Thread by @ProfPaulPoast

What is a “country”?

Is it the same as a "nation" or a "state"?

Does 🇹🇼 count as one?

[THREAD]

Frank @zappa gave us about as good a definition as any (we'll come back to this at the end): 🍺+✈️

More generally, “country” is a conversational term used to describe a host of political-territorial entities on 🌏

For example, consider the @CIA World Factbook. It lists 260 "locations" around the globe as "countries".

When you click on it, notice that a "location" like America Samoa is listed. But America Samoa is a territory of the US

It’s for this reason that IR scholars tend not to use the word. More common is the word “nation” (you know, since it’s “inter-nation-al Relations”).
amazon.com/Politics-Among…

But even that word is not used as much because it’s really referencing the people within a political entity, not the entity itself.

What about the United Nations (@UN)? I mean “Nations” is in the name and the Charter, right?

un.org/en/about-us/un…

Sure. But when you turn to the part on membership, you see that it is comprised of member "states".

But they couldn’t call it the United States because, well, that name was already taken.
archives.gov/founding-docs/…

What's a "state"?

Scholars tend to go back to the definition offered by Max Weber

He famously defined a state as an entity "that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."
books.google.com/books?id=__sYj…

So the discipline is probably more accurately described "inter-state relations", rather than "inter-national relations" (though either conception of the discipline will be incomplete)

But here’s the thing, being a “state” (or a “nation”) is not really the key thing for IR scholars.

Instead, we want to know if you’re “sovereign”

One key marker of sovereignty is control WITHIN a territory (go back to Weber's definition above).

We call this INTERNAL sovereignty.

But that’s not the only determinant of being a sovereign state. In many ways, it’s not even the most important.

More important is “recognition” by other states: i.e. joining the club of sovereign states is by “invitation only”.

We call this EXTERNAL sovereignty.

Scholars have long "recognized" external recognition as a core criteria for states to be sovereign, as Stephen Krasner discussed in his @PrincetonUPress book,

press.princeton.edu/books/paperbac…

How important is the practice of recognition for international politics? Consider what Hedley Bull wrote about it in his text "The Anarchical Society"
cup.columbia.edu/book/the-anarc…

He identifies the practice of recognition as one of the key "goals" that makes the international "system" an international "society"

Building from Bull, Mikulas Fabry points out how recognition has been foundational to "international society" for the past 200+ years
oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/a…

With so many member states in the international system, it's likely difficult to get EVERYONE to recognize you as sovereign, right?

Right!

That's why the decisions of the Great Powers -- such as the UN Security Council permanent 5 members today (🇺🇸🇨🇳🇬🇧🇷🇺🇫🇷) -- are so important.

@BridgetCoggins explored the determinants of when Great Powers will recognize new states in her excellent @CambridgeUP book,

cambridge.org/core/books/pow…

...where one can also read the @IntOrgJournal version of the argument

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

There are a host of factors that determine when a great power will recognize.

Let's just say that the decision is not always based on the "merits" of the particular case -- "politics" is involved (see this great @InternatlTheory symposium)
cambridge.org/core/journals/…

If a major power decides to recognize, @Elsymgc points out that "language is everything". It's important to pay attention to "How" they do it: what do they say? Do they sound reluctant?

https://twitter.com/DuckofMinerva/status/1091779035208638464

Even then, a major power may decide to "de facto" recognize, without actually making it legal (as @joeyhuddleston discussed in @JPR)

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

Here's the thing: even if a major power LEGALLY recognizes the external sovereignty of a state, it may not recognize the "government" of that state. M.J. Peterson has written a lot about this topic (see, for example, her @AJIL_Unbound piece)

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Given the politics of recognition, you can imagine that there are a number of states that probably should be recognized but aren't. You would be correct. See @NinaCaspersen...
amazon.com/Unrecognized-S…

...& @JamesKerLindsay

amazon.com/Foreign-Policy…

What does all of this mean in practice? Let's consider an example, say 🇹🇼

It’s definitely a political entity. And it absolutely has internal sovereignty. As @MOFA_Taiwan Joseph Wu said: “we have a president, we have a parliament, We issue visas, we issue passports, We have a military and a currency...Taiwan exists by itself.”

theatlantic.com/international/…

But it lacks external sovereignty. Only a little more than a dozen UN members recognize 🇹🇼

Moreover, 🇺🇸, a key supporter of 🇹🇼, is very ambiguous about its views (as @RichardBushIII explains).
brookings.edu/articles/u-s-p…

So this lack of external recognition means 🇹🇼 is not a fully sovereign state.

Is it fair to label it a “country”, as @JohnCena did in a recent interview (and then subsequently apologized for -- though note that he didn't say why he was apologizing)?

https://twitter.com/JoeXu/status/1396910262494457856

Sure.

For one thing, “country” is an ambiguous phrase.

For another, no doubt that Taiwan passes the "Zappa Test."

So country is a conversational way to refer to the political entities on earth.

All fully sovereign states are countries, but not all "countries" are fully sovereign states.

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