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The Balance of Power:
A Brief Prehistory of a Concept
GIOVANNI LISTA
In 1702, Queen Anne of England declared war on France and Spain in order to settle
the Spanish succession crisis. At stake was the unification of Louis XIV’s monarchy with the
Spanish crown and its extended colonial and continental territories. Such a union would have
given birth to a potentially unopposed hegemonic power, able to subvert the rules of
European international politics. Hence, after years of laborious negotiations, military action
became the ultimate means at the disposal of diplomacies. The content of the declaration of
war was perfectly in accordance with the contemporary English foreign policy, described as
designed ‘for preserving the Liberty and Balance of Europe, and reducing the exorbitant
power of France’1. Once and for all, the concept of balance of power was embodied in an
official act, after an evolution that made it a founding element of European interstate
relations.
Introduction
In this very short piece, I will try to briefly illustrate the origins of the idea of balance of
power. Since the practices of equilibrium became a conscious behaviour at the dawn of the
XVIII century, my reconstruction will focus on the previous evolution of the concept to find its
theoretical roots. This evolution ranges from the first spontaneous appearance of aequilibrium
potentiae in the ancient world to the treaty of Utrecht (1713), when balance of power became
the unquestioned dogma of international relations. At Utrecht ended the War of Spanish
Succession (1701‐1714) and the peace conference is considered to be the momentum in which
1 Her majesties declaration of war against France and Spain (1702).
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the idea of balancing the power of European States was first codified. The prehistory of such a
practice is in fact the history of the transformation of equilibrium from being the mere
outcome of a mechanical process, virtually automatic, to a shared value, an aim consciously
pursued by the States in order to achieve international security. I believe this last version has
to be considered the real description of balance of power.
However, several definitions have been elaborated for the metaphor ‘balance of
power’. Wight, for instance, found nine different ways in which the concept has been used.2
Yet, all of these different definitions can be sorted by the principle of intentionality, outlined
among others by Chabod and Morgenthau.3 Using this principle, it could be argued that there
are two different conceptions of balance of power. The first one, that Little defines as
adversarial, assumes that equilibrium is the outcome of a spontaneous dynamic inside a
system of States. Following this logic, it is the threat of hegemony that promotes occasional
leagues and alliances created with the purpose of opposing the most powerful actor of the
system. Balance is thus the natural, unstable result of constant struggle for survival. In
contrast to this interpretation lies the second: aequilibrium potentiae is to be considered as a
conscious and common goal of the States involved in the system. From this point of view,
denominated associational, great powers seek to create a stable mechanism able to
implement international security through cooperation and, when necessary, war. Such a
definition presumes a systematic theoretic reflection from each actor involved in tipping the
scales.4 Keeping this crucial distinction in mind, we can now try to reconstruct the evolution
of the concept of balance of power since its very first manifestation.
From the ancient world to early modern Europe: the origins
In his notable essay Of the Balance of Power (1752), the Scottish philosopher David
Hume asked himself and his readers ‘whether the idea of balance of power be owing entirely
2 Martin Wight, ‘The Balance of Power’, in H. Butterfeld and M. Wight, Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics, London, Allen and Unwin, 1966. 3 Federico Chabod, Idea di Europa e politica dell'equilibrio, edited by Luisa Azzolini, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1995 and Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1973. For a full account of the concept of balance of power from an adversarial point of view, see Kenneth Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of international politics, New York, Random House, 1979. 4 Richard Little, The Balance of Power in International Relations: Metaphors, Myths and Models, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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to modern policy, or whether the phrase only has been invented in these later ages’5. Referring
to ancient Greece, many examples can indeed be found in classical authors such as Thucydides
to trace back the origins of the concept. The Peloponnesian League was formed in VI century
B.C. to contrast the predominance of Athens, whereas the Delian League (478 B.C.) was
designed to resist the pressure of the Persian Empire. Such alliances, however, were the
outcome of occasional necessity and did not actually produce a coherent and systematic
method to run interstate relations. This consideration can apply to another example made by
Hume and related to Roman history: according to the Greek historian Polybius, Hiero, tyrant
of Syracuse, in spite of being an ally of Rome decided to support Carthage during the Punic
Wars, actively aiding Hasdrubal in 239 B.C. For the survival of his dominions in Sicily, Hiero
believed that neither of the two opponents should overcome the other in their fight for
supremacy.6
Eventually, Rome did succeed in imposing its rule over the Mediterranean world. It is
commonly accepted that the age of empires, generally speaking, displays an inevitable
absence of cases referable to the tradition of balance of power. Political equilibrium, which
somehow showed itself in the unremitting relations between Greek πόλεις, completely
vanished under the Macedonian yoke first and Roman domination afterwards. Moreover, not
even the fall of Western empire (476 A. D.) really gave rise to a plurality of European actors.
