2 SOVEREIGNTY

Carl T. Dahlman

Definition: A Multi-Faceted Concept

The ultimate authority to rule within a polity is known as sovereignty.
Historically, ultimate authority within a polity was located in the per-
son of the sovereign, a monarch whose rule was vested by divine right
or local custom, and often by a good deal of force. In feudal Europe, a
monarch’s rule was not conceived territorially, except what he owned
personally. Rather, his authority extended from the fealty of those loyal
to him and they, in turn, possessed the land; when allegiances shifted,
so too did the area under sovereign rule (Figure 2.1).1
The modern territorial state system began to take shape under the
Capetian dynasty (10th–14th centuries) and was largely consolidated by
the time of the Westphalian peace in 1648. This system defines sover-
eignty as the right to rule a territorially bound state based on two types of
authority (Sassen 2006). The first pertains to internal or domestic sover-
eignty, the authority to rule within a delimited territorial state, which
requires that the monarch’s subjects recognize his right to rule (Wendt
1999: 206–211). Complementary to internal sovereignty, a second exter-
nal or international legal sovereignty is the right of a sovereign govern-
ment to rule its territory without external interference. This is predicated
on the recognition of sovereignty by other sovereign entities, which since
1945 has been largely routinized in admission into the United Nations.
Contemporary norms of sovereignty remain bound to these two forms
of recognized authority, and polities are thought to possess sovereignty
absolutely or not at all (Williams 1996: 112). In effect, sovereignty com-
prises the legal personality of the modern state, an amalgam of govern-
ment, territory and people, which thus possesses rights, powers,
jurisdiction, etc. In this rendering, sovereignty may be violated or dero-
gated but it is not divisible or additive – a state cannot gain some sov-
ereignty at the expense of another, as is possible with territory
(Brownlie 1998: 105–106). Stripped bare, legal sovereignty should be
 Sovereignty

29

Figure 2.1 Although the monarchy had long been limited by the time
Queen Victoria took the throne, she remained a powerful example of a
remnant system of personal sovereignty in Europe. She ruled over the major
expansion of the British Empire and was officially both Queen of the United
Kingdom and Empress of India. (Engraving from 1897, courtesy of the
National Archives and Records Administration).

considered separate from the issues of power, control and jurisdiction

that most people imply when they invoke the term. This is analytically
useful since sovereigns have actually possessed differing abilities
within their polities throughout history, from besieged figurehead to
totalitarian despot. The empirical variability of what sovereignty
means in practice reminds us that it is more an ideal or legal abstrac-
tion than what exists in reality and most authors thus imply a wide
range of meanings when they invoke the term.
 Statecraft

Stephen Krasner usefully identifies four meanings of sovereignty

that are differentiated by varying degrees of authority and control and
which also highlight the implicit geographical construction of the inter-
national state system (Krasner 1999). First, domestic sovereignty
includes both authority and control but only within a state. While inter-
nal political authority (the right to rule) may be constituted in various
ways, it is distinct from whether a sovereign entity exercises effective
control throughout state territory. Second, international legal sover-
eignty dwells on the issue of the authority of the state, namely its gov-
ernment, within the international realm where sovereign states
interact. This authority ultimately rests on the recognition of state sov-
ereignty by other sovereign states and, importantly, this legal person-
ality can survive territorial and internal changes. Third, Westphalian
sovereignty implies the territorial organization of the state as an invi-
olate realm, free from intervention by other states. The norm of non-
intervention is often at the crux of what is implied by ‘violations of
sovereignty’, and although states may violate their own Westphalian
sovereignty by invitation (asking another state to come to their
defence), this does not diminish their international legal sovereignty.
30 Fourth, interdependent sovereignty relates wholly to the state’s control
of its borders and its exposure to external influences. Although Krasner
focuses on commercial transborder flows of capital, labour and goods,
this could extend to other transnational movements, such as ideological
and cultural diffusions. It is worth noting that these different forms of
sovereignty may have transformative effects on one another but they
need not vary in direct proportion to each other.

Evolution and Debate: Locating Sovereignty

As the above discussion implies, sovereignty is both an ambitious and
a vague term. On the one hand, it is thought to provide the fundamen-
tal framework for the political and geographic organization of modern
international politics. On the other hand, its meaning is both highly
contextual and often not fully stated, rendering the concept less analyt-
ically reliable than we would expect.2 The concept also presents numer-
ous conundrums that authors have examined in some detail. For
example, if internal sovereignty is dependent on the unlimited right of
a ruler, then what happens when states are governed as representative
 Sovereignty

