Table Of ContentThe Closure of the
International System
How Institutions Create
Political Equalities and Hierarchies
cambridge studies in international relations
Lora Anne Viola
The Closure of the International System
As global governance appears to become more inclusive and demo-
cratic, many scholars argue that international institutions act as motors
of expansion and democratization. The Closure of the International
System challenges this view, arguing that the history of the international
system is a series of institutional closures, in which institutions such as
diplomacy, international law, and international organizations make rules
to legitimate the inclusion of some actors and the exclusion of others.
While international institutions facilitate collective action and common
goods, Viola’s closure thesis demonstrates how these gains are achieved
by limiting access to rights and resources, creating a stratified system of
political equals and unequals. The coexistence of equality and hierarchy
is a constitutive feature of the international system and its institutions.
This tension is relevant today as multilateral institutions are challenged
by disaffected citizens, non-Western powers, and established great pow-
ers discontent with the distribution of political rights and authority.
lora anne viola is a professor of Political Science, researching and
teaching on international organizations, international relations theory,
and US foreign policy. She is co-editor of Historical Institutionalism and
International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2016). She is a recipi-
ent of the American Political Science Association’s Alexander L. George
Article Award, as well as research funding from the German National
Science Foundation.
Cambridge Studies in
International Relations: 153
The Closure of the International System
editors
Evelyn Goh
Christian Reus-Smit
Nicholas J. Wheeler
editorial board
Jacqueline Best, Karin Fierke, William Grimes, Yuen Foong Khong,
Andrew Kydd, Lily Ling, Andrew Linklater, Nicola Phillips, Elizabeth
Shakman Hurd, Jacquie True, Leslie Vinjamuri, Alexander Wendt
Cambridge Studies in International Relations is a joint initiative of Cam bridge
University Press and the British International Studies Association (BISA).
The series aims to publish the best new scholarship in international studies,
irrespective of subject matter, methodological approach or theoretical per-
spective. The series seeks to bring the latest theoretical work in International
Relations to bear on the most important problems and issues in global politics.
153 Lora Anne Viola
The Closure of the International System
How Institutions Create Political Equalities and Hierarchies
152 Cecelia Lynch
Wrestling with God
Ethical Precarity in Christianity and International Relations
151 Brent J. Steele
Restraint in International Politics
150 Emanuel Adler
World Ordering
A Social Theory of Cognitive Evolution
149 Brian C. Rathbun
Reasoning of State
Realists and Romantics in International Relations
148 Silviya Lechner and Mervyn Frost
Practice Theory and International Relations
Series list continues after index
The Closure of the
International System
How Institutions Create Political
Equalities and Hierarchies
Lora Anne Viola
Free University of Berlin
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www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108482257
DOI: 10.1017/9781108612562
© Lora Anne Viola 2020
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2020
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Viola, Lora Anne, author.
Title: The closure of the international system : how institutions create
political equalities and hierarchies / Lora Anne Viola.
Description: Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019053234 | ISBN 9781108482257 (hardback) | ISBN
9781108711760 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: International agencies--Decision making. | International
organization--Decision making. | Equality of states. | Sovereignty.
Classification: LCC JZ4850 .V56 2020 | DDC 341.2--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053234
ISBN 978-1-108-48225-7 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and
does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or
appropriate.
For Rosemarie and Tullio Viola
Contents
Acknowledgments page viii
1 False Promises of Universalism: The Interdependent
Logics of Equality and Inequality in the International
System 1
2 The Closure Thesis: Social Closure, Club Dynamics,
and Stratification in the International System 42
3 “The Master Institution”: Diplomacy, Practices of
Closure, and the Emergence of an International
System in Early Modern Europe 88
4 “Dwarves and Giants”: International Law,
Sovereign Equality, and the Monopolization of
Sovereign Rights 119
5 “In Larger Freedom”: International Organizations
between Sovereign Equality and Inequality 163
6 What Remains of the Promise of Equality? 220
References 237
Index 269
vii
Acknowledgments
Although it was not planned that way, I believe this is an auspicious
moment to be publishing this book. Its appearance coincides with
a lively new scholarly debate about hierarchy and inequality in
international relations, at a time when the post–Cold War enthusiasm
for the liberal international order is being questioned and with an
academic environment that seems to have permanently moved beyond
the paradigm wars that were still dominant a decade ago. Even more,
rising powers and populism are pushing questions of who belongs, and
with what rights, to the center of the international political debate.