As stated by Chabod,7 the whole Medieval period could only improperly be considered as a
bipolar system, in which the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy balanced each other in
constant struggle. In fact, both entities were vital to the unity of Christendom, as two faces of
the same coin. Temporal power was still one: there was a unique State and it was the Empire.
Therefore, it remained crucial that the Italian jurist Bartolus de Saxoferrato developed the
notion sibi princeps in order to atomise sovereignty among the Italian comuni and start a legal
emancipation of European polities broadly speaking. It was only when fully independent
States generated a structure of power and began to pursue an autonomous foreign policy that
balance reappeared in Europe.8
This State‐building process roughly completed in XV century Italy, where the peace of
Lodi (1454) created a sufficiently stable equilibrium inside a regional States‐system of many
5 David Hume, ‘Of the Balance of Power’ in Essays Moral, Political and Literary, Indianapolis, Liberty Classics, 1987. 6 Hume, Of Balance of Power, pp. 332‐338 and Alberto Aubert, L'Europa degli Imperi e degli Stati: Monarchie universali equilibrio di potenza e pacifismi dal XV al XVII secolo, Bari, Cacucci Editore, 2008, pp. 37‐38. 7 Chabod, Idea di Europa e politica dell’equilibrio, pp. 6‐17. 8 Maria Pia Alberzoni, ‘Dalla regalità sacra al sacerdozio regale. Il difficile equilibrio tra papato e impero nella christianitas medievale’, in C. Bearzot, F. Landucci and G. Zecchini, L’equilibrio internazionale dagli antichi ai moderni, Milan, V&P, 2005, pp. 85‐124; Quentin Skinner,The foundations of modern political thought, vol. I The Renaissance, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. 6‐15.
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different sovereignties. The peace treaty, stipulated after several years of ravaging wars, was
overall successful in ensuring fifty years of relative tranquillity, until the French invasion of
1494. Certainly, territorial ambitions of the peninsula’s great powers – Venice, Milan,
Florence, Rome and Naples – did not instantly disappear, as the outburst of many small
conflicts demonstrate. But balance of power began to be perceived as a theory with an
intrinsic value. In that sense, Storia d’Italia (1537‐1540), by the Florentine diplomat
Francesco Guicciardini, rendered an idealised account of this period of equilibrium, in
contrast to the devastations brought by the Italian Wars (1494‐1559) that he was witnessing.
Lorenzo de’ Medici, de facto ruler of Florence, is thus praised for his ability to guarantee that
‘le cose d’Italia in modo bilanciate si mantenessino, che più in una che in un’altra parte non
pendessino.’9 A myth was born, which closely linked security and quiet to the revived practice
of balance of power.10
Nevertheless, Guicciardini was well aware that il Magnifico was seeking first of all to
secure the interests of Florence. Using a distinction stressed by Bull,11 the order that emerged
in XV century Italy can be defined as a system rather than as a society. Italian States were
namely interacting, being obliged to take into account the behaviour of the other actors of the
system. They were not conscious of common interests or common values at the basis of
shared rules. They did not perceive themselves as part of a whole. Rather, the system was
based on mutual suspicion. And this was to be dramatically demonstrated by the descent of
Charles VIII of France on the peninsula.12 That crucial event is considered to be an historical
landmark, since it transferred the ideas and dynamics of the semi‐enclosed Italian system of
States to the body of continental Europe. In the years following 1494, Italy became indeed the
battlefield of the rising powers of the Western world. All together, they composed the new
balance of Europe, soon to be shattered.
