CONSTRUCTION OF TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY IN NON-WESTERN, NON-COLONIZED
COUNTRIES: A STATE SOCIALIZATION MODEL
Turan Kayaoglu,
University of Washington, Seattle
This
is a working paper, comments are appreciated.
A paper prepared for presentation at
the 43rd
Annual Meeting of the International
Studies Association
24-27 March 2002
New Orleans Marriott Hotel
New Orleans, Louisiana
Introduction
Territorial sovereign states[1] occupy
current political space. Territorial sovereignty is not a timeless
characteristic of the state system but is unique to the modern state system.
Although territorial sovereign states emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, it is now unimaginable to find a piece of territory over which at
least one political entity does not claim absolute territorial jurisdiction.
This paper explains why different modes of political units converged into the territorial
sovereign form by focusing on the emergence of territorial sovereign states in
non-Western, non-colonized countries. The argument in a nutshell is that the
sovereign state system socialized non-Western, non-colonized countries into
territorial sovereign states. Due to the path dependent nature of sovereignty,
the transformation of a few countries into territorial sovereign form, given that
these states were densely interacting with non-territorial units, was enough to
transform the whole state system into one of territorial sovereign states.
State building processes in non-Western,
non-colonized countries offer considerable leverage to discern the path
dependent character of the sovereign territorial state system. Studying the
state building process in Europe may clarify certain aspects of this process
(Spruyt, 1994). The variation within European cases will, however, be limited
due to the high interacting density among European countries at any point of
time. The simultaneous evolution of European states does not give enough to
leverage to show path dependence in the sovereign state system. Comparison of
the Western countries with the non-Western countries offers a large variation providing
stronger causal leverage to uncover the nature of the state system. State
building processes in non-Western, non-colonized countries can unravel the
puzzle as to how territorial sovereign states come to dominate the territorial
space.
There are two independent variables in this study:
the emergence of territorial sovereign states in Europe and the interaction of these
territorial, sovereign states with non-Western, non-colonized countries. These
independent variables are exogenous to my argument. This study does not answer
how territorial sovereign states emerged in Europe in the first place or why
the density of interaction between European and non-European, non-colonized
countries increased. Specifically, this study examines the consequences of
interaction between territorial states and states that do not have institutions
of territorial statehood.
I argue that the independent variables caused the dependent
variable via an intervening variable: sojourners and protégés. Sojourners are
the citizens of territorial countries who work and reside in non-Western,
non-colonized countries under the rules of extraterritoriality.
Extraterritoriality is a form of jurisdiction where home states continue to
claim jurisdiction over the activities of their citizens are immune from local,
host country’s jurisdiction. Protégés are the local people who acquire
extraterritorial protection from one of the extraterritorial countries.
The causal chain of this paper, I call it
territorial socialization, is as follows: The emergence of territorial states
in Europe and the interaction between territorial and non-territorial political
countries created jurisdictional ambiguities in non-Western, non-colonized
countries. These jurisdictional ambiguities led foreigners to move to these
countries as sojourners and led natives to acquire protection from the territorial
states as protégés. Both home states and host states[2]
developed policies to control the activities of sojourners and protégés. The
policies that conflicted with territorial sovereignty proved inefficient or
costly. Territorial institutions in non-Western, non-colonized countries emerged
as a by-product of policies rulers developed to control the activities of
sojourners and protégés.
The territorial socialization model provides only
a partial picture of the complex state building process in the non-Western,
non-colonized countries. A comprehensive picture would incorporate the role of
nationalism (Anderson 1991) and the diffusion of capitalism (Wallerstein 1974).
Understanding the process of territorial socialization, however, is crucial to comprehend
the nature of the state system, state building processes in the non-Western,
non-colonized countries, and future of territorial sovereignty.
This paper has two parts. The theoretical part
includes a model of state socialization based on an institutionalist
perspective, a path dependent approach to sovereignty based on coordination
effects, and theoretical arguments for the consequences of the lack of
coordination between different systems of rule. The empirical part examines the
three way relationship among the two territorial, sovereign states (United
States and the United Kingdom), two non-Western, non-Colonized countries
(Ottoman State and China), and sojourners and protégés living in the Ottoman
State and China.
