Introduction : sovereignty in action / Bas Leijssenaar and Neil Walker -- Post-sovereignty? / Dieter Grimm -- When sovereigns stir / Neil Walker -- The people as popular manifestation / Jason Frank -- Sovereignty, action, autonomy / Raf Geenens -- Liberal governmentality and the political theology of constitutionalism / Miguel Vatter -- Popular sovereignty: the people's two bodies / Pasquale Pasquino -- Nations against the people : whose sovereign power? / Olga Bashkina -- A positive or negative conception of sovereignty? / Marcel Gauchet -- Benjamin Constant and liberal democracy / Nora Timmermans -- Political idolatry : the relation of Schmitt's two claims in political theology / Stephanie Frank.
Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- About the Contributors -- Introduction: Reclaiming Sovereignty -- The traditional concept -- International perspectives -- Extending the concept -- Reference -- PART 1: TRADITIONAL PERSPECTIVES: SOVEREIGNTY AND THE STATE -- Chapter 1: Is it Time to Detach Sovereignty from the State? -- The ambiguity problem -- The two faces of the state -- James's no-nonsense realism -- Form without content? -- The problem of the state -- Sovereignty and the modern state -- Sovereignty and meaning -- A poststatist view of sovereignty -- References
The concept of sovereignty is central to international relations theory and theories of state formation, and provides the foundation of the conventional separation of modern politics into domestic and international spheres. In this book Jens Bartelson provides a critical analysis and conceptual history of sovereignty, dealing with this separation as reflected in philosophical and political texts during three periods: the Renaissance, the Classical Age, and Modernity. He argues that the concept of sovereignty and its place within political discourse are conditioned by philosophical and historiographical discontinuities between the periods, and that sovereignty should be regarded as a concept contingent upon, rather than fundamental to, political science and its history
"Social order requires a sovereign: an actor with unlimited, undivided, and unaccountable authority. Or so the classic theory says. But without noticing, we've gutted the theory. Constitutionalism limits state authority. Federalism divides it. The rule of law holds it accountable. In vivid historical detail--with millions tortured and slaughtered in Europe, a king put on trial for his life, journalists groaning at idiotic complaints about the League of Nations, and much more--Don Herzog charts both the political struggles that forged sovereignty and the ones that undid it. He argues that it's no longer a helpful guide to our legal and political problems, but a pernicious bit of confusion. It's time, past time, to retire sovereignty"--Publisher's website.
A picture of sovereignty holds the study of politics captive. Captives of Sovereignty looks at the historical origins of this picture of politics, critiques its philosophical assumptions and offers a way to move contemporary critiques of sovereignty beyond their current impasse. The first part of the book is diagnostic. Why, despite their best efforts to critique sovereignty, do political scientists who are dissatisfied with the concept continue to reproduce the logic of sovereignty in their thinking? Havercroft draws on the writings of Hobbes and Spinoza to argue that theories of sovereignty are produced and reproduced in response to skepticism. The second part of the book draws on contemporary critiques of skeptical arguments by Wittgenstein and Cavell to argue that their alternative way of responding to skepticism avoids the need to invoke a sovereign as the final arbiter of all political disputes
"Sovereignty is undoubtedly one of the most disputed and controversial concepts in politics today. What does it mean to say that a state, a people or an individual is sovereign? In this book, twelve contributors, all specialists in their own area, tackle these questions in different ways. Underlying the range and diversity of their responses is a common problem: how does sovereignty relate to society and the state? The first part focuses upon developments in British politics, the European Union, Northern Ireland and South Africa in the late 20th century. The second part explores state sovereignty from an international perspective, while the third looks towards detaching sovereignty from the state. Feminist arguments about the self and the exploitation of prostituted women are interrogated along with a democratic analysis of popular organizations and a novel assessment of the question of sovereignty and animal rights."--Bloomsbury Publishing
Disputes about sovereignty mainly arise in those cases where fundamental rights are infringed, or democratic participation denied, on account of the citizens' membership in certain ethno-cultural minority groups. Moreover, the fact that serious challenges to sovereignty can be detected even in ethno-culturally diverse polities, which by all standards qualify as fairly just liberal-democracies, can only mean that the complex relationship between sovereignty and the diversity challenge is in need of serious consideration and analysis. By observing sovereignty and diversity through the lens of a