From unity to disintegration: the radicalisation
In fact, the possibility of a plural equilibrium was soon dismissed by the election of
9 Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, vol. I, in Opere, Milano, Garzanti, 1965, p. 374. 10 Riccardo Fubini, Italia quattrocentesca. Politica e diplomazia nell'età di Lorenzo il Magnifico, Milan, FrancoAngeli, 1994. 11 Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 2002, pp. 4‐13. 12 The fact that Ludovico il Moro, duke of Milan, called the king of France to intervene in Italian affairs is quite striking in that sense. On these matters, see Alberto Aubert, La crisi degli antichi Stati italiani, Florence, Lettere, 2003.
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Charles V of Hapsburg as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519. So vast were his territories, ranging
from the kingdoms of Spain to Hungarian dominions, that, in the words of Hume, ‘mankind
were anew alarmed by the danger of universal monarchy’13. In a bipolar system in which
Francis I of France was the principal opponent of Charles V’s ambitions, the menace of
monarchia universalis14 indeed triggered the formation of several alliances. Their composition
was very much determined by the course of the events, following the adversarial dynamics
typical of the Italian system: as soon as one of the rival monarchs seemed to overcome the
other, the minor powers involved in the fight immediately took their side with the weaker.
Balance of power, in its first European expression, was thus a policy to which small States
appealed to contrast the excessive power of overextended entities. Like the Hapsburg
multiple monarchy was.
The projects of Charles V to become dominus totius orbis, however, very quickly proved
to be complicated to realise. Two major elements contributed to downsize the Emperor’s
dreams of a world under a single monarch: reason of State15 and religion. The development of
the former became entangled with the latter, bringing to completion the on‐going State‐
building process of European polities. First of all, by the beginning of XVI century Europe was
composed by a plurality of sovereign entities. Each of these was driven by will to power and
necessity. The theory of reason of State, in such a context, emerged for two different aims.
From a theoretical point of view, to justify the existence of a new particular social formation in
opposition to the Universalist claims of the Empire. From a practical point of view, to
reinforce this new entity in its international struggle for survival, that is to preserve its
status.16 Secondly, the European religious unity was forever torn apart by the outcome of the
Reformation (started in 1517 in Wittenberg), which at the same time weakened political
integrity of the Holy Roman Empire. Working together, the two elements contributed to
undermine every purpose of universality.
Indeed, the Emperor eventually lost his battle with Francis I of France to achieve
universal monarchy and the peace of Câteau‐Cambrésis (1559) marked the end of the bipolar
balance between the Hapsburg and France. The results of the Italian Wars were confirmed by 13 Hume, Of the Balance of Power, p. 338. 14 The concept of universal monarchy and its development, antithetic and therefore complementary to the balance of power tradition, is to be found in Franz Bosbach, Monarchia universalis: ein politischer Leitbegriff der frühen Neuzeit, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988 and, more recently, in Anthony Pagden, Lords of all the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France c.1500‐c.1800, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1995. 15 About the concept of reason of State, see Quentin Skinner, “The State of Princes to the Person of the State”, in Visions of Politics, II, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002; Michael Stolleis, Staat und Staatsraison in der frühen Neuzeit. Studien zur Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts. Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1990; Maurizio Viroli, Dalla politica alla Ragion di Stato: la scienza del governo tra XIII e XVII secolo, Rome, Donzelli Editore, 1994. 16 Jonathan Haslam, No Virtue Like Necessity: Realist Thought in International Relations since Machiavelli, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2002, pp. 14‐23.