A State
socialization model
Political scientists have examined different aspects
of state socialization. Waltz cites competition and socialization as two
mechanisms in international system that produce like-units. Waltz (p.128) writes:
“The close juxtaposition of states promotes their sameness through the
disadvantages that arise from a failure to conform to successful practices.”
Waltz argument about socialization is about state behavior. He (p.128) also
captures the role of interaction in socialization process: “The socialization
of nonconformist states proceeds at a pace that is set by the extent of their
involvement in the system.” Despite Waltz’s positive remarks about the
importance of socialization, neo-realists have analyzed the role of competition
but they have not studied what kind of role socialization plays in international
politics. This neglect of state socialization in neo-realist analysis supports
Ruggie (1998) who argues that Waltz’s usage of socialization is confusing and that
there is no meaningful way to infer any role for state socialization from
neo-realism.
Constructivists have studied state socialization
extensively. Wendt (1999) develops a socialization model. He bases his
socialization model on the assumption that “states are people too.” (p. 215) This assumption, combined with his
state-centric perspective, helps Wendt apply the insights of social interaction
theory to the realm of international politics (Montgomery 2001). Although my
argument about state socialization shares certain similarities with both Waltz
and Wendt, my emphasis on the ‘institutional’ aspect of state socialization
makes it different from Waltz’s behavioral and Wendt’s identity based
arguments.
State socialization[3] presumes the
existence of a core group of states that coordinate their actions and
peripheral states who fail to coordinate their actions with core states. I
define state socialization as a process through which state rulers of
peripheral countries establish domestic institutions that are similar to those
of the core states. States do not have identities, but they do have domestic
institutions to carry out state functions. Since states are corporate actors,
new domestic institutions emerge in the socialization process.
States are territorial sovereign states if they
have domestic institutions to demarcate state authority territorially. Two
institutions are necessary to demarcate state authority territorially: borders
and clear rules about citizenship. European states by the nineteenth century
had clear boundaries and clear rules about citizenship. Territorial
socialization is the process of establishing domestic institutions that
demarcate state authority territorially. Territorial socialization of the
non-Western, non-colonized countries is a process through which these countries
established clear borders and new citizenship laws that are similar to those of
Western countries.
Territorial socialization takes the form of
establishing domestic institutions which define the limits of state rulers. The
question becomes what made rulers of non-Western, non-colonized countries establish
domestic institutions to demarcate their authority territorially. Establishment
of territorial institutions in these countries came as a by product of state
rulers’ rational response to the urgent domestic problems extraterritoriality
and the protégé regime created. As state rulers developed policies to solve the
every day problems that extraterritoriality and the protégé regime created they
incrementally institutionalized the modern (territorial) forms of citizenship.
This paper traces the process of the emergence of territorial citizenship in
the Ottoman State and China to answer why these countries adopted this
particular form of citizenship.
Coordination
effects, increasing returns, and sovereignty
Territorial sovereignty involves coordination effects,
because the utility of being a territorial sovereign state depends on the
choices of other states. The idea behind a coordination effect is that the more
agents become a part of a certain institutional structure the more useful that
institution becomes for each member (Arthur, 1994; Katz and Shapiro 1985). A
technological example illustrates the increasing returns of coordination
effects. The more members that Napster has, the more useful it becomes. The
more it is useful, the more members it gets. Thus, a file exchange program with
100 users will be less attractive than a file exchange program with a million
members, even if the former has better technological features.
Citizenship laws illustrate the coordination
effects of territorial sovereignty. State rulers have incentives to control the
movements of people. State rulers establish borders and citizenship laws to
control people’s entrance and departure from states’ territories. The utility
of these policies depends on the policies that other states develop to control
their populations. A single territorial sovereign state’s ability to control
its population will be limited if other states do not develop similar policies
for population control. As the number of states that accept territorial citizenship
laws increases, control of its population will be easier for each state. Thus
citizenship laws based on territoriality will yield increasing returns as more
states adopt similar policies. The idea of coordination effects helps us to
understand the increasing returns of territorial sovereignty.
