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This chapter aims to decode the diplomatic rituals of the Sui-Tang, Turko-Mongol, and Eurasians. It tries to show that supposedly insignificant details in ceremonies had obvious implications for witnesses. It emphasizes the entanglements between the Confucian rituals of interstate relations and those of Eurasia. It then takes a look at some studies of imperial Chinese diplomacy and tries to explain why foreigners were comfortable in participating in Confucian diplomatic rituals over the years, and why external conquest dynasties accepted Confucian rituals for foreign guests.

This chapter explores the symbolic aspect of proxenia in Greek interstate relations. It uses this institution as a case study to explore the functions performed by the wider system of inter-polis institutions, including asylia, syngeneia, and theōria. It builds on recent work applying the concept of peer-polity interaction to Greek institutional interrelations, and modern scholarship on Interstate Relations to argue that so much effort was invested in proxenia and other institutional relations because they asserted polis identity. It examines how these institutions were used in a range of different contexts—by federations and their constituent poleis, by communities dependent on dominant poleis, and by non-polis actors such as dynasts and non-Greek cities. It argues that performing as a polis by using these institutions was important in the Classical and Hellenistic periods because it meant asserting legitimacy as a state actor in an anarchical state system which was understood as a society of poleis.

This chapter focuses on the aspects of interstate relations and military particulars that led to unification. It shows that Qin sustained sole superpower status after Wei’s decline in the mid-fourth century bce. The chapter is organized into four sections analyzing the geopolitical conditions and interstate relations leading to Qin’s final victory in 221 bce: (1) Wei’s military activities at the time of its dominance and reasons for its decline; (2) why neither Qi, Chu, nor Zhao could achieve dominance after Wei’s decline; (3) how interstate relations changed during the entire Eastern Zhou era, the major differences between Eastern Zhou interstate relations and early modern European international relations, and how the Chinese case contributed to the rise of a unified empire in ancient China; and (4) the major steps leading to Qin’s final success.

A recurring concern of Greek writers on hegemony and empire (and of modern commentators on those writers) is the problem of securing the willing – or at least, not actively hostile – consent of those led. But ancient approaches to this question are often fragmented in their focus and limited in their perspective; modern historical analyses have likewise tended to grapple more with specific instances or themes than the wider picture. The aim of this chapter, therefore, is to see if it is possible to develop a more systematic framework for assessing the legitimacy (or lack of legitimacy) of Greek hegemonic systems. In particular, it explores the theoretical models for interstate and hegemonic legitimacy developed in recent work in International Theory, especially in reaction to the (alleged) ‘crisis of legitimacy’ of the early years of this century, and assess their applicability (or lack of it) to a deliberately broadly‐ defined set of Classical Greek hegemonies. In doing so, it illuminates the various ways in which legitimacy was developed and defended by these hegemonies; the challenges to legitimacy each faced; and the extent to which the successful cultivation of hegemonic legitimacy correlates with the success of hegemony more broadly.

Recent times have seen significant changes in the perception of the role of entities other than states and international organizations as important actors in interstate relations. These changes stem either from the Charter of the United Nations, or from the practice of the various United Nations principal organs. A most important group of actors is, of course, the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which have a consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. The General Assembly of the United Nations has admitted observers to either the Organization or the Assembly and/or its organs. The Security Council and the General Assembly dealt with topics and adopted resolutions concerning a variety of non-state actors such as liberation movements, terrorist organisations, individuals, and private enterprises. This chapter examines some of the most recent and salient developments concerning the role mainly of non-governmental organizations and the national liberation movements. It addresses the question of to what extent the doctrine of state sovereignty has been affected.

When, on the evening of Sunday, 3 September 1939, Éamon de Valera broadcast to the people of Éire, as the Irish state had been renamed two years earlier, Britain and France had already declared war on Germany. His wholly predictable message was that his government would stay out of the conflict, adhering, it has been said, to a stance of non-belligerency rather than one of neutrality in the sense in which that word had been used and refined over many years by jurists and writers on interstate relations. De Valera's statement was a product not only of the dramatic shift of political power that had brought him to office in 1932, but also of the 1921 treaty itself.

