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The Westphalian model is one of the most widespread and widely accepted reference points in the study of International Relations. Frequently cursory allusion to it is taken as sufficient to indicate the benchmark against which the significance of some recent development is to be assessed.1 It even appears almost in the form of a parody in the titles of journal articles.2 More substantively it serves as a summary of an international system of some 300 years duration beyond which the world may now be moving.3 On the other hand, a small group of historians has denied that this model has much, if anything, to do with the peace of Westphalia of 1648 from which the model derives its name. This is most strikingly put in the title of an article by one of these critics, Andreas Osiander: 'Sovereignty, International Relations and the Westphalian Myth'.4 While some have accepted the verdict of the critics and a few have openly rebutted their claims, most continue to invoke the Westphalian model and its presumed provenance in the peace of Westphalia of 1648.5 Occasionally the work of these critics is even referenced for aspects of the historical record while their broader purpose and critical intent is largely ignored.6
Part of the problem here is that exactly what is being invoked or criticised is sometimes unclear or is diverse and fluctuating. The Westphalian model sometimes stands for an account of the presumed basic units of the international system and the pattern of behaviour they exhibit with varying emphasis upon either the nature of those units or the international system which induces or compels them to act in certain ways. From this perspective the emphasis is likely to fall upon the idea of the existence of territorial states and the balance of power.7 Alternatively, it may stand for a set of normative assertions. From this perspective the emphasis is likely to fall upon the ideas of sovereignty, equality and non-intervention.8 Such normative assertions may be taken to be, or at least to have been, largely honoured, though never perfectly so. They may also be taken to have been so systematically violated that they amount to, as...