The Sovereign State and Its Competitors

The Sovereign State and Its Competitors
Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Total Pages : 304
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780691213057
ISBN-13 : 0691213054
Rating : 4/5 (57 Downloads)

Synopsis The Sovereign State and Its Competitors by : Hendrik Spruyt

The present international system, composed for the most part of sovereign, territorial states, is often viewed as the inevitable outcome of historical development. Hendrik Spruyt argues that there was nothing inevitable about the rise of the state system, however. Examining the competing institutions that arose during the decline of feudalism--among them urban leagues, independent communes, city states, and sovereign monarchies--Spruyt disposes of the familiar claim that the superior size and war-making ability of the sovereign nation-state made it the natural successor to the feudal system. The author argues that feudalism did not give way to any single successor institution in simple linear fashion. Instead, individuals created a variety of institutional forms, such as the sovereign, territorial state in France, the Hanseatic League, and the Italian city-states, in reaction to a dramatic change in the medieval economic environment. Only in a subsequent selective phase of institutional evolution did sovereign, territorial authority prove to have significant institutional advantages over its rivals. Sovereign authority proved to be more successful in organizing domestic society and structuring external affairs. Spruyt's interdisciplinary approach not only has important implications for change in the state system in our time, but also presents a novel analysis of the general dynamics of institutional change.

Sovereign City

Sovereign City
Author :
Publisher : Reaktion Books
Total Pages : 262
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1861892195
ISBN-13 : 9781861892195
Rating : 4/5 (95 Downloads)

Synopsis Sovereign City by : Geoffrey Parker

This title provides an examination of the rise, evolution and decline of the city-state, from ancient times to the present day.

Walled States, Waning Sovereignty

Walled States, Waning Sovereignty
Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
Total Pages : 169
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781935408093
ISBN-13 : 1935408097
Rating : 4/5 (93 Downloads)

Synopsis Walled States, Waning Sovereignty by : Wendy Brown

Discusses the spate of wall-building by countries around the world and considers the reasons why walls are being built in an increasingly globalized world in which threats to security come from sources that cannot be contained by brick and barbed wire.

State Sovereignty as Social Construct

State Sovereignty as Social Construct
Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Total Pages : 30
Release :
ISBN-10 : 052156252X
ISBN-13 : 9780521562522
Rating : 4/5 (2X Downloads)

Synopsis State Sovereignty as Social Construct by : Thomas J. Biersteker

State sovereignty is an inherently social construct. The modern state system is not based on some timeless principle of sovereignty, but on the production of a normative conception that links authority, territory, population, and recognition in a unique way, and in a particular place (the state). The unique contribution of this book is to describe and illustrate the practices that have produced various sovereign ideals and resistances to them. The contributors analyze how the components of state sovereignty are socially constructed and combined in specific historical contexts.

The Sovereignty Wars

The Sovereignty Wars
Author :
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages : 229
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780815737827
ISBN-13 : 0815737823
Rating : 4/5 (27 Downloads)

Synopsis The Sovereignty Wars by : Stewart Patrick

Now in paperback—with a new preface by the author Americans have long been protective of the country's sovereignty—all the way back to George Washington who, when retiring as president, admonished his successors to avoid “permanent” alliances with foreign powers. Ever since, the nation has faced periodic, often heated, debates about how to maintain that sovereignty, and whether and when it is appropriate to cede some of it in the form of treaties and the alliances about which Washington warned. As the 2016 election made clear, sovereignty is also one of the most frequently invoked, polemical, and misunderstood concepts in politics—particularly American politics. The concept wields symbolic power, implying something sacred and inalienable: the right of the people to control their fate without subordination to outside authorities. Given its emotional pull, however, the concept is easily high-jacked by political opportunists. By playing the sovereignty card, they can curtail more reasoned debates over the merits of proposed international commitments by portraying supporters of global treaties or organizations as enemies of motherhood and apple pie. Such polemics distract Americans from what is really at stake in the sovereignty debate: the ability of the United States to shape its destiny in a global age. The United States cannot successfully manage globalization, much less insulate itself from cross-border threats, on its own. As global integration deepens and cross-border challenges grow, the nation's fate is increasingly tied to that of other countries, whose cooperation will be needed to exploit the shared opportunities and mitigate the common risks of interdependence. The Sovereignty Wars is intended to help today's policymakers think more clearly about what is actually at stake in the sovereignty debate and to provide some criteria for determining when it is appropriate to make bargains over sovereignty—and how to make them.

