Hybrid sovereignty in world politics

The idea of 'hybrid sovereignty' describes overlapping relations between public and private actors in important areas of global power, such as contractors fighting international wars, corporations regulating global markets, or governments collaborating with nongovernmental entities to influence foreign elections. This innovative study shows that these connections - sometimes hidden and often poorly understood - underpin the global order, in which power flows without regard to public and private boundaries. Drawing on extensive original archival research, Swati Srivastava reveals the little-known stories of how this hybrid power operated at some of the most important turning points in world history: spreading the British empire, founding the United States, establishing free trade, realizing transnational human rights, and conducting twenty-first century wars. In order to sustain meaningful dialogues about the future of global power and political authority, it is crucial that we begin to understand how hybrid sovereignty emerged and continues to shape international relations.

"The global sovereign order is constructed from relations of public/private hybridity where power flows without regard to public and private boundaries. In hybrid sovereignty, the lived realities of performing sovereign competence through contractors, lobbyists, and INGOs are in tension with idealized imperatives of an indivisibly public sovereign authority. Public/private hybridity implicates core questions of sovereignty and responsibility for International Relations. The book addresses these questions while showing that public/private hybridity takes different forms of contractual, institutional, and shadow hybridity based on the formalization and publicization of relations. Using multi-sited original archival research, the study examines varieties of public/private hybridity in some of the most profound world historical moments: the spread of the British empire, the founding of America, the establishment of free trade, the realization of global human rights, and the wars of the twenty-first century. In order to sustain meaningful dialogues about the future of global power and authority, it is crucial that we begin to reflect on Hybrid Sovereignty in World Politics"--

The idea of 'hybrid sovereignty' describes overlapping relations between public and private actors in important areas of global power, such as contractors fighting international wars, corporations regulating global markets, or governments collaborating with nongovernmental entities to influence foreign elections. This innovative study shows that these connections – sometimes hidden and often poorly understood – underpin the global order, in which power flows without regard to public and private boundaries. Drawing on extensive original archival research, Swati Srivastava reveals the little-known stories of how this hybrid power operated at some of the most important turning points in world history: spreading the British empire, founding the United States, establishing free trade, realizing transnational human rights, and conducting twenty-first century wars. In order to sustain meaningful dialogues about the future of global power and political authority, it is crucial that we begin to understand how hybrid sovereignty emerged and continues to shape international relations.