Sovereignty

11 Key excerpts on "Sovereignty"

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  International Law and Boundary Disputes in Africa

  • Gbenga Oduntan(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2 Sovereignty, jurisdiction, territorial integrity and territorial acquisition in international law DOI: 10.4324/9780203776841-2

  The concepts of Sovereignty, jurisdiction and territory have incredibly important relevance in time and space. In this chapter we will seek to establish the centrality of these concepts to international law as well as the social, natural and environmental sciences.

  2.1 Concept and forms of Sovereignty

  Sovereignty is the absolute and perpetual power of a commonwealth, which the Latins call majestas; the Greeks akra exousia, kurion arche and kurion politeuma; and the Italians segnoria – a word they use for private persons as well as for those who have full control of the state; while the Hebrews call it tomech shevet – that is, the highest power of the command. We must now formulate a definition of Sovereignty because no jurist or political philosopher has done so, even though it is the chief point, and the issue that most needs to be explained.

  1

  1 Julian H. Franklin (ed.), Jean Bodin, On Sovereignty:Four Chapters from the Six Books of the Commonwealth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 1.

  Sovereignty in law and political science is a concept of universal significance – with application across human cultures and with manifestations in time and space. Its relevance to African state territories has been expressed both in antiquity and in this period of late modernity. Sovereignty in one form or another will no doubt be applicable to Africa and across all other continents until the very end of history. Therefore, we must begin by elaborating upon and interrogating this critical concept in relation to state territories and the disputes over their boundaries. Only in this way can a thorough understanding of the current challenges confronting the independent states of Africa in occupying and defending their territories be meaningfully achieved.

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  Variations on Sovereignty

  Contestations and Transformations from around the World

  • Hannes Černy, Janis Grzybowski(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Rather than juxtaposed to its juridical conceptions, the sociological conceptions of the state are themselves imminently juridical, starting from the most famous one, which defines it as ‘the form of human community “that (successfully) lays claim to the monopoly of legitimate physical violence”, within a particular territory’ (Weber 2004, 38). This immediately gives rise to a question: Is such territory a geographical area suited for the exercise of Sovereignty? Or is it an area over which Sovereignty happens to be exercised as a matter a fact? Put differently: Is Sovereignty the legitimate power over a geographical area defined as territory? Or is territory just a geographical area over which Sovereignty happens to exist? An affirmative answer to the first question, reveals the ‘modern’ state as, at its base, a juridical construct, and Weber’s definition as ‘sociological’ only superficially. An affirmative answer to the second, however, simply gives rise to another, more elementary question: What makes the presumably existing ‘geographic area’ geographic?

  On a first look, a geographic area would seem to coincide with the fragment of earth surface whose features are identifiable with reference to the specific location of objectively existing facts of nature – such as rivers, lakes, seas, oceans, and mountain ranges – which continue to exist independently from political entities which have, over the course of history, existed as more or less spatially delineated. On a closer look, this answer proves illusory. Though it is possible to establish such geographical coordinates independently from past and present state-like units, the identification of a particular geographical area amounts to deciding which among the plethora of otherwise relevant geographical coordinates are to be considered as formative

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  Sovereignty and Jurisdiction in Airspace and Outer Space

  Legal Criteria for Spatial Delimitation

  • Gbenga Oduntan(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Independence in regards to a portion of the globe is the right to exercise therein to the exclusion of any other the functions of a state.” 51 The connection between Sovereignty and jurisdiction is, thus, so strong that the term “Sovereignty” is sometimes used in place of “independence” as a basic criterion of statehood. However, Sovereignty is said to have another more satisfactory meaning as an incident or consequence of statehood, namely, the plenary competence that states, prima facie, possess. Crawford impressively draws the conclusion that since the two meanings are distinct it is better to use the term “independence” to denote the prerequisite for statehood and “Sovereignty” the legal incident. 52 Accordingly, one of the senses of the term sovereign is that which indicates plenary authority with respect to internal or external affairs. This view also helpfully clarifies that plenary authority is not in all cases coterminous with independence. Thus, Cyprus under its 1960 constitution was an independent state but it was not sovereign. This is because the pertinent constitution left a significant number of important powers and competences beyond the state’s powers. 53 Sovereignty in essence refers to the “supreme authority and control over policy” within any delimited political space. 54 In modern literature, the term Sovereignty has been employed in four different ways, which do not necessarily overlap in the sense that a state can have one and not necessarily the other. They are, namely, international legal Sovereignty, Westphalian Sovereignty, domestic Sovereignty and interdependence Sovereignty. Reference to international legal Sovereignty denotes the practices that are associated with mutual recognition, usually between territorial entities that possess formal juridical independence. Westphalian Sovereignty refers to political organisation, which is based on the exclusion of external actors from authority structures within a specific territory

