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Deconstructing Sovereignty

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Abstract

What sovereignty is apparently at stake when referring to Swiss-EU relations? Answering this “what is sovereignty?” question is the first necessary step when assessing the impact of Swiss-EU bilateral relations on Swiss state sovereignty in the context of Europeanisation. This definitional challenge not only encounters the elusiveness of sovereignty as a concept, but also the proliferation of hypocrisy within the IR literature concerning its presence and possible maintenance within given polities such as states. In order to establish an intersubjective understanding of sovereignty, able to avoid concept stretching and convenient simplification such as those of mainstream approaches, this discussion adopts a poststructuralist perspective to deconstruct the notion of sovereignty. This post-hypocritical investigation of what sovereignty is firstly reviews and establishes proper ways to conduct a conceptualisation of sovereignty, secondly clarifies some lexical and semantic choices, and finally approaches the deconstructionist process by revealing examples of properties erroneously considered as essential and permanent with regards to sovereignty. Coercion (Westphalian), statehood, territory, anthropocentrism, and symbols are all unessential to sovereignty and do not provide a conclusive answer to the “what is?” question. This initial stage of the deconstruction of sovereignty thus suggests that its possible essence might be just transcendent and metaphysical and not physical and immanent. This eventuality calls for further investigation as to whether the real question is “why sovereignty?” Moreover, why is sovereignty necessary for states, including Switzerland?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Rosamond (2000: Chap. 1) and Radaelli (2000) warn against the risk of “concept stretching” often associated with the superficial use of the notion of Europeanisation.

  2. 2.

    See for instance the possibility to vote again on the popular initiative “Stop mass immigration” described in Chap. 1.

  3. 3.

    Campbell refers to Ashley, Der Derian, Shapiro, and R.B.J. Walker (Campbell 2013: 226). George completes Merlingen’s (2013) otherwise identical list of “pioneers” of poststrucutralism.

  4. 4.

    “Think of Robert Keohane’s distinction, in his presidential address to the International Studies Association, between rationalistic and reflective approaches and his admonition to reflectivists to get their act together” (Merlingen 2013).

  5. 5.

    On the importance of substance in philosophy, see Russell (1927).

  6. 6.

    For instance, in the literature there is a consolidated historical linkage between sovereignty, state, and its building process (Strayer 1970; Dyson 1980; Hinsley 1966).

  7. 7.

    These four adjectives refer to and synthesise Gallie’s four criteria of contestedness.

  8. 8.

    On this point, see also Jackson (2007: Chap. I).

  9. 9.

    The school of Cambridge – see e.g. (Skinner 1996, 1998; Pocock 1975, 2009) – asserts the importance of taking into account the multidimensional context in which a given concept is embedded, or finds its origin and/or concrete application. As will be shown, this research will pay attention to this “intentionalist” approach by showing how some of the main theorists of sovereignty had situated intentions and wills.

  10. 10.

    Pauly and Grande’s argument deserves two comments. First, they confirm Stephen Krasner as the main referent of the second approach (Pauly and Grande 2005: footnote 17, p. 20). This important point will be further developed in the following parts of this research. Second, they evoke the methodological approach of the school of Cambridge: “To avoid such shortcomings, it is crucial to keep the concept of sovereignty in its proper evolutionary and comparative-historical context. The practices, expression, and even theoretical conceptualisation of sovereignty have changed over time, and we argue in this book that they continue to change” (Pauly and Grande 2005: 9).

  11. 11.

    See Jackson (2007: 14–19).

  12. 12.

    An apparent and provocative exception to this finding is provided by Kalmo and Skinner’s quotation (Skinner and Kalmo 2010: 1) of Jacques Maritain’s provocative statement: “In order to think in a consistent manner in political philosophy we have to discard the concept of sovereignty” (Maritain 1969). However, this statement should probably be read in a different manner in the light of Maritain’s wider thought. In Man and State, Maritain affirms that the “State is not and has never been sovereign” (Maritain 1998 [1951]: 195). His conclusion is based on an interesting combination of empirical observation (which state could really claim its historical absoluteness?) and logical speculations (sovereignty being an absolute, how could a state be sovereign and freely dismiss part of its absoluteness?). Maritain’s approach anticipates the difficulty of matching the absoluteness of sovereignty with the much less absolute political practices.

