[H&F] "Musings on sovereignty"

[rfmcdonald]

History and Futility co-blogger The Overamtman corrects the popular assumption that the 1648 Peace of Westphalia created an international (or at least initially Western) international state system characterized by states possessing full sovereignty, autocratic states at that. Not true.

The Peace of Westphalia established sovereignty embodied in a dynastic ruler, not an autocratic one. Even “Absolute” France was not particularly autocratic. Essentially all of the rulers represented in the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück had important constitutional checks on their power. These were not written constitutions, of course, but neither is modern Britain’s. Princes had often extremely defined rights and strong limits on their authority. Contrary to much historical narrative, many of these princes were also quite happy with this. They were brought up in a society in which there were rules and orders, and they obeyed them.

[. . .]

these princes were not autocratic. They had a very specific legitimacy based on ancestry and kept their legitimacy by ruling according to expectations. One of the stated purposes of the Imperial Courts was to stave off and overthrow abuses within the states, including preventing princes from becoming autocrats (see: Württemberg, anytime between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries) and more than once defending peasants against their not-sovereign princes. Indeed, German princes would not start claiming sovereignty for themselves until Napoleon, after the important advances in sovereignty ideology [identified with the Revolutions.

Go, read.