The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919
| Author | Maja Spanu |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066119866496 |
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066119866496
European Journal of
International Relations
2020, Vol. 26(2) 372 –396
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066119866496
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The hierarchical society: the
politics of self-determination
and the constitution of new
states after 1919
Maja Spanu
Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, UK
Abstract
International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion
of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this
article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical
arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price
of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international
society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international
society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material
on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern
and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The
implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First,
my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of
states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised
on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of
scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come
from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how
different actors navigate these hierarchies.
Keywords
Expansion of international society, hierarchy, post-World War I settlement, minority
treaties, international history, self-determination
Corresponding author:
Maja Spanu, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, West Road 7,
Cambridge, CB3 9DT, UK.
Email: ms2406@cam.ac.uk
866496EJT0010.1177/1354066119866496European Journal of International RelationsSpanu
research-article2019
Article
Spanu 373
Introduction
Throughout the 20th century, commentators and political actors have seen self-
determination as the principle that would – potentially or in fact – eradicate hierarchies,
internationally and domestically, as empires dissolved and international society expanded.
Whether in Central and South-Eastern Europe after the imperial dissolutions of World
War I or in colonial territories during post-World War II decolonisation, self-determina-
tion was largely seen as providing new states with legal equality and protection against
external interference. Self-determination was thus seen as wiping away old imperial
hierarchies and providing safeguard against new types of stratification via the principles
of sovereign equality and non-interference. Why, then, have institutional and political
hierarchies persisted, both in the arrangements of international society and within many
of the new states formed in the name of self-determination, despite the demise of empires
and the expansion of the nation-state model?
Existing explanations in International Relations (IR) are unable to adequately address
this question. IR scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of inter-
national society from the presence of hierarchies within it. The field presents two
detached stories. On one side, we have constructivist and English School authors who
view the 20th century expansion of international society as a process that brought greater
international equality through the formation of new states and the diffusion of liberal
norms (Bull and Watson, 1984; Dunne and Reus-Smit, 2017; Philpott, 2001). On the
other side, we have theoretically diverse explanations of inequality among states that
largely see hierarchy as attached to sovereignty and to ensuing violations of the principle
(Jackson, 1990; Krasner, 1999; Lake, 2009). Interpretivists bring an important corrective
to these approaches by connecting different forms of hierarchy – domestic and interna-
tional, old and new, formal and informal (Zarakol, 2017). However, overall, the field
detaches the presence of hierarchies from the politics of self-determination as interna-
tional society expands.
This article advances an alternative explanation for the establishment of social, politi-
cal and legal hierarchies among and within states that stresses the role of internationally
supervised politics of self-determination during waves of state formation. Invoked to
dismantle imperial orders and to diffuse the nation-state model, the politics of self-deter-
mination have involved formal and informal hierarchies, internally and externally.
Moreover, these unequal dynamics continued until well after the formal recognition of
statehood in post-imperial contexts.
Internationally, this takes the form of hierarchies between older, more powerful states
and newer ones. Throughout the 20th century waves of the expansion of international
society, pre-existing states and actors held disciplining expectations regarding the realisa-
tion of self-determination, which they formally imposed on claimants through criteria of
rightful identity and behaviour. These gave rise, and not without contradictions, to a dis-
course about the political equality of individuals and the equality of rights as constitutive
elements of the nation-state – a discourse in principle opposed to conceptions of unequal
entitlement attached to empires. As the standard for membership in international society,
self-determination has defined the criteria for legitimate identity and behaviour within it,
reminding new states how they should behave to be deemed equal and fully formed.
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