By Dr. Ahmed Abrehi
The spatial scope of human interaction expanded with the development and diversification of production and exchange, gradually improving with safer means and measures of transportation. As the intensity of interaction decreases with distance from one's place of residence, the formation of societies has always been tied to settling on land—one’s homeland. Hence, cultures and civilizations differentiated themselves based on their spatial centers.
The city emerged to organize the common affairs of people in their immediate surroundings, and over time, this organization evolved into the rudimentary form of the state, which gradually subjected interaction between its own society and other societies to its regulatory controls. Just as human history has witnessed positive experiences of interaction among societies yielding fruitful outcomes, it also harbors a dark history filled with tragedies and moral horrors—most notably wars, occupation, foreign rule, and the forced settlement of strangers on ancestral lands. Since the state can extract from both private and collective resources and the output of labor, and control people’s lives within its society, competition over control of the state has become another cause of hostility and war.
The Emergence and Spread of the Nation-State
States were once mere instruments in the hands of ruling dynasties. Sovereignty, as affirmed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 following the Thirty Years' War, did not originally mean the sovereignty of the people or republican sovereignty as called for by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and later expressed through the French Revolution. Rather, the sovereign was the king or sultan, who was not subject to any higher authority in ruling the land. In his book Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes referred to the sovereign as “the supreme majesty, master in both his natural and political capacities, as they are inseparable.” However, Hobbes also introduced the concept of the legal person and attributed it to the state—an essential foundational contribution to the impersonal institutions of politics that later became a defining characteristic of the modern state.
John Locke (1632–1704) presented an idea closer to modern sovereignty: for him, sovereignty is transferred from God to the people, and then from the people to the ruler through a hierarchy of social contracts. This embodies the idea of a social contract—one also noted by Hobbes, though with a different substance. For Hobbes, the contract affirms the absolute authority of the monarch, whereas Rousseau and Locke supported contracts among individuals. Rousseau emphasized the distinction between sovereignty and government, making democracy a prerequisite for legitimacy.
The international system in its current form recognizes sovereignty based on de facto authority. That is, a state is considered sovereign if a government exercises authority over people and land and is recognized by other states. This approach allows governments that are oppressive and torture millions to remain in power and even permits changes of regimes through violent means, including military coups and terrorist attacks.
The modern nation-state, as we know it, emerged primarily in Europe in the 18th century, according to most historians, developing gradually. However, other studies trace the early beginnings of the nation-state back to the Middle Ages, linked to the cultural homogeneity of populations who spoke a common language—thus forming a "nation." For example, a sense of belonging to the English nation emerged in the 11th century during resistance to Norman occupation. Recognition of national languages among educated and official elites, alongside Latin, could be seen as a marker—or even a cause—of the birth of nations, which the nation-state would later politically represent.
Language alone may not be sufficient to define the territorial span of a nation-state; other factors are necessary. After all, many peoples who formed new states after World War II shared languages, cultures, and a sense of belonging. A state requires a society capable of breaking free from imperial control, defending its independent existence, and forming a central authority that can impose regulations for organizing economic and social life, security, and justice—difficult prerequisites still unattainable for many human geographies.
Nation-states in Europe and the Americas did not always result from powerful nationalist ideologies but rather emerged through struggles over political legitimacy, imperial crises, and perhaps weak governance systems. They also reflected the growing influence of Enlightenment ideals from the mid-18th century onward. The 1756–1763 war between France and Britain in North America financially burdened both countries and significantly influenced the American and French revolutions. In France, the public spending crisis worsened due to debt. In the U.S., economic and financial pressures from Britain were among the main causes of revolution, famously summarized in the slogan "No taxation without representation."
Many European nation-states arose from the impact of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s wars and legal code, which became a reference for political restructuring in Europe. The French Revolution abolished feudal remnants and empowered the bourgeoisie. Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and Portugal sparked wars of independence in Latin America and later Brazil.
