BETA

The evolution of international society

“The starting point is human beings organized into geographically separate political communities and the horizontal relations of conflict and cooperation that ensue from their joint political existences. International society can be understood as a distinctive institutional response to accommodate this dimension of political coexistence. It has assumed different forms from ancient times to the present era but it also discloses common features the most important being a relationship of both independence and interconnectedness between political communities, usually conceived as states”.
- From ‘The globalization of politics’

The following list will give some idea about the evolution of ‘international society’.

500 – 100 BC Ancient Greek or Helenic
1300- 1500 Renaissance Italy
1500 – 1650 Early modern European
1650 – 1950 Eiropean-cum-Western
1950 - Global

The Treaties of West – Phalia
The medieval European states operated on the idea of ‘Respublica Christina’, the Christianity was unifying factor and played the crucial role in relationship with other states. The protestant reformation propelled the European society in the path of modern secular sovereign states. The ‘Thirty Years War’ (1618 – 1648) and the treaties of west-phalia formally recognised the existence of separate sovereignties in one international society. Religion was no longer a legal ground for intervention or war among European states.
The treaties of west-phalia brought a new dimension to the international relations, where more emphasis was made to stop further war among European states as a result wars between European states would now on tend to be fought in the global south in the competition for colonial influence.

The twentieth century witnessed two world wars and at the end of the Second World War under the American pressure bankrupt European states gave up their colonial territories in Asia and Africa. This was the story of how Mahatma Gandhi and DS Senanayake ‘won’ the freedom struggles. Throughout 1950s and 1960s several new nation states were formed on the basis of the right of self –determination.
During early 1990s just after the collapse of USSR and end of Cold War, the human society confronted with a new phenomenon, an inclusive international society of global extent under US hegemony.

I have attempted to give a summary of the history of international society until the end of cold war. I will attempt to give more detail account of the events happened in last two decades and more relevant to Tamileelam struggle.

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