This chapter starts with the theory that the rise of nonstate armed groups (NAGs) is not an issue solely tied to the absence of state or the rise of ungoverned territories. In contrast, many rebel groups manage to sustain their operations against target states because of support they receive from other states. There are several types of state support, including safe havens, funds, troops, weapons, and logistics aid. Rebel groups are characterized as purposive decision makers with specific objectives, which lead them to prioritize between autonomy in operations and resource acquisition. Depending on their priorities, rebel groups, then, either seek intentional state supporters and/or de facto state supporters. Subsequently, this chapter lays the groundwork for development of the state-rebel selection theory, which addresses state-rebel interactions through the lens of interstate relations.

This chapter examines the wider network of theoric activities criss-crossing the Greek world, through which aparchai and dekatai were dispatched to distant sanctuaries by sacred delegates known as theoroi. It explores how the bringing of first offerings, traditionally a form of human–divine interaction, was exploited in some political situations as a way of maintaining interstate relations, most notably those between a mother-city and its colonies. Comparable practices in Polynesian societies and anthropological studies of gift-giving are drawn on to offer a new interpretation of the Eleusinian first-fruits decree. Similar mechanisms that might have been at work in the relations of other cities are also discussed. One of the most interesting observations that emerges is the different ways and varying degrees of intensity with which first offerings tied dedicators and recipients together, whether human or divine.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how states build international order. The great moments of international order building have tended to come after major wars, as winning states have undertaken to reconstruct the postwar world. Certain years stand out as critical turning points: 1648, 1713, 1815, 1919, and 1945. At these junctures, newly powerful states have been given extraordinary opportunities to shape world politics. In the chaotic aftermath of war, leaders of these states have found themselves in unusually advantageous positions to put forward new rules and principles of international relations and by so doing remake international order. The most important characteristic of interstate relations after a major war is that a new distribution of power suddenly emerges, creating new asymmetries between powerful and weak states.

The collapse of the Western Zhou political order ultimately led to the emergence of a new hegemonic system of interstate relations. This chapter analyzes the nature of this interstate system, identifying the major state actors and their changing strengths over time. It then considers the nature of warfare during the Age of Hegemons and the role of ritual in it; two very different answers to the problems posed by territorial expansion: bureaucratized counties and secondary feudalization systems; and patterns of Eastern Zhou warfare.

This chapter first examines the Court's less contentious contributions to the international law of jurisdictional immunities. It then considers its impact on more disputed matters and its place in the international lawmaking process. The Court has ruled and has spoken on state immunity and on immunities ratione personae, both positive and putative. It has also taken these and other opportunities to expound on general features of the international law of jurisdictional immunities. In its pronouncements on the more contentious questions, the Court has vigorously affirmed a traditional vision of non-contestational interstate relations based on mutual respect for sovereignty, preferring fraught issues of international responsibility, whether state or individual, to be kept out of national courts.

It might seem reasonable to take the view that the study of ancient Greek political behaviour could plausibly focus upon exchanges that went on inside the polis: after all, the word ‘politics’ derives from the Greek politika (‘polis affairs’). However, the concerns of ancient Greek polis-communities were not merely introspective: communities (regardless of size or military clout) were obliged to face the consequences of the decisions and activity of other communities. Human representatives of city-states performed necessary interactions with outsiders: they fought as soldiers, and staked political or ideological claims as ambassadors and politicians. On their return to their home communities, these individuals proclaimed to their audiences the significance of their activity away from home. Furthermore, the overlaps in social and cultural structure of different Greek city-states, as well as the existence of shared modes of decision-making, might lead us to anticipate the value of trans-community forms of political activity. At the heart of this question, therefore, is an overall debate about the degree of ‘unity’ of Greek political institutions and behaviour, a debate explored in this chapter with particular reference to the contested transferability of the decree (psephisma) in Greek inter-state politics of the fourth century.

