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War and peace among states has remained a central question to International Relations (IR) scholars. In fact, IR scholars have for decades focused their attention in studying the diverse strategies that states have historically deployed to mitigate the use of organized violence in an anarchical (i.e. absence of a centralized political structure) context. Indeed, Hedley Bull (1977[2002]), Kenneth Waltz (1979[2010]), Robert Keohane (1984) and Alexander Wendt (1999) have built their theories by taking anarchy as the only organizing principle in the international system. In doing so, they have downplayed the virtues of hierarchy in international relations. From their perspective, hierarchy has no precedence in international politics, as it exclusively organizes state political structures (Waltz, 2010; Wendt, 1999).

This conceptual dichotomy presupposes a certain equality/horizontality between undifferentiated political units. In fact, by masking the hierarchic structures that inhabit international relations, these scholars have also masked the various forms of political authority that regulate bilateral relations among sovereign states (Lake, 2017; Donnelly 2006; Hobson & Sharman 2005). Indeed, Waltz (2010: 88) argues that in the realm of anarchy “each is the equal of all the others. None is entitled to command. None is required to obey”. Therefore, it would be wrong to speak of authority among sovereign states, since “authority requires legitimacy, not mere influence or power” (Wendt, 1999: 208). Anarchy and sovereignty are thus two co-constitutive principles. The former depends on the latter, and vice versa. These theoretical premises inform what is called the “Westphalian narrative” of international politics, which takes as a point of departure for theoretical analysis the experience of the European Empires at the end of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). The Peace of Westphalia imposes itself as the cradle of a contemporary international system that has progressively expanded to the rest of the globe during the expansion of European empires (Bull, 2002). It is not only an “iconic moment” (Ikenberry, 2014) in international relations’ history, but also “the majestic portal which leads from the old into the new world” (Osiander, 2001: 264).

In the last two decades, a revisionist trend has spread into IR’s discipline. The purpose of the latter is to question these Westphalian assumptions, as well as their claim to universality. Constitutionalists argue that the absence of Westphalian principles in the treaties of Osnabruck and Munster remains proof of the mythical character of this paradigmatic narrative (Osiander 2001; Glanville 2013). These IR scholars find that the principles associated with Westphalian assumptions emerge two centuries later in the thought of modernist theorists and international jurists. Regionalist and globalist IR scholars are skeptical about the universality of a theoretical model that breaks down outside the European context (Henderson, 2008; Kang, 2004). In their view, the Westphalian narrative accentuates the “exceptional” character of the European experience and misrepresents it as a standard of global civilization (Kayaogul, 2010). For some, Westphalian narrative is only a “Western IR Theory” (Acharya & Buzan, 2010). Finally, theorists of hierarchy in IR emphasize about the two organizing principles excluded by mainstream theories of IR, notably Neorealism, Neoliberalism and Social Constructivism. These IR scholars espouse a conceptualization of international politics that avoids treating anarchy and hierarchy, as well as sovereignty and authority, as antagonistic principles. Along with them, I consider that it is possible and desirable to theorize more about their theoretical and empirical tension at the time of Global IR.

The hierarchic trend makes an important contribution to the study of international politics. It makes it possible to think about the contemporary international system as an environment where “some [states] are entitled to command and some [states] are required to obey” (Hobson & Sharman, 2005). David Lake (2014: 66) has noted more specifically that “in international relations, authority mostly rests on social contracts in which dominant states provide political orders to subordinate states of sufficient value to offset their loss of autonomy”. International hierarchies are therefore political equilibriums from which the constitutive political actors, the states, derive mutual benefits (Womack, 2006). These contractual hierarchies are similar to what anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists have defined as “clientelistic relationships”. However, analysis about political patronage has received little attention in IR. At present, little is known about the role that patronage plays in the society of states, and knowledge about how these international hierarchies affect state behavior is still embryonic.

This lack of knowledge about patronage in IR is surprising if two elements are considered. First, political patronage is present in every political system on a global scale (Berman 1974). Therefore, it can be extended to the society of states through policymakers’ personal relationships (Médard, 2000). Second, the concept of patronage is commonly used by IR scholars to describe the role (client state) that sovereign states have played historically in the international scene. Unfortunately, research on political patronage has generally adopted an a-theoretical perspective and theoretical efforts have been limited to the development of “conceptual models” (Graziano 1976; Veenendaal, 2014). Consequently, the construction of a clientelistic theory of politics remains to be done in the social sciences as well as in the discipline of IR. The purpose of this article is to lay down two theoretical movements that, I hope, could contribute to this task. In doing so, I would like to invite IR scholars to focus more on how political patronage affects international politics.

The Westphalian Narrative and the Revisionist Turn 

Westphalian narrative is a theoretical construct based mainly on two correlated assumptions. First, the international system is said to be anarchic, i.e. no Global State. Second, anarchy is said to be the consequence of state sovereignty. Both anarchy and sovereignty are considered the organizational principles of two political structures: the international system and the state. In IR, the concept of anarchy is defined in at least two ways. First, anarchy is conceptualized as the absence of order, or as a permanent state of war (Milner, 1991). However, this conception remains problematic, since mainstream theories in IR recognize that there is indeed order in the anarchic context of international relations and that the latter results from the regularization of state behavior (Bull, 2002). The second interpretation is straightforward. Anarchy simply refers to the absence of a Global State (Keohane, 1984; Wendt, 1999; Bull, 2002). In such a context, states are modern entities in that they are internally sovereign. A sovereign state is thus a formally structured hierarchy whose central administration has successfully claimed the monopoly of physical constraint over a territory and a population (Bull, 2002). But, unable to proceed in the same way internationally, sovereign states remain caught in a social environment where the formal institutionalization of politics is an incomplete process (Lake, 2014). This is why the realm of anarchy is considered “the realm of informal politics” (Waltz, 2010).

Westphalian narrative has been the subject of much criticism. For some revisionists, it is impossible to find within the Westphalian treaties the constitutive principles that form today the so called contemporary international system. Historian Derek Croxton (1999: 589) notes that “nobody began or even ended the negotiations at Westphalia with the idea of ​​creating an international system of sovereign states”. Political scientist Peter Stirk (2012: 643) insists that “those who negotiated and commented on the peace of Westphalia did not see it as binding the norm of sovereign equality [because] the normative structure of this world was hierarchical”. In fact, the concept of sovereignty does not appear in the theoretical language of IR scholars until the 18th century and only becomes part of the normative framework of international politics during the 20th century (Glanville, 2013). IR scholar Stephen Krasner (2001: 21) argues indeed that the great innovations attributed to the Peace of Westphalia are “antithetical to the ideas of national sovereignty that later became associated with the so-called Westphalian system”. Since “the conventional understanding of sovereignty is historically inaccurate” (Glanville, 2013: 87), it becomes imperative to look elsewhere when it comes to theorizing about international politics in a global perspective.

Revisionists also discuss the dichotomous conceptualization of anarchy and hierarchy as constitutive principles of political structures, as well as the tension between sovereignty and authority in the society of states. Jack Donnelly (2006: 141) notes precisely that “rather than thinking of anarchy or hierarchy we should attend instead to hierarchy in anarchy”. In this tradition, the concept of hierarchy, generally confused with that of “asymmetry” and “ranking”, would be better understood as a political equilibrium where “both sides become confident of the positive mutual benefit of peaceful relations” (Womack, 2006: 89). Those political equilibriums in the realm of informal politics refers to some kind of international social contracts in which Great Powers “exchange social order for compliance” (Lake, 2007: 54). In other words, Great Powers are willing to assume the costs of an international........

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