Beyond Sovereignty? The State After the Failure of Sovereignty

Abstract

Sovereign state power, absolute and unlimited, was to guarantee the lives and property of citizens. Instead, States became vectors for mass violence. The realist/atomist model of sovereignty failed to preserve peace and instead led to global wars of mass destruction. The same technological progress which makes human extinction possible also makes global governance possible through nearly instant global communication and travel. The possibility for global governance confronts the reality of an archaic and inapt juridical concept. Sovereignty must be reconceptualized and understood as a relative and partial power shared at multiple levels in an intensively networked world rather than in the failed atomist/realist paradigm of isolated states with absolute powers.

Keywords: sovereignty, state theory, supremacy, realism, atomism, realist, atomist, transformationalist, wholist, wholism, networks

JEL Classification: K10, K33