The Territorial State and the Theme of Gulliver
| Date | 01 September 1984 |
| Author | R.B.J. Walker |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070208403900303 |
| Published date | 01 September 1984 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
R.B.J.
WALKER
The
territorial
state
and
the theme
of
Gulliver
The
state
appears
to
have
survived
yet
another
round
of
pro-
phecies
about
its
imminent
demise. Functionalists
and
neo-
functionalists,
students
of
international
integration
and
trans-
national
relations,
even some
of
the
more
utopian
advocates
of
a
cosmopolitan
world
order,
all
have
begun
to
retreat
from
the
brave
scenarios
of
a
fundamental
transformation
in
the
struc-
ture
of
the
international
system
in
general,
and
a
decline
in
the
importance
of
the
state
in
particular,
which have
been
so
popu-
lar
over the
last
two
decades.
Old-fashioned
'realism'
may
still
be
viewed
with
suspicion,
but
a
re-engagement
with some
of
the
basic
realist premises
is
reflected
in
the considerable influence
of
major
recent
studies
by
Robert
Gilpin,
Kenneth
Waltz,
and
Hedley
Bull,'
as
well
as
in
proposals for
various
'neo-realist'
or
'structural
realist'
orientations.
2
This
retreat
is
not
entirely
surprising.
Much
of
the
litera-
ture
that
tried
to
portray
international
politics
as
something
more
than
military-diplomatic
relations
between
autonomous
states
did
incorporate
a
level
of
wishful
thinking
that
could
not
survive
the
onset
of
global
economic
malaise
and
the
collapse
of
Assistant
Professor
of
Political
Science at
the
University
of
Victoria,
British
Columbia;
editor
of
Culture,
Ideology
and
World
Order
(1984).
1
Robert
Gilpin,
War
and
Change
in
World
Politics
(Cambridge: Cambridge
University
Press
1981);
Kenneth
N.
Waltz,
Theory
of
International
Politics
(Reading
MA:
Ad-
dison-Wesley
1979);
Hedley
Bull,
The
Anarchical
Society
(London:
Macmillan
1977).
2
See,
eg,
Robert
O.
Keohane,
'Theory
of
world
politics:
structural
realism and
beyond,'
in
Ada
W.
Finifter,
ed,
Political
Science:
The
State
of
the
Discipline
(Wash-
ington
DC:
American
Political
Science Association
1983),
503-40;
and
John
Gerard
Ruggie,
'Continuity and
transformation
in
the world
polity:
toward
a
neorealist
synthesis,'
World
Politics
35(January
1983),
261-85.
International
Journal
xxxix
summer
1984
530
INTERNATIONALJOURNAL
detente.
The
methodological
rigour
that
was
often
devoted
to
the
collection
of
supporting
data
and the
formulation
of
empir-
ical
theory
was
not
often
matched
by
the
critical
evaluation
of
the
theoretical
and
philosophical
assumptions
on
which
such
theory
was
ultimately
grounded.
Most
seriously,
perhaps,
the
self-satisfied liberalism
that
E.H.
Carr
once
castigated
as
a
cen-
tral element
in
the
turbulence
of
the
interwar era
had
managed
to
re-establish
a
comfortable
niche
in
what
until
quite recently
passed
as
the cutting
edge
of
international
political
analysis.
Yet
the
claim
that
some
kind
of
fundamental
transforma-
tion
has
been
occurring
in
the
international
order
has
not
been
based
entirely
on
a
mirage.
The
widespread
groping
for
more
adequate
concepts
and research
strategies
is
at
least
partly
grounded
on
a
broad
consensus
that
'new
forces'
have
man-
aged
to make
themselves
felt
in
international
politics.
There
are
enough
empirical
indicators
to
give
a
degree
of
credence
to
no-
tions
of
complex
interdependence,
dependence,
and
transna-
tional
politics,
or
even
to
some
of
the
broader
speculative
ac-
counts
of
an
emerging
world
system
or
world
society.
The
specific
formulations
may
no
longer carry much
conviction,
but
then
neither
does
the
claim
that
the
basic
principles
of
interna-
tional
politics have
not
really
been
affected
by
the
industrial
and
technological
transformations
of
recent
history.
In
some
ways,
the grandiose predictions about
the
universalizing
conse-
quences
of
industrialization,
which
were
made
in
the
nine-
teenth
century
by
liberals
and
Marxists
alike,
have
held
up
re-
markably
well.
Whether
we
think
in
economic,
social,
or
cultural
categories,
in
terms
of
the
structure
of
the
modern
world economy
or
of
the
consequences
of
technological
innova-
tion,
it
is
difficult
to
take
the renewed realist
cry
of
'Back
to
Thucydides'
completely
seriously.
In
more
specifically
political
terms,
however,
Thucydides
can
still
be
fairly
persuasive.
The
state
does
still
remain
with
us,
and
the
structural
relations
be-
tween
states
have clearly
demonstrated
a
remarkable
tendency
towards
recurrence
and
repetition
over
a
considerable
histori-
cal
period.
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