How States Systems Emerge: The Amarna System, 1700-1200 BCE

  • Date：
    Tue, Dec 10, 2024
  • Time：
    10:00-11:30
  • Location：
    Conference Room, Ito International Research Center 3F, the University of Tokyo
    MAP
  • Host：

    Security Studies Unit (SSU), Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI), The University of Tokyo

    The Historical Process of Development of the East Asian International Order: The Connection of Non-Western International Relations Theory and Area Studies ( The Project by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research)

  • Language：

    English only

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Abstract

The article begins with suggesting a tripartite taxation for the study of comparative states systems, with type one systems emerging out of culturally similar units, type two systems emerging as culturally similar units of one or more type change and standardize their unit type and type three systems emerging as culturally different systems evolve a set of practices in lieu of a common culture. Noting a tradition in IR for denying the possibility of type three systems to emerge, part two tests and falsifies this hypothesis against the emergence of the Amarna system (ca. 1700 – 2000 BCE). Culturally distinct Babylonia, the Hittite Empire and Egypt formed a fully-fledged system. The emergence of a common culture and the emergence of a system need not be sequential but can also be co-constitutive. Given that religious tolerance and warfare were both integral to system emergence, the article concludes that, while the case supports Reus-Smit’s adage that large-scale arrangements of political authority emerge in contested settings, conflictual and cooperative interaction patterns may both firm systems. At no point were the wars that frequently broke out caused by cultural difference. Cultural distinctness may be generally overrated as a source of conflict in systems.

Panelist

Speaker:  Iver Neumann (Director, Fridtjof Nansen Institute)

Discussant: Felix Kuhn (Project Assistant Professor, Japan in East Asia Program, The University of Tokyo)

Moderator: MUKOYAMA Naosuke (Associate Professor, Institute for Future Initiatives, The University of Tokyo)

Panelist Biographies