Territory is Not Derived from Property: A Response to Steiner
| Author | Cara Nine |
| Date | 01 December 2008 |
| Published date | 01 December 2008 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2008.00765.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Territory is Not Derived from Property:
A Response to Steiner
Cara Nine
University College Cork
An individualistic Lockean theory of territory holds that terr itorial rights are coextensive with and arise
from the private property rights of individuals. In this essay I extend and deepen my arguments against
this view. This essay is a rejoinder to Hillel Steiner’s critique of my earlier arguments against the
individualistic Lockean theory of territory.
Hillel Steiner supports an individualistic Lockean theory of territor ial rights.
Steiner and other proponents of this theory argue that state territor ial rights are
derived from individual private property rights (Steiner, 1996; 2008; Simmons,
2001). Under the individualistic Lockean theory, individual private property
owners create territory by voluntarily vesting some authority over their property
in the state. Moreover, individual private property owners maintain meta-
jurisdictional authority over their property, i.e. each property owner has the
unilateral authority to secede his or her property from the state’s jurisdiction.
I argue against this view in ‘A Lockean Theory of Territory’ (Nine,2008). In that
work I rely on what I consider to be our commonly held conception of territorial
rights in order to dismiss the position that current individual property owners
maintain unilateral meta-jurisdictional authority.I posit that an individual r ight to
secede private property unilaterally from the state is inconsistent with our
commonly held conception of territor y. Steiner correctly points out a need to
clarify my arguments against this view (Steiner, 2008).
In this essay I further defend the position against individualistic Lockean theories
of territor y. My argument has two parts. Fir st, I defend the position originally
taken up in ‘A Lockean Theory of Territory’, that the common conception of
territor y excludes an individual’s unilateral right to secede individual property
from the state. Second, I defend the normative position that territorial rights are
not derived from individual private property rights, thereby excluding Steiner’s
thesis on normative (and not merely on empirical conceptual) grounds.
Conceptual Understanding of Territory
In my original article, the argument that individuals do not have the meta-
jurisdictional authority to secede their property unilaterally from state terr itory is
based on a conceptual claim about territor ial rights. I maintain that our concep-
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2008.00765.x
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2008 VOL 56, 957–963
© 2008The Author.Jour nal compilation © 2008 Political StudiesAssociation
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