ABSTRACT
Here I will simply note that when a number of political entities are closely involved with one another, we call the group a system of states (as we speak of a solar system). The differing patterns of relationship between the states in a system range along a spectrum between two theoretical extremes: absolute independence of all the political entities involved, and the equally theoretical extreme of absolute, unitary centralization. All known systems, that is all the patterns of which we have any record, including the present global system and the European one from which it is substantially derived, lie somewhere along the spectrum. They contain elements both of independence, which gradually becomes more limited and diluted into local autonomy as one
moves along the spectrum towards centralization or empire, and of imperial control which similarly becomes diluted into hegemonial authority when we move the other way.2
