S SS The Making of International Status
By
Marina Duque
M. P. Ross 12-24-25
It’s shite being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low! The scum of the fucking earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization! Some people hate the English. I don’t. They’re just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers! Can’t even find a decent culture to be colonized by! We’re ruled by effete assholes! It’s a shite state of affairs to be in Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference!
Mark “Rent Boy” Renton in the movie Trainspotting.
You never leave the schoolyard. This observation is key to understanding human social dynamics, whether the context is the individual, society, or the state. You don’t want to be the last kid picked when choosing up sides for a game. Humans are a social animal, a pack animal. Like chicken in the barnyard, within any of the many forms of human social packs, a pecking order develops. Place in the pack is expressed as status.
Status among states in the international community is both evident and evasive. We can observe cooperation and rivalry between equals and near equals, between powerful and weak states, populous and sparsely populated, continental states and isolated islands, technologically advanced and economically challenged, and between liberal and authoritarian states. Status is about more than social niceties—favorable seating at a state function—though it is that, too. It is currency in the marketplace of power and resources, (a point we will return to later in the review).
Of course, the importance of status in international relations is well recognized among the students and practitioners of political science; the topic of much discussion, deliberation, and volumes of text. Political science study often takes place in its own territory, shared with the other social sciences, at one end of the university campus, separate from the territory of the hard sciences. Relations between them have been warming, with efforts to introduce the empiricism of the scientific method to the social sciences. Those of a certain age are fortunate enough to have taken their degrees before this innovation had become mandatory. Dare we call it by its name? Statistics.
The Making of International Status introduces an empirical model for assessing status relations among states, offering an objective, quantifiable measure distinct from the traditional subjective, qualitative approach which has long been the standard. Its author, Marina Duque, a lecturer at Newcastle University, writes on international affairs from diverse international experience. She was a career diplomat in her native Brazil before returning to academia in the US and UK. Drawing on her service in Brazil’s diplomatic corps, Duque matches firsthand knowledge of a less powerful state operating in a diplomatic world of greater and lesser powers with formal academic training in international relations theory to develop a model which helps explain the nature of status among states and how it is obtained.
Duque argues “that status depends on a state’s existing relations rather than directly on its qualities.” A traditional approach holds that status is based on a state’s attributes, emphasizing economic strength and the ability to project military force. We can measure these attributes and derive a statistically valid interpretation of a kind of status–rank. If material attributes were the source of status, we would expect a state’s status to rise and fall with its fortunes, and this has not been the case. France and Italy are cited as states long past their peak economic and military power, yet have maintained their status in the international community, whereas even attaining nuclear weapons has not benefited North Korea, still regarded as a low-status state.
The book works with a different, more specific definition of status, social rank. “[Status] is a quality that cannot be directly observed or measured…an inequality based on social esteem…a concept at the intersection of identity and power…[involving] two necessary dimensions: recognition and hierarchy.” Duque emphasizes that “a valid measure of international status should capture acts of recognition that create social inequalities among states.” Here we are approaching a value judgement/qualitative interpretation, so let us return to the model.
“Three acts of recognition create status distinctions and could therefore serves as measures of status recognition: (1) the recognition of a state, (2) the establishment of diplomatic relations, and (3) the establishment of diplomatic representation.”
Embassies serve as the proxy from which Duque’s model derives reliable, quantifiable data which can then be read as the relative status of states, revealing both recognition and hierarchy. Embassies are expensive–for all states, but especially for less wealthy states. Of the three acts of recognition, the formal, physical establishment of diplomatic relations requires a costly financial commitment. There is the cost of the land and building, and the salaries for an ambassador-level official and their staff. Obviously, though the far greater cost is borne by the sending state, we should not neglect to mention lost parking fees and fines incurred by embassy family and staff enjoying diplomatic privilege.
The model shows all the relationships between sending and receiving states in the international community. It is a significant act, recognizing a state, judging the value of having formal relations with it, and committing the financial resources for maintaining that relationship. Not all states can afford such arrangements with every other state. The model then reveals patterns in the diplomatic relations among states: of high status states receiving the most ambassadors, and from which sending states; which lower status states, with lesser economic and military resources, receive ambassadors from both higher and lesser status states. The book displays this phenomenon as two graphic models showing Core-Periphery vs. Community Structure Networks.
Duque’s model of state-level international status is as fascinating as it is revelatory. It gives us a clear picture of status relationships between states, backed by reliable date, made accessible through tables, charts, and graphics. It offers a valuable, but necessarily incomplete, perspective. Reading the book, we find Duque would agree. We need not, and should not, abandon the traditional take on state status relationships of subjective analysis of observable phenomena. They are complementary.