The Green State

The Green State
Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
Total Pages : 277
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780262262590
ISBN-13 : 0262262592
Rating : 4/5 (90 Downloads)

Synopsis The Green State by : Robyn Eckersley

What would constitute a definitively "green" state? In this important new book, Robyn Eckersley explores what it might take to create a green democratic state as an alternative to the classical liberal democratic state, the indiscriminate growth-dependent welfare state, and the neoliberal market-focused state—seeking, she writes, "to navigate between undisciplined political imagination and pessimistic resignation to the status quo." In recent years, most environmental scholars and environmentalists have characterized the sovereign state as ineffectual and have criticized nations for perpetuating ecological destruction. Going consciously against the grain of much current thinking, this book argues that the state is still the preeminent political institution for addressing environmental problems. States remain the gatekeepers of the global order, and greening the state is a necessary step, Eckersley argues, toward greening domestic and international policy and law. The Green State seeks to connect the moral and practical concerns of the environmental movement with contemporary theories about the state, democracy, and justice. Eckersley's proposed "critical political ecology" expands the boundaries of the moral community to include the natural environment in which the human community is embedded. This is the first book to make the vision of a "good" green state explicit, to explore the obstacles to its achievement, and to suggest practical constitutional and multilateral arrangements that could help transform the liberal democratic state into a postliberal green democratic state. Rethinking the state in light of the principles of ecological democracy ultimately casts it in a new role: that of an ecological steward and facilitator of transboundary democracy rather than a selfish actor jealously protecting its territory.

Navajo Sovereignty

Navajo Sovereignty
Author :
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
Total Pages : 217
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780816534081
ISBN-13 : 081653408X
Rating : 4/5 (81 Downloads)

Synopsis Navajo Sovereignty by : Lloyd L. Lee

A companion to Diné Perspectives: Revitalizing and Reclaiming Navajo Thought, each chapter of Navajo Sovereignty offers the contributors' individual perspectives. This book discusses Western law's view of Diné sovereignty, research, activism, creativity, and community, and Navajo sovereignty in traditional education. Above all, Lloyd L. Lee and the contributing scholars and community members call for the rethinking of Navajo sovereignty in a way more rooted in Navajo beliefs, culture, and values.

Law Without Nations?

Law Without Nations?
Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Total Pages : 366
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0691095302
ISBN-13 : 9780691095301
Rating : 4/5 (02 Downloads)

Synopsis Law Without Nations? by : Jeremy A. Rabkin

What authority does international law really have for the United States? When and to what extent should the United States participate in the international legal system? This forcefully argued book by legal scholar Jeremy Rabkin provides an insightful new look at this important and much-debated question. Americans have long asked whether the United States should join forces with institutions such as the International Criminal Court and sign on to agreements like the Kyoto Protocol. Rabkin argues that the value of international agreements in such circumstances must be weighed against the threat they pose to liberties protected by strong national authority and institutions. He maintains that the protection of these liberties could be fatally weakened if we go too far in ceding authority to international institutions that might not be zealous in protecting the rights Americans deem important. Similarly, any cessation of authority might leave Americans far less attached to the resulting hybrid legal system than they now are to laws they can regard as their own. Law without Nations? traces the traditional American wariness of international law to the basic principles of American thought and the broader traditions of liberal political thought on which the American Founders drew: only a sovereign state can make and enforce law in a reliable way, so only a sovereign state can reliably protect the rights of its citizens. It then contrasts the American experience with that of the European Union, showing the difficulties that can arise from efforts to merge national legal systems with supranational schemes. In practice, international human rights law generates a cloud of rhetoric that does little to secure human rights, and in fact, is at odds with American principles, Rabkin concludes. A challenging and important contribution to the current debates about the meaning of multilateralism and international law, Law without Nations? will appeal to a broad cross-section of scholars in both the legal and political science arenas.

The Sovereign State

The Sovereign State
Author :
Publisher : ICON Group International
Total Pages : 286
Release :
ISBN-10 :
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 ( Downloads)

Synopsis The Sovereign State by : Anthony Sampson

Sovereign Entrepreneurs

Sovereign Entrepreneurs
Author :
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Total Pages : 309
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781469648606
ISBN-13 : 1469648601
Rating : 4/5 (06 Downloads)

Synopsis Sovereign Entrepreneurs by : Courtney Lewis

By 2009, reverberations of economic crisis spread from the United States around the globe. As corporations across the United States folded, however, small businesses on the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) continued to thrive. In this rich ethnographic study, Courtney Lewis reveals the critical roles small businesses such as these play for Indigenous nations. The EBCI has an especially long history of incorporated, citizen-owned businesses located on their lands. When many people think of Indigenous-owned businesses, they stop with prominent casino gaming operations or natural-resource intensive enterprises. But on the Qualla Boundary today, Indigenous entrepreneurship and economic independence extends to art galleries, restaurants, a bookstore, a funeral parlor, and more. Lewis's fieldwork followed these businesses through the Great Recession and against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding EBCI-owned casino. Lewis's keen observations reveal how Eastern Band small business owners have contributed to an economic sovereignty that empowers and sustains their nation both culturally and politically.