0:00 Most of what we learn in international relations begins in Europe. The peace of West failure, the rise of sovereign states, the balance of power, colonialism, and later the global spread of capitalism and democracy. The state, territorial, sovereign, and bounded is the central actor in nearly every theory we study. But what if international relations was born somewhere else? What if the foundational narratives of our field began not in 17th century Europe, but in the courts of the Chinese emperors, the Indian Ocean trade routes, or the caliphates of the Muslim world? What if instead of sovereign equality and anarchy, our starting point was the tribute system built on ritual hierarchy or religious commonwealth where shared norms governed interstate conduct. Hey everyone and welcome back. I'm Noah
0:45 Zerby. I'm a professor of international relations at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. And in this video, we're going to explore non-western state systems, not just as historical footnotes, but as fully developed ways of organizing political life beyond the West. Systems with their own rules, norms, and theories of order. And as we do, we'll ask, how might our understanding of the international system shift if we took these traditions as seriously as we take Westfailia? To understand international relations, we need to start with where the discipline comes from. And like many academic fields, IR has a history. That history, in the case of IR, is deeply rooted in the Western experience. Indeed, as we've considered in another video, most of the foundational
1:31 assumptions in international relations reflect the realities of Europe after the peace of West failure. A continent of competing sovereign states, each with clearly defined boundaries pursuing their own interests in an anarchical international system. This framework is what scholars often refer to as the Westfailian model. And it assumes that states are the only legitimate actors in global politics, that sovereignty is absolute, and that power is exercised through diplomacy, war, and balance. But these assumptions are not universal. They're the product of a particular place in time. In fact, when we look beyond Europe, we find radically different ways of organizing political life across borders. ways that do not
2:16 fit neatly into the categories of anarchy or sovereignty. Ways that change the idea that Westfailia is the beginning and the end of the international story. As Eric Ringmar observes, IR is not just euroentric in practice. It's euroentric in theory. It takes Europe's history and generalizes it to the rest of the world, often treating other systems as derivations or exceptions. But what happens when we start from a different point? What happens if we begin by looking at China's tribute system not as an outlier but as a coherent and functional alternative to European style diplomacy or when we examine the Islamic caliphates or the Mongol connates or the citystates of the
3:02 Swahili coast as international systems in their own right with their own rules, institutions and logics of order. Reframing international relations in this way doesn't just add more cases into the mix. It calls into question the very foundations of how we study and understand the global order. It opens space for new concepts, new theories, and perhaps even a more inclusive discipline. One that reflects not just how the West sees the world, but how the world sees itself. Now, we could spend an entire video or frankly an entire course on each of these systems. The histories, institutions, and worldviews they embody are rich and complex. What I'll offer here instead is a high-level overview. With each case, I'll try to introduce the basic logic of that
3:48 system, highlight its most important features, and contrast it with the Western model you're probably more familiar with. To be clear, these aren't meant to be definitive accounts, but rather starting points, stepping stones for thinking about international relations beyond the European experience. For over a thousand years, China organized international relations in East Asia through what's known as the tribute system, a hierarchical framework that reached its classical form during the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century CE and persisted through the mid-9th century. At its core was the idea that the Chinese emperor was the son of heaven, occupying the apex of a moral and cosmological order. Neighboring states including Korea, Vietnam, the
4:33 Ryuku Kingdom, and at times Japan would send tribute missions to the imperial court performing symbolic acts of deference known as the cowtow in exchange for recognition, prestige, trade access, and stability. The system wasn't rooted in treaties or legal sovereignty, but on ritual hierarchy and cultural exchange. It was sustained not only by China's military and political strength, but by its status as a cultural and technological hub. During the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties, China led the world in innovations like printing, paperm, the compass, and gunpowder. Confucian ideals shaped governance across the region, embedding the tribute system within broader frameworks of shared norms and values. And unlike the Westfallian system
5:19 emerging in Europe, which was defined, at least in a legal sense, by sovereign equality and diplomatic anarchy, the East Asian order was hierarchical and relational, but it also allowed for considerable autonomy among tributary states. That system fostered relative regional stability until it was undermined by western imperialism in the mid-9th century following China's defeat in the opium wars which forced the country into unequal treaties that dismantled the tribute system and imposed western diplomatic norms. But the legacy of that tribute system endures offering a powerful reminder that global order can be imagined and has been practiced in very different ways outside the west. The Indian subcontinent has long hosted some of the world's most sophisticated political and
6:06 cultural systems. From the Mayora Empire from roughly 300 to 185 B.C.E. to the Mugal Empire from 1526 to 1857. South Asian empires exercised regional hijgemony not only through military strength but also by cultivating religious pluralism and patronage of diverse traditions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Janism and later Islam. These empires managed vast multithnic territories through a flexible and often decentralized model of governance that prioritized stability over uniformity. Legitimacy, particularly in Hindu and Buddhist politics, was rooted in dharma, a moral and cosmic order that guided rulers in balancing justice, duty, and warfare. South Asia's influence extended
6:53 well beyond its borders through a process scholars refer to as Indianization, a diffusion of culture, political ideas, and religious thought across Southeast Asia from roughly the 3rd to 13th centuries. Local elites in Cambodia, Java, Thailand, and elsewhere voluntarily adopted Indian court rituals, legal codes, cosmologies, and even Sanskrit as a prestige language. Rather than empire building through conquest, Indianization generally operated through soft power, trade, pilgrimage, marriage alliances, and the appeal of Indian philosophical and religious systems. In contrast to the European model of diplomacy and sovereignty, the Indianized world order emphasized cultural adaptability and civilizational prestige over fixed borders or equal sovereign rights.
