Sovereignty and the
State
PS 314
January 24th
The Big Questions
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What is the nature of sovereignty?
From where did sovereignty come?
How can we account for the rise of
the modern state?
Is the reach of the state being
curtailed by globalization?
Is sovereignty being undermined by
globalization?
Sovereignty
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Sovereignty is: the “ultimate monopoly of
coercion by a set of political institutions
within a defined territory”
Sovereignty is an artifact of the modern
era. Why?
Theorists such as Jean Bodin (1530-96)
and Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) began
thinking about sovereignty in the late16th
and early 17th centuries, in the wake of
cataclysmic upheavals in Europe
Sovereignty emerged as the successor to
the dual concepts of ‘ultramontanism’ and
‘divine right’
The Theory of Sovereignty
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Bodin, in his The Six Books of the
Commonwealth, is the first theorist to outline the
idea that power lies in the state, not in the
person.
Asked not the question, “Who are the rulers and
what are their powers?”, but rather, “What is the
state and how is it constructed?”
However, Bodin still does not depart from the old
concept of divine right (which has important
consequences).
Hobbes, on the other hand, begins an
investigation of how states come to be.
In doing so, he provides the springboard to the
modern era, for he overturns the principle of
divine right.
The Emergence of the State
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It is often argued that the appearance of state
sovereignty was cemented by the Treaty of
Westphalia (1648), which established the socalled ‘Westphalian system’.
Once of Krasner’s key points is that Westphalia is
not exactly what it has been seen as by
historians; why not?
However, by the time that we move into the 19th
century and the Congress of Vienna, the
possibility of state sovereignty provides the
framework for the aspiration to ‘selfdetermination’
Why did the modern state emerge?
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Within two centuries, Europe passed from
medievalism → city states and leagues → modern
states. For example, the first modern state is
generally considered to be 17th century Prussia.
Why did the state emerge?
Two traditional explanations have been proffered
by historians for the rise of the modern state;
• success in warfare (neo-realism)
• The emergence of national markets (Marxism)
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Spruyt argues that there was a third, and
perhaps most important factor at work; sheer
luck (unintended consequences).
The outcome was a combination of Darwinism,
mutual empowerment, and (later) adaptation and
mimicry.
Contemporary Sovereignty
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Both Krasner and Spruyt remind us that
sovereignty is a powerful tool in the modern
world, despite globalization
Both of them reject the notion that sovereignty is
undermined by universalism, whether it be
religious ideals (islamic fundamentalism) or
secular ideals (human rights)
Spruyt argues that the state is more powerful
than ever before
However, Krasner does concede that the state
now has real competitors for power (i.e. NGO’s)
Neither sees the European Union as a
fundamentally new form of organizing
sovereignty for all