SOVEREIGNTY

MEANING OF SOVEREIGNTY
• Sovereignty refers to the source of ultimate authority
in society.

• It is the claim to be the ultimate political authority

subject to no higher power with regards to the making
and enforcing of binding decisions in society.
The modern state is considered to be
a Sovereign state. It has the following
characteristics:
• It possesses Supreme Power over all individual and
associations living within its territory.

• The laws of the state supersede the rules of individual

organisations in society.
However this does not imply that
sovereignty rests simply on force
• The laws of the state become effective only when
people believe that the order of the state is not only
valid but is also justified.

• Therefore the effectiveness of law depends on the

voluntary consent of the people to obey it.
State possesses both internal
and external sovereignty
• Internal sovereignty refers to the right of the state to
make and enforce laws within its territory.

• External sovereignty refers to the recognition in

international law that is state has jurisdiction authority
over a territory. This means that the state is answerable for
that jurisdiction in accordance with the rules of
international law.
ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS
OF SOVEREIGNTY
 1. ABSOLUTENESS
Sovereignty is the Supreme Power Of the state over
citizens and subjects unrestricted by law. Therefore
within the state that can be no legal power, which is
superior to the state. However though the supreme law
making power of the state is legally unlimited in
practice it is limited by various factors such as morality
constitution international law.
 2. UNIVERSALITY
The Sovereign power of the state extends over all
persons and associations within its territory however
foreign diplomats and representatives are not subject to
control of the state in which they reside.

3. PERMANENCE
The Sovereignty of the states does not cease with the
changes in government it continues to exist as long as
the state itself exists.
 4. INALIENABILITY
Sovereignty is inalienable. It cannot be transferred

5. INDIVISIBILITY
Sovereignty cannot be divided. If sovereignty is
divided it will produce several wills which is
inconsistent with the concept of sovereignty.
 KINDS OF SOVEREIGNTY

• DE JURE/ DE FACTO SOVEREIGNTY

• LEGAL/ POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY

• POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY
DE JURE AND DE FACTO
SOVEREIGNTY
• Sovereignty is that which the law recognises hence the de

jure has a legal right to govern and exact obedience from

the people.

• In contrast de facto sovereignty does not have a legal

basis hence if a person or body of persons temporarily
displaces the de jure sovereign either through a revolution
or a military coup and is able to enforce obedience for the
time, then the person or body of persons become the de
facto sovereign.
 LEGAL AND POLITICAL
SOVEREIGNTY
• Legal sovereignty refers to the supreme law making power.
Therefore the legal sovereign is that determinate authority who has
the power to express in legal terms the highest commands of the
state.
• In contrast the political sovereign is the one who lies behind the
legal sovereign and to whom the legal sovereign must bow.
For example the parliament is the legal sovereign and theoretically the
Parliament can make any laws but in actual practice the laws made by
the Parliament cannot violate public opinion. This means that the
political sovereign in England is the people and ultimate sovereignty
lies in the hands of the people. However the court will always recognise
the legal sovereign over the political sovereign, if there is a conflict
between the will of the legal and political sovereign.
TO BE NOTED
The distinction between legal and political sovereignty
does not imply the division of sovereignty.

Legal and political sovereignty are two different

dimensions of sovereignty.

• The will of the legal sovereign should reflect the will of the
political sovereign; this means that the law should conform to
public opinion. In modern representative democracies today the
highest law making authority (legal Sovereign) must obey the
mandate of the electorate (political Sovereign). Good and efficient
government is possible only when the citizens of the country
obey the law spontaneously. This is only possible when there is
no conflict between the will of the legal sovereign and the will of
the political sovereign i.e. when laws reflect the will of the people.
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY
The theory of popular sovereignty holds that sovereignty
belongs to the people. It means that governments derive their
just powers from the consent of the governed, that laws are
rooted in popular consent, hence the people have the right to
remove an autocratic and anti people government either
through elections or revolution.
The idea of popular sovereignty originated in the 16th and
17th century as a defence of the People's struggle against
the prevailing system of absolute monarchy.
• The anti monarchical writers such as Marsiglio of Padua, William of
Ockham, Althusius and others based their argument on the law of
nature and the theory of contract. They argued that originally
sovereignty had belonged to the people and hence it could not be
alienated to the Monarch.
• In the 18th century John Locke relying on the law of nature and the
theory of contract stated that the Supreme Power remains in the people.
The rulers are the executors of the law and the law itself is rooted in
common consent. Therefore the government must act merely as an
agent of the community and if it fails to do so people have the right to
remove it.
• This theory of sovereignty of the people reached its highest expression
in the writings of Rousseau. In Contract Sociale Rousseau stated that
the general will of a community is the sovereign and it is manifested
through People’s active participation in the process of government.
The theory thus became the theoretical justification of the
French Revolution and American war of independence.
• In fact The American declaration of independence stated
very clearly that governments derive their just power from
the consent of the governed.
• In 1792 the French Assembly also declared its intention of
establishing a government to secure sovereignty of the
people and the rule of liberty and equality.

