Semi-sovereignty and relationships of hierarchy

Scholars of International Relations are increasingly interested in exploring differences between the members of international society, and the various forms of international hierarchy which connect these unlike actors. There are many points of intersection between these areas of interest, and a recent turn towards historical sociology, which puts the historical development of international society front and centre, and draws particular attention to the long-nineteenth century as a pivotal period in that development. This thesis seeks to contribute to these research programmes, by explaining variations between the so-called 'semi-sovereign' polities found throughout international society at the time. These entities existed throughout the entirety of the long-nineteenth century, and could be found across a range of regions. They varied by legal type, in terms of the rights they held and lacked, and in terms of the organizations and institutions they comprised and within which they were situated. This thesis accounts for variations between these polities in terms of four 'social logics': complexes of relations, processes, practices, norms, and concepts which, taken together, represent distinct, ideal-typical styles of interaction. Drawing on 'relational' International Relations theory and approaches from historical sociology, I argue that polities manifested and embodied elements of these prior logics, in a range of different combinations and configurations. With recourse to these logics – law, management, suzerainty, and cultural differentiation – we can account for where these entities came from, why they had the characteristics they did, and why they varied from one another, as well as from their fully-sovereign and wholly non-sovereign counterparts.