The grammar of sovereignty

The problem of why a world of empires has become a world of sovereign states is under-theorized and under-researched. This dissertation explores the conditions leading to decolonization. It attempts to do so in a way that speaks to general models of the Western international system. The research design is accordingly on a large scale. I analyse the 'life histories' of all extra-European dependencies of Western states between 1500 and the present within an event history framework.;The approach is grounded in a phenomenological definition of political units. Criteria of external recognition are used to code three forms of status in the Western international system: unrecognized, dependent, and sovereign. I develop an account of transition rates of movement between these statuses.;An institutional account of decolonization is counterposed to realist and Marxist models. I argue for an 'inner incompatibility of nation and empire' resulting from the development, legitimation, and transmission of the nation-state model to the dependency. This relationship is linked to systemic change by the way competition between states continuously deepens ties to national populations.;An initial analysis points to a 'grammar of sovereignty': the rule-like way in which some kinds of status transitions are basic to the system, while others are anomalous. The only common transitions form a sequence: from unrecognized status to dependency, shifts within dependent status, and movement to sovereignty, which acts as an absorbing status.;The rate of decolonization increases massively between 1500 to 1987, and does not vary with dependency age. Decolonization is thus more importantly related to the world-historical than to internal processes. Institutional arguments are supported as explanations of the increasing rate of decolonization and through demonstration that institutions dramatizing popular sovereignty facilitate decolonization. Other results indicate that dependency population speeds, and high levels of international trade slows, movement from dependent to sovereign status.