Therefore if the ‘supreme power’ is not exercised

democratically in accordance with the common will,
it cannot be regarded as sovereign.
• Thus popular sovereignty constitutes the ideological
foundation of all modern democracies- to quote Bryce
“Popular sovereignty is the basis and watch word of
democracy”
EVOLUTION OF
SOVEREIGNTY
• The idea can be traced back to Aristotle who wrote about
the ‘supreme power’ of the state.
• The Roman lawyers spoke of the “fullness of power” of the
state.
• In the Medieval period the state in the modern state did not
exist – feudalism was a government system based on
personal allegiance. Coexistence with feudalism was the
antagonistic claims of the Church and the Empire. (Gettel –
Political Science – Evolution of sovereignty)
• By the 16th century, the Church in Europe was beginning to
lose control over the state and societal structures were
moving in a secured direction for a variety of reasons, such
as the Renaissance. The idea of sovereignty was a product
of this neutral cultural and political milieu.
• Machiavelli, in 1513-14, defined the state as
an organization of force that ensures
security of persons and people. However, it
was Jean Bodin and later Hobbes who
articulated more sharply the contemporary
understanding of sovereignty.
Jean Bodin puts forward his views on sovereignty in
De la Republique (1577)

• He was writing at a time when politics in France was

deeply divided and he wished to established order.
• Bodin’s central thesis was that a central authority must
wield unlimited power. Such a power he felt should be
endowed with sovereignty, that is, supreme power over
citizens and subjects unrestrained by law and unlimited in
extent and duration.
• However, Bodin accepted that the laws of God and nature
on the one hand and the customary laws of the land on the
other would limit the sovereign. This aspect makes it
difficult for one to reconcile with his notion of absolute
sovereignty.
Hobbes is the next philosopher who seeks to explain
the concept of sovereignty in his work The
Leviathan (1657)
• In order to demonstrate the need for an all powerful state
he describes a hypothetical situation of a state – a state of
nature – where due to men’s inherently selfish, competitive
and destructive nature, though free, would be gripped by
perpetual feelings of insecurity.

• The only way out for Hobbes was to give up their

conditions of equality and autonomy to create a sovereign
with absolute power – a Leviathan. This absolute sovereign
would be beyond all challenge.
The absolute nature of sovereignty as put
forward by Hobbes was revised by John Locke

• Locke stated that man had certain inalienable rights and

the primary purpose of the state and society was to protect
their individual rights.

• Locke argued that government are held in trust by the

people and derive legitimacy from their consent, given only
in return for adequate protection of individual rights. Or
else the government would lose its authority to rule.

• Thus, the state’s sovereignty would be kept in check and

the state would be made accountable.
Rousseau in his book Social Contract (1962) began his
conception of sovereignty on the assumption that of a
community of citizens united by a commitment to collective
good, distinct from the private instincts of its members.
• This collective good was characterized as the general will
and it endowed the state with absolute power over all its
citizens.
• Rousseau takes his concept of sovereignty further. He
argued that all individuals in the political community
should be involved in lawmaking.
• Thus, it would be the people themselves who would be the
sovereign authority, making the laws by which they are
governed. Hence for Rousseau, there was no difference
between the state and community or between the
government and the people.
Sovereignty as a concept continued to be
explored

The notion of legal sovereignty also known as

the Monistic view of sovereignty was put
forward by English utilitarian philosopher,
John Austin.
 MONISTIC VIEW OF
SOVEREIGNTY
Austin defined sovereignty in the following words-

“if a determinate human superior not in the habit of

obedience to a like superior, receives habitual
obedience from the bulk of a given society, that
determinate superior is sovereign in that society and
the society including the superior is a society political
and independent”.
An analysis of the definition reveals the
following essential features of sovereignty-
• In every State there is a determinate person or body as the single
source of authority who is the sovereign.
• The power of the sovereign i.e. State Power or sovereignty is
legally unlimited and absolute
• Command of the sovereign is law. This means that the state
possesses Supreme Power over all individuals and Association
who are legally bound to obey its laws. the will of the sovereign is
supreme .
• In Its relation to other states the state is also sovereign. it alone
decides the policies that it will pursue in relation to other states.
• Sovereignty is absolute as well as indivisible. There can be No
division of sovereignty and sovereignty resides in the state.
CRITICISM OF THE MONISTIC
VIEW
Austin’s monistic theory of sovereignty has been subject to a
number of Criticisms:
The location of sovereignty is not determinate as Austin
believed. Sir Henry Maine has pointed out that it is a
historical fact that sovereignty has been in the hands of
Number of persons not determinate.
The Pluralists reject the view that the state possesses
exclusive sovereign power over all individuals and
Association within its territorial limits. they deny
that Sovereignty is indivisible. According to the pluralists
the state is but one of many associations, as such it must
compete with the other Associations for the loyalty of the
individuals who belong to both. Hence sovereignty is not
possessed by the state alone, other associations also
possess sovereign powers in their respective spheres.
 Further the pluralists have also challenged the fundamental premise
of the Monists, that the State make laws and therefore it is superior
to the laws it makes- law is the command of the sovereign. Pluralists
like Duguit, Krabbe and Laski deny this basic claim of the Monists.
According to Duguit, law arises directly from the necessities of social
life. Krabbe places law above and independent of the state. He says
laws spring from the community's sense of right. According to Laski,
the source of law is the conscience of the individual. Therefore
according to the Pluralists sovereignty is divisible and laws are not
the command of the state only.

