The Entanglement of Norm: A Structural Study During the Congress of Vienna and the Revolutions of 1848
Ziyan Wang
24/02/2026
This study examines the formation and crisis of international norms between the Congress of Vienna (1815) and the Revolutions of 1848. It argues that the diplomatic order established at Vienna, while achieving temporary stability through a balance of power among sovereign states conceived as legal entities (“state-as-entity”), contained inherent contradictions. These stemmed from its failure to address transformative forces within state organisms (“state-as-organism”) – particularly rising nationalism, bourgeois liberalism, and the pressures of industrialization. Employing a structuralist framework inspired by Althusser’s “symptomatic reading,” the analysis utilizes the core binary of state-as-entity/state-as-organism to dissect historical events and political theory, and shows how the visible legal order of diplomacy was constantly undermined by invisible social contradictions. Key concepts from Carl Schmitt (sovereignty, state of exception, friend-enemy distinction) and E.H. Carr (realism-utopianism dialectic) are integrated. The study concludes that the Vienna system’s conservative norms, reliant on a fragile “legality” among state entities, proved unsustainable, and produced what is described as “the entanglement of norm.” Napoleon’s regime exemplified the “state of exception” and the tension between revolutionary origins and governance. Metternich’s diplomacy, prioritizing equilibrium and legality, ultimately failed by suppressing necessary internal reforms within state organisms, leading to the 1848 explosions. These revolutions underscored the “entanglement of norm”: international norms are inherently unstable due to the dialectic between the visible realm of state entities/diplomacy and the invisible, often conflicting, realities of state organisms (material conditions, ideology). This entanglement manifests in the persistent potential for the “state of exception” and highlights a crisis of political representation linking domestic legitimacy and international order.