Realizing sovereignty

Abstract

Sovereignty has become controversial. The idea and practice of sovereignty are said to be increasingly undermined by the simultaneous transnationalization and localization of political, economic, and cultural space. Not only is the ability of states to control their boundaries gradually erased, but given political boundaries seem unable to account for or define the dynamics of social life. At the same time, sovereignty is indicted as supportive of inequality, internal oppression, external imperialism, racism, and ecological destruction, among other unsavoury features of international social life. In this view, sovereignty is condemned as an ethically deficient way of organizing the international community. This is a confusing and contradictory picture. On the one hand, the boundaries defined by sovereignty appear increasingly irrelevant to international society, and on the other, the very power of sovereignty to demarcate boundaries is decried.