The division of labor between comparative politics
and international relations blurs the varied roles that state collectivity
performs in the state building process. Comparative historical researchers (for
example, Skocpol and Tilly) limit the role of the state system to an exogenous
structure which creates security externalities for the states. Poggi and Spruyt
are two exceptions in comparative politics who mention the positive role that
the collectivity of sovereign states contributes to state building.
Poggi (1990, 23) argues that state sovereignty
produces "a most significant consequence: the political environment in
which states exists is by necessity one which it shares with a plurality of
states similar in nature to itself." In other words territorial sovereign
states create a political environment which produces territorial states. He
does not, however, develop the ways in which territorial states produce
territorial states.
Spruyt uses mutual empowerment as one of the
reasons to explain the eventual victory of sovereign states. How mutual
empowerment works in Spruyt’s argument is confusing. He uses mutual empowerment
in two different ways. First, mutual empowerment of territorial states is a
result of the domestic stability which makes a sovereign state a favorable
trading partner (Spruyt 1994, 167-169). Second, mutual empowerment of
territorial states is a result of their external similarities. City states were
compatible with a sovereign state system because city states acknowledged
territorial demarcations and city states externally behaved no differently than
territorial sovereign states. Thus, territorial states empowered city states
because of their external similarity to them (175-177). There are two problems
with Spruyt’s argument about mutual empowerment. First, it is not clear how
these two different meanings of mutual empowerment work together. Second,
Spruyt does not clarify the mechanisms of mutual empowerment.
Consequences
of a lack of coordination
Ruggie (1993) describes four different
relationships between a system of rule and territoriality. First, a system of
rule can be not territorial, such as where kinship determines the limit of
authority. Second, a system of rule can be territorial but not fixed, such as
tribal authority. Third, a system of rule can be based on a fixed territory
without entailing mutual exclusion, such as the feudal system. Fourth, a system
of rule can be based on mutually exclusive fixed territories. What happens when
two systems of rule –one based on mutually exclusive fixed territories
(territorial states) and one based on fixed territory without mutual exclusion
(non-territorial states)-- exist together? Specifically, what happens if a
group of core states establishes institutions of territorial sovereignty and
certain peripheral states fail to do so? I argue that the coexistence of
territorial and non-territorial states in an international system is unstable
because of the jurisdictional loopholes it creates. Jurisdictional loopholes
prevent countries from effectively controlling their populations.
While territorial states were able to control the
activities of people within their boundaries, non-territorial states did not
have appropriate domestic institutions to control the activities of the people
in their realm. These created incentives for people to move their activities to
non-territorial states. This incentive was higher for the people with illegal
intentions because of high state control in their home counties. The existence
of extraterritoriality, the immunity of foreigners from local jurisdiction in
non-Western, non-colonized countries, expedited this movement. Neither
territorial home states, nor non-territorial host states were able to control
the activities of western sojourners in non-Western, non-colonized countries.
Not only foreign sojourners, but also certain natives were able to exploit
jurisdictional ambiguities created by the existence of extraterritoriality and
the simultaneous existence of territorial and non-territorial states. Certain
natives (protégés)—legally or illegally—continued to live in their native
counties after obtaining a title of protection or citizenship from Western
territorial states. Protégés manipulated their status by acting as native or
foreigner depending on the particular situation. Non-territorial states could
not coerce or tax the sojourners and protégés. The rulers of non-Western,
non-colonized countries developed policies to control the sojourners and
protégés. The history of the nineteenth century peripheral states is the
history of state rulers developing policies to solve the problems that these
ambiguities and the people who exploited these ambiguities created. The rulers
of non-Western, non-colonized countries, however, could not develop their
policies independently of other states.
This argument explains the motivations of the
rulers of non-Western, non-colonized countries to develop institutions that
controlled the activities of sojourners and protégés but it does not explain
why non-Western, non-colonized states established institutions that were
similar to European territorial states. The path dependent aspect of the
sovereign state system explains this puzzle. The institutions that the European
territorial states developed to control their populations limited the policy
options of non-European, non-colonized countries. This is because the success
of any policy to control one’s population depends on the policies other states
adopt to control their populations. This dependence explains how the emergence
of sovereign territorial states led the entire system of a path where
eventually every state adopted the same territorial standards.
