Sovereignty

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

First Nations? Second Thoughts

Abstract: Controversial and thought-provoking, Tom Flanagan's First Nations? Second Thoughts dissects the prevailing orthodoxy that determines public policy towards Canada's Aboriginal peoples. Flanagan argues that this orthodoxy enriches and empowers a small elite of activists, politicians, administrators, middlemen, and well-connected entrepreneurs, while bringing further misery to the very people it is supposed to help. Over the last thirty years Canadian policy on Aboriginal issues has come to be dominated by an ideology that sees Aboriginal peoples as "nations" entitled to specific rights. Indians and Inuit now enjoy a cornucopia of legal privileges, including rights to self-government beyond federal and provincial jurisdiction, immunity from taxation, court decisions reopening treaty issues settled long ago, the right to hunt and fish without legal limits, and free housing, education, and medical care as well as other economic benefits. Underpinning these privileges is what Flanagan describes as Aboriginal orthodoxy - a set of beliefs that hold that prior residence in North America is an entitlement to special treatment; that Aboriginal peoples are part of sovereign nations endowed with an inherent right to self-government; that Aboriginals must have collective rather than individual property rights; that all treaties must be renegotiated on a "nation-to-nation" basis; and that Native people should be encouraged to build prosperous "Aboriginal economies" through money, land, and natural resources transferred from other Canadians. In First Nations? Second Thoughts Flanagan combines conceptual analysis with historical and empirical information to show that the Aboriginal orthodoxy is both unworkable and ultimately destructive to the people it is supposed to help.

The Philadelphian system: sovereignty, arms control, and balance of power in the American states-union, circa 1787–1861

Abstract: A rediscovery of the long-forgotten republican version of liberal political theory has arresting implications for the theory and practice of international relations. Republican liberalism has a theory of security that is superior to realism, because it addresses not only threats of war from other states but also the threat of despotism at home. In this view, a Hobson's choice between anarchy and hierarchy is not necessary because an intermediary structure, here dubbed “negarchy,” is also available. The American Union from 1787 until 1861 is a historical example. This Philadelphian system was not a real state since, for example, the union did not enjoy a monopoly of legitimate violence. Yet neither was it a state system, since the American states lacked sufficient autonomy. While it shared some features with the Westphalian system such as balance of power, it differed fundamentally. Its origins owed something to particular conditions of time and place, and the American Civil War ended this system. Yet close analysis indicates that it may have surprising relevance for the future of contemporary issues such as the European Union and nuclear governance.

Why international norms disappear sometimes

Abstract: This article addresses the empirical puzzle as to why some formerly deeply embedded international norms either incrementally or rapidly lose their prescriptive status and, in the extreme, can even ...

Directorate general for internal policies policy department a: economic and scientific policy

Abstract: The sovereign debt crisis is due to two major flaws of the euro area’s architecture: a doomed approach to fiscal discipline and the lack of a banking union. Adopting a complete banking union has always been a requirement and is now urgently needed. The continuous additions of measures designed to strengthen the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) will fail because this centralised approach is incompatible with budgetary sovereignty. The decentralised approach requires an unbreakable commitment to the no-bailout rule. The other proposals are not justified by economic principles. They may be justified by a political vision, we need more Europe. The timing of this proposals is worrisome, however, as we face a previously unheard loss of public trust in the European institutions.