This book makes an impassioned argument that our current conceptions of sovereignty must change before humanity can effectively resolve the world's increasingly global challenges, from international terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons to global warming and poverty.

This book argues that the introduction of popular sovereignty as the basis for government in France facilitated a dramatic transformation in international law in the eighteenth century.

How did the world come to be organized into sovereign states? This work argues that two historical revolutions in ideas are responsible; the Protestant Reformation which ended Christendom and introduced a system of sovereign states, and the colonial nationalism of the 1960s.

A study of the relationship between international media regulations and efforts by nation-states to assert sovereignty and shape media at home and abroad.

In the early twenty-first century Bolivian social movements made streets, plazas, and highways into the decisively important spaces for acting politically, rivaling and at times exceeding voting booths and halls of government. The Sovereign Street documents this important period, showing how indigenous-led mass movements reconfigured the politics and racial order of Bolivia from 1999 to 2011. Drawing on interviews with protest participants, on-the-ground observation, and documentary research, activist and scholar Carwil Bjork-James provides an up-close history of the indigenous-led protests that changed Bolivia. At the heart of the study is a new approach to the interaction between protest actions and the parts of the urban landscape they claim. These “space-claiming protests” both communicate a message and exercise practical control over the city. Bjork-James interrogates both protest tactics—as experiences and as tools—and meaning-laden spaces, where meaning is part of the racial and political geography of the city. Taking the streets of Cochabamba, Sucre, and La Paz as its vantage point, The Sovereign Streetoffers a rare look at political revolution as it happens. It documents a critical period in Latin American history, when protests made headlines worldwide, where a generation of pro-globalization policies were called into question, and where the indigenous majority stepped into government power for the first time in five centuries.

Unfinished Revolution is the first study to gather nineteenth-century representations and performances of Haitian sovereignty in the Atlantic world. In assembling this undiscovered archive of black power, this book offers compelling evidence of the ways that sovereignty and blackness intersect with unstable processes of modernity to produce an articulation of black authority always, already under threat for eradication or ridicule. Undeterred, nineteenth-century Haitian leaders mounted a century's-long battle to situate Haiti at the centre of the Atlantic world.

Between Sovereignty and Anarchy considers the conceptual and political problem of violence in the early modern Anglo-Atlantic, charting an innovative approach to the history of the American Revolution. Its editors and contributors contend that existing scholarship on the Revolution largely ignores questions of power and downplays the Revolution as a contest over sovereignty. Contributors employ a variety of methodologies to examine diverse themes, ranging from how Atlantic perspectives can redefine our understanding of revolutionary origins, to the ways in which political culture, mobilization, and civil-war-like violence were part of the revolutionary process, to the fundamental importance of state formation for the history of the early republic. The editors skillfully meld these emerging currents to produce a new perspective on the American Revolution, revealing how America—first as colonies, then as united states—reeled between poles of anarchy and sovereignty. This interpretation—gleaned from essays on frontier bloodshed, religion, civility, slavery, loyalism, mobilization, early national political culture, and war making—provides a needed stimulus to a field that has not strayed beyond the bounds of "rhetoric versus reality" for more than a generation. Between Sovereignty and Anarchy raises foundational questions about how we are to view the American Revolution and the experimental democracy that emerged in its wake. Contributors: Chris Beneke, Bentley University · Andrew Cayton, Miami University · Matthew Rainbow Hale, Goucher College · David C. Hendrickson, Colorado College · John C. Kotruch, University of New Hampshire · Peter C. Messer, Mississippi State University · Kenneth Owen, University of Illinois at Springfield · Jeffrey L. Pasley, University of Missouri, Columbia · Jessica Choppin Roney, Temple University · Peter Thompson, University of Oxford

Political myths surround the figure of the people and help to explain its influence; should the people itself be regarded as fictional? This original and accessible study sheds a fresh light on debates about popular sovereignty, and will be an important resource for students and scholars of political theory.

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.

In fragile states, domestic and international actors sometimes take the momentous step of sharing sovereign authority to provide basic public services and build the rule of law. While sovereignty sharing can help address gaps in governance, it is inherently difficult, risking redundancy, confusion over roles, and feuds between partners when their interests diverge. In Sovereignty Sharing in Fragile States, John D. Ciorciari sheds light on how and why these extraordinary joint ventures are created, designed, and implemented. Based on extensive field research in several countries and more than 150 interviews with senior figures from governments, the UN, donor states, and civil society, Ciorciari discusses when sovereignty sharing may be justified and when it is most likely to achieve its aims. The two, he argues, are closely related: perceived legitimacy and continued political and popular support are keys to success. This book examines a diverse range of sovereignty-sharing arrangements, including hybrid criminal tribunals, joint policing arrangements, and anti-corruption initiatives, in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon, Timor-Leste, Guatemala, and Liberia. Ciorciari provides the first comparative assessment of these remarkable attempts to repair ruptures in the rule of law—the heart of a well-governed state.