The Tribute System and the World Imagined in Early Modern East Asia

Abstract

The field of international relations has long treated the Westphalian system and states in the territorial sovereign sense as the standard or ‘normal’ in IR. The World Imagined by Hendrik Spruyt boldly challenges this habit as the biases of our times and instead brings non-European historical international systems into their rightful place in our study of international order and international relations theorising more generally. Unpacking Spruyt’s discussion of ‘the East Asian interstate society’, the article argues that an in-depth examination of what is known as a ‘tribute system’ and early modern East Asian historical orders richly illuminates the book’s arguments on the heterogeneity and diversity of order-building practices. It also argues that from a practice-oriented approach, the experience of early modern East Asia presents a compelling case that legitimation holds the key to explaining order building processes at both the domestic and international levels, with legitimation at these two levels working in tandem.