 The internationalists have attacked the doctrine of state sovereignty

on two counts-
• They point out that states are not sovereign in their external
relations. The sovereignty of the state is limited by the rules of
international law and by treaties and conventions they have entered
into.

• Laski has argued that in the age of global interdependence no state

should be allowed in the interest of humanity to have an unfettered
will.
PLURALIST THEORY OF
SOVEREIGNTY
• Pluralism as a critical political theory attacks the
monistic view of state sovereignty which endows the
state with supreme unlimited power.
• However the Pluralists unlike the anarchists and
syndicalists would not like to abolish the state.
• The Pluralists want to retain the state but deprive it of
the sovereignty.
• The Pluralist ideas have been put forth by Lindsay,
Figgis, Duguit, Laski, Barker and Miss Follett.
The main tenets of Pluralism are as
follows-
• The Pluralists deny that the state possesses sovereign
power over all individuals and associations within its
territorial limits.
• It asserts that the state is an association built within the
society for the attainment of specific ends. Besides the
state, the individuals are members of many other voluntary
associations and groups which perform various functions
such as religious, social, economic, professional, political
etc. It is through these associations that individuals try to
influence the government. Therefore the Pluralists have
pointed out that society has become more and more an
aggregation of groups rather than an association of
individuals. It is no longer the individualistic principle of
man versus the state but it is the group versus the state.
• These social groups according to the Pluralists possess
distinct personalities and they arise naturally and
spontaneously. They are not created by the state nor
are they dependent on its will for their existence.
Therefore the state cannot be regarded as sovereign in
relation to these independently functioning
associations.

• The Pluralists argue that the state is an association with

no superior status. Laski stated that “the state is only
one among many forms of human association.”
THEREFORE-

• Sovereignty according to the Pluralists is not possessed by

the state alone, other associations also possess sovereign
powers in their respective spheres. Hence Laski declared
“It would be of lasting benefit to political science, if the
whole concept of sovereignty were surrendered”.

• The Pluralists have thus denied the claim of the Monists

that law is the command of the sovereign. According to
Duguit, law is simply the name for the rules of conduct
controlling individuals.
The Marxist theory of sovereignty does
not deny that the state possesses supreme
power.
• However it rejects the idea that sovereign power of the
State is exercised in the common interest of all, in the
national interest.

• The Marxists claim that the state exercises sovereign power

to protect and maintain the society’s class structure and
class relations. In other words sovereign power of a state
represents the will of the dominant class in society. In a
class society, as under capitalism, sovereignty is the legal
expression of the economically dominant class.
 Despite centuries of theoretical
engagement with the notion of
sovereignty, it still remains a contested
concept.
In the world that we live in, the question of
sovereignty is again being questioned.
We live in a world of global economic integration.

With global economic integration Wallerstein argues

that a ‘world economy’ has been in the making, which is
universal in character and due to its universality it
exercises constraints on all subsystems including nation
state.
However it would be wrong to say that a global market on
one hand and sovereign state system on the other are
contradictory.
Paul Hirst explains why this is so:
• Nation states play a critical role in providing governance of
the economy. So long as nation states remain relevant
sovereignty remains relevant.
• The role and manifestation of sovereignty has altered. The
more the world economy has been internationalized the
greater is the need for the sovereign naton-states,
understood not in its traditional guise of undisputed
sovereign power but as an agency that by virtue of its
sovereignty can guarantee the stability of the global
economy. This happens when the state determines along
with other states, the creation of new institutional agencies
and bodies to regulate trade, investment and other related
issues.
However Hirst mentions the global civil society as a
challenge to the sovereign state system.

This refers to a range of new social movements and

public opinion that cut across national boundaries ,
and work through international non-governmental
organisations.

Bodies such as International Green Peace and

Amnesty International are apt illustrations. But again
Hirst states that it would be a mistake to exaggerate
the influence of these bodies.
In conclusion it can be said:
• The concept of state and sovereignty are rooted in a
particular historical and socio-political context.

• In fact to challenge the concept of sovereignty is to

challenge one of the foundational truths of our times.

• Even those who oppose oppressive states or seek

secession are merely hoping to create their own state
structures in the future rather than thinking of any
alternative ways of social arrangements.