Description
We live in a world where the state apparently reigns supreme, both analytically and normatively. This paper focuses on its normative grounding, particularly the claim that states have moral value and relevance in their own right, rendering imperial violations of their sovereignty impermissible. The paper’s central argument is that, though this normative belief has been articulated both by liberal and realist thinkers within international theory, its consistency depends upon constructivist premises and insights. The argument unfolds in three steps. First, I demonstrate that the concept of personhood is integral to how the moral value of the state is grounded, and that international theorists from Hobbes to Carr have used it for this purpose. Second, I offer a critical perspective on this reliance on personhood by highlighting its inextricable link to the liberal conception of the human individual. Using the international thought of Emer de Vattel as a case in point, I show how his argument for the freedom and independence of states—because it was grounded in state personhood—was easily appropriated by his interlocutors to justify liberal imperialism. Finally, I propose a constructivist alternative to conceiving of the state as an irreducible whole, one that does not depend on the concept of personhood.