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the thorough analysis of the ex‐Jesuit Giovanni Botero. Among his writings, the most
important work to consider here is certainly Delle Relationi Universali (1591‐1596). In this
series of accounts, the Piedmontese author investigates the parameters apt to measure the
mightiness of European States and, hence, the real power ratio between the actors of the
Western world. Demography, economic development, military power and colonial dominions
of several kingdoms and republics are analysed and emphasized as the new factors that
determine the power of polities. In doing so, Botero definitively condemned monarchia
universalis as a relic of the past. The world had become plural and relativistic, an arena where
conflict between sovereign States was the natural outcome of the precepts of ratio Status.17
Furthermore, religious differences heavily affected international politics since the mid‐
twenties of the XVI century. As a result of the Reformation, the spiritual unity of Europe faded
away just like its political integrity did with the end of the Holy Roman Empire’s universal
sovereignty. During the wars of religion, which lasted until the peace of Westphalia (1648),
alignments and alliances were heavily influenced by faith. An example in that sense can be
found in the foreign policy of two relatively new powers of the system: England and Spain. In
1585, Elizabeth I of England sent an army to help coreligionist Dutch rebels against Philip II of
Catholic Spain, who was trying to squash the revolt and eradicate the Calvinist heresy from his
dominions. Thus, broadly speaking, confessional States exacerbated the nature of conflicts,
now based on religious values that were alternative to each other and always incompatible.
Fanaticism animated the struggles between Protestants and Catholics, so that war became a
means to annihilate the other. Without an acceptance of coexistence, the balance of Europe
was more than ever precarious.18
However, the religious aspect should not be too much emphasized. Political issues still
constituted an important aspect of European interstate relations. In several cases, it was the
most essential aspect. French foreign policy, for instance, never really fitted into the
confessional scheme. Cardinal Richelieu besieged the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle in
1628, but then helped the Protestant princes of Germany to fight against the Hapsburg
Emperor without any religious scruple. Not to mention the rivalry with Spain, sharing the
same faith as France.19 As the French soldier and writer Henri de Rohan summed up perfectly
17 Giovanni Botero, Le relationi universali di Giovanni Botero Benese, divise in quattro parti, 1596 and Romain Descendre, Une géopolitique pour la Contre‐Réforme: les ‘Relazioni Universali’ de Giovanni Botero (1544‐1617), in Esprit, lettre(s) et expression de la Contre‐Réforme en Italie à l’aube d’un monde nouveau, Actes du Colloque international (27‐28 novembre 2003), Université Nancy 2, C.S.L.I., 2005, pp. 47‐59. 18 Chabod, Idea di Europa e politica dell’equilibrio, pp. 21‐27 and Aubert, L’Europa degli Imperi e degli Stati, pp. 125‐126. 19 Richard Bonney, Political change in France under Richelieu and Mazarin, 1624‐1661, New York, Oxford University Press, 1968.
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in his Le Mercure d’Estat (1635), ‘tous les Princes et Estats de la Chrestienté non suiets ou
partisans d’Espagne ont de l’interest de lui former un contrepoids necessaire’20. Very often
indeed, religious matters were used as propaganda in order to achieve the real objectives of
the States, always dictated by necessity and interest. From that point of view, the Thirty Years’
War (1618‐1648) can be considered as an important turning point in international relations.
From war to the treaties: the birth of a society
Thus, after the final attempt from Charles V to unite it, Europe remained divided.