democracies? The fragmentation of sovereignty within a modern

governmental apparatus on top of democratic norms regarding popular
sovereignty mean that a Hobbesian understanding of sovereignty (in
which sovereignty is possessed by someone with special rights and sep-
arate from the rest of the polity) is simply not useful to understanding
today’s political world. Instead, modern democratic government sug-
gests that sovereignty is something that can be unbundled into differ-
ent competencies and even shared among various institutions within a
state, e.g. the people, local political units or federal structures.
Furthermore, if the right of non-interference means that the internal
affairs of sovereign states are inviolate, then how do we square this
with international norms protecting human rights, which might
require an intervention (invasion) to protect victims and/or arrest vio-
lators? And what about situations where the actual area of sovereign
control exercised by a state is smaller than its legal territory, and in the
gap are sheltering threats to it or a neighbouring state?
Normative considerations aside, students of actually existing politics
must engage with the fact that power, territory and rights are increas-
ingly reorganized into spaces other than states, challenging our under-
standing of a world based on sovereign territorial actors (Luke 1996: 31
494). To this end, it is useful to consider a series of geographical argu-
ments that fundamentally reshape how we understand sovereignty.
First, conventional approaches to sovereignty tend to view territory as
merely the stage, container or resource of sovereign power rather than
fundamental to its operation. It is necessary to grasp the geographic
concept of territoriality as a historical explanation of how sovereignty
has been organized through social practices that use bounded spaces as
a medium of power and identity. Sovereignty is therefore an evolving
spatial practice as states try to respond to changes and challenges in
domestic and international economic, social and political life.
Second, seen through the lens of territoriality, it becomes easier to
identify a further distinction between de jure (legal or recognized) and
de facto (actual) sovereignty. The difference is significant since recogni-
tion of sovereignty is not the same as effective control of that territory.
Governments in exile are an important example of why this matters.
Likewise, international legal sovereignty might not be matched by a
commensurate recognition of domestic sovereignty, as in the case of
many decolonized states during the twentieth century (Murphy 1996).
Third, John Agnew takes this distinction a step further to argue that
‘de facto sovereignty is all there is’, identifying four ideal-type regimes
 Statecraft

of effective sovereignty according to the strength of state authority and

its territorial reach. Strong state authority within a bounded state ter-
ritory represents the ‘classic’ type of sovereignty, while a weak central
authority beholden to outside powers and challenged by separatist
forces represents the opposite ‘imperialist’ type. Agnew identifies the
European Union as an example of ‘integrative’ sovereignty, in which
state authority is weaker by having vested certain competencies in a
regional institution. The fourth type, ‘globalist’, is exemplified by the
United States in having retained a strong central authority while
extending its influence beyond its borders by getting other states to
sign on to economic and political agendas for which the US serves as
hegemon (Agnew 2005).
Agnew’s argument recognizes a fourth point, voiced by others: that
states are never as much in control of their affairs and territory as the
ideal of sovereignty implies (Krasner 1999; Williams 1996). But
whereas Agnew’s formulation of effective sovereignty concentrates on
states, there are a variety of other forces in world politics that are not
sovereign actors yet challenge state sovereignty. Most commonly, these
forces are manifestations of globalization, where multilateral treaty
32 organizations, international trade, labour migrations and transna-
tional cultural diffusions challenge the basis of state sovereignty.
Neoliberal economic policy, for example, is thought by some to present
a turning inside-out of state authority as once-sovereign powers submit
to decisions made by bodies such as the World Trade Organization or
the imperatives of multinational corporations. International action in
defence of human rights suggests perhaps a more fundamental trans-
formation of sovereignty since it not only violates the non-intervention
norm but seeks to reform what counts as the legitimate practice of
domestic sovereignty.
This leads to a final point – many territories are effectively ruled not
by states but by other non-state entities, such as guerilla/paramilitary
groups, criminal gangs and illicit trade networks. In most cases, non-
state actors merely limit the de facto sovereignty of a state over parts
of its territory. That is, they limit a state’s ability to exercise effective
control over its entire territory, even though the uncontrolled territory
is often still recognized, both domestically and internationally, as part
of the state. In some cases, however, non-state actors may achieve not
only effective territorial control but also effective ruling authority, which
local populations may recognize as a de facto domestic sovereignty. The
challenges to state sovereignty introduced by territorialized non-state
 Sovereignty

actors may similarly apply to occupying powers and international

administrations established to temporarily govern a failed state, as in
Kosovo or Iraq. But this raises doubts about the legitimacy of domestic
sovereignty once a domestic government is restored. In Iraq, for exam-
ple, the United States remains an occupying power although formal
sovereignty has been handed over to a recognized Iraqi government,
raising the question of whether the US would indeed withdraw if asked
by the Iraqi government. Like globalization, these forces challenge sov-
ereignty and cause us to re-examine what we mean when we think of
states. At the same time, sovereignty has proven to be an important
normative concept capable of historical transformation that may yet
survive along with the state, albeit in response to changing expecta-
tions of what ultimate authority within a state actually entails (Taylor
1994).

Case Study: Bombing Serbia to Save Kosovo

Humanitarian intervention, namely armed intervention to defend the
human rights of another country’s population without that govern- 33
ment’s permission, raises hotly debated questions about sovereignty.
Although such actions may appear similar to wars of conquest, they are
predicated on a sense of moral responsibility to stop continued abuses
rather than to gain territory from the target state. Moral and ethical
reasons for violating another state’s sovereignty, however real and com-
pelling, have not yet been established in international law so these
interventions generally occur in a legal grey area. In fact, states that
undertake humanitarian interventions are careful in their justifica-
tions to avoid the claim of customary right to such actions and instead
cite more narrowly construed national security interests (Holzgrefe
2003: 47–49). Leftist critics of humanitarian intervention often accuse
western powers, especially the United States, of using such opportuni-
ties in the pursuit of empire, hegemony, regime change, or merely to
exercise their might for show. Interestingly, they share a perspective
commonly voiced by states with poor human rights records, e.g. Serbia.
These criticisms in any case typically ignore the substance of the
human rights issue and are not discussed here.
The Kosovo crisis from 1998 to 1999 provides an excellent case study
through which to examine current issues affecting state sovereignty
(Figure 2.2). The case of Kosovo is situated within the larger context of