Extraterritoriality,
sojourners, and protégés
This part provides empirical support to the
theoretical part. After showing how the lack of modern citizenship laws and
jurisdictional ambiguities created sanctuaries for sojourners and protégés in
the Ottoman State and China, I examine how the policies that the United States
and United Kingdom developed to control the activities of their citizens and
protégés in the Ottoman State and China failed. Lastly, I examine the policies
and institutions the Ottoman State and China developed to solve the problems
uncontrolled sojourners and protégés created.
Before territorial socialization, the system of
rule of the non-western, non-colonized countries was territorial without any claim
of an exclusive jurisdiction. In all non-Western, non-colonized countries,
rulers let the foreign merchant communities govern themselves[4].
Before the advent of territorial, sovereign states practices similar to
extraterritoriality were prevalent in Europe. Foreign merchant communities were
immune from local jurisdiction (Liu, 1925). Mercantile companies enjoyed jurisdictional
power (Thomson, 1994). After state rulers abolished the mercantile companies[5],
consular courts assumed jurisdiction over the citizens of home countries, and
thus, the immunity of foreigners from local jurisdiction in the non-Western,
non-colonized countries continued (Platt, 1971). Unequal treaties did not
introduce extraterritoriality, but codified extraterritorial practices in
bilateral treaties[6]. Although practices of extraterritoriality
varied across time and space, under extraterritoriality local courts had no
jurisdiction over cases between foreigners of the same nationality. A consular
court was to deal with these cases. Mixed cases between foreigners of different
nationalities and between foreigners and natives were much more complicated. Two
practices were prevalent. Local courts assumed jurisdiction over the criminal
cases. Second, regardless of the nature of the crime, the defendant’s
nationality determined the court to apply.
Consequences
of the lack of control over sojourners and protégés
The protégé system existed in the Ottoman Empire
simultaneously with the empire’s interaction with European countries. Treaties
between the Ottoman state and European states extended capitulation privileges
to the non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman state who were employed as
interpreters in the foreign embassies in Istanbul. This limited institution
expanded as non-Muslim ottoman merchants bought these protections to enjoy the
economic and judicial privileges of the European merchants. Similarly, in China
foreigners were able to extended their privileges to the natives due to the
‘Midas touch’ effect of extraterritoriality.
Three issues make the calculations of the
population of sojourners and protégés difficult in the Ottoman State. First, the
Ottoman State did not develop a reliable census system until the middle of the
nineteenth century. Second, the ambiguous status of protégés makes it difficult
to determine their exact nationality. Third, many censuses exclude any category
for foreigners. One of the most reliable figures came form the 1885 census. The
1885 census shows that the total population of Istanbul was 873, 565 and the
total number of foreigners was 129, 343. (Shaw, 2000) According to an Ottoman
historian, a vast majority of the people who are listed as foreigners were
protégés (Rosenthal, p.370). The figures indicate that the Ottoman authorities
were unable to exert any kind of jurisdiction over the 14.8 percent of the
people who resided in Istanbul. Ottoman authorities could not arrest any
foreign suspect without the permission of the respective consular authority.
In 1859 there were about 4,500 Greek citizens in
the Ottoman port city Izmir, more than in Piraeus, the port of the Greek
capital. (Clogg, 196) Richard Clogg’s account of Greek-Ottoman relations in the
years following Greek independence describes a massive flow of Greek citizens
from Greece to the Ottoman State. Even though during the same period Ottoman
authorities expelled many Greeks from official positions (Ortayli, 1994), the extraterritorial
privileges that Greeks had in the Ottoman State made it attractive for Greeks.
For Ottoman authorities it turned out to be impossible to distinguish three
groups of Greeks: citizens of Greece, Greek protégés of various countries, and
Greek subjects of the Ottoman State. After the Greco-Turkish war of 1897 many
people moved back to Ottoman state as Greek citizens, and the Ottoman
authorities wanted some of these people to denounce their Greek citizenship.
Britain consulate was committed to give protection to those who denounced their
Greek citizenship.
