Philpott: Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations

Philpott, D., 2001. Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations, Princeton University Press.

“My central claim: Revolutions in sovereignty result from prior revolutions in ideas about justice and political authority…My claim…is about what revolutions in sovereignty are not. That is, they are not merely the aftereffects of the rise and fall of great powers, or of slow shifts in class structure or political structure, in technology, commerce or industrial production, or in the division of labor, methods of warfare, or population size…It takes a revolution in ideas to bring a revolution in sovereignty” (4).

“A polity’s practice of its authority on the inside requires the recognition of this authority from the outside” (13).

“We need to see, I propose, that international authority appears in three faces. All constitutions contain all three faces; every constitution’s depiction of them is its unique signature. Each face answers a different question about authority. The first face answers, What are the polities in a given international society? The second face answers, Which polities may belong to the society? And who may become one of these legitimate polities? The third face answers, What are the essential prerogatives of these polities? Together these faces define constitutional authority for any international society. They allow us to distinguish constitutions, and provide a criterion for change. A revolution in the constitution of international relations, I will argue, involves a change in at least one of these three faces” (15).