Policy point-counterpoint: is Westphalia history?

• Author: Cruz, Laura

Does a discussion of the Treaty of Westphalia, promulgated in 1648, rightfully fall under the parvenu of a social science journal? The question arises because of the rather uneasy relationship between historians and social scientists. If one were to search the various history departments across the United States, for example, some are organized under colleges of social science and others under humanities. This ambiguity stems from the belief that there are fundamental assumptions in the modern practice of history that are largely incompatible with the tenets of social science but historians are certainly not adverse to borrowing liberally from their theories and practices, and vice versa. (1) Nearly despite themselves, however, historians have much to offer current debates about the future of the modern state system and its alleged origins in the Treaty of Westphalia.

The Treaty of Westphalia is used by social scientists as the foundation of several theoretical schools. Both realist and neo-liberal theories of international relations use the Westphalian state system as one of their most fundamental assumptions (though, of course, with different intentions). (2) Theorists of nationalism also consider the settlement of some significance. By linking religious identity to state identity, they argue, Westphalia was part of a long-term process that led to the ideology of nationalism in the nineteenth century and the primary identification of most ordinary Europeans with their nation-states. (3) The term has been used so often that most introductory political science texts treat its use as axiomatic. (4) The historical origins and context of the term, on the other hand, are generally not deemed of sufficient import to convey.

Historians view Westphalia quite differently. The Treaty of Westphalia itself was not the only agreement concluded at the peace negotiations held in the town of Muenster in 1648. In addition, the Treaty of Muenster, recognizing the independence of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and ceding territory to France, and the Treaty of Osnabruck, granting Sweden its spoils of victory, also came out of what is more properly called the Settlement of Westphalia. Many of the precepts ascribed to Westphalia, such as state sovereignty and enforcement and regulation of international law, come from these two treaties rather than the Treaty of Westphalia itself. (5) The treaty ended the Thirty Years' War, which had physically devastated much of the Holy Roman Empire, and marked the twilight of the power of the Holy Roman Emperor and the rise of powers such as France, the Netherlands, and, briefly, Sweden in the latter part of the seventeenth century. (6) By the eighteenth century, however, these powers were eclipsed by the rise of England and the increasing economic importance of the Atlantic seaboard over continental markets. As an indicator of the balance of power in Europe, the consequences of the treaty were, for the most part, short-lived. The religious outcome of the treaty was based on the same principle of cuius region, cuius religio (whose region, his religion) established at the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, though it granted formal recognition of the Calvinist faith which the Augsburg treaty had denied. In short, when placed in its historical context, the Settlement. of Westphalia was neither innovative nor especially enduring. For most historians, it appears as a footnote in an entire century that is largely glossed over as a period of disorganization and crisis sandwiched between two centuries of greater interest and significance. (7)

Political scientists and international relations specialists, however, have...