  13. 13.

    This is particularly true when adopting a deductive approach (Chevrier 2003: 55).

  14. 14.

    Mair refers to Ball’s reading of Hobbes’ state of nature where “each individual is a monad, radically disconnected from all other individuals insofar as each speaks, as it were, a private language of his own devising. Because the concepts comprising these individual languages cannot be translated or otherwise understood, each speaker is perforce a stranger and an enemy to every other” (Ball 2002: 24). This perspective illustrates the necessity of accepting coexisting essentially contested conceptualisations of sovereignty as a first step to go beyond the common knowledge and definition of the concept itself. Yet, still perfectly in compliance with Feyerabend’s openness to new theoretical ideas, there must be a quest for a way to avoid knowledge and science progressing randomly.

  15. 15.

    Gallie’s apparently pliant approach to the coexisting interpretations and definitions of sovereignty should not mislead. As Feyerabend explains: “we want to analyse, to explain, to justify, and perhaps occasionally to correct the “common knowledge” (which may also be the scientific knowledge of the preceding generation) by relating it to new theoretical ideas rather than to interpret such ideas as new ways of talking about what is already well known. […] this is also the way that a reasonable theory of knowledge invites us to take” (Feyerabend 1965: 269).

  16. 16.

    This assumes the possibility of being able to establish a heuristic hierarchy between conceptualisations of sovereignty.

  17. 17.

    Radaelli applies the “unpacking method” to Europeanisation. The method consists of determining what Europeanisation is by discarding what it is not (Radaelli 2000: 4). Unpacking a given phenomenon also consists of removing the symbolic aspects associated with it. This activity may also be called phenomenological reduction or bracketing (Collins and Mayblin 2011: 59; Creswell 2007).

  18. 18.

    Mair refers here to Gallie (1955).

  19. 19.

    My analysis thus cuts both ways: it finds that some of Sartori’s claims must be seriously qualified; it also finds that many quantitative measures do not fit well with the concepts they are supposed to reflect (Goertz 2006: 3). […] In short, I propose a causal, ontological, and realist view of concepts. It is an ontological view because it focuses on what constitutes a phenomenon. It is causal because it identifies ontological attributes that play a key role in causal hypotheses, explanations, and mechanisms. It is realist because it involves an empirical analysis of the phenomenon” (Goertz 2006: 5).

  20. 20.

    As seen, this empirical-oriented approach to conceptualisation may apply to both sovereignty – see for instance Thomson (1995) and Litfin (1997) – and Europeanisation – Radaelli (2000, 2003).

  21. 21.

    Collier and Mahon’s radial categorisation prevents us from defining the sine qua non properties of sovereignty since providing a family of floating properties of sovereignty rather than a real core of necessary properties.

  22. 22.

    Mair considers Sartori’s approach more demanding than Collier’s in terms of strictness of the categorisation of properties (Mair 2008: 2).

  23. 23.

    Bevir’s interpretivism moves from the logic of unpacking concepts by assuming the hermeneutic foundation of political science as a discipline. This approach is therefore similar to that of the School of Cambridge (Bevir 1999).

  24. 24.

    This underpins the relation between phenomenology, ontology, and hermeneutics often associated with Heidegger’s thought (Fornero and Tassinari 2002: 645–669).

  25. 25.

    To this end, before the following consideration of the functionalist approach to correctly define sovereignty, Quaglioni explains: “It is possible to understand how in a functionalist approach to sovereignty (at the same time oriented to catch its “essence”) the concept, immanent to any process of power requiring juridical formalisation to obtain legitimacy, adopts different appearances only in its historical becoming and in accordance with situations historically determined, but detains its “truth” in an original and reality primordial to any social and political development, as a regulatory criterion of internal and external relations of power” (Quaglioni 2004: 6 – Translation from the original text in Italian).

  26. 26.

    See Foucault (1973).

  27. 27.

    See Nietzsche (1969 [1887]). However, Nietzsche’s “anti-essentialism” cannot be taken for granted. In particular, the concept of eternal return or eternal recurrence (and of eternity itself) is compatible with the possibility of concepts, decisions, events, behaviours, and other events always repeating over and over again and somehow outside history (Fornero and Tassinari 2002).

