The Settlement of 1815
The Settlement of 1815
This chapter looks at the order building in the settlement of 1815. The peace settlement that ended the Napoleonic wars in 1815 gave Europe the most elaborately organized political order yet. Led by Great Britain, the European states mounted a sustained effort to find a mutually agreeable, comprehensive, and stable order; this effort culminated in the celebrated Congress of Vienna. The Vienna settlement departed from earlier postwar settlements in the way the leading state attempted to use institutions to manage relations among the great powers. There were, however, sharp limits to the binding character of these institutions. The British proposal for general security guarantee failed primarily because of the inability of the states involved to make binding commitments. There are some traces of constitutional order, but the 1815 case reveals the limits to which nondemocratic states can create binding institutions.
Keywords: order building, peace settlement, Napoleonic wars, 1815 settlement, political order, Congress of Vienna, postwar settlements, security guarantee, constitutional order, nondemocratic states
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