It is worth noting our usual qualifiers about working with models. Each model in its place. It will tell us what it does; and in many cases yield useful insight by what it doesn’t tell us. Apply the model at the appropriate level of abstraction/degree of specificity; what is generally true may not hold for a specific example, not just for exceptions, but in different contexts under different circumstances. Avoid the Folly of the Pure Model; the exclusive reliance on a single, all-encompassing philosophy, political or economic theory, or religion. (Baseball through a Marxist lens comes to mind. Marxist analysis of the exploitation of minor league players might be a good bet. As the last word on stealing second base—and who is exploiting whom—we might profit from an alternative perspective.)
Duque’s model is nicely focused. The Making of International Status, our user guide to the model, is likewise clear and down to business. Like Philip Pettit’s The State (reviewed on this website), it benefits from making its points, then restating and reinforcing them in subsequent chapters, so that the reader does not have to go back and search for missed terms—a useful and appreciated feature. It further benefits from an implied understanding of any model’s potential for less than optimal application. In other words, like we find in any user manual cleared by the attorneys: This model must employed for its designed purpose to avoid dangers such as the Folly of the Pure Model; non-intended uses may void the warranty. A little levity on a serious point. The book, however, is not light reading; unmistakably academic writing. On a non-fiction style scale, from dissertation to belles-lettres, it is pretty well pegged at dissertation.
Two concepts from Wall Street come to mind when Duque brings up the inequalities of status. The first is that the stock market operates by a market mechanism. That is, the price of a stock is set by the aggregate decisions of all the buyers and sellers in the market—taking into account the many and various reasons for each buy and sell. The second is volume confirms the trend. Many transactions by many buyers and sellers are more meaningful than a single sell order, especially for a thinly traded stock causing a big drop in stock price when reason for the trade is unrelated to either the stock’s fundamentals or price, such as a personal need to cover unexpected house repairs.
Duque was a member of Brazil’s diplomatic corps. Brazil, a BRIC state, is high GDP growth and lower status compared to the lower growth, higher status G7 states. She experienced first-hand how status works, and it obviously made enough of an impression on her that she chose to devote a substantial part of her career to understanding the phenomena. In short, status is social, historic, and self-reinforcing among high status states. A Brazilian might well question their state’s status compared to Canada, a member of the G7. Brazil and Canada are roughly comparable in GDP, GDP growth, and land area, with Brazil having five times Canada’s population. It is the economic leader of Latin America, in terms of total GDP if not per capita. Yet its global status does not reflect its economic strength. Duque recognizes this. “Status depends on a state’s relations, rather than directly on its qualities.”
Back to Wall Street. Politics is the marketplace of power, which in the context of this discussion is denominated as status. Political power is obtained by the aggregate estimations of all the players in the market. As Duque quotes Robert Gilpin from his 1981 War and Change in World Politics, status is the “everyday currency of international relations…” Wall Street wisdom also tells us that volume confirms the trend, and here, as much status is based on relationships not qualities, quantifiable qualities do matter. The US GDP alone is greater than that of the top four BRIC states combined. Duque concurs. “Status depends on an ensemble of attributes, including both material resources and fundamental values, that is simply out of reach for most states.”
One of the goals of AppliedPoliticalTheory.com is to highlight the practical application of theory. That is what we have with Duque’s model; a theoretical conception of status relationships between sovereign states, expressed as an empirical model, which can serve as a tool aiding states manage their international relations. It maps the territory upon which states plot their course. It is best used as one perspective in concert with others. At the foreign policy planning table, its perspective will be joined by the traditional view, and they together will argue the implications of their state’s international status with ministers from the departments, representing defense, finance, commerce, industry and agriculture, and so on. What is the role of the state’s international status, and can the state afford the financial commitment necessary for maintaining it?
How can a single state, let alone the entire community of nations, achieve productive international relations? It is no simple or easy matter. The disparities of goals and fortunes are considerable, and resistant to reconciliation. The answer is that there is good news, and there is bad news. The good news is that it is a people problem. The bad news is that it is a people problem. Knowledge of the facts abound, if ignored. Practical solutions are proven, if the will to apply them is insufficient.
As art imitates life, and vice versa, it is perhaps not too far out of place to offer two quotes. The first from the Fred Neil song, Dolphins; the second from the movie, Trainspotting. “This old world may never change, the way it’s been. And all the ways of war, can’t change it back again.” “It’s a shite state of affairs to be in…” You never leave the schoolyard.