Beyond Westphalia: New Approaches to Sovereignty, Nationalism and Conflict

Though long questioned, the Westphalian framework remains central to how international security describes the world of today, with sovereignty remaining in the hands of states, emboldened by nationalist drives and bolstered by the rhetoric of security. The objective of this panel is to address the tensions and inconsistencies ever present in the Westphalian narrative in theoretical, historical, comparative or case-study forms. How does the Westphalian imaginary figure in conflicts over global economic interests, technological supremacy, parochial identities, ethnic loyalties, and religious allegiances? When and how does the Westphalian state reproduce, through the project of nation-building, the same practices of imperial assimilation and oppression it was designed to prevent? Themes such as secession, regional and global allegiances, multicultural identities, transboundary migration, indigenous rights, the territoriality of data in cyberspace, shared sovereignty, humanitarian intervention, transregional criminal networks, offshore outsourcing, and cryptographic currencies, all sit awkwardly within the ideoscapes of the Westphalian world. The papers draw on conceptual, historical, or political analyses connecting long-standing theoretical debates and comparative empirical studies linking them to tensions and conflicts that arise out of such Westphalian asymmetries.