9 - Interstate Relations and the Encounter with Colonial Powers

Summary

Collective beliefs and the corresponding political organization influenced features of interstate relations such as the nature of warfare, alliance structure, and the absence of a hegemonic power. Except for Siam, the European colonial powers controlled every polity in Southeast Asia by the late nineteenth century. Siam adjusted to Western principles of political organization but did so against the backdrop of its existing belief system. Positivist international law nevertheless continued to exclude it from the Law of Nations, in a case similar to how the West treated the Islamic and East Asian polities.