ABSTRACT
The international system of civilized states that came to develop in Europe in the course of the nineteenth century was formed through practices of recognition, which created and affirmed similarities between all European states, but also through practices of non-recognition, which created and affirmed differences between Europeans and non-Europeans. Practices of non-recognition are generally ignored in liberal accounts of the origins of international society. A theory of recognition allows us to retrieve this alternative history and make it explicit.
