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SUMMARY:The Grand Dichotomies: Sovereignty\, the Public/ Private Divide\, 
 and Company States - Professor Jason Sharman (POLIS)
DTSTART:20170601T143000Z
DTEND:20170601T154500Z
UID:TALK72836@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:44502
DESCRIPTION:Sovereignty and the modern international system are jointly sh
 aped and constituted by two grand dichotomies: the first separates interna
 tional from domestic politics\, the second distinguishes public from priva
 te realms. While the first dichotomy has appropriately received much atten
 tion\, the second has been neglected in IR. We respond by demonstrating ho
 w the historical emergence and evolution of the public/private divide has 
 reconstituted the international system through an examination of hybrid ac
 tors like the Dutch and English East India Companies. These “company sta
 tes” exercised quintessentially sovereign prerogatives like war-making a
 nd diplomacy\, while also pioneering the institutional forms of modern pri
 vate corporations. Their rise reflected a facilitative early modern ideati
 onal context\, new geopolitical opportunities and pressures for extra-Euro
 pean expansion\, and rulers’ limited direct capacities to project power 
 over transcontinental distances. This combination of a possibilities\, opp
 ortunities\, and constraints prompted rulers to privilege company states a
 s their preferred vanguards of colonial expansion. The company states’ f
 all primarily reflected declining legitimacy associated with sharpening co
 nceptions of the public/private divide. This fatal loss of legitimacy occu
 rred despite the company states’ often spectacular military and financia
 l success. We conclude by examining how contemporary actors like Private M
 ilitary Companies challenge the public/private dichotomy\, and caution aga
 inst a teleological reading of the modern international system which sees 
 a strict separation between sovereign powers and private profit-seeking as
  an irreversible historical end-point.
LOCATION:Venue to be confirmed
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