9
Proposition (1): States are spatial phenomena, and their spatial logic is called state
territoriality, which has internal and external dimensions historically being crystallized
in two processes, territorial consolidation and territorial individuation.
Like other social and political phenomena, states occupy a space; and they not
only occupy, but also attempt to define, redefine, shape, constitute, set boundaries and
regulate people, their relationship and resources. Modern states embody most ambitious
and effective attempts to define and redefine space, its boundaries, people and relations
on it in the modern time. The way in which states are related to space is called state
territoriality. But, territoriality is a more general phenomenon applying to any
relationship between social power and space. In this paper, territoriality is taken as “a
juridical-political” approach to a space and to people, relations and resources on it. It is
any “attempt by an individual and groups to affect, influence or control people,
phenomena and relationships by delimiting and asserting control over a geographical
area” (Sack, 1986:19). It is a spatial strategy to control people and things by controlling
the place where they exist. Thus, territory is what Sack calls “the geographical expression
of social power” (Sack, 1986: 5). The control of place, which turns it into territory,
involves the establishment of different degrees of accession to resources and people, their
definition and construction with social power. Territory is established by specification of
its boundaries and properties through control over things and people.
Having defined territoriality as a general phenomenon, state territoriality is a
strategic approach by a centralized bureaucratic authority to a particular space. The
development of the modern state has been associated with the differentiation of the
territoriality. State territoriality has two major dimensions, internal and external,
reflecting the impacts of the engagement of state with two levels of the modern politics,
international and domestic. The external dimension of state territoriality refers to the
internationally defined and acknowledged rights of a state to control over a specific
geographical area. External territoriality constitutes the spatial logic of states’
engagement with international system. The external nature of territoriality actually refers
to what Ruggie called the mutually exclusive nature of the modern territoriality (Ruggie,
1993). Internal territoriality, on the other hand, means the actual and effective capacity of
Convention