  28. 28.

    On that complementarity, Suganami grasps a crucial ontological connection between Schmitt’s essentialism and Kelsen’s non-essentialism: “The conceptions of sovereignty advanced by Schmitt and Kelsen appear far apart; yet they are, in their own ways, trying to make sense of their common experience of the social universe in which the practice of sovereignty is deeply embedded. One way to express this point may be to say that the two legal theorists’ differing conceptions of sovereignty are commensurate at the level of their social ontology” (Suganami 2007: 523).

  29. 29.

    Indeed, deconstruction may reveal the possibility of a more original presence of just (metaphysical) processes of distinction through the logic of différance. “For Derrida, the deconstruction of the metaphysical dream of presence entails the affirmation of difference and deferral, in a word, différance” (Attell 2015: 6).

  30. 30.

    The realist match between the sovereignty of an invariable substance historically appeared only in relation with the modern state and too easily excludes the possible relation between sovereignty and politics tout court. On this point, see in particular Loughlin’s discussion about the ontology of politics with precise interpretations of Weber, Schmitt, and Machiavelli’s thoughts (Loughlin 2004: Chap. III). See also Lipping’s discussion on the necessity of a shift towards a new paradigm of sovereignty, one more “open” and able to answer deeper ontological questions on sovereignty, such as those issued from the now unconvincing match between modern state and sovereignty (Lipping 2010).

  31. 31.

    For instance, this legal approach to sovereignty characterises Morgenthau’s realism (1985).

  32. 32.

    See Ilgen’s edited book (2003).

  33. 33.

    To this end, Walker speaks of a classical literature contributing to the building of a sort of mythical belief associating some peculiar properties to sovereignty (Walker 1991).

  34. 34.

    “The general theory of autopoietic systems forms the foundation of the theories of psychic and social systems […]” (Luhmann 1986: 173). “The system operates by means of the continual reproduction of the difference between self-reference and external reference. That is its autopoiesis” (Luhmann 1992: 78).

  35. 35.

    On Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome, see Colombat (1991).

  36. 36.

    These trends or repetitions may, for instance, be represented by the frequent and widespread presence of the nation-state model in relation with the concept of sovereignty.

  37. 37.

    The univocity of being as conceived by Scotus – mainly oriented to the question on God’s existence – states the correspondence between essence and existence and between that which is supposed to exist and that which really exists because it would be impossible to determine what does not exist before having conceptualised what exists (Williams 2002). Deleuze reproaches Duns Scotus that “There has only ever been one ontological proposition: Being is univocal. There has only ever been one ontology, that of Duns Scotus, which gave being a single voice. We say Duns Scotus because he was the one who elevated univocal being to the highest point of subtlety, albeit at the price of abstraction” (Deleuze 2004: 44).

  38. 38.

    Praedicare is composed of the preposition pre – before – and the verb dicere – declare, say, devote.

  39. 39.

    Accordingly, it is here important to anticipate, and then leave aside for a while, how the most solemn enunciation, or commitment, is, by definition, the promise.

  40. 40.

    This quest for a perhaps immaterial determination of sovereignty recalls and is consistent with Kant’s categories of the substance and cause of matters (Kant 1999 [1781]; Ferraris 2011: 26–28). The substance of many accidental space/time events rests upon someone’s permanent category of the understating of those events. The cause is thus that pure thing that allows having a permanent understanding of accidental events. Kant’s crucial intuition thus suggests focusing not on sovereignty as an object, but as the result of a subjective causal understanding. Not surprisingly, one of Kant’s successive categories is that of necessity, inspired by, and introducing in economy of this research, the reference to Aristotle’s function argument.

  41. 41.

    This perspective evokes Aristotle’s function argument developed in Nicomachean Ethics, where it is affirmed that function is the reason for the form of matter (Aristotle 2003 [350 BC]). See Korsgard’s presentation of two keys to the reading of Aristotle’s function argument confirming the idea of possibly finding (or founding) a pre-rhizomatic essence of things based on their function (Korsgaard 2008: Chap. 4). Despite having now assumed that sovereignty may also not have a material substance, and that its substance may also be submitted to time/space rhizomatic fluctuations, its essential form, whether existing, could depend on the will of functional satisfaction of prior needs. This reference to Aristotle does not mean affirming that this need must necessarily have a natural rather than artificial origin – in accordance to the well-known Hume’s distinction (Mordacci 2003: 176–184).

