The Treaty-Making Revolution of the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This article presents a descriptive statistical analysis of patterns of treaty-making from 1650 to 1914, suggesting that there was a revolution in the practice during the nineteenth century. At the most general level, it charts the dramatic increase in treaty-making activity, showing that this began no earlier than the final decade of the eighteenth century, and highlighting in particular the steady increase from roughly the 1830s to the 1860s as a key phase in the transformation of treaty-making practice. The article then examines variations in the activity of different types of treaty-maker. First, it looks at the treaty-making profiles of selected great powers, and confirms that in general great powers were more active than lesser powers, but also shows that some great powers found it hard to shake off their peripheral status within the network of treaties. Secondly, the article examines the participation of European, American, Asian, African and Middle Eastern States, and shows that while Europeans were clear leaders in the practice, we cannot treat the increase in treaty-making activity as a purely intra-European, or even Euro-American phenomenon. Finally, the article compares bilateral and multilateral treaty-making, arguing that while the latter does show some increase, particularly over the second half of the nineteenth century, it was actually decreasing as a proportion of total treaty-making activity, which raises questions about why multilateralism did not become more commonplace.