Awards

• Winner of Honorable mention, US Foreign Policy Section of the American Political Science Association Book Award Shortlisted, Annual Best Book Award, International Studies Association.
• Winner of Honorable mention, US Foreign Policy Section of the American Political Science Association Book Award.

Overview

In the wake of World War II, the United States and its allies developed a new type of security arrangement in which a state could maintain a long-term, peacetime military presence on the territory of another equally sovereign state that, unlike earlier practice, was not tied to occupational regimes or colonial rule. The impact of this development on international politics is hard to overstate, and it has become a constitutive feature of contemporary security dynamics. Despite its significance, the origins of this basing practice have remained largely understudied and unexplained. In Armed Guests, Sebastian Schmidt develops a theory to explain the emergence of this phenomenon, which he calls ""sovereign basing,"" and in doing so, shows how its development fundamentally transformed state sovereignty and the very nature of security politics. He applies concepts derived from pragmatist thought to a historical study of the relations between the United States and its wartime allies to explain how sovereign basing originated through the efforts of policymakers to come to grips with the unique security environment of the postwar era. As he argues, the tools offered by pragmatism provide needed analytical leverage over the emergence of novelty and offer valuable insight into the dynamics of stability and change.Armed Guests is a wide-ranging account of the development of sovereign basing practices in the years before and after World War II. It is a book with significant implications for our understanding of contemporary security politics and the future of basing strategies as well as for broader issues in IR, including the sociological foundations of security strategies, the nature of norms, and the practice of sovereignty.

Full Product Details

9780190097752

Table of Contents

Reviews

Armed Guests is the single most important account of how the modern institution of sovereignty has reconciled itself with the rise of the US overseas military basing network. Thanks to Schmidt's theoretically precise and historically rich book, we have a much better understanding of the complex practices and experimentation that resulted in sovereign basing DL a key pillar of US hegemony DL becoming accepted as a commonplace form and legitimate practice in international relations. -- Alexander Cooley, Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College This fascinating account of how the practice of sovereign basing became possible avoids both the materialism of traditional IR approaches and the ideationalism of much IR constructivist scholarship. By focusing instead on practical action in context, Schmidt is able to show how innovations in security arrangements emerged neither from overarching conceptual innovation nor from military necessity, but from a complex process of situated creativity. -- Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, American University Every now and then, a monograph on an obscure topic overcomes intractable issues across the subfields.AArmed Guests deserves that honor.ADrawing on pragmatism, Sebastian Schmidt develops a theory of institutional order and change, which circumvents the structure-agency dilemma that keeps constructivists, practice theorists and historical institutionalists chasing their tails.AApplied to the practice of sovereign basing, Schmidt shows how state sovereignty was recomposed after World War II in ways that reshaped the contemporary world. -- Gerald Berk, University of Oregon, and co-editor of Political Creativity: Reconfiguring Institutional Order and Change Every now and then, a monograph on an obscure topic overcomes intractable issues across the subfields. Armed Guests deserves that honor. Drawing on pragmatism, Sebastian Schmidt develops a theory of institutional order and change, which circumvents the structure-agency dilemma that keeps constructivists, practice theorists and historical institutionalists chasing their tails. Applied to the practice of sovereign basing, Schmidt shows how state sovereignty was recomposed after World War II in ways that reshaped the contemporary world. -- Gerald Berk, University of Oregon, and co-editor of Political Creativity: Reconfiguring Institutional Order and Change

Author Information

Sebastian Schmidt is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University.

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