(iPoster) The Emergence of Limited Sovereign Spaces and State-Controlled Global Commons

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Ideas, Knowledge, and Politics; European Politics and Society; & International History and Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: International History and Politics

Abstract

Traditional international relations scholarship has long conceptualized global space through a binary framework. Spaces are either sovereign territories or open-access global commons. However, the post-WWII era has witnessed the proliferation of “limited sovereign space (LSS),” where states claim and exercise sovereign rights over specific uses of the space while retaining commons-based freedoms for other uses. It is similar but analytically distinct from state-controlled global commons (SCGC), in which states claim and exercise exclusive rights over specific uses of space, but through delegated authority (e.g., international organizations), not sovereignty. My dissertation asks: Why do LSS (like Air Defense Identification Zone) and SCGC (like geostationary orbit) emerge and stabilize?
I argue that the emergence and endurance of LSS and SCGC depend on the conjunction of three factors: great power accommodation (whether great powers tolerate or support the emergence), normative resonance (whether a novel claim can be interpreted as consistent with existing norms to gain legitimacy), and strategic ambiguity (whether the arrangement allows actors to reconcile incompatible preferences through vagueness or flexibility). LSS and SCGC often arise as pragmatic compromises between full sovereignty and open-access commons. If these factors are absent, global commons become (or remain as) open-access. Compared to LSS, SCGCs tend to involve lower stakes and less strategic ambiguity.
My project mainly employs a qualitative comparative approach to analyze institutional evolution in post-WWII global commons and spatial governance. This paper establishes the causal mechanisms – specifically, how power considerations, normative resonance, and strategic ambiguity shaped the institutional outcome – through process tracing how extraterritorial maritime zones evolved into LSSs under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Contiguous Zone, Exclusive Economic Zone, Continental Shelf). This is contrasted with the Australian Maritime Identification Zone, an LSS attempt that failed to diffuse internationally.

Author

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