Sovereignty and the National Interest

Abstract

Sovereignty and the National Interest Erik Jones (bio) Much of the world today is torn between national populists and liberal democrats. The national populists put the nation first; the liberal democrats argue for something closer to multicultural multilateralism. In doing so, they offer distinct visions of how sovereignty and the national interest interact. For national populists, sovereignty is an expression of the national interest; whoever wields sovereign authority should ensure that the national interest is served. For liberal democrats, sovereignty is the responsibility to determine what is in the nation's best interests and then to reconcile competing claims and distribute scarce resources accordingly. The two groups also offer contrasting views of world order. The national populists focus on self-help and mutual respect. The liberal democrats emphasise integration, cooperation, and solidarity. Viewed side-by-side, the two worldviews present irreconcilable differences in the constitution of political authority and the structure of international relations. Hence it is tempting to argue that the interaction between national populists and liberal democrats should be limited, particularly when national populism threatens to descend into authoritarianism. But there is a narrow path along which interaction between national populists and liberal democrats can be beneficial, when national populists promise to reconnect members of society who have lost representation within liberal democratic politics. Reconnecting those who fall away from politics is essential to the stability of liberal democracy over the longer term. Indeed, the same point applies for populists from all parts of the political spectrum, and not just the nationalist right that is so prominent in Europe, Turkey, Brazil, India, and the United States today. The question is whether and how populists can effectively represent their constituents while at the same time adapting to liberal democratic norms for reconciling competing interests. That question has not received much attention in the scholarly literature.1 We know a lot more about the origins [End Page 392] and nature of populism, and about how populism can lead to authoritarianism by undermining democratic norms and institutions, than we know about how populists become something closer to mainstream liberal democrats. Research on populists in power is still in its infancy.2 The key to striking a beneficial relationship between national populists and liberal democrats lies in reinforcing the formal and informal institutions that underpin the liberal democratic connection between sovereignty and the national interest. The 'rule of law' debate in Europe and the United States is about protecting those institutions that frame the exercise of sovereignty and ensure that the national interest is defined within the context of liberal democratic politics. So long as those institutions are resilient, national populists will have little choice but to learn how to exercise sovereignty to identify the interests of the nation, rather than bending sovereignty to the service of a national interest they take as given. A study in contrast This relationship between sovereignty and the national interest seems abstract when presented at the start of an essay, but it comes across concretely when laid out in political speeches. Consider the contrast between Donald Trump and Barack Obama. When Donald Trump gave his first address to the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 2017, his message was simple. True patriots everywhere should invest their sovereignty – a word he used twenty-one times during the speech – in the pursuit of the national interest. As Trump explained, 'if we do not invest ourselves, our hearts, and our minds in our nations, if we will not build strong families, safe communities, and healthy societies for ourselves, no one can do it for us'. His only qualification to this notion of self-help is that 'in fulfilling our obligations to our own nations, we also realize that it's in everyone's interest to seek a future where all nations can be sovereign, prosperous, and secure'.3 Trump left open the question how those sovereign nations should reconcile competing claims with one another. Trump's UN speech was different from any given by a United States president to the General Assembly. When Barack Obama spoke at the United Nations the year before, he never mentioned the term sovereignty. There is no question for Obama that the...