7:40 Political authority flowed from alignment with the dharma rather than from international recognition. And while later colonialism disrupted these regional networks, the enduring legacies of Indianization, its religious pluralism, intellectual exchange, and non-coercive regionalism offered a marketkedly different vision of the international order than the one traditionally taught in Western IR. From the 7th century onward, the Islamic world developed a trans regional political order centered on the caliphate, a model that combined religious legitimacy with political governance. Beginning with the Umayad and the Abisade caliphates and later continued with the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic world forged an international system grounded not in sovereignty or territorial control but in membership within the UMA, the global community of
8:26 believers. This order was expansive, multicultural, and remarkably pluralistic, encompassing Arabs, Persians Berbers Turks Kurds and many others, all governed through variations of Islamic law called Sharia adapted to local contexts. Crucially, the caliphate system provided not just religious authority, but also a model of international relations based on legal and moral norms. The idea of Daral Islam, the abode of Islam, and Daral Harab, the boat of war, offered a framework for diplomacy and engagement with non-Muslim polities. Islamic scholars and jurists developed detailed theories about treaties, the rights of non-Muslims, and the ethics of war, all centuries before the codification of international law in Europe. In
9:11 practice, Islamic polities often accommodated religious diversity and maintained networks of trade, scholarship, and governance across vast distances. And unlike the European state system, which emerged from the collapse of universal authority and emphasized sovereign equality in anarchctic system, the Islamic world operated through a shared civilizational and religious framework that linked disperate regions through a common legal and ethical tradition. authority derived not from territorial borders but from fidelity to divine law and the ability to uphold justice and order. Though colonialism fractured the unity of the UMA, the legacy of the caliphates lived on in modern Islamic political thought, in the architecture of global Islamic finance, and in the idea that international order can be built not just on interests, but
9:58 on values. The rise of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century created one of the most expansive and interconnected political systems in world history. Under the leadership of Genghask Khan and his successors, the Mongols established a transcontinental empire that stretched from China to Eastern Europe, later fragmenting into several continents. The vast imperial network was built not on fixed borders or sedentary bureaucracy, but on mobility, communication, and strategic integration. The Mongol world order was remarkable for its commitment to religious tolerance, administrative pragmatism, and to the protection of long-distance trade routes. Through innovations like the Yam system, a sophisticated network of relay stations and mounted couriers, the Mongols enabled secure travel and communications
10:44 across Eurasia, laying the foundations for what some scholars refer to as Pax Mongolica. They fostered cross-cultural exchange, encouraged the movement of merchants and scholars, and facilitated the spread of technologies, ideas, and even the Black Death. While their conquest was often brutally violent, Mongol rule prioritized order, taxation, and connectivity over assimilation or religious domination. Indeed, provided they paid their taxes, subjects of the Mongol Empire were free to practice their own religion and culture and generally operated with a great deal of autonomy. Unlike the European model of sovereign states and competition, the Mongol continents operated as a loosely federated system of semi-aututonomous realms united by kinship ties, tribute
11:30 arrangements, and common norms of step diplomacy. Authority was personal, mobile, and situational, rooted in charisma and conquest rather than in legalistic sovereignty. There are model challenges state- ccentric assumptions of IR by showing how empire trade and legitimacy can be maintained without permanent capitals, clear borders or uniform institutions. Across pre-colonial Africa, diverse political systems and regional orders emerged that challenge western assumptions about what constitutes a state or an international system. From the empires of Ghana, Mali and the Sanghai in the west to the Swahili citystates along the east African coast and the Kingdom of Congo and Ethiopia further south and inland, African societies developed sophisticated forms of diplomacy, trade and governance that
12:17 operated across linguistic, religious, and ecological boundaries and were shaped by distinct ecological and demographic realities, especially the abundance of land and the relative scarcity of labor, a reversal of conditions that prevailed across much of Europe and Asia. This land labor dynamic had profound consequences. In many parts of Africa, power was measured less by control of territory and more by control over people. Political authority often rested in kinship networks, agegrade systems, and personal alliances rather than in centralized bureaucracies or fixed borders. This led to fluid and decentralized systems where people could move to escape coercion or negotiate affiliations with other communities. Something far more difficult in Europe's land constrained context. In the West African Sahel, empires like the Mali