  42. 42.

    On the question about the relation between sovereignty and community see Nancy (1991, 2000) and Joyce’s reading (2013).

  43. 43.

    Joyce quotes two statements of Derrida that are here in italics (Derrida 2002: xix).

  44. 44.

    For a good introduction to the current debate on sovereignty, especially post-sovereignty or late sovereignty in the context of the European Union integrative process, see MacCormick (1993, 2010).

  45. 45.

    In Joyce’s quotation of Derrida above, the latter clearly rejects and distances himself from relativism. This is a very important aspect to note in order to avoid misunderstanding the sense of deconstruction and, more broadly Derrida’s philosophical project. Similarly, deconstruction has not to be confused and associated, or even reduced to, nihilism or scepticism (Glendinning 2011: Chaps. II and III). Similarly, matching the study of sovereignty and Derrida’s deconstruction does not even mean contesting and refusing the normative suitability of the sovereign state (Guardiola-Rivera 2010: 35).

  46. 46.

    Derrida mainly addresses his reading of de Saussure’s Writing and Difference (2010) and Of Grammatology (1997 [1974]). It is important to reckon that Derrida’s reading of Saussure’s should neither be taken as Saussure’s work in itself, nor as its only possible interpretation, as correctly affirmed in recent times by Daylight (2011). On this see also Attell (2015: Chap. 1).

  47. 47.

    Loughlin explains the “impersonality” of Hobbes’ sovereignty: “Hobbes’ great achievement was to have provided us with the first unequivocally modern conception of the state. It was a governmental authority differentiated not only from the people who established it, but also from the personality of office-holders” (Loughlin 2004: 55). “This concept of office transforms our understanding of public power: in a strict sense, power vests not in the individual but in the office itself” (Loughlin 2004: 79). Therefore, there is an important difference between sovereign and sovereignty: “The absolute authority of Hobbes’ sovereign is in no sense personal; the sovereign occupied a public office charged with maintaining order and promoting the common good” (Loughlin 2010: 78).

  48. 48.

    Hobbes’ coercion must not be confused with any possible meaning of violence. It is indeed compatible with both Benjamin’s notions of “law-making” or “law-preserving” forms of violence following the establishment of, either natural or positive, law (Fraser 2007: 128). Hobbes’ coercion is generally compatible with an instrumental use of violence done by the sovereign to achieve some preferable ends. It is less immediate to determine if and how Hobbes’s coercion wants, and is able, to catch the sense of that original constitutive violence of sovereignty described by Agamben (1998). Derrida’s distinction between ““worst” (original) and “lesser” (secondary) violence” (Fraser 2007: 135) better describes Hobbes’ coercion that belongs to the second category of violence “regulating what is permissible and what is not within political communities” (Fraser 2007: 135).

  49. 49.

    Hobbes considered the characteristics of human nature and behaviour as fixed. The instauration of an effective sovereign would thus not change the human behaviour per se but the behaviour in the social context. Sovereignty would lead people, motivated by rationality and prudence, to see new convenience in respect of agreements, laws, and other forms of social arrangements (Rawls and Freeman 2007).

  50. 50.

    However, readings of Hobbes’ sovereignty would today provoke forms of coercive violence inconsistent with Hobbes’ project of violence eradication (Shaw 2008).

  51. 51.

    Alternative readings of Hobbes’ sovereignty deserve attention. In this regard, Fitzpatrick (2010) and Pavlich (2010) propose compelling examples of readings of Hobbes’s sovereignty suggesting non-violent and non-coercive conceptions of the exercise of the sovereign office. Probably Hobbes did not conceive the right of rebelling as necessary because he assumed violence to be absent from the ideal exercise of the sovereign office. Hobbes’ sovereign is not accountable because of benefiting from the presence of prior consent: “The state’s right of command and the subjects’ duty of obedience are the result of “consent”, the circumstances individuals would have agreed to if there had actually been a social contract” (Held 2006: 61). In Hobbes’ logic, having obtained prior consent, why should the legitimate sovereign exert violence and why would subjects disobey the sovereign having the legitimate ‘right-ordering’ authority? As de Jouvenel argues: “It is an idle question whether the formation of associations was due to violence or deliberate choice. All that was needed for their formation was that some one man should feel within him a natural ascendancy and should then inspire others with trust in himself” (de Jouvenel 2011 [1957]: 31).