Between the end of XVI century and the beginning of the XVII century, a plurality of new
actors raised. The end of Charles’ designs led to the division of his territories: Spain, guided by
Philip II, became the main power on the continent. Its overseas colonies provided the Hispanic
monarchy with a seeming inexhaustible amount of resources. The Low Countries, however,
were eventually successful in their rebellion against the Castilian court and became
independent in 1581. With the name of United Provinces, they constituted a new power,
destined to be one of the main characters of European international game. The same fate was
awaiting England, a minor peripheral kingdom that since Henry VIII played a balancing role
between France and the Hapsburg crown. Elizabeth I proceeded along the same lines,
reinforcing the fleet and offering financial help to every opponent of Spain, although without
getting directly involved in continental wars.21
The German States inside the Holy Roman Empire further accentuated the multipolar
nature and instability of the balance of Europe. Mainly because, as it happened in the broader
European context, the Reformation divided them according to their religion and radicalised
their State‐building processes entangling them with spiritual particularity. Indeed, in order to
increase their political autonomy Protestant princes defended their interests together in
opposition to the Catholic Emperor. This happened for instance in 1531, when the
Schmalkaldic League was created to question – and indeed counterbalance – the authority of
Charles V manu militari. The successive peace of Augsburg (1555) did not completely solve
the religious problems of the Empire, but rather hardened the differences between each State
20 Henri de Rohan, Le Mercure d'Estat, ou receuil de divers discours d'Estat, 1635, p. 399. 21 On Spain, see John H. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469‐1716, London, St Martin’s Press, 1963. On United Provinces, see Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt, London, Allen Lane, 1977. About England’s foreign policy, see Charles Davenant, ‘An Essay upon the Balance of Power’ in Essays, London, 1701.
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in the long run. In sum, at the very centre of Europe lied a regional system of States that
constituted the ideal battlefield for the growing confessional powers of the continent. 22
Indeed, the Thirty Years’ War was mainly fought in German territories. International
alliances determined mostly by faith contended with each other for supremacy in a war that
can be considered as the most dramatic and extended conflict of the early modern period in
Europe.23 Its outcome, however, is conventionally perceived as a milestone of interstate
relations. The so‐called peace of Westphalia (1648) – arranged in the treaties of Münster and
Osnabrück24 – led to the acceptation of principles that were already discussed throughout
Europe. Indeed, the idea of an international system was since the dawn of the XVII century
commonly acknowledged. Besides Universalist claims and religious fanaticism, observers
were well aware that multipolarity was a matter of fact. For some thinkers, it was even
necessary. In fact, it was not by chance that many utopian pamphlets about Europe’s order
were published during the war. The most important among them,25 instead of coming back to
the tradition of European medieval unity, acknowledged a multilateral context to enforce
peace. Plurality could be compatible with peace, just like the agreement of Lodi demonstrated
in XV century Italy.
Of course, the difference between Italian and German States was that the latter were de
jure under the sovereignty of the Emperor. Therefore, the participants in the negotiations had
first to enforce peace inside the Holy Roman Empire in order to secure the peace of Europe.
The war itself demonstrated that the two systems were closely linked. Whereas restoring the
status quo ante bellum was a quite conservative move, the Westphalian settlement proved to
be rather innovative in many senses. First of all, some of the clauses inserted in the treaty
eventually removed religion as a reason for war. Differences of faith were accepted as the core
of new international relations, which slowly set to become completely secularised and thus
more stable. Secondly, the States themselves became the warrantors of the treaties. The
universal authority of the Pope, who since medieval times mediated between conflicting sides,
was definitely overtaken in a new pluralist world. Each State had even responsibilities for the
maintenance of peace and security. As a consequence, foreign intervention to restore the
22 Heinz Schilling, Aufbruch und Krise. Deutsche Geschichte von 1517 bis 1648, Berlin, Siedler, 1988, pp. 219‐299. 23 For an account of the war itself, see Roald G. Asch, The Thirty Years War: the Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618‐1648, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1997. 24 About the details of the negotiations, see Geoffrey, Derek & Parker Croxton,“A swift and sure peace”: the Congress of Westphalia 1643‐1648, in The Making of Peace: Rulers, States, and the Aftermath of War, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2009. 25 Le Nouveau Cynée (1623) from Émeric Crucé and the Grand Dessein (1638) from the Duke of Sully are the most notable ones.
