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What is the purpose and criteria of state recognition? Despite its regular occurrence in world affairs of the last 250 years, there is no scholarly agreement on this question. Yet the question remains as urgent as ever. Even a cursory glance at the very latest cases involving the phenomenon–whether Kosovo, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, South Sudan, or Palestine–suggests that recognition of a new state represents a crucial aspect of conflicts over statehood, many of which are prone to generate major and protracted international crises.

For many decades now, academic study of this thorny and multifaceted subject has been dominated by international lawyers. That scholarship has been driven by an explicit theoretical interest in its nature and effects. Entire library shelves can be filled with a long-standing debate revolving around two seemingly irreconcilable theories of recognition. Yet nonlawyers have been generally …