The State and War

Abstract

In the seventeenth century the idea of sovereignty, or at least notions approximating that idea, when applied beyond territorial boundaries was a way of ameliorating relations among distinct entities which were bound to collide and clash with each other in the course of their interactions. However, in the eighteenth century concerns arose that the construction and consolidation of a system of independent sovereignties was itself a cause of war. For Rousseau, the origins of war lay not with human nature but with the formation and necessary replication of the state form. Rousseau elaborated on this concern in a noted fragment later named ‘The State of War’: ‘From the first formed society the formation of all the others necessarily follows. These must either become part of the first or unite to resist it; they must imitate it or be swallowed up by it. Thus the whole face of the earth is changed’ (Rousseau, 1987a, p.238).¹ In Rousseau’s account, the state of nature that exists among states is qualitatively different from the state of nature among individuals. While before the creation of the state there were ‘incidental quarrels’ and occasional murders, such collisions in no way matched the scale and intensity of the organised violence that states administered to each other (Rousseau, 1987a, p.237).