State, power and global order
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117819840803 |
| Author | Or Rosenboim |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Part One: Structure and Order |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117819840803
International Relations
2019, Vol. 33(2) 229 –245
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117819840803
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State, power and global
order
Or Rosenboim
City, University of London
Abstract
This article examines the evolution of international thought through the notion of ‘political space’.
It focuses on two important domains of international politics, the nation-state and the global, to
reflect on spatial categories in the discipline of International Relations (IR). Since its inception,
the concept of the nation-state has dominated mainstream IR theory. Yet an investigation of how
international order has been theorized over IR’s first century shows that this era has also been
defined by globalist visions of political order. Nowadays, globalization is sometimes seen as the apex
of the historical interplay of particularity and universality. The progression towards global political
and economic order, however, is today undermined by the resurgence of state-centric political
nationalism which seeks to challenge the legitimacy of the global political space. By examining how
past international thinkers including Alfred Zimmern, Barbara Ward, Hans Morgenthau, E. H. Carr
and John Herz, imagined and interpreted the relations of space and politics in the national and
global spheres, this article suggests that spatial thinking offers an insightful approach for theorizing
international relations. The article argues that the global and national spaces attain their political
meanings through divisions as well as interactions and connections. The focus on divisions,
exemplified in the writings of Barbara Ward, helps to make sense of the modus operandi of power
in the national and global political spaces by investigating differences, tensions and instability.
Keywords
globalism, globalization, international order, international relations, nationalism, state
Introduction: political spaces and International Relations
The concept of political space, already frequently discussed by political geographers, has
received over the last two decades the attention of International Relations (IR) scholars.1 It
may seem a truism to argue that the study of international relations is based on assumptions
regarding space and spatiality. In this context, political space can be understood as the broad
Corresponding author:
Or Rosenboim, Department of International Politics, City, University of London, Northampton Square,
London EC1V 0HB, UK.
Email: or.rosenboim@city.ac.uk
840803IRE0010.1177/0047117819840803International RelationsRosenboim
research-article2019
Article
230 International Relations 33(2)
dynamic webs of political and symbolic relations evolving within, around and in relation to
topographical physical settings and terrestrial landscapes.2 Yet the interplay of spatial con-
figurations and International Relations theory has not been thoroughly mapped. What spa-
tial domains have International Relations theorists considered important, and why? How did
transformations of spatial perceptions influence ideas about international relations?
This article seeks to demonstrate the close interplay of the national and global political
spaces in international thought in the first century of IR, drawing on the concept of political
space as an insightful interpretative framework in international relations. The concept of
‘political space’ embodies the multiple ways in which politics and geographical territory
continue to be related. These relations are not passive or deterministic; spatial conditions
can define political order, but space is also shaped by political power. Conquest, law-mak-
ing, border formation and war are some of the activities that modify space and give it politi-
cal meaning. I will look at two categories of political space that were conceptually and
politically important in American and British international thought in the first century of
the discipline of IR: the nation-state and the global. It argues that in the last century, the
nation-state and the global were considered by international thinkers as important domains
of international thought and seeks to understand how transformations in spatial percep-
tions, generated by technological and political changes, shaped ideas about international
relations. By examining how past international thinkers imagined and interpreted the rela-
tions of space and politics in the national and global spheres, I suggest that spatial thinking
offers an insightful approach for theorizing international relations.
In the twentieth century, the nation-state was the protagonist in the study of international
relations. Discussions about space and spatiality within IR focused on the inexhaustible
debate between the persistence versus the disappearance of the territorial state as the prin-
cipal form of political organization in the Westphalian system.3 In the 1940s, the political
desirability and adequacy of the post-1919 system of nation-states was challenged by a
new political outlook emphasizing the importance of the global domain of political order.4
While these debates date to the mid-twentieth century, they clearly resonate with more
recent arguments that the processes of globalization supposedly dealt the final blow to the
nation-state’s political and economic sovereign power.5 In 1919–2019, the nation-state and
the global embodied two important spatial categories for theorizing international relations:
their conceptual histories within the discipline of IR offer a glimpse into alternative past
and future trajectories for spatial political thought. The analysis of political space gives rise
to important questions about the location of practical and conceptual sites of power. The
political space of the global, and its related categories ‘globalism’ and ‘globality’ will pro-
vide an alternative framework for thinking about political power beyond the state.
By juxtaposing the national and global spaces of politics, this article seeks to trace the
conceptualization and location of power in the twentieth century world order. To do so, I
propose to examine the political ideas and spatial interpretations of a variety of interna-
tional thinkers, who will offer a lens through which to analyse change and continuity in
the international sphere. The British and American thinkers at the core of this study have
all contributed in different ways to the evolution of international thought within, and
outside of, the academic discipline of International Relations. These figures include
Alfred Zimmern, Barbara Ward, Hans Morgenthau, E. H. Carr and John Herz. Despite
their theoretical and political differences, they were all original and influential
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