The ongoing reconstruction of sovereignty as an institution with functional and ontological significance indicates that it is both founded on the basis of and maintains an important role in shaping international norms. Through practice and rhetoric, state and non-state actors have developed a complex system of terminology that reflects the evolution of sovereignty and its normative framework. This article examines the contributions of state representatives, international institutions and international relations scholars to the re-conceptualization of the fundamental institution of the world order.
“Sovereignty means many things, some essential, some insignificant, some agreed, some controversial, some that are not warranted and should not be accepted.”1
Henkin’s words illustrate the central dilemma in any attempt to analyze sovereignty: by nature of the widespread and indiscriminate use of the word, sovereignty refers to many concepts and ideas, each highly contested. Reinvigorated debates about humanitarian intervention, globalization and regional integration have led to qualitative changes in its meaning. International relations literature treats the multidimensional discourse on sovereignty as though it were self-generative and self-promoting. In reality, politicians and scholars interpret and employ the term based on both competing preconceptions of its meaning and competing objectives for its application.
Practitioners and theorists have contributed heavily to the creation of nuanced understandings of sovereignty. In the 1990s, the claim that sovereignty had lost its salience as the Grundnorm of international relations was widespread in the literature.2 Scholars proposed a variety of reasons for the end of sovereignty: for instance, that the grounds for sovereignty’s erosion were laid in the humanitarian interventions of the period; that the post-modern emphasis on de-centeredness had influenced conceptions of sovereignty; that weak structures of state authority had undermined sovereignty by inviting external forces to correct or replace them; that the rise of alternative forms of governance had begun to threaten the very concept of “international” in international relations; and that the demise of the nation-state threatened to diminish sovereignty as an organizational concept.3
In this article, we survey the contestation of the institution of sovereignty and its perpetual reconstruction, which together indicate that sovereignty, in its many forms, is still en vogue. By investigating the proliferation of modified forms of sovereignty, this article builds upon works of other scholars that trace the ways in which sovereignty is debated and applied in world politics.4 We limit our discussion to three re-conceptualizations that attempt to capture particular trends in the discourse on sovereignty by calling attention to sovereignty’s divisibility, conditionality and collectivity. More specifically, we look at what these qualifying adjectives bring to the sovereignty debate, how they change the institution and how they help us to understand contemporary political developments. In so doing, we examine the interaction of norms, practices and rhetoric. We focus first on the value-laden nature of sovereignty in the public sphere and then discuss normative change at the institutional level.
Recognizing the complexity of the norms and practices that shape perspectives on sovereignty, we adopt a definition of sovereignty as an institution. As such, the meaning of “institution” must be clarified. This article defines “institution” through a constructivist lens in terms of practices, coupled with norms that both govern and are revised through those practices. With this approach, we examine the many interactions between actors involved in the dual process of norm contestation and the maintenance of norm validity. Kratochwil and Ruggie argue that actors reproduce normative structures and change them in their practice as underlying conditions change.5 This insight exceeds the realm of analysis conducted under more traditional approaches toward sovereignty and points to an important dimension frequently left unexplored.6
We select a sociological definition of “institution” as a relatively stable collection of practices and rules defining appropriate behavior.7 This is an important dimension for understanding sovereignty considering that other institutions in world politics are affected by sovereignty. It should be noted that the type of institution to which we refer is not that of a particular structural arrangement, but rather a general pattern of behavior with correlative structures and principles. As such, sovereignty and its associated norms constitute the means by which states and, increasingly, other actors pursue goals, share meanings, communicate with each other, criticize assertions and justify actions.8 In this way, it can be considered the “Grund-institution” of the world’s legal system.
Viewing sovereignty as an institutional arrangement for organizing international politics helps scholars to conceive of ways in which sovereignty is comprised of distinct and interrelated features. Undoubtedly, sovereignty has a norm-generative effect, but it is likewise shaped by changing norms.9 Norms isolate single standards of behavior and can obscure the distinct and interrelated elements of social practices. An institution, by contrast, emphasizes the way in which behavioral rules are structured together.10 Such a conceptualization facilitates the study of how sovereignty has transformed over time, and draws attention to the way in which the addition and contestation of norms in international relations discourse create new patterns of politics and, potentially, a new model of sovereignty.
The institution of sovereignty is embedded in a broader matrix of socio-political and legal practices. These practices generate categories of meaning through which we conceive and explain applications of sovereignty.11 The relationship between the concrete developments and paradigmatic change, which constitutes and directs sovereignty, can be represented by a two-dimensional model (Figure 1) that attempts to capture the conditions in which sovereignty norms are generated, legitimated, exemplified, contested, modified and discarded.
The horizontal plane represents the normative dimension of sovereignty and can be divided into two groups of norms. First, sovereignty is premised on a collection of underlying assumptions that have gained wide acceptance in the course of history. These are referred to in the diagram as the “normative consensus,”12 which is the reasonably stable set of norms that underpins the institution. These norms make the institution unique and give it its ontological significance. They include: the shared value of international order among states; the shared importance of a system of membership in a society of states; acceptance of the co-existence of the political freedom of states; and, finally, respect for diversity of political systems. Thus, the normative consensus comprises the strongest constitutive elements of sovereignty. The norms of this set are less susceptible to change and contestation as a result of their widespread acknowledgment within international relations. The validity of these principles is continually reinforced through the consent of and use by members of the international community.
Other sovereignty norms, placed on the opposite end of the normative plane, reflect and build upon the preceding set of foundational norms. This second set of norms is referred to as “contested norms”; we find ample evidence both in support of and against them.13 Some of the most prominent contested norms today are: non-intervention (territorial integrity); equality among states; self-determination; and mutual recognition that creates the boundaries between nominally independent states. The strength and relevance of these norms are constantly debated; they enjoy less consensus in political and scholarly discourse, though their importance should not be underestimated. The contested nature of these norms allows for the evolution and reconstruction of the institution of sovereignty.
Sovereignty norms are debated, modified and validated or discarded on the vertical plane. This plane represents the actions, practices and rhetoric of states as well as non- governmental organizations, intergovernmental actors and international relations scholars. Both legal and political manifestations of sovereignty norms are located on this plane. It is important to note, however, that the distinction between legal and political expressions is often blurred by delicate ambiguities in international relations, as will be illustrated below.
Multiple feedback processes challenge and redefine the meaning of sovereignty, as identified by the overlapping arrows in Figure 1. Norms on the horizontal plane are generated and validated through manifestations on the vertical plane. In the same manner, the normative dimension has an influence on the political and legal expressions. This relationship between planes denotes the dual quality of norms.15 Norms both structure and construct, such that the properties of the institution are “the medium and the outcome of practices that constitute” it.16 Thus, the validity of sovereignty is dependent on both the normative consensus and the contestation of the norms within political and legal spheres.
The complexity of the norms and structures that play a role in the process of institutional reconstruction illustrates that sovereignty is not just one thing—not simply the property or status of individual states, an abstract concept of supreme power, an organizational principle, a normative premise, a system, a responsibility, a right, a practice or a political outcome, as scholars of international relations have argued.17 Rather, it can represent any of these ideas depending on the context, author or rhetoric used. The definition of sovereignty is inextricably bound to its use.
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