In fact, Stephen Krasner, after having wrestled with this Westphalian sovereignty for years, concludes that this is simply all an organized fiction.
The view that the Westphalian system implies that sovereignty has a taken-for-granted quality is wrong. The actual content of sovereignty, the scope of the authority that states can exercise has always been contested. The basic organizing principle of sovereignty―exclusive control over a given territory―has been persistently challenged by the creation of new institutional forms that better meet specific material needs.4
While the efficacy of universal institutions had been virtually eliminated at the Westphalian peace, other institutional forms that do not conform to the basic organizing principle of sovereignty always coexisted with states. Examples such as protectorates, colonies, the Antarctic (governed by the Antarctic Treaty regime), and the European Community are given. The idea of state sovereignty was "one among several instruments that actors have invoked to promote their own, usually mundane, interests."5
Interesting in the light of human rights problem, is that the Peace of Westphalia did not grant the rulers to do whatever they pleased with regard to the practice of religion within their own territories. A sovereign who changed his religion could not compel his subjects to change theirs. Subjects were not to be excluded from given privileges or fights because of their religion.6 Krasner concludes that "No deep structure is evident in the heterogeneous and fluid character of political order from the Middle Ages to the present. The actual content of sovereignty and the principle of exclusive control have been, and continue to be, challenged."7
Krasner finds four ways in which Westphalian sovereignty can be violated: convention, contract, coercion and imposition. The former two are compromise of Westphalian sovereignty through invitation, the latter through intervention. Rulers may join conventions in which they agree to abide by certain standards regardless of what others do, They may enter into contracts in which they agree to specific policies in return for explicit benefit. They can be subject to coercion, which leaves them worse off, or they can suffer imposition, a situation that occurs when the target ruler cannot effectively resist.8 The difference between coercion and imposition will be in reality not so clear as Krasner presents them to be. Krasner says the target can acquiesce or resist in case of coercion (for example economic sanction), but in the case of imposition, the target has no choice. He must either accept or else be eliminated. It is the logical extreme of coercion. 9
As political implication, Krasner concludes that in the contemporary world, peace and stability would be better served by explicitly recognizing that the Westphalian model has, in fact and in theory, always been contested. Particularly for weak states incapable of governing themselves, Krasner considers it better of for the populations of these states, if not their rulers, if Westphalia were compromised.10
