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Of Systems, Boundaries, and Territoriality: An Inquiry into the Formation of the State System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Friedrich Kratochwil
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Abstract

The author explores the changing functions of boundaries in territorially and nonterritorially based social organizations. By focusing on the exchanges that boundaries mediate, a fuller account can be given of the systems characteristics in which the units interact than is afforded by traditional systems theory. Two case studies demonstrate that imperial boundaries differ significantly from those in the state system. Boundaries are shown to be the major means for conflict management in the international system. The author also investigates shifts in the location of the boundary, characteristics of balance-of-power systems, and the restriction and expansion of the exchanges that boundaries allow through the bundling or unbundling of territorial rights. Most of the latter devices that gave rise to spheres of influence, buffer states, suzerainties, and so forth have been overtaken by events, but functional regimes and spheres of influence based upon tacit rather than explicit rules remain important.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , October 1986 , pp. 27 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1986

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References

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60 These thoughts are more fully developed in Friedrich Kratochwil, “Rules, Norms, Values and the Limits of Rationality,” Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie (forthcoming).

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