The Dawn of States-System as a Concept: Althusius, Pufendorf and Leibniz on the Holy Roman Empire.

Notions such as 'states-system' and 'international system' are central to IR. Yet, they have been neglected in our study of conceptual history. This paper focuses on the 17th-century debate about the status of the Holy Roman Empire as a political unit. During that time, several key figures of political philosophy such as Althusius, Pufendorf and Leibniz attempted to theorise the Empire and, in the process, the term 'states-system' was employed as a category of analysis. Althusius pioneered integration theory and proposed federalism as a description of the historical and legal formation of the Empire. Pufendorf did not find any relevance in the existing categories and argued that the Empire was "a monster", but almost a 'states-system'. Leibniz rejected Pufendorf's solution and claimed that the Empire was a federal union. In conclusion it is argued that, although they were discussing the same object, the three thinkers substantially differed in their analyses because of their own commitments to distinct philosophical systems. All three contributions are extremely relevant to the understanding of both IR as a discipline and our current political reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]