  52. 52.

    See La Boétie’s concept of libido serviendi (Montaigne and La Boétie 2012 [1580 and 1574]). The latter rests upon an ante litteram use of political psychology leading to affirm that subjects’ obedience may be due and related to pleasure. As Galli explains (2011: 173), La Boétie believed in a natural mechanism according to which subjects are just desirous to obey the (sovereign) power.

  53. 53.

    Derrida adds: “It follows that law, sovereignty, the institution of the state are historical and always provisional, let’s say deconstructible, essentially fragile or finite or mortal, even if sovereignty is posited as immortal. It is posited as immortal and indivisible precisely because it is mortal and divisible, […]. So that if sovereignty is, as Hobbes says, the “Soule of the Common-wealth” (Hobbes 1996 [1651]: Chap. 21, “Of the Liberty of Subjects”), this soul is an artificial, institutional, prosthetic and mortal soul: it lasts only as long as law, sovereignty, and the state are able to protect fearful subjects against what is causing them fear” (Derrida 2009: 42).

  54. 54.

    Hobbes’ state of nature would allow artificial solutions to solve natural dilemmas on how to develop social and political interactions (Veca 2010: 24).

  55. 55.

    “This is sometimes called hypothetical consent (or a hypothetical contract) – consent that would give in a imagined situation that does not match reality” (Hyams 2008: 16).

  56. 56.

    “[…] John Rawls suggested that Hobbes’ circumstances are those providing a way of doing political philosophy consisting in pacifying dividing conflicts and promising an order to reduce mutual uncertainty between members of the polis. We are thus in the kind of extreme circumstances in which politics show their intrinsic association with fear and scarcity” (Veca 2010: 25 – Translation from the original text in Italian).

  57. 57.

    This may not only affect the legitimacy of speculative consent but the wider legitimacy of positive law (Korsgaard 1996). See Dworkin’s argument synthesised by Hyams (2008: 16–17).

  58. 58.

    “[…] Hobbes’ fictional theory (as I shall call it) is basically intended to furnish a means of judging the legitimacy of the actions that governments undertake” (Skinner 2010: 37). On the fictional dimension of Hobbes’ theory of sovereignty, see also Runciman (2008: Chap. 1).

  59. 59.

    “[…] the belief that sovereignty is undergoing profound change is greatly facilitated by a nominalist view of concepts since, according to this view, concepts are nothing but general names that we use to constitute different classes of objects as distinct from each other. To the nominalist, conceptual change is therefore a matter of sharp historical discontinuities between different classificatory schemes of our own making” (Bartelson 2006: 463).

  60. 60.

    Osiander argues: “I contend, however, that the discipline theorises against the backdrop of a past that is largely imaginary. I show here that the accepted IR narrative about Westphalia is a myth” (Osiander 2001: 251).

  61. 61.

    It should be said that in the Middle Ages sovereignty was not simply used to identify a superior, but was already used in that way. Indeed, Derrida’s distinction between superior/inferior, or the conviction and concrete ability to be the superior, the superans, is crucial to understand sovereignty today (Derrida 2005, 2008; Regazzoni 2008).

  62. 62.

    “Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good […]; For that which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature intended to be the lord and master, and that which can with its body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave; hence master and slave have the same interest” (Aristotle 2012 [350 BC]: Book I, Part I and II).

  63. 63.

    See Edyvane (2012).

  64. 64.

    “Let us return to the infancy of human aggregates. We have already seen that personal ascendancy is their efficient cause. Conversely, the final cause of the authority brought about is to assure the continuance of the aggregate and make co-operation certain” (de Jouvenel 2011 [1957]: 33).

  65. 65.

    Foucault’s notion of pastorat presents a form of religious power and sovereignty where territory plays a marginal role (Foucault 2004).

  66. 66.

    The territory of the Vatican City State represents the secular and political power of the Roman Church on earth, but does not represent a sine qua non condition for the existence of a higher sovereignty of Christ on earth.

  67. 67.

