Origins of the International System : Mesopotamian and West Asian

—The oldest original international system from a political science and world historical perspective is the West Asian international system. Reported here are findings of a study to identify, measure, and describe the composition of the earliest international system in terms of politically autonomous units, similar to earlier studies of the modern international system of nation-states and its polity membership. Autonomous polities include states, as well as chiefdoms and empires, from ca. 6000 B.C. to 1500 B.C., after which this pristine West Asian international system expanded into a much larger interaction network comprising the Euro-West Asian international system. The new data set developed for this study is based on primary sources from archaeology and epigraphy, and contains over two hundred polity-periods covering the initial 4,500 years (‘Ubaid period to end of Old Babylonian period). Scientists who study large-scale complex systems—such as the physical universe or the Earth’s biosphere—spend considerable effort measuring and trying to understand the origins, composition, and early evolution of such systems. They use raw data collected by instruments to develop and test hypotheses and theories to explain phenomena of interest: be they stellar clusters, planetary events, or earthquakes. When, where, and how did the first international system originate? Which were the first states? How did they interact? What was their level of political complexity? How did subsequent configurations of the early international system evolve and develop? When did the first empires form? Political science today is dominated by the Westphalian paradigm of the modern nation-states system, even as it accepts some non-state actors within a global system (neo-Westphalian version). However, the Westphalian system that has evolved from A.D. 1648 to the present is only the most recent configuration in a long and complex political process that goes back thousands of years (~10), not just hundreds (~10). The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct and analyze in a systematic way the “natural history” (Singer 2000) of the first original international political system that formed in West Asia during the 5 and 4 millennia B.C., approximately 7,500 years ago. I shall first provide some background, followed by sections on research methodology, findings, and a discussion of selected findings. The main results from this study, based on a new data set containing several hundred polity-periods, indicate that the first international political system formed between ca. 5500 and 4000 B.C., consisted exclusively of chiefdoms, and later evolved into the first true interstate system by ca. 3700 B.C. (Middle Uruk period as a terminus ante quem). The first empire in this pristine international system—the Uruk polity—also emerged soon after the formation of the first interstate system. The findings also uncover several new political patterns previously overlooked by the archaeological, epigraphic and historical literature on the ancient Near East.