The existence of a large group of foreigners
without a clear jurisdiction does not necessarily prove that they destabilized
the workings of the Ottoman government. My evidence here will be anecdotal but
I can claim to give enough support to my argument that these sojourners and
protégés were able to create obstacles to the everyday workings of the Ottoman
government.
British subjects included people from the British
colonies. One group of British citizens, Ionians, became a major trouble. The British
Under-Secretary of State describes how Ionians became uncontrollable in the
Ottoman State: “They defied both the Turkish and British authorities—committing
murders, robberies, and every manner of crime with impunity. They claimed
protection from British consuls, and exemption from the Turkish laws, under the
capitulations, and our Consuls were quite unable to deal with them” (quoted in
Platt, 140). In the second half of the nineteenth century, the protégé regime
became so intricate that it became very difficult for a British consulate to
distinguish genuine and false claims of British citizenship.
The consular establishments in China were both
able to naturalize Chinese subjects and give title of protections to them. Due
to various reasons, both on the part of the consular establishment (increasing
their states’ influence, corruption, and religious reasons) and Chinese
subjects (evading local control, religious discrimination, unwilling to pay higher
taxes) the number of protégés increased. As an interesting case, the
jurisdictional statutes of the Hong-Kong born Chinese became another major
issue between the British Foreign Office and the Chinese government. The
Chinese government claimed absolute jurisdiction over Hong-Kong born Chinese
whom British government committed to protect. Eventually, in 1903, the British
agreed that Chinese nationality will be the master nationality for Hong-Kong
born Chinese and the Chinese government will have jurisdiction over them when
they are in China. (Coates, 381)
Extraterritoriality protected sojourners and
protégés from local control in China. Activities including prostitution, opium
trafficking, and providing weapons to rebels illustrate the extent of the uncontrollable
activities of sojourners and protégés in China. Editorial comment of the American Journal of International Law
(1907, 477-78) describes how jurisdictional ambiguities made it impossible to
prevent prostitution and gambling in the international settlement in Shanghai.
Extraterritorial privileges and the uncertain legal status of foreigners made
Shanghai “the most lucrative and enduring market for American and European
prostitutes” (Scully 1998 p. 857-858).
Due to the reputation of the ‘American girl,’ white women had an
incentive to falsely claim US citizenship. As the number of prostitute
increased, the home states and host states developed policies to prevent
prostitution. By the turn of the twentieth century, eighteen brothels were
operating in Peking alone. (Scully 1998 p. 868) According to an article
published in The China Critic in
1937, China hosted 349, 744 women, 25,000 of whom were believed to be
prostitutes (quoted in Wakeman 1988, p.420).
In the first half of the twentieth century, suppression
of opium trafficking became a major international issue. Supported by the
United States, the League of Nations initiated meetings which resulted in
conventions demanding the cooperation
of states to suppress opium trafficking. The jurisdictional loopholes
extraterritoriality created made Shanghai the center of the opium cartels. One
of the most influential drug cartels was the Green Gang. The Green Gang
selected Shanghai as its center because they could bribe the consuls of
countries enjoying extraterritoriality to make themselves immune from
jurisdiction. Martin (1996 p. 34-35) describes the situation: “In the early
1920s the Portuguese, Spanish and Chilean consuls general enjoyed a lucrative
business by selling the rights of citizenship of their respective countries to
a large number of local Shanghai gangsters. These gangsters included Du
Yuesheng, who enjoyed Portuguese citizenship, and the Chaozhou narcotics
‘king,’ Ye Qinghe, who claimed to be a Chilean protégé.”
Home
state policies to control sojourners and protégés
This part elaborates on the United States’ and
United Kingdom’s response to the increasing uncontrollable activities of their
citizens in the Ottoman State and China. The United States and the United
Kingdom sought to control the activities of their citizens because of three
reasons. First the illicit activities of their citizens were endangering the
activities of their citizens in the United States and China. Missionaries, for
example, lobbied for increasing home state control over white prostitutes
because the image of the ‘American girl’ was threatening the image of the American
girl they publicized. Second, the uncontrollable activities of the sojourners
and protégés had the potential to destabilize home state relations with the Ottoman
State and China. Both the Ottoman State and China frequently demanded from the
United States and the United Kingdom to control the activities of their
sojourners and protégés. Third, the illegal activities of sojourners and
protégés were making it difficult for the United States and the United Kingdom
government to prevent crimes within own their states. The best example for this
is the United States’ involvement to end the opium trade in China. The remaning
part of this section illustrates home state policies by elaborating on three
issues: the British government’s decision to open Supreme Court of
Constantinople; the United State’s decision to open the US District Court for
China and its war against American prostitution in China; the United State’s
policies to suppress opium trade in Shanghai.
