Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory: International Jurisprudence and the Third World

Bhavana Chandran

Abstract

There have been several "quasi-states" that have emerged as a consequence of decolonization, most notably in Africa and the Third World. These governments are independent mostly because of respect for other nations. They have a right to self-determination from outside sources, or negative sovereignty, but they haven't yet shown much internal potential for civil and successful governance, or positive sovereignty. They therefore reveal a new dual international civil regime in which the traditional empirical norm of the North and a new legal standard of the South coexist as standards of statehood. For the first time in modern international history, it may be argued that the biases in the fundamental laws of the sovereignty game presently benefit the weak. International theory must accept the notion that morality and law may sometimes exist in isolation from power in international relations if it is to explain this unusual scenario. This implies that Grotian rationality and the legal idiom must be considered alongside Machiavellian realism and the sociological language of power in current international thought.