International Theory 25 primary channel via which to challenge the state system’s fundamental organising principles—or at least that such a strategy should be accompanied by acts of resistance that more directly challenge the state system’s structure and dominant norms.117 Stilz could defend her claim that she recommends only reforms to—not radical departures from—the existing state system by clarifying that she does not mean to fully reject state discretion over membership (the Sovereignty Principle). Instead, she could simply say that, in an ideal world, states would exercise their discretion so as to ensure better outcomes for the world’s refugees, and that other states and intergovernmental organisations would be justified in exerting pressure on them to do so. There is material in Stilz’s text to support this interpretation. When discussing how states’ duties to protect others’ basic territorial interests should be enforced, she envisions a multilateral treaty, where both signing and compliance with the treaty terms would be incentivised by a practice of revoking the benefits of international cooperation from recalcitrant states.118 This could include denying defectors ‘diplomatic recognition or membership in international organisations, imposing tariffs and trade restrictions in response to infractions, freezing assets, [and] reducing foreign aid’.119 Stilz gives the example of a treaty defining standards for forest conservation, but we could also imagine a treaty defining standards for the treatment of refugees.120 Though Stilz recognises her proposed enforcement mechanisms can be coercive,121 in her determination to show that they represent mere reforms to the state system, she says they are compatible with a principled commitment to state sovereignty.122 She argues that they do not infringe a ‘community’s right to immunity from interference by outside powers within its territory’ because even people targeted for sanction ‘are still free to make their own decisions, even if they are heavily incentivised to cooperate’.123 This certainly suggests that the ways Stilz thinks it would be justifiable to ‘enforce’ states’ compliance with their obligations toward refugees do not reduce states’ discretion over their membership. Instead, they simply alter the balance of costs and benefits states will encounter when exercising their discretion in different ways—which Stilz says is not a challenge to their sovereign authority. On this understanding, Stilz’s proposed changes do sound more like modest reforms than radical challenges to the state system. But this comes at a cost. Stilz has not challenged the Political Authority Principle. As in her earlier work, Stilz treats states as the proper loci of political power and the institutions uniquely suited to Stilz acknowledges there is a role for transnational activism and ‘global protest actions’ (2019, 253) to play in implementing her proposals. However, her brief discussion emphasises activists’ capacity to educate and raise awareness among citizens of different states, hopefully inspiring them to demand that their own governments adopt reforms in line with Stilz’s principles. States remain the main vehicle of political change, and their citizens remain the main constituents enfranchised and empowered to enact political agency demanding change. Thus, it is not clear how resistance movements that more directly challenged the statecentric structure of the world order would fit into Stilz’s prescriptions. 118 Stilz 2019, 244–6. 119 Ibid., 245. 120 Ibid., 244–6. 121 Ibid., 245. 122 Ibid., 254–5. 123 Ibid., 255. 117 https://doi.org/10.1017/S175297192500003X Published online by Cambridge University Press