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Constitutio Westphalica of the Empire was authorised.26
On such basis, Morgenthau claimed that Westphalia could be defined as a conscious
and plural attempt to realise a European balance of power.27 Conversely, Osiander, among
others, has rebutted this thesis, arguing that there was no systematic thinking during the
negotiations about aequilibrium potentiae and that every allusion to the notion of balance has
to be referred to the behaviour of individual States. Indeed, in the middle of XVII century the
European States‐system was still halfway between the obsolete medieval system and a new
system. The conservative approach of the great powers of Europe led to the preservation of
this indeterminate status quo and its structures, rather than to the building of a new shared
international order.28 Thus, using the distinction from Bull reported above, even post‐
Westphalian Europe was still a system of States and not yet a society. Certainly, States
recognized each other as autonomous entities and shared some common rules. But these
regarded procedures to restore the order inside the Holy Roman Empire, rather than
substantial values to build a new, wider international community. A further step was needed.
However, for roughly twenty years stability was more or less guaranteed. It was not
before the War of Devolution (1667‐1668) and the rise of the domineering personality of
Louis XIV of France that Europe was seriously endangered again. The aggressive foreign
policy of the Roi Soleil provoked a reaction of the main European powers – Spain, United
Provinces, the Empire and of course England – so that once again, alliances were created to
avoid continental hegemony. An example in that sense is the League of Augsburg, organised
under the command of the neo‐king of England William III of Orange, which united almost
every European front rank power against France in the Nine Years’ War (1688‐1698). The
definitive crisis of the system of States, however, was determined by the Spanish succession:
due to a dynastic entanglement, a single Bourbon monarch could have ruled both kingdoms of
France and Spain. Initially accepting to divide Spanish territories between France and the
Holy Roman Empire, Louis XIV eventually decided to take his chance to incorporate the
Spanish throne. None of the other actors of Europe could have allowed such a union, and war
was once more declared.29
The peace negotiations started because of another dynastic event: the election as Holy
26 Aubert, L’Europa degli Imperi e degli Stati, pp. 176‐195 and Ian Clark, Legitimacy in International Society, New York, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 51‐71. 27 Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, pp. 185‐191. 28 Andreas Osiander,The states system of Europe, 1640‐1990: peacemaking and the conditions of international stability, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994, pp. 31‐82 and ‘Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth’, in International Organization, 55 (2), 2001, pp. 251‐287. 29 Aubert, L’Europa degli Imperi e degli Stati, pp. 231‐232 and Cinzia Cremonini, ‘Francia, Spagna e impero nella seconda metà del Seicento tra egemonia francese e “balance of power”’, in L’equilibrio internazionale dagli antichi ai moderni, 2005, pp. 125‐146.
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Roman Emperor of Charles VI of Hapsburg in 1711. Once the alternative candidate supported
by the allies to the throne of Spain, Charles had become, ironically enough, a potential threat
to Europe just like his ancestor Charles V had been. The internationalisation of succession
questions, in fact, was one of the main principles determined at Utrecht. The main conflicts of
the second half of XVII century, mentioned above, were indeed caused by dynastic disputes.