I see this book as fundamentally addressing questions of political
rights, and I conceive of it as being in dialogue with the many excellent
studies on international hierarchy and those reconsiderations of the
liberal international order that have been published in the last few
years. The graphic on the cover of this book, an artistic depiction by
Dierk Schmidt from his research project “The division of the earth:
tableaux on the legal synopses of the Berlin Africa conference,”
is an evocative contribution to these themes because it asks how
geo-politics can be represented in images that communicate legal-
institutional exclusion as a historical product of the West’s political
and aesthetic modernity.
In writing this book, I have incurred a double debt – to those who
helped me develop its first iteration and to those who contributed to my
thinking when I decided to pick it up again. And, of course, to those
who have been by my side throughout. My sincere thanks go to my
intellectual mentors at Columbia University and the University of
Chicago, whose training launched me on the path of research, writ-
ing, and critical thinking. In particular, Alex Wendt, Duncan Snidal,
and Carles Boix each contributed immensely to my own intellectual
development, and this project has something of each of them in it.
I am especially grateful for Duncan Snidal’s friendship, support, and
incisive reasoning, which has come in so many forms and at so many
viii
Acknowledgments ix
different points in my career. Duncan continues to be my exemplar of
how to be a scholar-mentor.
This book, in many ways, bears the imprint of the University of
Chicago. My fellow graduate students in the University of Chicago
political science department, and especially the culture of PISP
(Program on International Security Policy) and PIPES (Program on
International Politics, Economics, and Security), provided an incred-
ibly stimulating intellectual environment. For their generous moral
support, companionship, and ideas in what were formative years, I
particularly thank Jonathan Caverley, Todd Hall, Anne Harrington,
Anne Holthoefer, Jenna Jordan, Mara Marin, Valerie Morkevicius,
Michelle Murray, Sebastian Rosato, Keven Ruby, John Schuessler,
Milan Svolik, and Joel Westra. I want to especially thank Mara for
her friendship.
From Chicago I moved across the ocean, and I owe a large debt
of gratitude to Michael Zürn, who invited me to Berlin in the first
place and who has opened many opportunities to me ever since. He
provided me with material and institutional support, excellent advice,
and useful feedback, and he gave me an intellectual home at the Berlin
Social Science Center (WZB). My time at the WZB was the begin-
ning of many friendships and fruitful collaborations; in particular,
I want to thank Martin Binder, Matthias Ecker-Ehrhardt, Anna
Holzscheiter, and Thomas Rixen.
My stay at the European University Institute (EIU) in Fiesole as a
Jean Monnet Fellow was critical for beginning to rethink this project.
For this opportunity, for his support, and also for many sharp and
witty conversations, I thank Philipp Genschel. I thank Brigid Laffan
for the institutional resources she provided during my stay – and
for giving me what was probably the best office I will ever sit in, an
office with a door to an enchanted garden. My time at the EUI was
so productive because of the friendships and stimulating discussions
with many people, but especially with Tobias Lenz and Konstantin
Vössing. Our conversations spurred me on in this and other projects.
Along the way I have received invaluable feedback and sup-
port from many other colleagues, many also interested in inequal-
ity and stratification, including Christopher Daase, Caroline Fehl,
Orfeo Fioretos, Katja Freistein, Alexandru Grigorescu, Eddie Keene,
Barbara Koremenos, Dirk Peters, Thomas Risse, Jonas Tallberg,
Alexander Thompson, and Bernhard Zangl. I thank Vincent Pouliot
