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This article participates in efforts by IR theorists to clarify aspects of modern sovereignty – an idea currently in rupture and being rethought – by returning to its founding ‘Westphalian moment’. While recent work has reconnected modern sovereignty to religion, considering Westphalia as a religious settlement and Christian concerns persisting in the groundwork of IR, our work looks beyond Christian concerns and asks how Westphalian sovereignty addressed non-Christians. We trace a yet-untapped discussion of the Jews – presented as a paradigmatic religious ‘other’ – among architects of Westphalian sovereignty from Bodin through Grotius, Hobbes, Harrington, and Spinoza. We demonstrate that foundational theorists of modern sovereignty considered religious diversity a political problem. Some cited essential sameness, minimising difference between Jews and Christians. Others considered the possibility of Jewish sovereignty long before this idea is usually considered to have entered modern consciousness. While the discussion of Jewish sovereignty among architects of modern sovereignty may seem to justify a Jewish state in a world of Westphalian states, it also emphasises Westphalia’s territorialising of religious difference. This aspect of the Westphalian framework is surely inadequate today, when territorialising religious difference is neither normative nor likely possible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article surveys early 21st-century historiography on the Peace of Westphalia and the Thirty Years' War more broadly. Focusing primarily on scholarship by German historians and published in Germany, the author discusses several themes in this research literature, including the constitutional history and politics in the Holy Roman Empire, diplomacy and international relations in 17th-century Europe, and the perception and interpretation of the peace treaty. Information about the "Acta Pacis Westphalicae" (APW), an edition of the records of the Westphalian peace conference in Münster and Osnabrück, Germany, in 1648-1649, is also provided.

Although the Westphalian model takes many forms the association of Westphalian and sovereign equality is a prominent one. This article argues firstly that sovereign equality was not present as a normative principle at Westphalia. It argues further that while arguments for sovereign equality were present in the eighteenth century they did not rely on, or even suggest, a Westphalian provenance. It was, for good reasons, not until the late nineteenth century that the linkages of Westphalia and sovereign equality became commonplace, and even then sovereign equality and its linkage with Westphalia were disputed. It was not until after the Second World War, notably through the influential work of Leo Gross that the linkage of Westphalia and sovereign equality became not only widely accepted, but almost undisputed until quite recently. The article concludes by suggesting that not only did Gross bequeath a dubious historiography but that this historiography is an impediment to contemporary International Relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

References to the Peace of Westphalia have played an important role in the discourse of international relations. Originally referred to as a concrete historical event and associated with a variety of meanings, such as the triumph of state sovereignty, the establishment of a community of states, and even the beginnings of collective security, the Peace was later transformed into a conceptualization of the international system. Beginning in the late 1960s, phrases like 'Westphalian system' came to convey a package of ideas about international politics limited to the supremacy of state sovereignty, territoriality, and nonintervention, to the exclusion of other meanings. This conceptualization serves as a popular and convenient contrast to a more globalized order, but there are problems with its use: first, because the Westphalian system is an ideal-type that might never have actually existed, the impact of globalization may be exaggerated by scholars who employ it. Second, its use implies a linear progression from some Westphalian configuration toward some 'post-Westphalian' state of affairs, whereas actual system change is likely to be more complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International relations as we know them emerged through the peace of Westphalia, and the discipline of International Relations emerged in 1919 and developed through a First Great Debate between idealists and realists. These are the established myths of 1648 and 1919. In this article we demonstrate how historical and historiographical scholarship has demolished these myths, but that the myths regardless are pervasive in the current textbooks that are used in teaching future IR scholars. Disciplinary dialogue seems to have failed completely. Based on a detailed reading of the myths and their perpetuation, we discuss the consequences of the discipline’s reliance on mythical origins, why there has been so little incorporation of revisionist insight and what possibilities there are for enhancing the dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a discussion on the role of historical example in controversies involving the political and legal justifications for humanitarian and military intervention in the affairs of other nations. The author particularly stresses the relevance of the political history of Europe beginning in early modernity to the discussion, examining the significance of the Peace of Westphalia treaty of 1648 and the military intervention of ruler William of Orange in England's Glorious Revolution of 1688.

It came as no surprise that interest in the temporal dimension of international politics was on the rise at the turn of the millennium. Of no less importance is the prospect for a "historical turn" in international relations theory. This paper attempts to clarify the relationship between historical demarcation and international understanding of epochal change, and the transformation of world order. Two momentous historical demarcations are examined: the Peace of Westphalia, and the New World Order. The paper offers two propositions. First, that the year 1648 remains the most appropriate historical moment to demarcate the beginning of the Westphalian order, and that the attempt to push the historical demarcation to either the late Renaissance, or the nineteenth century, is theoretically and historically counterproductive. Secondly, that the New World Order of 1989-1992 is only the beginning of a transitory period in history with no conclusive shape or substance, and that the term post-Westphalian order is premature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With new international challenges facing the globe from the Ukraine to the Middle East to the South China Sea, two of the West's most respected authors on international relations argue that the principles of Westphalia are still as relevant as ever. While the context may be different, and the roles of an ambivalent United States and Europe may be uncertain, the balance of power and the nation-state model remain operative. This review of recent works by Henry Kissinger and Robert Kaplan make the case for Westphalian principles on a worldwide scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]