Territorial sovereignty and the end of inter-cultural diplomacy along the “Southern frontier”

Abstract

European politics at the turn of the 19th century saw a dramatic reduction in the number and diversity of polities as the territorial nation-state emerged as the dominant form of political organization. The transformation had a profound impact on the periphery. The study examines how embracing the principle of territoriality transformed relations between settler societies and indigenous peoples in South America. As this shift coincided with independence from Spain, Creole elites rapidly dismantled the remnants of imperial heteronomy, ending centuries of inter-cultural diplomacy. The study illustrates this shift in the case of the “Southern frontier,” where Spain had maintained a practice of treaty making with the Mapuche people since the mid-17th century. This long-standing practice broke down shortly after Chile gained independence in 1818. What followed was a policy of coercive assimilation through military conquest and forced displacement — a policy that settler societies implemented elsewhere in the 19th century. In contrast to explanations that emphasize the spread of capitalist agriculture and racist ideologies, this study argues that territoriality spelled the end of inter-cultural diplomacy along the “Southern frontier.”

Company-states and the creation of the global international system

“…Nevertheless, with rare exceptions (e.g. Schulz, 2019), these analyses have generally considered these systems in isolation, as self-contained regional orders separate and distinct from the Westphalian sovereign state system. Though such an approach has helpfully unsettled earlier tendencies to universalize from the Western European historical experience, it has often come at the expense of more sustained efforts to examine the increasing relationality and entanglements between Western and non-Western international systems from the early modern period onwards.…”

“…Likewise, the turn toward a Global IR has demonstrated the vitality and historical significance of an equally eclectic range of polities beyond Europe besides the sovereign state (e.g. Crawford, 1994; Deudney, 1995; Kang, 2010; Neumann and Wigen, 2018; Pardesi, 2019; Schulz, 2019).…”

The Eastern cousins of European sovereign states? The development of linear borders in early modern Japan

“…However, a new wave of studies on non-European polities before contact with European powers and their entry into international society has recently addressed this lack of research on non-Western international orders (Fawcett, 2017;Kadercan, 2017;Kang, 2010;Kwan, 2016;Neumann and Wigen, 2018;Phillips, 2021;Phillips and Sharman, 2015;Ringmar, 2012;Schulz, 2019;Sharman, 2019;Spruyt, 2020;Suzuki, 2005;Suzuki et al, 2014;Womack, 2012;Zarakol, 2022). They have pointed out that diverse forms of international orders existed outside Europe, sometimes even coexisting with the European sovereign state system until very recently.…”

Worldmaking from the margins: interactions between domestic and international ordering in mid-20th-century India

“…Internally, the territorially defined nation invariably produced minorities, i.e. people allegedly not belonging to the nation yet nonetheless inhibiting its territory, subsequently often subjected to violent policies of coercive assimilation or forced displacement (Schulz, 2019). Externally, the act of circumscribing the nation in territorial terms invariably required the severing of long-lasting ties with what then became diaspora communities.…”