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  Popular Sovereignty in the West

  • Geneviève Nootens(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In other words, most scholars seem to agree that Sovereignty – as different from maiestas or Imperium – is a modern concept because it is inseparable from the state, although the two should be kept analytically distinct. Indeed, when talking about Sovereignty, many people have in mind the institutional character of ultimate authority within the state. Hinsley, for example, defines Sovereignty as the concept ‘which maintains […] that there must be an ultimate authority within the political society if the society is to exist at all, or at least if it is to be able to function effectively’ (Hinsley 1986: 217). 2 Biersteker and Weber define it ‘as a political entity’s externally recognized right to exercise final authority over its affairs’ (Biersteker and Weber 1996: 12). According to Murphy, Sovereignty is the idea ‘that final authority over most if not all social, economic, and political matters should rest with those in control of territorial units that make up the system [of territorial states]’ (Murphy 1996: 82). Walker argues that it is ‘about a plausible and reasonably effective claim to ultimate authority, […] a representation of authority made on behalf of a society which is (more or less successfully) constitutive of that society as a political society, or as a polity’ (Walker 2003: 17). It includes internal power vis-à-vis the political community as well as the right to exercise powers on behalf of that community in the international domain (Walker 2003: 17)

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  The Bloomsbury Companion to Political Philosophy

  • Andrew Fiala(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Sovereignty is a threshold or liminal concept, which can inspire contemplation, awe, wonder, and fear. The sovereign—whether the political executive or the conscientious individual—may retain the right to break the law. Sovereignty is thus a trump that prevents criticism or intervention. The focus on supremacy at the outside edge of the legal system has religious overtones. God (or the Church) was once viewed as the sovereign, symbolized in the coronation of the monarch by Pope or bishop. But in the modern period, the state emerged as sovereign, with secular governments asserting Sovereignty over religious institutions. Sovereignty is a practical concept used to describe structures of power and deference in international law and domestic political science. But the hierarchies of authority, power, and obedience continue to provoke philosophical reflection. This chapter examines the concept of Sovereignty by explaining (1) how the concept of Sovereignty evolved in Western political philosophy and (2) how the concept functions in contemporary legal theory, political science, and Anglo-American political philosophy.

  GENEALOGY OF THE CONCEPT OF Sovereignty

  The sovereign is the supreme or superior authority: superanus in Vulgar Latin; souverain in French; in German rendered either as Souveränität or with two words, Staatshoheit und Staatsgewalt indicating the majesty/dignity and power of the state (see Bluntschi, 1892, Beaulac, 2004). Behind this is the Greek terms kyrios , which is most frequently translated as “Lord” or “sovereign” in the Bible (along with the Hebrew Adonai ). The term kyrios was employed to identify the Roman emperor—as in the title Kyrios Kaisar (Lord Caesar), which was countered by Christians who denied that Caesar was Lord and affirmed Kyrios Christos (see Jongeneel, 2009, 92). In the Bible, the account of God’s lordship or Sovereignty shows up, for example, in Psalm (71:16), where the Sovereign Lord God is praised for his mighty deeds and as the sole source of justice. We see this in the phrase “the Almighty” which is also used to describe God, even occasionally piling on epithets to emphasize power, as in the phrase, “Lord God Almighty” (kyrios theos pantokratōr ) found in Revelation . Revelation makes clear the hope, foreshadowed in the Psalms, that at some point God will rule over the kingdoms of the world (Revelation 11). Thus Sovereignty can have a metaphysical and religious significance. Even though we take Sovereignty as “the sine qua non

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  Geopolitics

  Re-Visioning World Politics

  • John Agnew(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 A World of Territorial States

  In the modern geopolitical imagination, power has been defined as the ability to make others do something you desire and, at least from the nineteenth century onwards, it has been exclusively associated with territorial states that are usually presumed to be nation-states (ones where there is a close match between membership of a distinctive nation and the boundaries of a particular state). In this chapter I want to explore these contentions in some detail and to show how the spatiality or geographical organization of power is not necessarily tied for all time and all places to the territoriality of states. The state-centred account of spatiality of power, what I term the ‘territorial trap’, is the historical projection of a world in which power over others is envisioned as pooled up in the hands of equivalent units of territorial Sovereignty, usually the most important states militarily, the so-called Great Powers.

