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Evolution of
International
System
Madhusha Guruge + Follow
Senior Product
Manager - Dialog
Enterprise…
Published Apr 15,
2015

“International System” is a widely

used term among students of
International Relations. Scholars tried
defining this term in various ways
throughout the history. Scholors such
as Morton Kaaplan Hugo Grotius, Karl
Deutsch, Charles Mc Cleland, J. David
Singer, Kenneth Boulding, David
Easton and Anatole Rapport, have
contributed to theorize the concept of
international system.

Starting with Hugo Grotius (1583-

1645), the eminent legal philosopher,
depicted ‘great society of states’ as
the foundation of international order.
Joseph Frankel described International
System is “a collection of independent
political unites, which interact with
some regularity.”[1]

Kaplan is considered as one of the

most well-known believers of the
International System. While insisting
on the balance of power which
maintains the order within the system,
Kaplan defines a System as a “set
points related in some way so that
changing or removing any one thing in
the set will make a difference to other
things in the system”[2]. Accordingly
the states do not allow one state to
become ‘over-dominant’ or a state to
be totally rejected by the others.

For structural realists such as John

Mearsheimer the International System
is taken with key assumptions as
below;

International System is anarchic with

no higher authority

all states possess some offensive

military capability; state has the power
to inflict some harm on its neighbor

States can never be certain about the

intentions of other states

Main goal of states is survival

States are rational actors

However, It is not easy to give a

precise definition of International
System. However, such a system is
believed to be existing since 1648.

[1] Prof. George A. Cooray, INR 1101,

Introduction to International relations

[2] Prof. George A. Cooray, INR 1101,

Introduction to International relations

When analyzing the evolution of

International political system, some
scholars believe that it began in the
seventeenth century with the signing
of the Peace accord of Westphalia in
1648. Since this period to the collapse
of the Soviet Union in 1989, the
International System has undergone
five evolutionary periods. All of these
phases have different and
characteristic features of each period
based on the Balance of power and the
major events occurred during these
periods. Accordingly it was a particular
fact that the first three phases in the
evolution of the international system;
that is from the peace of Westphalia
era in 1648 to the end of World War 11
in 1945 were based on Multi-polar
system. However, the main features
such as Euro-centralism, Imperialism,
rise nationalism and new powers as
well as the ideological division affected
mostly throughout the evolution of the
system within these three phases.
These features will be discussed
separately in below sections.

1. Classical Period (1648-1815)

The first phase of the international

system begins with the Peace of
Westphalia (1648) to the congress of
Vienna (1815). The Westphalia Treaty
was signed after religious wars in
Europe known as the ‘Thirty Years’
war, between Catholics and Protestant
states and the modern state system
was developed.

This concluded a long war among

European states for religious reasons,
and ended Pope’s authority as the
religious leader in Europe.
Subsequently, the concept of
sovereign state and modern states
emerged. Consequently, nation-states
learned the need of their active
relationship between other states of
the international system, most
importantly the Balance of Power,
which is being maintained by such
sovereign entities in the system.

This can be fairly considered as the

commencement of the international
system. From this stage, the
international system is created with
relations among the nation-states and
created the political foundation for
state relations.

This period is also remarkable for

socio- political revolution such as
industrial revolution and French
revolution. Socio- political impact of
these revolutions on state relations
was significant. Industrial revolution
changed the international system with
new technologies for fast
transportation and trade.

The industrial revolution which

changed the economic structure and
created the rise of capitalism in the
world, then led to imperialism. The
Imperialist expansion changed all
aspects of the entire international
system, by creating the world wars.

During the classical period, France,

Russia, Britain, Austria, Spain,
Sweden, Turkey, the Netherlands and
Prussia were the most powerful states
on multi-polar power system where
the international system was mainly
Euro-centric.

Multi-polarization was defined as “the

balance of power or the equilibrium
within the system was dependent
upon a number of powers”[1]

[1] Prof. George A. Cooray, INR 1101,

Introduction to International relations

1. The Post-classical Period (1815-

1914)

The Post-classical period remained a

century from the Congress of Vienna
(1815) to the beginning of World War I
in 1914. Even during this period the
major features of Classical period
remained unchanged; Europe was
considered as the powerful centre of
the world, balance of the power
system was Multi-polar, and major
units of the International System were
European States although the United
States of America (USA) was emerging
as a world power. However the
significant and new features, which we
can highlight during this period was
the rise of Nationalism in Europe,
which emerged as a strong force to
allow states to grow more and more
powerful.

And also the Imperialism heightened

the conflict of interest among
European powers. European powers
behaved in a manner towards their
interest in overseas expansion. During
the period from 1870 to 1914,
European nations and the U.S. and
Japan went on a colonization drive.

This nationalisms and the imperialism

among the stated increased the
hunger for additional territory and
pushed the “strongest to survive” and
to dominate the weak.

This imperialism drove the European

states to get divided and then the
outbreak of World War 1.

