iran hostage crisis
74 Cecilia Albin
Justice and fairness in international negotiation
73 Martin Shaw
Theory of the global state
Globality as an unnished revolution
72 Frank C. Zagare and D. Marc Kilgour
Perfect deterrence
71 Robert OBrien, Anne Marie Goetz, Jan Aart Scholte and Marc Williams
Contesting global governance
Multilateral economic institutions and global social movements
70 Roland Bleiker
Popular dissent, human agency and global politics
69 Bill McSweeney
Security, identity and interests
A sociology of international relations
68 Molly Cochran
Normative theory in international relations
A pragmatic approach
67 Alexander Wendt
Social theory of international politics
66 Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.)
The power of human rights
International norms and domestic change
65 Daniel W. Drezner
The sanctions paradox
Economic statecraft and international relations
64 Viva Ona Bartkus
The dynamic of secession
63 John A. Vasquez
The power of power politics
From classical realism to neotraditionalism
62 Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds.)
Security communities
61 Charles Jones
E. H. Carr and international relations
A duty to lie
60 Jeffrey W. Knopf
Domestic society and international cooperation
The impact of protest on US arms control policy
59 Nicholas Greenwood Onuf
The republican legacy in international thought
58 Daniel S. Geller and J. David Singer
Nations at war
A scientic study of international conict
57 Randall D. Germain
The international organization of credit
States and global nance in the world economy
56 N. Piers Ludlow
Dealing with Britain
The Six and the rst UK application to the EEC
55 Andreas Hasenclever, Peter Mayer and Volker Rittberger
Theories of international regimes
54 Miranda A. Schreurs and Elizabeth C. Economy (eds.)
The internationalization of environmental protection
53 James N. Rosenau
Along the domestic-foreign frontier
Exploring governance in a turbulent world
52 John M. Hobson
The wealth of states
A comparative sociology of international economic and political change
51 Kalevi J. Holsti
The state, war, and the state of war
50 Christopher Clapham
Africa and the international system
The politics of state survival
49 Susan Strange
The retreat of the state
The diffusion of power in the world economy
48 William I. Robinson
Promoting polyarchy
Globalization, US intervention, and hegemony
47 Roger Spegele
Political realism in international theory
46 Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber (eds.)
State sovereignty as social construct
45 Mervyn Frost
Ethics in international relations
A constitutive theory
44 Mark W. Zacher with Brent A. Sutton
Governing global networks
International regimes for transportation and communications
43 Mark Neufeld
The restructuring of international relations theory
42 Thomas Risse-Kappen (ed.)
Bringing transnational relations back in
Non-state actors, domestic structures and international
institutions
41 Hayward R. Alker
Rediscoveries and reformulations
Humanistic methodologies for international studies
40 Robert W. Cox with Timothy J. Sinclair
Approaches to world order
39 Jens Bartelson
A genealogy of sovereignty
38 Mark Rupert
Producing hegemony
The politics of mass production and American global power
37 Cynthia Weber
Simulating sovereignty
Intervention, the state and symbolic exchange
36 Gary Goertz
Contexts of international politics
35 James L. Richardson
Crisis diplomacy
The great powers since the mid-nineteenth century
34 Bradley S. Klein
Strategic studies and world order
The global politics of deterrence
33 T. V. Paul
Asymmetric conicts
War initiation by weaker powers
32 Christine Sylvester
Feminist theory and international relations in a postmodern era
31 Peter J. Schraeder
US foreign policy toward Africa
Incrementalism, crisis and change
30 Graham Spinardi
From Polaris to Trident
The development of US Fleet Ballistic Missile technology
29 David A. Welch
Justice and the genesis of war
28 Russell J. Leng
Interstate crisis behavior, 18161980
Realism versus reciprocity
27 John A. Vasquez
The war puzzle
26 Stephen Gill (ed.)
Gramsci, historical materialism and international relations
25 Mike Bowker and Robin Brown (eds.)
From cold war to collapse
Theory and world politics in the 1980s
24 R. B. J. Walker
Inside/outside
International relations as political theory
23 Edward Reiss
The strategic defense initiative
22 Keith Krause
Arms and the state
Patterns of military production and trade
21 Roger Buckley
US-Japan alliance diplomacy 19451990
20 James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel (eds.)
Governance without government
Order and change in world politics
19 Michael Nicholson
Rationality and the analysis of international conict
18 John Stopford and Susan Strange
Rival states, rival rms
Competition for world market shares
17 Terry Nardin and David R. Mapel (eds.)
Traditions of international ethics
16 Charles F. Doran
Systems in crisis
New imperatives of high politics at centurys end
15 Deon Geldenhuys
Isolated states
A comparative analysis
14 Kalevi J. Holsti
Peace and war
Armed conicts and international order 16481989
13 Saki Dockrill
Britains policy for West German rearmament 19501955
12 Robert H. Jackson
Quasi-states
Sovereignty, international relations and the third world
11 James Barber and John Barratt
South Africas foreign policy
The search for status and security 19451988
10 James Mayall
Nationalism and international society
9 William Bloom
Personal identity, national identity and international relations
8 Zeev Maoz
National choices and international processes
7 Ian Clark
The hierarchy of states
Reform and resistance in the international order
6 Hidemi Suganami
The domestic analogy and world order proposals
5 Stephen Gill
American hegemony and the Trilateral Commission
4 Michael C. Pugh
The ANZUS crisis, nuclear visiting and deterrence
3 Michael Nicholson
Formal theories in international relations
2 Friedrich V. Kratochwil
Rules, norms, and decisions
On the conditions of practical and legal reasoning in international
relations and domestic affairs
1 Myles L. C. Robertson
Soviet policy towards Japan
An analysis of trends in the 1970s and 1980s