  Most explicit in the case of political geography and the study of international relations, but common throughout the contemporary social sciences, the conventional understanding of the geography of power is underpinned by three geographical assumptions: first, that states have an exclusive power within their territories as represented by the concept of Sovereignty; second, that ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ affairs are essentially separate realms in which different rules obtain; and finally, that the boundaries of the state define the boundaries of society such that the latter is totally contained by the former. These assumptions reinforce one another to produce a state-centred view of power in which the space occupied by states is seen as fixed, as if for all time. Thinking about the spatiality of power is thus put beyond history by assuming an essential state-territoriality to the workings of power.

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  Boundaries, Territory and Postmodernity

  • David Newman(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  From a legal perspective, state Sovereignty continues to apply within the demarcated, and recognised, boundaries of the State while, at the same time, Sovereignty may also be expressed through some form of de facto control – which may be either territorial or expressed through virtual communities – as contrasted with de jure international recognition. This has been described as constituting ‘nominal’ Sovereignty, 39 dealing directly with the exercise of power, deriving from the German doctrine of Gebietshoheit. For geographers, the idea of nominal Sovereignty may be seen as a modern version of the notions expressed some sixty years ago by Derwent Whittesley in his study of the impress of effective authority upon the landscape, 40 or 25 years ago in David Knight’s study of the impress of authority and ideology upon human territories. 41 At the same time as boundaries are becoming more permeable to the movement of goods and people, and diffusion of ideas and transactions, the fences of national and ethnic separation continue to be erected in other parts of the world. The re-emergence of nation states in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the redrawing of the lines of separation between the Czech republic and Slovakia, and the desire for clearly defined separate national territories on the part of Bosnians and Croats, Israelis and Palestinians, Turkish and Greek Cypriots, to name but a few, are indicators of the continued power and importance of territorial lines. The desire for self-government and independence are tied up with the concrete formation of national identities and the way in which these are linked to the territorial demarcation of national homelands, as reified in the socialisation processes of these same groups

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  Migration, Globalisation and Human Security

  • David T. Graham, Nana K. Poku(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 Mapping Territoriality The Geopolitics of Sovereignty, Governance and the Citizen Peter Marden In the present era of international politics, whether one refers to it as belonging to the vagaries of globalisation or some postmodern domain, there seems to be an intellectual obligation to revisit critically some long-held cherished assumptions about politics and society. Indeed, to suggest that the territorial boundaries of states are no longer commensurate with political authority and absolute control is hardly innovative. Nor is it necessarily startling to recognise the growing network of non-state organisations exercising levels of influence over states and national policy-making agendas. If anything, the literature on globalisation has at least brought this to our attention. But to what extent has some of the language and conceptual iconography usually associated with a state-centred polity come under serious scrutiny? Notions of difference, ethnicity and the cultural realm of identity politics have all surfaced as essential features of the contemporary international political landscape. This is not surprising when one considers the diverse and powerful responses to the dimensions of international migration. Indeed, the accommodation of cultural differences is becoming a real test of tolerance for some communities. But what impact are these events and recognitions having on hitherto unproblematised conceptualisations of territoriality and Sovereignty? This chapter will examine how broader understandings of territoriality and Sovereignty will help us come to grips with what many have called postmodern world politics. Rather than rallying around the call for the ‘end of geography’ this analysis will affirm the imperative of geography, but only through a redefinition of these foundational terms. By adopting a broader perspective on these terms, the issues surrounding the nature of governance and the challenges to the state also become clear

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  Engaging Geopolitics

  • Kathleen Braden, F.M. Shelley(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2

  Fundamental Concepts of Geopolitics

           

  KEYWORDS

  geography, nation, state, Sovereignty, boundaries, territory, heartland

  KEY PROPOSITIONS

  • Geopolitics focuses on the geographical perspective of international relations.

  • The distinction between nation and state is crucial to understand and analyze many international conflicts.

  • There is a close relationship between power and territory at all geographic scales, sometimes leading to conflict over territorial control.

  • Geopolitics as a discipline has been influenced by British, French, German, American, and Russian theories.