The British government increased its presence in
the Ottoman State to control the activities of these people as the number of
its sojourners and protégés increased. British consulates established
full-scale police stations and prisons. Furthermore, the British government
withdrew its protection from protégés such as Ionians. Although these
strategies reduced the number of British protégés, its effect in bringing order
among British sojourners and protégés was limited. British sojourners and
protégés who lived far from the British consulates continued to evade
jurisdiction. Furthermore, the high level of corruption prevented the effective
control of host states to impose the regulations. (Platt, pp. 141-163). Furthermore,
ex-British protégés were acquiring protections from other countries to avoid
the Ottoman and British jurisdiction. After these failures, the British
government initiated a reform program to overhaul its consular jurisdiction in
the Ottoman State. The first part of this reform was to establish a Supreme
Consular Court at Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1857. The British government
appointed Edmund Hornby as the first Judge of the Supreme Consular Court at
Constantinople to bring order to the administration of extraterritorial
jurisdiction which had, as Hornby said, ‘gone out of hand.’ (Platt, p.155)
Despite these efforts, as late as in 1871, the British Ambassador was
complaining to the British Foreign Office about evil effects of protégés system
and difficulty to control them (Platt p. 145).
Initially, the United States and the United
Kingdom preferred to increase their presence in China to control the activities
of sojourners and protégés. For example, after ignoring the prostitution
problem in China either by denying recognition to citizenship claims on moral
grounds or by refusing to deal with prostitution related cases (Scully 1998)
throughout the nineteenth century, the United States government took
initiatives to solve the problem. As
the complaints of the missionaries and the Chinese government about
prostitution increased, the United States government increased the staff of the
consular courts, opened new courts, trained consular personnel, and formalized
the rules of consular jurisdiction. Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, William
Howard Taft, and Edwin Denby, designers of the US District Court for China,
were convinced that the uncontrollable situation of the sojourners and protégés
was undermining U.S.-China relations and that tighter control over them was
necessary to preserve internal order in China. (Scully 2001 p.7) The
inauguration of the US District Court for China represented the climax of the
United States’ efforts to bring order to the American sojourners and protégés.
Lebbeus Wilfey was the first Judge of the US
District Court for China. Wilfey went to Shanghai in 1906 with explicit
directions to control “vagabonds, brothel inmates, casino owners, confidence
men, overzealous missionaries, buccaneering legal sharks and pretenders of U.S
citizenship” (Scully, 2001, p.7) The first Clerk of the Court, Frank Hinckey
declared to Shanghai Americans that
“the United States Court for China was a court for, a vehicle through,
which the American government could assist its Chinese counterpart in
performing the essential tasks of law and order.” ( Scully 2001, p.7) In
addition to the costs of establishing a full scale court, police stations,
prisons, the US District Court turned out to be inefficient in bringing order.
The prostitution problem illustrates the inefficiencies that designers of the
Court could hardly have anticipated. Wilfey started a major campaign to prevent
the ‘American girl’ problem. However, two problems hindered the solution. Many
white women were claiming to have American citizenship, and due to lack of
proper documentation, American authorities could not easily distinguish genuine
claims from false claims. Second, as Wilfey increased his attack on American
prostitutes, these prostitutes did not stop practicing prostitution but rather
acquired citizenship of other states which made them immune from the
jurisdiction of the US District Court for China.
In the 1930’s, the United States and the League of
Nations targeted Shanghai’s drug cartels.
Like the war against prostitution, the war against drug cartels failed.
