BURNING ISSUESWEEK 7

SOVEREIGNTY

REIKO SHINDO

Introduction

Last week: Technology – combat drones / biometrics

This week What is sovereignty? How is the meaning of sovereignty contested? How is sovereignty negotiated in practice?

Sovereignty

supreme authority over a particular territory

‘exclusionary political space…ruled by a single, supreme centre of decision-making which claims to represent a single political community or identity’ (Richard Devetak, 1996: 201)

The Treaties of Westphalia (1648)

The state have the right to govern its citizens, free from outside interference.

Any intervention from the outside is perceived as the assault on state sovereignty

Intervention is irregular and anomaly

International anarchy / the absence of authority higher than sovereign statehood

The Meaning of sovereignty

Wait….

Is the meaning of sovereignty uncontested and absolute?

Can we safely assume that sovereignty guarantees the state’s prerogative over domestic matters?

Instead of asking how the sovereign principle of non-intervention can be challenged, we will be asking whether there is a static meaning of sovereignty to being with.

The meaning of sovereignty questioned

Questioning the assumption attached to sovereignty is not just an academic question…

Boutros Boutros-Ghali: ‘The time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty has passed; its theory was never matched by reality’ (An Agenda for Peace, 1995)

Kofi Annan: ‘state sovereignty…is being redefined’ (‘Two Concepts of Sovereignty’, 1999)

The UN World Summit in 2005: unanimously declared that member states take collective action where other states fail to practice their sovereign responsibilities (Paragraph 138 of the Outcome Document)

The Security Council appeal in 2011 on the conflict in Lybia: The UN needs to use ‘all necessary measures’ to assume the ‘responsibility to protect’ civilians from the threat of mass atrocities

The meaning of sovereignty questioned

‘Sovereignty is no longer absolute, but conditional…Eventually the government’s claim to sovereignty may depend on whether it respects the basic human rights of its citizens….Global economic integration, the growth of international broadcasting, telecommunications and travel will all make it more difficult in future for repressive regimes to go about their business unhindered by outside influence.’ (The Economist, Taming Leviathan, December 1998)

Common antipathy to sovereignty

Sovereignty is outdated (cosmopolitan theorists) Susan Strange (The Retreat of the State, 1997)

The nation-state is made obsolete because of the changing world economic structure (global financial market / multinational corporation / regional trading blocs )

Daniel Archibugi (Debating Cosmopolitics, 2003) Sovereignty is politically incompetent to address contemporary issues

(human rights, economic policies, environmental challenges)

Francis Fukuyama (State Building, 2004) European integration is ‘a kind of antisovereignty project’

Its aim has been to control and curtail the state absolute sovereign through multi-layers of rules, norms, and regulations

Common antipathy to sovereignty Historically inaccurate

Luke Glanville (2013; 2010)

There is no historical evidence that suggests that the sovereign right of non-intervention is timeless

Long history of the state practice to intervene in other countries’ domestic affairs on humanitarian grounds

The principle of non-intervention has been established since the inception of/during the Cold War

The purpose of the Treaties of Westphalia was to resolve competing dynastic claims and to ensure the German princes to exercise religious tolerance within their territories.

Common antipathy to sovereignty

The meaning of sovereignty changes depending on the historical context

Contemporary world is different from the past The principle of non-intervention is a recent invention

Common antipathy to sovereignty Sovereignty is mutable

Robert Keohane (1997; 2003)

‘Troubled society’ should abandon the aim to realise the ‘classic ideal-type of Westphalian sovereignty’ (2003: 276); Sovereignty is ‘less territorially defined barrier’ than ‘a bargaining resource’ (1997: 177)

Stephen Krasner (1999)

-Sovereignty is ‘organised hypocrisy’: If formal sovereign state fails to play their roles, solutions to crisis can be found by moving away from the traditional notion of sovereignty

-Creation of semi-autonomous state can solve the struggles that are caused by the insistence to the creation of a supreme political authority attached to a particular territorial state /competing claims over the political supremacy over a given territory

Krasner and Risse (2014)

In countries where statehood is limited in providing public goods and security (limited state), the absolute state authority over domestic matters is compromised by private actors/non-governmental organisation

Common antipathy to sovereignty The meaning of sovereignty changes depending on specific

situations of the countries.

Do you agree with the statement that sovereignty is ‘organised hypocrisy’ (The reality of sovereignty does not match the ideal of sovereignty)? Please select a case to focus your discussion.

Do you agree with the statement that some conflicts might be better solved if the idea of semi-autonomous state / shared sovereignty is applied? Please chose a case to focus your discussion.

Common antipathy to sovereignty Sovereignty limits the political imaginations

R.B.J. Walker (1993)

‘sovereignty is not a permanent principle of political order; the appearance of permanence is simply an effect of complex practices working to affirm continuities and to shift disruptions and dangers to the margin’ (Walker 1993: 163).

The meaning of sovereignty is ideologically constructed: it makes a particular political order (non-intervention, no authority above the state) legitimate, while others inconceivable and illegitimate.

Common antipathy to sovereignty

If we start from the understanding that sovereignty is an ideological construct, how might the study on international relations be changed?

To what extent, is our curriculum reflective of the view that takes sovereignty as the starting condition of international relations?

Summary Today’s summary

The meaning of sovereignty is historically contingent.

The meaning changes depending on specific situations of countries

The idea of sovereignty is ideologically constructed.

Next week

The Paris attack –Different perspectives-

Recommended readings Glanville, Luke. (2013) ‘The Myth of “Traditional” Sovereignty”’, International Studies Quarterly 57: 79-90.

Glanville, Luke. (2010) ‘The antecedents of “sovereignty as responsibility”’, European Journal International Relations 17(2): 233-255.

Keohane, Robert. (2003) ‘Political Authority after Interventions: Gradations in Sovereignty’, in J.L. Holzgrefe and R.O. Keohane (Eds) Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Krasner, Stephen D. and Risse, Thomas. (2014) ‘External Actors, State-Building, and Service Provision in Areas of Limited Statehood: Introduction’, Governance 27 (4): 545-567.

Krasner, Stephen. (1999) Sovereignty. Organized Hypocrisy, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Krasner, Steohen. (2004) 'Sharing Sovereignty: New Institutions for Collapsed and Failing States’, International Security, 29: 85-120.

Strange, Susan. (1996) The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in World Economy, Cambridege: Cambridge University Press.

Walker, R.B.J. (1993) Inside/Outside. International Relations as Political Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.