   

  Geopolitics is the study of international relations and conflicts from a geographical perspective. The geographical perspective suggests that location, distance, and the distribution of natural and human resources have significant influences on international relations. Thus we begin our investigation of geopolitics by focusing on the unique perspective of the geographer. We then investigate several key geopolitical concepts: the nation, the state, power, territory and conflict.

  2.1   The geographical perspective

  Geography is the systematic study of location and place. Professional geographers address questions concerning where and why various phenomena are located and distributed. In addition, they examine and compare the unique characteristics of places while considering the relationships between individual places and the global economy.

  What distinguishes contemporary geography from other approaches to knowledge is not content, but intellectual approach. None of the vast number of subjects analyzed by professional geographers are unique to the discipline of geography. Geography is distinguished from these disciplines by its unique, holistic and integrative approach to knowledge. The geographer pulls together knowledge of social, economic, political, cultural and environmental forces that shape human activity in places and regions throughout the world.

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  European Integration and the Postmodern Condition

  Governance, Democracy, Identity

  • Peter Van Ham(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Quite unlike virginity, Sovereignty is usually lost gradually, and may well be reformulated on manifold levels and by ingenuous methods. It is also useful to realize that Sovereignty is neither the equivalent of power nor the same as law. Sovereignty has first and foremost to do with legitimate authority, which, for a variety of reasons (usually an amalgam of law and tradition), is accepted by society During the closing years of the Middle Ages, rulers used the concept of Sovereignty for external and internal purposes. Externally, it justified freedom from influence of the Emperor and the Pope; internally, it was invoked to strengthen control over autonomous vassals and as a means to consolidate an exclusive territorial jurisdiction. 31 These two faces of Sovereignty (internal and external) are still analytically valid and useful. Sovereignty may have lost its absolute character, but the state is still the main subject of international law. National Sovereignty still serves as a threshold for political and economic intrusion in the domestic affairs of a state-based political community This even holds true for today's European Union. 32 Nation-states decide themselves whether they want to participate in the EMU, the Schengen agreement, the MAI, and to accept other limitations on their economic and political authority But, as we will discuss at more length below, existing economic, political and treaty commitments have limited the European states' room for maneuver and locked them into dense networks of activities that have grown up around past institutional and political decisions. These are the ‘sunk costs’ of European integration that preclude ‘sovereign’ Member States from simply tearing up the Union's founding treaties, packing their bags and returning to a policy of national autarky

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  Problematic Sovereignty

  Contested Rules and Political Possibilities

  • Stephen Krasner(Author)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • Columbia University Press

    (Publisher)

  The widespread claim that state Sovereignty is in decline reflects an inadequate understanding of the concept of Sovereignty. Sovereignty is a political theory about the locus of authority in the national polity, and the principle that the state constitutes this locus is deeply institutionalized in world and national structures. In the globally dominant theory, the state derives its Sovereignty from the ultimate source of authority, “the people,” and it exercises that Sovereignty on the people’s behalf. Loss of Sovereignty would therefore imply the assumption of authority and jurisdiction in the national territory by some body or organization other than the state. Such cases are not unknown; in recent years, we have seen the United Nations establish authoritative control of a number of national polities in which the state has collapsed, and in some cases (e.g., the United States in Haiti, NATO in Kosovo) the United Nations has authorized other actors to assume authority in disorderly countries. In all such cases, however, the primary goal has been the reestablishment of a functioning sovereign state exercising jurisdiction over a reconstituted national polity under democratic political structures, in line with the doctrine of state Sovereignty derived from the citizenry. In no case in recent decades have we observed the formal incorporation of a national polity under the jurisdiction of an external state or IGO, or the concession of Sovereignty to a tyrant or oligarchy, as the generally desired resolution of a state crisis.

  While the principle of state Sovereignty stands firm, the array of external actors and forces that impinge on the state and influence state policy and behavior has expanded rapidly. States must manage an increasingly intrusive and powerful external environment, and to succeed as states (that is, to actualize the general model of the properly constituted and functioning state) they must enmesh themselves ever more thoroughly in international and global structures and flows. By and large, however, despite the numerous instances of state breakdown or collapse, states’ capacity to manage their national polities has increased in tandem with the increasing complexity and integration of the world polity. States must deal with ever more problems, and they have ever greater resources and organizational muscle to do so. States may have to run just to keep in place, but they keep on running rather steadily even though they often seem to be struggling.

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