|
|
Article: Counterpoint: the Westphalia overstatement.
- Article from:
- International Social Science Review
- Article date:
- September 22, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Pi Gamma Mu. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Westphalia is no more. This is not the result of any one particular cause, but an acknowledgement that the conceptualization of 'the Westphalian state system' is a pedagogical oversimplification that is based on flawed assumptions. By referring to modern politics as "Westphalian," international relations specialists employ a term that no longer provides an accurate view of history and is incompatible with the two primary ideologies of international relations, namely, realism and international liberalism. The great Wesphalian overstatement no longer serves as the progenitor of our descriptive map of the Western world, if it ever did.
Westphalia has been seen as ...