European balance-of-power politics mirrored its domestic feudal pluralism.

Evidence

European societies went through a phase of absolutism but avoided the sustained bureaucratic empires or “oriental despotisms” that characterized Asia for much of history. Feudalism provided a basis for pluralism and the assumption that some dispersion of power was both natural and desirable. So also at the international level a balance of power was thought natural and desirable, and the responsibility of statesmen was to protect and sustain it. Hence when the equilibrium was threatened, balancing behavior was called for to restore it. The European model of international society, in short, reflected the European model of domestic society. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 638

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to realist IR theory and debates about balance-of-power as culturally contingent rather than universal — echoes the Milgrom/Champagne Fairs material on institutions emerging from social structure.