13:04 gained prominence through the control of trade routes, especially gold and salt while integrating Islamic institutions alongside indigenous governance. And along the east African coast, the Swahili citystates connected Africa to the Indian Ocean world through commerce, Islam, and shared maritime culture rather than through imperial domination. Thus, unlike the European state system, which developed from territorial rivalries and a scarcity of arable land, many African systems emphasized mobility, plural authority, and negotiated power. The result was an international system marked by interdependence, spiritual legitimacy, and trade-based diplomacy rather than by sovereignty and militarized borders. These forms of order were often flexible and adaptive, but they were also more
13:49 vulnerable to external disruption. The transatlantic slave trade and later European colonialism violently destabilize these systems, shaping the political economy around the commodification of labor and the partition of territory. Yet the underlying logics of African diplomacy and regionalism continue to inform politics on the continent today, offering an alternative vision of international relations grounded in regional power and social cohesion rather than in rigid statehood. Before European contact, the Americas were home to some of the most impressive and complex state systems in the world, despite their long isolation from Eurasian networks. In Meso America, civilizations like the Aztec Empire, which lasted from 1428 to 1521, built elaborate religious and political
14:35 hierarchies that govern dense urban centers and extensive tributary networks. In the Andes, the Incan Empire, which ruled from 1438 to 1533, created one of the largest and most administratively sophisticated empires in the preodern world, governing a mountainous terrain without wheeled vehicles, draft animals, or a written script. Instead, the Incas managed their vast domain through a system of roads, labor obligations called Mita and Kipu, a knotted string accounting system. And in North America, many indigenous societies developed sophisticated forms of governance and diplomacy without centralized states. The Hodnosani Confederacy, also known as the Irakcoy League, united five and later six nations through a great law of peace, a constitution that emphasized consensus, balance, and collective decision-making.
15:22 This confederacy managed internal conflict, engaged in diplomacy with neighboring polities, and maintained intertribal alliances for centuries. Similarly, Mississippian societies like the Cahokia, which flourished from around 1050 to 1350 CE, developed urban centers and regional trade networks, demonstrating that indigenous North American politics were dynamic and regionally integrated. What makes American systems especially instructive for international relations today is how they demonstrate that complex large-scale political orders can emerge without the institutional features that IR theories often take for granted like formal sovereignty, standing army, or formal written international law. The polities of the Americas organized authority through cosmology, oral tradition, social networks, often
16:08 privileging relational governance over rigid hierarchies. The violent arrival of European colonizers in the 16th century brought these systems to a sudden and catastrophic end. But their achievements remind us that statecraftraft, empire, and diplomacy are not western inventions and that the Americas were full of participants in world political history long before colonization. Taken together, these case studies offer a powerful reminder that the international order has never been the exclusive domain of Europe. From East Asia to Africa, from the Islamic world to the pre-Colombian Americas, societies developed rich and varied systems for managing political relationships across borders, often long before Westfailia, and in ways that challenge the assumption of mainstream international relations theory today. Across these systems, we see a striking
16:55 diversity in how political authority was organized and exercised. Many were hierarchical rather than anarchctic, emphasizing moral order, ritual, or religious legitimacy instead of formal sovereignty. Others operated through kinship, trade, or cosmology rather than through legal frameworks or treaties. Power often flowed through relationships between people, polities, and sacred orders rather than through fixed institutions or territorial borders. And far from being stateless or disorganized, many non-western systems were deeply integrated and durable, managing complexity through different but equally sophisticated logics. These cases also invite us to reconsider some of IR's foundational concepts. What if sovereignty is not a universal norm, but
17:40 a European one? What if anarchy is not the default condition of international life, but a historically specific configuration? What if we took ideas like relational authority, civilizational legitimacy or cosmological balance as the organizing principles of global politics rather than as exceptions to the rule. The theoretical implication here is not just that IR needs to be more inclusive. It's that IR may be conceptually limited by its euroentric foundations. To build a truly global discipline, we need to move beyond just adding non-western cases to existing theories. We need to ask fundamentally different questions, explore alternative frameworks, and recognize that international systems have always been plural. There is no single model of political order, and
18:26 there never was. But that's it for now. As always, please leave any questions you have in the comments section below.
