Farewell to Westphalia by Jarrad Hope
For nearly four centuries, global order has been structured around a single institutional assumption: sovereignty is territorial.
The Westphalian system — consolidated after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 — defined political authority as geographically bounded, mutually exclusive, and state-centric. Borders determined jurisdiction. Citizenship determined allegiance. Power flowed vertically.
That model is now under strain.
Drawing on arguments from Farewell to Westphalia, this seminar examines the erosion of territorial sovereignty and the rise of networked, digital, and voluntary forms of coordination. As capital, information, communities, and institutions become increasingly borderless, the foundations of the nation-state are being renegotiated.
The course explores whether we are witnessing the gradual transformation of sovereignty itself — and what new institutional forms may emerge in its place.
This is not a geopolitical forecast. It is an inquiry into how power reorganizes when territory is no longer its primary constraint.
Format
Five-week live seminar
90 minutes per session
Lecture (60 minutes) + moderated discussion (30 minutes)
Closed cohort
Weekly Outline
Week 1 — The Westphalian Settlement
The historical origins of territorial sovereignty. Why the nation-state became the dominant political technology.
Week 2 — The Unbundling of Sovereignty
How globalization, digital networks, and capital mobility weaken territorial monopolies on governance.
Week 3 — Exit, Voice, and Digital Jurisdiction
Voluntary affiliation, jurisdictional competition, and the emergence of network states and parallel institutions.
Week 4 — Institutions Beyond Territory
How decentralized technologies challenge legacy structures of law, identity, and coordination.
Week 5 — Post-Westphalian Order
What replaces territorial sovereignty? Hybrid models, network polities, and the risks of fragmentation.
What This Seminar Is For
Institutional designers and governance researchers
Founders building transnational or digital-native systems
Political theorists and economists
Technologists exploring alternatives to centralized state infrastructure
No background in international relations required. The focus is structural: how sovereignty evolves under technological pressure.
Why It Still Matters
The Westphalian model shaped the modern world — from taxation to warfare to citizenship. If that model is fragmenting, institutional design becomes a live question rather than a settled inheritance.
Understanding the decline of territorial sovereignty is not a speculative exercise. It informs how we think about governance, identity, coordination, and legitimacy in a world where communities form faster than borders can contain them.
If sovereignty is being re-written, it will not be rewritten accidentally. It will be designed.