The European nation-state was not yet the one we know today. Political equality—a cornerstone of liberalism—was not universal in the 19th century. Voting rights were limited to specific male groups, excluding women. After the French Revolution, politically active citizenship was granted only to male taxpayers aged 25 or older, excluding slaves and servants. Similarly, in the U.S., voting was limited to white males. In Britain, men without property gained voting rights only in 1918; full suffrage for women followed in 1928.
From these facts, it is clear that the nation-state concept does not necessarily refer only to post-WWII Western European states. It is unreasonable to deny the nationhood of modern states in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, or Latin America simply because they differ from today's European examples. Many opinion-makers in the East dismiss non-Western states as non-nation-states, imagining an idealized, ahistorical version of the concept.
Formation of the Current International System
As the toll of wars mounted, Europeans became convinced of the need to regulate inter-state relations in both peace and war. The Peace of Westphalia is considered the earliest foundation of the current system, establishing the principle of political sovereignty and non-intervention.
World War I transformed the international system, particularly due to U.S. military involvement in defeating Germany. President Woodrow Wilson concluded that the absence of normative standards in international relations had led to avoidable massacres. He advocated treating war as a legal violation and proposed creating an international organization to maintain peace—thus founding the League of Nations, which embraced the idea of a world without war. However, political realism in the U.S. and Europe stripped it of real power.
In January 1918, Wilson presented a 14-point plan to Congress for global peace, laying out principles for postwar negotiations. These were based on a report by 150 experts in political and social sciences, who had studied global economic and social realities, preparing 2,000 documents and 1,200 maps. Wilson called for abolishing secret treaties, reducing arms, and seriously considering the sovereignty and independence of colonized peoples, balancing these with colonial powers' claims. In doing so, he retreated from his earlier stance on the right to self-determination—perhaps fearing unrest that could undermine his peace project. Nonetheless, he proposed self-determination for persecuted minorities and avoided strong positions on full independence. He also advocated for removing trade barriers and ensuring fair trade among nations—a liberal economic approach that President Trump later abandoned a century later.
At the Versailles Conference, where the Allies negotiated peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, France and Britain ignored most of Wilson’s points, focusing instead on punishing Germany and extracting benefits. The most significant achievement of Wilson’s principles was incorporating the League of Nations into the treaty—though ironically, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify it, and the U.S. never joined the League.
Other principles included freedom of navigation, even in wartime, unless blocked by international action; Russian sovereignty and assistance; evacuation of occupied territories like Belgium; Turkish sovereignty; and the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France. Outside Europe, the situation was different, exposing persistent double standards. The report stated: “We do not envy Germany’s greatness; we wish her more,” calling for her inclusion in the new organization on equal footing with other nations—without superiority.
The League of Nations proved powerless when Germany began its military actions in late 1938, culminating in the invasion of Poland in September 1939, leading to World War II—a catastrophe of mass killings, destruction, and human rights abuses. Yet even then, Europe and the U.S. failed to establish a genuine peace system, and other world regions remained without effective mechanisms to regulate inter-state relations.
The United Nations emerged at the end of World War II and was ratified by independent states. Its charter laid the legal foundation for the international system, alongside a growing body of treaties, conventions, and widely accepted customs that formed international law. These created reference points for international political relations—though not binding in practice, for reasons we will discuss. Member states each hold one vote in the General Assembly, whose resolutions are non-binding. In contrast, power in the Security Council is unequal, and its decisions often fail to prevent war. When effective, outcomes are less due to legal authority and more to power balances and major powers’ interests, especially those with veto power.
Today, the UN has 193 member states, plus Palestine and the Vatican as observers. In 1945, there were 49 members, including Iraq and Egypt. By the end of 1946, 53 states had joined; 140 more followed. This reflects the political modernity of today’s world. Most UN members emerged from the collapse of European colonial empires—Spain, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, and Portugal—and later the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Before that, World War I had already dissolved other empires…
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