The making of the Westphalian state-system: Social property relations, geopolitics and the myth of 1648.

The dissertation presents a theoretically controlled and historically informed inquiry into the formation and dynamics of the European system of states between the 8th and the 18th Centuries. It combines two methods of research and exposition. First, it pursues a comparative-chronological approach by elaborating and contrasting historically diverse logics of territorial and international order - exemplified with reference to the medieval, the early modern, and, partially, the modern geopolitical systems. Second, it adopts a developmental perspective by supplementing the systematic-comparative but static account of geopolitical orders with a more narrative, yet theoretically hedged, exposition of their incommensurable conflictual dynamics and expansionist drives. This processual perspective allows us to address the crucial question of the causes behind the passage from one geopolitical order to another. Contrary to conventional assumptions in the theory of international relations, the thesis is that the diversity of geopolitical systems and the reasons behind their transformations are bound up with different and changing social property relations in the domestic sphere. These social property relations govern the very identity of the constitutive actors of any geopolitical system and inform their modes of territorial order and foreign policy behaviour. Such a thesis has direct implications for a fundamental re-interpretation and re-periodisation of the origins of modern international relations, commonly associated with the Westphalian Peace settlements of 1648. By embedding the demystification of 1648's essential modernity in the wider continuum of European history, the dissertation shows to which degree early modern geopolitics remained tied to its medieval roots. The old pre-modern logic of geopolitical relations is only challenged with the advent of a new social property regime and the articulation of a new state/society complex in late 17th Century England, which starts in the 18th Century to transform the state system of the Old Regime into a modern system of sovereign states

Fatal attraction: a critique of Carl Schmitt's international political and legal theory

The ongoing Schmitt revival has extended Carl Schmitt's reach over the fields of international legal and political theory. Neo-Schmittians suggest that his international thought provides a new reading of the history of international law and order, which validates the explanatory power of his theoretical premises – the concept of the political, political decisionism, and concrete-order-thinking. Against this background, this article mounts a systematic reappraisal of Schmitt's international thought in a historical perspective. The argument is that his work requires re-contextualization as the intellectual product of an ultra-intense moment in Schmitt's friend/enemy distinction. It inscribed Hitler's ‘spatial revolution’ into a full-scale reinterpretation of Europe's geopolitical history, grounded in land appropriations, which legitimized Nazi Germany's wars of conquest. Consequently, Schmitt's elevation of the early modern nomos as the model for civilized warfare – the ‘golden age’ of international law – against which American legal universalism can be portrayed as degenerated, is conceptually and empirically flawed. Schmitt devised a politically motivated set of theoretical premises to provide a historical counter-narrative against liberal normativism, which generated defective history. The reconstruction of this history reveals the explanatory limits of his theoretical vocabulary – friend/enemy binary, sovereignty-as-exception, nomos/universalism – for past and present analytical purposes. Schmitt's defective analytics and problematic history compromise the standing of his work for purposes of international theory

Scientific background document in support of the development of a CCAMLR MPA in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica) – Version 2014

Germany intends to present the Scientific Committee the background document that provides the scientific basis for the evaluation of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Weddell Sea. Please note, that the current state of the background document presents a comprehensive yet incomplete first version concerning chapters that have to be (further) developed or revised. The contents and structure of the document reflect also its main objectives, i.e. (i) to set out the general background and context of the establishment of MPAs, (ii) to describe the boundaries of the Weddell Sea MPA Planning Area, (iii) to inform on the data retrieval process, (iv) to provide - for the first time- a comprehensive, yet succinct, general description of the Weddell Sea ecosystem to reflect the state of the science, and additionally to present the results of the various preliminary scientific analyses that were carried out so far within the framework of the MPA Weddell Sea project, and finally (v) to describe future work beyond the development of the scientific basis for the evaluation of a Weddell Sea MPA

Scientific background document in support of the development of a CCAMLR MPA in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica) - Version 2015 - Part A: General context of the establishment of MPAs and background information on the Weddell Sea MPA planning area-

Germany intends to present the Working Group on Ecosystem Monitoring and Management (WG EMM) the background document that provides the scientific basis for the evaluation of a marine protected area (MPA) in the Weddell Sea planning area. The contents and structure of the whole document reflect its main objectives, i.e. to set out the general context of the establishment of MPAs and to provide the background information on the Weddell Sea MPA (WSMPA) planning area (Part A); to inform on the data retrieval process (Part B) and to describe the results of the scientific analyses and the MPA scenario development with the directly science-based aspects of the WSMPA proposal, i.e. the objectives and the boundaries and zones of the MPA (Part C). Here, the authors intend to update WG EMM on the current state of Part A of the document that has been presented at the meeting of the CCAMLR Scientific Committee in 2014. The Scientific Committee had welcomed and endorsed the scientific background document (SC-CAMLR-XXXIII/BG/02) as a foundation reference for the Weddell Sea MPA planning (SC-CAMLR-XXXIII, § 5.21). Part A contains (i) a synopsis in terms of the establishment of MPAs (chapter 1); (ii) a description of the boundaries of the WSMPA planning area (chapter 2); (iii) a comprehensive, yet succinct, general description of the Weddell Sea ecosystem (chapter 3); (iv) and finally a guidance regarding the future work beyond the development of the scientific basis for the evaluation of a WSMPA (chapter 4). Please note that the current state of Part A of the document presents a comprehensive yet incomplete version concerning chapters that have to be (further) developed or revised