"This book emerged from discussions during the international conference, Images of Sovereignty, held at the KU Leuven in June 2017." Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Introduction : sovereignty in action / Bas Leijssenaar and Neil Walker -- Post-sovereignty? / Dieter Grimm -- When sovereigns stir / Neil Walker -- The people as popular manifestation / Jason Frank -- Sovereignty, action, autonomy / Raf Geenens -- Liberal governmentality and the political theology of constitutionalism / Miguel Vatter -- Popular sovereignty: the people's two bodies / Pasquale Pasquino -- Nations against the people : whose sovereign power? / Olga Bashkina -- A positive or negative conception of sovereignty? / Marcel Gauchet -- Benjamin Constant and liberal democracy / Nora Timmermans -- Political idolatry : the relation of Schmitt's two claims in political theology / Stephanie Frank.
Summary:
Sovereignty in premodern times evoked the dynastic figure of the 'sovereign' or territorial monarch. In modern times, it became a more abstract idea, referring to the power of the state, later of the people or 'the popular sovereign' as articulated and refined through constitutional arrangements. Today these inherited understandings of sovereignty confront various new challenges, including those of globalization, privatization of power, and the rise of sub-state nationalism. An examination of key historical writers and trends from the seventeenth century onwards, including Hobbes, Bodin, Constant, Rousseau and Schmitt, brings out these developments and challenges. Sovereignty remains a malleable and 'active' feature of the global configuration of power. Will sovereignty become a redundant concept over time, or will it remain a key part of the grammar of modern politics?
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.