As the United States and international organization pressured the drug cartels,
they acquired the nationalities of other countries and protection from French
consuls which allowed them to continue drug trafficking (Martin 1996). An
American journalist, Sues, who observed the war against drugs gave a vivid
account of the relations between drug cartels and consuls of different
countries. His experience in Shanghai convinced Sues (93) that as long as
extraterritoriality continued, opium trafficking in and from China could not be
prevented.[7]
Host
state policies to control sojourners and protégés
The presence of large numbers of sojourners and
protégés undermined state control in the Ottoman State and China. In this part,
I examine the policies that the Ottoman State and China developed to control
the activities of sojourners and protégés. Wakeman (1995) argues that Chinese
leaders perceived that extraterritoriality made Shanghai the top criminal city
in terms of gambling, prostitution, and the opium trade. Shanghai’s Chinese
police department complained that extraterritoriality made it impossible to
arrest criminals and bring order to the city. Ottoman statesmen frequently
complained about extraterritoriality and protégé regimes and perceived them as
one of the biggest obstacles to the reform movements in the Empire.
The initial strategy of the Ottoman rulers was to
put pressure on the consulates to limit the number of protections a consulate
could issue. The Sublime Porte gave a note to foreign embassies in Istanbul in
1852 indicating that it would not recognize any person as a protégé unless he
worked for the embassy. Another
regulation to determine the number of Ottoman subjects working in the embassies
defines the object of regulation as “to put an end to a crowd of abuses that
had crept in a long time ago.” This strategy proved inefficient. First,
although the United Kingdom and France decide to cooperate with the Ottoman
authorities, Russia and Greece defected as they increased the number of
protégés to expand their control in the Ottoman State. Second, even when rulers
of host states decided to limit the number of protégés, the high level of
corruption in the consulates prevented any kind of real improvement. Third, as
it came difficult to get the titles of protection, Ottoman subjects sought to
acquire naturalization and became ‘real’ citizens of the host countries even
they continued to reside in the Ottoman State. Fourth, since protégé status was
hereditary, limiting the number of the titles of protection a consulate could
issue would limit but not eliminate the problem. An Ottoman memorandum dated 1869 indicates that despite counter
measures, the number of protégés was still increasing. (Sousa, p.104)
After the failures of Ottoman policies to limit
the number of titles of protection that a consulate could issue, the Ottoman
state enacted a strict nationality law in 1869. The law required the permission
of the Ottoman government for expatriation of its “subjects on the condition
that the applicant should stipulate not to return or in case he should regard
himself as an Ottoman subject.” (Sousa 1933, p.106-7) The introduction of the
1869 nationality law refers to ‘some segments of non-Muslim subjects of the
Empire’ who illegally acquired protection and it states that the law seeks to
prevent these illegalities. The law is significant because it shows how
extraterritoriality and the protégé regime forced the Ottoman authorities to
develop policies which institutionalized territorial citizenship.
Like Ottoman authorities, Chinese authorities
developed a nationality law to prevent the abuses of extraterritoriality by
sojourners and protégés. Chutung maintains that the Chinese nationality law of 1909
was a major reform of its judicial system in with line of modern states.
Chinese authorities used the expertise of the people who knew western
nationality laws (Chutung, p.409). Before adopting the nationality law of 1909,
China tried and failed repeatedly to convince extraterritorial states to modify
their own laws to prevent ambiguities related to protégés (Chutung 1910). With
the nationality law, China aimed to minimize the abuses of extraterritoriality.
After the formal establishment of extraterritoriality in 1842, extraterritorial
states naturalized Chinese who had not been out of China. After naturalization,
these protégés continued to reside in China. These protégés enjoyed civil and
political rights like other Chinese, while using the rights and privileges that
extraterritorial treaties granted to foreigners. Chinese courts had no
jurisdiction over the protégés’ actions, both on what they have done before and
on what they may do after getting protégé status.
The Chinese nationality law also required
government permission for naturalization. The Chinese government would treat
naturalized people as Chinese unless the naturalized did report their loss of
Chinese nationality. This provision shows the Chinese government’s intention to
prevent abuses of protégé status. According to the nationality law, the Chinese
government would grant discharge for the naturalized people if they 1) are not
involved with any civil or criminal case, 2) are not bound to military duties,
3) do not have a state or communal tax to pay 4) are not holding any official
position. The law also prohibited naturalized citizens from living in interior
Chinese (Chutung 1910).