Using the Western tradition of metaphysical and political thought as a backdrop, Critique of Sovereignty (a work in 4 volumes) re-examines the concept of sovereignty in order to better understand why our ethical values and technical capacities often seem so divorced from our lived realities. On the one hand, ostensibly self-enclosed entities like the nation-state and the person are rhetorically bolstered as sites of technical agency and/or moral responsibility. On the other hand, these same entities appear fragile — if not purely fictional — in relation to ever ongoing tidal processes such as the migration, diffusion, and conglomeration of bodies, capital, ideas, etc. While some of our institutions might work some of the time, they always seem to work differently than we like to think they do. Accordingly, the forging of more humane institutions might very well entail if not require ways of thinking that strive to undo the self-imagined binds, exceptions, and sureties of thought for the sake of embracing a continuity with all that withers, decays, and falls away. Book I, "Contemporary Theories of Sovereignty," compares the varied interpretations of sovereignty given by a range of 20th-century political theorists (Maritain, Foucault, Derrida, Schmitt, Agamben, Hardt, and Negri) with Jean Bodin's initial outline of the concept, rendered at the outset of modern political thought in the 16th century. The analytic framework of sovereignty encountered in these comparative readings provides an initial point of departure for unfolding a method of critique appropriate to the concept of sovereignty. Sovereignty is an ideal starting point for a critique of the deadlocks between thought and reality for a simple reason: it doesn't actually exist. When it serves as a guide to action, sovereignty may be regarded as a particularly captivating fantasy. The closer it appears, the further it recedes, and, too often, the more vigorously it is pursued.
Introduction / Andre Santos Campos & Susana Cadilha -- PART 1. SOVEREIGNTY AS 'POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.' Sovereignty, the people, and popular sovereignty -- Sovereignty, some skeptical thoughts -- Is weak popular sovereignty possible? -- PART 2. SOVEREIGNTY AS LEGITIMACY. On legitimate sovereignty and global responsibility -- Sovereignty and legitimate authority: What lies beneath -- Independence -- The paradoxical value of sovereignty in post-sovereign society -- On the conceptual link between sovereignty and legitimacy -- PART 3. SOVEREIGNTY AS SELF-DETERMINATION. Beyond Westphalia: Democratic conceptions of sovereignty and constellations of plural territories -- Justice, self-determination and territorial rights forfeiture -- Controlling immigration in the name of self-determination -- Sovereignty and the value of self-determination -- PART 4. SOVEREIGNTY AS COSMOPOLITAN CHALLENGE. Citizen responsibility, sovereign states, and our globalized world -- Human rights require yet contest national sovereignty: How a human rights corporation might help -- Critical cosmopolitanism.
An introduction to sovereignty games / Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Rebecca Adler-Nissen -- The variety of sovereignty / Neil Walker -- Sovereignty before and after the linguistic turn / Jens Bartelson -- Playing with sovereignty: examples from the theory and practice of international law / Ole Spiermann -- Play money? contemporary perspectives on monetary sovereignty / Christoph W. Herrmann -- Organised duplicity? when states opt out of the European Union / Rebecca Adler-Nissen -- Federalism, confederalism, and sovereignty claims: understanding the democracy game in the European Union / Andrew Glencross -- Sovereignty beyond borders: sovereignty, self-defense, and the disciplining of states / Tanja E. Aalberts and Wouter G. Werner -- Securing sovereignty by governing security through markets / Anna Leander -- The refugee, the sovereign, and the sea: European Union interdiction policies / Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen -- Epilogue: three layers of a contested concept / Rebecca Adler-Nissen and Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen
Sovereignty, statehood, and the diversity challenge -- pt. 1.Theorizing contested sovereignty -- Liberalism, secession and violence -- Why borders? Self-determination and the ethics of secession -- Role of uti possidetis in determining boundaries -- pt. 2.Reconciling sovereignty and diversity -- Trust and tolerance as state making values in multicultural societies -- Can decentralization do what federalism promises? -- Minority protection mechanisms as means to prevent and settle disputes over sovereignty -- pt. 3. Sovereignty and diversity in practice -- The legal regulation of secession: lessons from Yugoslavia and Canada -- Final status for Kosovo: should we really be petrified with the partition option? -- Higher law making as a political resource: constitutional amendments and the constructive fragmentation of sovereignty in India