The Major Rules of the System

Since the works of Machiavelli are often cited as proof of the amorality or "power politics" of the fifteenth century, one would not expect the Italians to have developed explicit rules and principles that effectively restrained their behavior toward each other. Historians do not, in fact, assign credit to the republics and city-states for developing ethical or legal restraints to their actions. The medieval concept of "just war," which had established criteria under which force could be used legitimately, had no application in Renaissance Italy; no authority in the fifteenth century, either ecclesiastical or temporal, sought to judge the righteousness of a state's behavior. War was an accepted means of achieving objectives or resolving conflicts, and few questioned the right of governing authorities to engage in it. Since the turmoil of many republics' domestic affairs

⁴⁵ Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, p. 134.

⁴⁶ Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1950), p. 288.

⁴⁷ Bozeman, Politics and Culture in International History, p. 479.

53 Historic International Systems

created opportunities for subversion, there was no strict rule against intervention¹ in other states' internal affairs. Assassination, bribery, and betrayal were common occurrences in diplomatic relations. Nor do we find evidence of the strong value! placed on political independence that was so evident in Greece. Instead, the larger states annexed the smaller with impunity and were prevented from expand­ing indefinitely primarily by the countervailing power of other states or alliances. The concepts of sovereignty, equality, and territorial integrity had not yet devel­oped as the bases upon which to conduct interstate relations.

In diplomatic bargaining situations, standards of honesty and good faith were rather low, although it did occur to some governments that a reputation for credibility might enhance their influence and prestige. Generally, however, the governments of the Italian units failed to recognize that diplomatic effective­ness might be related to moral and ethical principles. Gerhard Ritter, for exam­ple, has pointed out that all European ruling authorities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries regularly deceived each other in unscrupulous ways.⁴⁸ They ' had not yet developed a capacity to relate diplomatic means to ends and fre­quently undertook aggressive schemes and foreign conquests, which they could bring off successfully only by relying on intrigue, bluff, delaying tactics, and" lucky breaks. Governments spent vast sums of money to bribe influential states-! men in foreign courts, arrange lavish "summit" meetings between princes, and; despatch renowned orators and ambassadors to persuade other governments to act in the sending state's interests. These tactics seldom succeeded, because few governments, knowing their own standards of conduct, had any faith in the dependability of their rivals and pseudoallies.

There were, then, no fundamental rules of the system to help establish limits for action; yet, whether resulting from political conditions, lower-level technology, or financial considerations, a number of unwritten understandings or rulings were observed in the conduct of warfare. These helped keep organized violence between the units within tolerable bounds for the system. Unlike the Peloponnesian Wars, which drained the strength and vitality of so many city-states and made them vulnerable to outside invasion, the Italians were able to regulate their violence so that it would not cause total political collapse on the peninsula. Moreover, through the medium of the Most Holy League, the cities and republics made a most important decision implying that all states in the system should accept the distribution of power essentially as it had been arranged at the Peace of Lodi in 1454.

The Most Holy League never functioned as an effective instrument for. the pacific settlement of conflicts. It had no institutional basis; and, during the last forty years of the fifteenth century, the Italian states did not radically alter 1 their diplomatic style. Nevertheless, the diplomats and governments of these states apparently perceived that a treaty that sanctified the territorial status quo and provided a mechanism for enforcing that agreement was in their own interest.

⁴⁸ Ritter, Die Neugestaltung Europas, pp. 21-22.

54 Historic International Systems

Thus, they constructed through the Treaty of Venice (which established the Most Holy League) the ground rules for conducting interstate relations during the remainder of the century. In that document, the signatories promised to defend each other's territories against attack from any source, and each state undertook to provide military forces for joint action. In case of threat or outbreak of war, all members were to consult immediately and continue multilateral discus­sions until the danger subsided. Any member of the League that broke its obliga­tions of nonrecourse to violence was to be expelled and, if necessary, disciplined by collective action.

In practice, the Most Holy League never fulfilled the expectations of its originators. Instead of existing in peace and stability, the Italian states contin­ued to quarrel; and, in 1474, when the Pope and the King of Naples were implicated in a plot against the Medici rulers of Florence, they averted general war only by a narrow margin. The difference between the two halves of the century was more a diminution in the scope of violence than a growth of stability.⁴⁹ Whether the forty-year period of tension without large-scale violence was a result of the treaty or of a rough balancing of capabilities among the main units is difficult to judge. But, at least, after the Treaty of Venice, there were no wars that transposed the system into the hegemony of one state or into two antagonistic blocs, or that led to its collapse.

Nevertheless, the Italian system was engulfed by the general European political order in the last decade of the fifteenth century. Throughout the century, Italian tyrants, princes, and ruling families had called upon Europeans north of the Alps to intervene on their behalf in factional and interstate quarrels, and European rulers were eager to involve themselves in Italian affairs in search of crowns, lordships, and subsidies.⁵⁰

These intrusions into peninsular affairs were not permanent and did not result in a major modification of the Italian system through coupling of European and Italian issues. Yet the habit of seeking extra-Italian involvement in alliances or domestic political quarrels eventually led to a more permanent European presence on the peninsula. In this way, the Italian city-states and republics became in effect just a group of smaller units in the wider European system of the sixteenth century. The French invasion of the peninsula in 1494, in response to a plea from Milan to counterbalance the House of Anjou's influ­ence in Genoa and deter an attack of Milan's ally, Naples, was of such large scope that it amounted to a vast European intervention in Italian affairs. From that point, political isolation of the Italian peninsula was no longer possible, \) and, for the succeeding four centuries, the Italian states became merely the bbjects of French, Spanish, and Austrian rivalry, plunder, and expansion.