In this part, I examined the emergence of
nationality laws in the Ottoman State and China. Before institutionalizing a nationality
law, the Ottoman and Chinese rulers sought to limit the number of protections a
consulate would issue. This strategy failed. First, it required a collective
change of the practices of host states. Second, even if the home states decided
to limit the number of protégés, the consulates were open to corruption. Last,
certain states rejected a limit on the number of protégés, as they manipulated
the regime by granting protections to native people to increase their influence
in the Ottoman State (e.g. Russia and Greece) and China ( e.g. Japan).
Eventually, rather than changing the collective practices of other states, the
Ottoman State and China institutionalized a territorial understanding of
citizenship to coordinate the claims of their authority with other territorial
states. Nationality laws institutionalized territorial citizenship in the
Ottoman State and China. Process tracing of the nationality laws in these
counties indicates that rulers were motivated to control the activities of
sojourners and protégés.
Conclusion
Since this paper is part of a working project,
rather than drawing conclusions, I will point out the possible contributions of
this project. First, conceptualizing sovereignty as a path dependent
institution provides an account compatible with rational choice approaches to
analyze the expansion and persistence of sovereign statehood. John Mayer stated
that since only states are given legitimated control over territory and
population. This has weakened other forms of political organization. Mayer’s
systemic account does not specify the mechanisms by which sovereign statehood
disempowered other forms of political organization. This project argues that the
emergence of state sovereignty led the other states onto a path where they
adopted territorial institutions to more efficiently and cheaply control people
within their domain.
Second, although this project follows a path
Krasner (1988) initiated, it is a rebuttal to his later work Organized Hypocrisy, where Krasner
argues that rulers violate sovereignty to satisfy the demands of their domestic
constituencies. However, as the situation of sojourners and protégés show, it
is not easy for states even to define their constituencies. Western states
sought to control the activities of their sojourners and protégés. The
relationship between home states and sojourners and protégés was as conflictive
as the relations between host states and sojourners and protégés. Home states
and host states collaborated to control the activities of the sojourners and
protégés.
Third, the English school’s Euro-centric approach,
which argues that the European state system expanded as non-Western states
adopted the “standards of civilization,” (Bull and Watson 1984; Gong 1984)
yields a romanticized and distorted picture of the activities of sojourners and
protégés in non-Western, non-colonized countries by concealing how sojourners
and protégés abused their privileges to cover their illegal activities.
Furthermore, international society expanded as non-Western states reached the
standards of territoriality by establishing territorial domestic institutions
rather than through ‘standards of civilization.’
Fourth, collaboration between comparative politics
and international politics is necessary to draw a complete picture of the state
building processes. Without the insights of comparative politics, international
relations scholars cannot adequately specify the micro-mechanisms that
substantiate state sovereignty. Only by incorporating the findings of the
international relations, can comparative politics scholars analyze the ways in
which states’ collectivity plays in the state building processes.
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[1] Following Spruyt (1994), I use the term territorial sovereign states to denote the new form of political entity that emerged in Europe in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which claims absolute political authority over a fixed territory.
[2] Home states are the home states of sojourners (the United States, Britain etc), host states are where sojourners and protégés live (the Ottoman State, China etc)
[3] Alex Montgomery (2001) made me aware of this conceptualization of state socialization.
[4] The Ottoman State developed the most formal institutions of communal rule. Under the millet system, Ottoman jurisdiction was not only limited over the foreigners but also over the non-Muslim subjects of the empire. These non-Christian groups developed their own laws to regulate the relations within their communities (Eryilmaz 1990; Braude and Lewis 1982).
[5] The British government abolished the Levant Company in 1825 and the East Indian Company in 1833.
[6] The Nanking Treaty of 1842 codified extraterritoriality in China.
[7] Later Sues argues that "I hope that Chiang Kai-shek's power would grow, and I was sure that the next war would do away with unequal treaties, foreign concessions and extraterritoriality. Then the whole country under Chinese jurisdiction, Chiang could go to the root of the evil and court martial the Japanese and the Chinese dope manufacturers and traffickers, instead of having to mete out capital punishment to the victims of those villains." (93)