Broadly speaking, the perception that Europe had become a community of actors closely
interrelated – actually so interrelated that a unique sovereign could inherit many different
kingdoms – faded the distinction between internal and international matters, extending the
concept of foreign intervention already stated in Westphalia to the whole continent. Just like
British parliaments had to decide on the one British king, European powers realised that, in
order to avoid overextended entities, they had to act in concert to settle the questions of
succession.30
Furthermore, compared with the agreements of Westphalia, those of Utrecht did not
emphasise sources of law, such as treaties or custom. A remark by Bolingbroke, the British
foreign secretary involved in the negotiations, is quite striking in that sense: ‘enough has been
said concerning right, which was in truth little regarded by any of the parties concerned […] in
the whole course of these proceedings’.31 Whereas in Münster and Osnabrück the attempt had
been to preserve the static order that already existed, referring to existing legitimisation
sources, it was cooperation that was mainly stressed in 1713. Balance of power, explicitly
inserted in the treaties, became a supreme, general interest that overcame all of the others. A
consequence of this decisive step was that European States complied with a more even
distribution of power. France renounced to the Spanish throne and all the negotiators
accepted several exchanges of territories. It was the end of the bipolar tendency of the
European States‐system, now composed of broadly equal actors under the supervision of
Great Britain, the real winner of the War of Spanish Succession.32
Thus, the new associational nature of European system stressed international security.
As the English writer Defoe stated quite thoroughly in 1700 ‘general quiet of Europe prevails
to set aside the Point of nice Justice, and determine in favour of Publick Tranquility’.33 Wars, at
least until the outburst of the French Revolution (1789), ceased to be a means to achieve
30 Evan Luard, The Balance of Power: The System of International Relations, 1648‐1815, Hong Kong, MacMillan, 1992, pp. 149‐173; Clark, Legitimacy in International Society, pp. 76‐78; Romolo Quazza, La politica dell’equilibrio e le guerre di successione, in Problemi storici e orientamenti storiografici, edited by E. Rota, Como, Cavalleri, 1942, pp. 655‐685. 31 Quoted in Osiander, The states system of Europe, 1640‐1990, p. 100. 32 Clark, Legitimacy in International Society, pp. 74‐76; Luard, The Balance of Power, pp. 12‐15; Osiander, The states system of Europe, 1640‐1990, pp. 100‐102. 33 Daniel Defoe, A true collection of the writings of the author of the true born english‐man, London, 1703.
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supremacy and became an instrument to enforce security. Belligerents were no more driven
by religious matters and fought in flexible alliances with the explicit purpose of preventing the
rise of hegemonic powers. A fluid and dynamic society of States evolved in what Morgenthau
defined the ‘golden age’34 of balance of power. From Utrecht onwards, such a society was
governed by great powers. Great Britain, Spain, France, the United Provinces and the Holy
Roman Empire constituted a condominium that promoted common policies throughout
Europe and, broadly speaking, the world.35
Conclusions
The evolution was thus complete. From the ancient world, where it was the outcome of
the interaction of occasional alliances, the notion of balance of power transformed itself. It
first vanished during the Roman domination. Then, together with the fragmentation of the
temporal authority of the Holy Roman Empire, it reappeared in XV century Italy.
Notwithstanding the fact that aequilibrium potentiae was celebrated as the final remedy to
settle that regional system of States, it still constituted the mere result of self‐interested
foreign policy. The adversarial kind of balance also dominated the successive phases of
European history, when reason of State and religion contributed to complete the State‐
building process of the actors of the system. Plurality, a precondition of international
equilibrium, was definitely confirmed after Charles V’s attempt to achieve universal
monarchy. However, religious diversity aggravated the nature of conflicts, so that until the
Westphalian treaties coexistence proved to be difficult to accept. The peace of 1648
eventually secularised wars and laid the foundations for and international shared order,
finally achieved in 1713. Indeed, the Treaty of Utrecht was designed ‘to settle and establish
the peace and tranquillity of Christendom, by an equal balance of power (which is the best
and most solid foundation of a mutual friendship and of a concord which will be lasting on all
sides)’.36
34 Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 189. 35 Bull, The Anarchical Society, pp. 194‐222; Clark, Legitimacy in International Society, pp. 80‐82; Luard, The
Balance of Power, pp. 25‐29. 36 From the Treaty of Utrecht between Britain and Spain, quoted in Haslam, No Virtue Like Necessity, p. 103.