As in the Chinese system during parts of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the diffuse power structure on the Italian peninsula

⁴⁹ Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, pp. 94-96.

⁵⁰ Ibid., p. 61.

55 Historic International Systems

during the fifteenth century had an important effect on general foreign-policy orientations and the style of conducting relations between the units. The Italian city-states and republics were free agents, uninhibited by superior temporal powers or bloc leaders. They sought their objectives by forming and breaking alliances, seeking isolation, noninvolvement, or neutrality, or by intriguing in other states' internal affairs. Unlike the alliance partners of Athens and Sparta during the fifth century B.C. or the units in feudal China, whose actions were largely determined by a superior power, the Italian political units survived in a hostile environment by perfecting the art of diplomatic maneuvering. Latitude for choice among policy alternatives was wide, but security and certainty of success were scarce. If we examine international politics in Europe since the eighteenth century, we can observe how international structures, stratification systems, and interaction processes, as well as technological developments, can influence the behavior of each of the component units of an international system.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adcock, Frank, and J.D. Moseley, Diplomacy in Ancient Greece. London: Thames and Hudson, 1975.

Bayley, C.C., War and Society in Renaissance Florence. Toronto: University of To­ronto Press, 1961.

Bozeman, Adda В., Politics and Culture in International History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960.

Eisenstadt, S.N., The Political Systems of Empires. New York: Free Press, 1963.

Fliess, Peter J., Thucydides and the Politics of Bipolanty. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966.

Ghoshal, U.N., "The System of Inter-State Relations and Foreign Policy in the Early Arthasastra State," in India Antigua. Leiden: EJ. Brill Ltd., Publish­ers, 1947.

Goodman, Jay S., "The Concept of System in International Relations Theory," Background, 8 (1965), 257-68.

Graham, A.J., Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece. Manchester, Eng.: Manches­ter University Press, 1964.

Hanrieder, Wolfram, "Actor Objectives and International Systems," fournal of Politics, 27 (1965), 109-32.

Hasebrook, Johannes, Trade and Politics in Ancient Greece. London: G. Bell, 1933.

Korff, Baron S.A., "An Introduction to the History of International Law," American fournal of International Law, 18 (1924), 246-59.

Larus, Joel, ed., Comparative World Politics: Readings in Western and Pre-Modern Non-Western International Relations. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1964.

Lubasz, Heinz, ed., The Development of the Modern State. New York: Macmillan, 1964.

Mattingly, Garrett, Renaissance Diplomacy. London: Jonathan Cape, 1955.

56 Historic International Systems

Modelski, George, "Agraria and Industria: Two Models of the International

System," World Politics, 14 (1961), 118-43. _____, "Comparative International Systems," World Politics, 14 (1962), 662-

74. _____, "Kautilya: Foreign Policy and International System in the Ancient Hindu

World," American Political Science Review, 58 (1964), 549-60. Nussbaum, Arthur, A Concise History of the Law of Nations. New York: Macmillan,

1961. Parkinson, F., The Philosophy of International Relations: A Study in the History of

Thought. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1977. Phillipson, Coleman, The International Law and Custom of Ancient Greece and Rome.

London: Macmillan, 1911. Russell, Frank M., Theories of International Relations. New York: Appleton-Cen-

tury-Crofts, 1936. Walker, Richard L., The Multi-State System of Ancient China. Hamden, Conn.:

Shoe String Press, 1953.

The European

and

Con temporary

State Systems

What had occurred in Renaissance Italy continued throughout Europe between, the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, that is, the continent filled up with orga­nized political power and administration. From feudal relations between the Holy Roman Empire, free cities, ecclesiastical authorities, duchies, aspiring mon-archs, and small republics, there emerged an order of centralized political units led by dynastic families. These central monarchs eventually broke the power of lesser political authorities on their territories through bribery, coercion, or violence, and instituted nationwide administrative and judicial organizations.

This process did not occur simultaneously throughout the continent. As early as the latter part of the sixteenth century, Great Britain was a political -unit with a defined territory in which a central monarchy ruled effectively over all subjects. Complex administrative mechanisms that extended to all areas and levels of society replaced the localized judicial and administrative organizations of the feudal period. Although nobles often resisted the monarchy, they did not have independent territorial bases or armies with which to challenge royal authority effectively.

Through marriages, alliances, and domestic and external armed conflict, the monarchs of France, Spain, Russia, and Austria were eventually able to' create central dynastic orders as well; but the small states and principalities of Germany and Italy did not unite until the late nineteenth century. The nationalist impulses that helped them to unite were different from those conditions that had made possible the creation of central dynastic regimes in other parts of

58 The European and Contemporary State Systems

Europe. Up to the nineteenth century, most of the important states in interna-\ tional politics were empires and dynastic orders whose boundaries were denned through innumerable royal marriages, alliances, ancient land titles, and wars. і /' / Nationalism was not_ajactor ^ш dynastic politics. The European states that arose V in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, resulted from nationalism. They were organized around the remaining ethnic, religious, and language dis­tinctions in Europe, not on dynastic interests. Prior to the nineteenth century, jthe state created the nation, whereas, in the last two centuries, nationalism las preceded and, in many cases, created the state.

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