Pufendorf and Leibniz on duties of esteem in diplomatic relations

Bibliographic Data

ID12923337
AuthorsAndreas Blank (0000-0002-7470-097X, University of Klagenfurt, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume18
Issue2
Pages186-204
Publication date2021-03-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of International Political Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1755-0882 • E-ISSN: 1755-1722
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/17550882211002225
PMID35535131
OpenAlexW3139531878
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited20

The striving for self-worth is recognized as a driving force in international relations; but if self-worth is understood as a function of status in a power hierarchy, this striving often is a source of anxiety and conflict over status. The quasi-international relations within the early modern German Empire have prompted seventeenth-century natural law theorists such as Samuel Pufendorf and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to reflect about this problem. In his De statu imperii Germanici (1667), Pufendorf regards the power differences and dependencies between the Reichsstände to be an expression of the deficits of constitutional structure of the Empire-a structure that, in his view, causes internal division because it leads to distorted practices of esteem between the estates. Against Pufendorf, Leibniz argues De jure suprematus ac legationis (1671) that political actors such as the German princes who are not Electors could fulfill functions under the law of nations such as forming confederations and peace keeping. Incoherently, however, Leibniz excludes less powerful estates such as the Imperial cities and the Hanseatic cities from the ensuing duties of esteem. This shortcoming, in turn, is arguably remedied in Pufendorf's later considerations concerning duties of esteem in diplomatic relations

Archaeology · Empire · German · Hierarchy · Natural law · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

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