This chapter examines the epigraphic evidence for oral performances by envoys on diplomatic missions. It begins by considering two kinds of inscriptions: firstly, inscriptions recording speeches which delimit the oratorical task set before the ambassadors and the boundaries of their diplomatic brief; and, secondly, inscriptions recording the response to the oral performance by the ambassadors of the community they visited. The fact that we can even detect differences between the two documents in terms of their contents brings up a number of methodological considerations about the real nature of the ambassadors' oratorical performances and their actual effect on the outcome of the embassy. The chapter proceeds to ask a number of questions: was the ambassadors' oratorical potential was limited by the constraints of their official brief? If so, was their role little more than decorative? Was an oratorical performance by the envoys indispensable to the success of the embassy's mission? The evidence for oratorical performances by teams of envoys may point to the dangers they encountered in their diplomatic missions, and may thus reflect a desire to spread the risk among a greater number of individuals. The chapter concludes that the ambassadors' oral performances were paramount to the establishment and perpetuation of a reciprocal relationship of gratitude between two communities. Thus, the rhetorical strategies adopted by the ambassadors in such oratorical performances were of crucial importance.

This chapter discusses the Portuguese conquest of Angola, which commenced in 1575 and, in many respects, was completed in 1671. The conquest of Angola was hardly spectacular by Spanish standards, as it took over only about half the kingdom of Ndongo, its principal target, and at the end of the wars, Portugal controlled just a small sliver of land, mostly along the coast and the banks of two rivers, whose course was largely through inhospitable semidesert land. Portugal achieved its results only with major assistance from indigenous armies, and it fit into the regional politics as just one of the players in a system of interstate relations. To the degree that Portugal could expand its coercive authority through space, it was required to make major concessions to its allies and to accept alliances that had a high cost in regard to Portuguese control.

The historian of the law of nations, when considering Mogul sovereignty, is concerned with two main problems: first, the legal status of the Mogul Empire within the family of nations and the type of law applicable to inter-state relations at that time; and second, the internal structure of the Empire, which was essentially based on a network of suzerain–vassal relationships. This chapter discusses a few characteristic events to shed more light on these problems. Such events may be chosen from Anglo-Mogul relations in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The period between the reign of Emperor Akbar and Emperor Aurangzeb saw the greatest expansion of the Empire and one of the most remarkable episodes during this period—an episode which helps to illustrate the legal nature of relations between India and the West, the embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of Agra.

Chapter 3 examines the implications of the Euro-crisis and the responses to it on the horizontal relations of power between the member states themselves and argues that developments in EU governance have a paradox of domination. The rise of intergovernmental bodies such as the European Council and the Euro Summit has produced a significant shift of power from smaller and economically weaker member states toward larger, more prosperous ones. Contrary to the US, the EU created intergovernmental institutions precisely to show a strong commitment to state equality. In the US, instead, the corporate representation of the states is embedded in a broader institutional framework, which actually provided a better defense against aggrandizement by the largest states. Nevertheless, in the EU, the preservation of a fair balance between the member states is constitutionally indispensable, given the anti-hegemonic nature of the European integration project. Hence, the paradox of domination appears problematic.

If the Athenians thought they were free after the departure and death of Poliorcetes, they were mistaken, although their statue to the patriot and Classical orator Demosthenes might indicate they did not understand their reality. They continued their amicable relations with other Greek cities and with Hellenistic kings such as the Ptolemis, but still faced economic woes. Then in the 270s a major invasion of Greece by the Galatians was repelled by Antigonus Gonatas, who went on to claim the Macedonian throne. At first relations between Gonatas and Athens were amicable, but then the city went to war against him in the Chremonidean War. It ended in Athens’ total defeat and Gonatas’ punitive measures against the city. Athens was again firmly under Macedonian control.