Sovereignty

About: Sovereignty is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 25909 publications have been published within this topic receiving 410148 citations.

The European Nation-State: On the Past and Future of Sovereignty and Citizenship

Abstract: As even the name of the United Nations reveals, world society today is composed politically of nation-states. The historical type of state that emerged from the French and American revolutions has achieved global dominance. This fact is by no means trivial. The classical nation-states in Northern and Western Europe evolved within the boundaries of existing territorial states. They were part of the European state system which already took on a recognizable shape with the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. By contrast, the “belated” nations – beginning with Italy and Germany – followed a different course, one which was also typical for the formation of nation-states in Central and Eastern Europe; here the formation of the state followed the trail blazed by an anticipatory national consciousness disseminated by propaganda. The difference between these two paths (from state to nation vs. from nation to state) is reflected in the backgrounds of the actors who formed the vanguard of nation and state builders. Along the first path, these were lawyers, diplomats, and military officers who belonged to the kings administrative staff and together constructed a “rational state bureaucracy” (in Max Weber‟s sense); along the second, they were writers and historians, and scholars and intellectuals in general, who laid the groundwork for Cavour‟s and Bismarck‟s subsequent diplomatic and military unification of the state by propagating the more or less imaginary unity of the “cultural nation.” After the Second World War, a third generation of very different nation-states emerged from the process of decolonization, primarily in Africa and Asia. Often these states, which were founded within the frontiers established by the former colonial regimes, acquired sovereignty before the imported forms of state organization could take root in a national identity that transcended tribal differences. In these cases, artificial states had to be first “filled” by nations that coalesced only later. Finally, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the trend toward the formation of independent nation-states in Eastern and Southern Europe has followed the path of more or less violent secessions; in the socially and economically precarious situation in which these countries found themselves, the old ethnonational slogans had the power to mobilize distraught populations for independence.Thus today the nation-state has definitively superseded older political formations.1 To be sure, the classical city-states also had successors in modern Europe, for a certain period, in the cities of Northern Italy and – in the territory of the old Lodiaringia (Lorraine) – in the belt of cities out of which Switzerland and the Netherlands emerged. The structures of the old empires also reemerged, first in the form of the Holy Roman Empire and later in the multi-nation-states of the Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian Empires. But in the meantime the nation-state has displaced these remnants of premodern states. We are at present witnessing the fundamental transformation of China, the last of the old empires. Hegel took the view that every historical formation is condemned to decline once it has reached maturity. One need not accept Hegel‟s philosophy of history to recognize that the triumphal procession of the nation-state also has an ironical, obverse side. The nation-state at one time represented a cogent response to the historical challenge to find a functional equivalent for the early modern form of social integration which was in the process of disintegrating. Today we are confronting an analogous challenge. The globalization of commerce and communication, of economic production and finance, of the spread of technology and weapons, and above all of ecological and military risks, poses problems that can no longer be solved within the framework of nation-states or by die traditional method of agreements between sovereign states. If current trends continue, the progressive undermining of national sovereignty will necessitate the founding and expansion of political institutions on the supranational level, a process whose beginnings can already be observed. In Europe, North America, and Asia, new forms of organization for continental “regimes” are gradually emerging above the level of the state, regimes which could one day provide the requisite infrastructure for the currently rather inefficient United Nations. This unprecedented increase in abstraction is merely the continuation of a process the first major example of which is the integration achieved by the nation-state. Hence I think that we can take our orientation on the precarious path toward postnational societies from the very historical model we are on the point of superseding. First I would like to review the accomplishments of the nation-state by clarifying the concepts “state” and “nation” (I) and explaining the two problems to which the nation-state provided a solution (II). Then I will examine the potential for conflict built into this form of national state, namely the tension between republicanism and nationalism (III). Finally, I would like to deal with two current challenges that overburden the nation-state‟s capacity for action: the differentiation of society along multicultural lines (IV) and the processes of globalization that are undermining both the internal (V) and the external (VI) sovereignty of the existing nation-states.

Citizenship, deportation and the boundaries of belonging

Abstract: Taking the growing use of deportation by many states, including the UK and the USA, as its point of departure, this article examines the implications of deportation for how citizenship is understood and conceptualised in liberal states. We follow scholars such as Walters (2002, Citizenship studies, 6 (2), 265–292) and Nicholas De Genova (2010, The deportation regime: sovereignty, space and freedom of movement. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 33–65) in seeing deportation as a practice that is ‘constitutive of citizenship’, one that reaffirms the formal and normative boundaries of membership in an international system of nominally independent states. However, we draw on the UK to show that, as a particularly definitive and symbolically resonant way of dividing citizens from (putative) strangers, deportation is liable to generate conflicts amongst citizens and between citizens and the state over the question of who is part of the normative community of members. Such conflict is, we show, a key and everyda...

Political Theory: An Introduction

Abstract: 1. What is Political Theory? 2. Human Nature, the Individual and Society 3. Politics, Government and the State 4. Sovereignty, the Nation and Transnationalism 5. Power, Authority and Legitimacy 6. Democracy, Representation and the Public Interest 7. Law, Order and Justice 8. Rights, Obligation and Citizenship 9. Freedom, Toleration and Identity 10. Equality, Social Justice and Welfare 11. Property, the Market and Planning 12. Security, War and World Order 13. Tradition, Progress and Utopia

Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations

Abstract: For generations, Indian people suffered a grinding poverty and political and cultural suppression on the reservations. But tenacious and visionary tribal leaders refused to give in. They knew their rights and insisted that the treaties be honored. Against all odds, beginning shortly after World War II, they began to succeed. Blood Struggle explores how Indian tribes took their hard-earned sovereignty and put it to work for Indian peoples and the perpetuation of Indian culture. This is the story of wrongs righted and noble ideals upheld: the modern tribal sovereignty movement deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as the civil rights, environmental, and women's movements.

Conducting Research with Tribal Communities: Sovereignty, Ethics, and Data-Sharing Issues

Abstract: Background: When conducting research with American Indian tribes, informed consent beyond conventional institutional review board (IRB) review is needed because of the potential for adverse consequences at a community or governmental level that are unrecognized by academic researchers. Objectives: In this article, we review sovereignty, research ethics, and data-sharing considerations when doing community-based participatory health–related or natural-resource–related research with American Indian nations and present a model material and data-sharing agreement that meets tribal and university requirements. Discussion: Only tribal nations themselves can identify potential adverse outcomes, and they can do this only if they understand the assumptions and methods of the proposed research. Tribes must be truly equal partners in study design, data collection, interpretation, and publication. Advances in protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) are also applicable to IRB reviews, as are principles of sovereignty and indigenous rights, all of which affect data ownership and control. Conclusions: Academic researchers engaged in tribal projects should become familiar with all three areas: sovereignty, ethics and informed consent, and IPR. We recommend developing an agreement with tribal partners that reflects both health-related IRB and natural-resource–related IPR considerations.