1. Transitional Period (1914-1945)

Transnational period is a complex one

with many events with the beginning
of the First World War to the end of
Second World War. The massive
destruction experienced from the first
world war encouraged scholars and
statesmen to focus on the
international system with seeking for
solutions for such conflicts. Many of
them were influenced by the idealists
such as Kant, Rousseau and Hugo
Grotius and influenced by them, the
then US president Woodrow Wilson
pioneered to established the League of
Nations. However, this later failed to
fulfill the objectives and the collapse.
This crisis period also created the
arms competition among great
powers, formation of power blocs,
secret treaties and various aggressive
campaigns, which ultimately led to the
Second World War with the use of
nuclear weapons.

During this transnational period, the

structure of the International System
was likely changing. Although the
balance of power still remained Multi-
polar, the United State of America and
Soviet Union were emerging as the
main two Super Powers, which was
likely to changing the existing balance
of power. This changing of power
structure added new states to the
international system.

Some significances of this period can

be listed as the transformation of old
Russia to new Soviet union, creation of
modern Japan, the rise of militarism
most notably the developing of nuclear
weapons and bombs. Ideological
division between democracy, fascism
and communism was another change.

However, when analyzing the evolution

of international system upto world war
II, it was clearly seen that the balance
of power remained as multipolar order.
This was then transferred to bipolar
with the two blocs led by United States
and the Russia.

All the historic changes occurred

during these periods under multipolar
world and as Kenneth Waltz described
such international system is
decentralized and anarchic. He
stressed that the competition in
multipolar system is more
complicated. Waltz emphasized “In the
old multipolar world, the core of an
alliance consisted of a small number of
states of comparable capability. Their
contributions to one another's security
were of crucial importance because
they were of similar size”.[1] Waltz
argued that a bipolar structure
dominated by two great powers is
more stable than a multipolar structure
dominated by three or more great
powers. Under multipolarity, states
rely on alliances to maintain their
security. This is inherently unstable,
since ‘there are too many powers to
permit any of them to draw clear
and fixed lines between allies and
adversaries’[2]

According to the Thomas Hobbes

Realism, there are two ordering
principles namely, anarchy and
hierarchy. He considered that the
unipolar world as a hierarchy, while
also characterizing multipolar and
bipolar systems as anarchical.
Scholars debated on the balance of
power several assumptions.

[1] Structural Realism after the Cold

war, Kenneth n. Waltz

[2] The Spread of Nuclear Weapons:

More May Better, Kenneth Waltz

George Kennan was deeply regretting

about the evolution of international
system from a European-centred
multipolar system to a bipolar system
based on the dominance of two
nuclear superpowers. In late 1940s
Kennan agreed that the stability of the
international system depends on the
multipolar world order, which was
dismissed after the world wars. He
believed that the United States should
use its economic power to restore
Europe and Japan as great powers, so
that the Soviet threat could be shared.

When supporting the multipolar world

order, Karl Deutch said that the
international system consisted with at
least five great powers such as during
above mentioned phases, is
historically more stable

After the destructive world wars till

today, the international system again
went through two other significant
periods;

1.
The Cold War Period (1945-1989)

Cold war period right after the Second

World War was a real transformation in
the international system. This period
lasted till the collapse of the former
Soviet Union, when the alliance with
the west was ended. Following the
defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan
after the World War II, the war partners
into two blocs: Western democratic
camp led by the United States and the
Socialist camp led by the Soviet Union.
The strange relationship between two
camps was called the Cold War. This
relationship was named by Joseph
Frankel as “a war fought without firing
a single shot”. During this period two
blocs had Ideological conflicts with
Intense arms race, both conventional
and nuclear, Even proxy wars like the
Vietnam War and the Korean War were
also remained. Since there were two
blocs, the balance of power was a Bi-
polar one with two Super-Powers.
Began with a tight balance, but later it
became loose.

1. The Contemporary Period (1989

onwards)

After the collapse of the Soviet Union,

the Super Power that balanced power
in the contemporary international
system was the United States. This
transformation was caused by the
economically weak Soviet Union and
with the Globalization. The global
economic and cultural forces have
made the ‘relations’ or affairs more
global than international. While many
scholars call this is a uni-polar world,
some remained doubtful to call so.
since early 1990s, US had initiated to
spread their primary ambition as to
expand their supremacy, power and
hegemony. This US hegemony had two
advantages at the early era in both
military and economic dominance as
well as there was no other great power
emerged to challenge the U.S.after
Soviet Union’s collapse.However, the
developments occurred in the
international agenda during the past
few years, we can see a certain
changes in the international system
from the uni-polar system. The next
answer is to support this
transformation of the international
system to a multi-polar one.

Grace Ayodeji 3mo

BA in History and strategic studies (in view…

Very helpful, thank you

Like · Reply

Moyinoluwa Odumosu 10mo

Student at University of ilorin

Thank you so much!

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Haliru usman 1y
Attended Fedral univercity brinin kebbi

Good

Like · Reply

Abdullahi Mukhtar Bako 2y

--

What a wonderful article, thank you so

much.

Like · Reply

Omobobola Akande 2y
Freelance Brand & UI/UX Designer | Bridgin…

Informative! Thanks for sharing.

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