    For Skinner this conception was widespread since “commonsensical” (Skinner 2010: 42).

  68. 68.

    Bentham’s argument illustrates the modern will of abandoning a transcendental idea of sovereignty to embrace a positivist one. This approach to the doctrine of sovereignty reminds us of Hobbes’ one even if “Bentham did not demand that the sovereign be a single person or even a single public body, although in practice this would most likely be the case. […] What was essential for Bentham was that the authoritative source of law was publicly and habitually recognised as a source of valid rules that could guide actions and give rise to stable patterns of expectations” (Kelly 2009: 354). Accordingly, it is possible to wonder whether Bentham’s intent is really positivist as it aims at being, or still maintains a transcendental connotation. His emphasis on the (purely speculative) concept and availability of stable expectations (Kelly 2009) founding and giving positivist legitimacy to law cannot be read without considering the more recent Schmittian lesson: “Unlike the normal situation, when the autonomous moment of the decision recedes to a minimum, the norm is destroyed in the exception. The exception remains, nevertheless, accessible to jurisprudence because both elements, the norm as well as the decision, remain within the framework of the juristic” (Schmitt 2005 [1922]: 12–13). Put differently, Bentham’s trust in legal positivism is much more appropriate to fix and evaluate the criteria of the governmental legitimacy, but not those of sovereignty. As for Schmitt, sovereignty deals with autonomous decisions that are neither stable nor predictable within the legal norm itself. Bentham’s legal positivism suggests the possibility of being sovereign by just observing the empirical reality to learn and fix the patters of behaviour providing the highest public utility, but this is government. Sovereignty necessarily deals with the prior (and still transcendental) choice (or decision) concerning what is the highest utility. Bentham misses the foundational difference between government and sovereignty.

  69. 69.

    Jesus Christ’s statement (and claim of sovereignty) in the dialogue with Pilate affirms the transcendental nature of his Kingdom: “Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants (would) be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here”” (St John 2013 [70–100 AD]: 18:1–40.19:1–42). In this regard, the earthly sovereign office of Christianity, the Pontificate, has the mandate to rule and make decisions whose effects are not necessarily evident in the physical world, but supposed to be binding and effective in the transcendental and metaphysical Kingdom of God, or Kingdom of Heaven: “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; […] and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven” (St Matthew 2002 [70–100 AD]: 16, 17–19, 46–47).

  70. 70.

    “The preceding analysis suggests that the unbundling of territoriality is a productive venue for the exploration of contemporary international transformation. Historically, as we have seen, this is the institutional means through which the collectivity of sovereigns has sought to compensate for the “social defects” that inhere in the modern construct of territoriality” (Ruggie 1993: 171).

  71. 71.

    To this end, Marshall’s (2012) investigation of the mythical and idealist origin of the Westphalian and post-Westphalian narratives tests a spatial thesis through which he proposes a “Westphalian moment” in which “territory [starts to appear] as the sole basis of international political order” (Marshall 2012: 3).

  72. 72.

    However, it does not mean that the other properties of Westphalian sovereignty taken singularly (e.g. B and C in case that A was previously found unessential) cannot be essential and permanent.

  73. 73.

    “With respect to sovereignty, at least, anthropocentrism is taken to be common sense, even in political theory, where it is rarely problematized” (Wendt and Duvall 2008).

  74. 74.

    In particular, Loughlin’s question will be answered: “But if sovereign is a relational phenomenon, which is the determinative relationship – that between the state and the people, or the between sovereign and subject?” (Loughlin 2004: 65).

  75. 75.

    “[…] the concept of sovereignty (traditionally linked to national determination) has already been profoundly modified by United Nations legal experts; then, in its most recent phase, the exclusivity of the concept and its articulation in the context of the international law have been profoundly de-structured. This perspective, […], leads to the conclusion that the classical concept of national sovereignty has been, if not abandoned, then at least profoundly de-structured to the point that is no longer definable in Westphalian terms” (Negri 2010: 205–206).

  76. 76.

    Considering Negri’s argument in the light of the broader thought of Hardt and Negri concerning the passages of sovereignty (Hardt and Negri 2000), it is possible to observe a discrepancy between having sovereignty and just keeping a symbolic image of it. Furthermore, challenging the territoriality of sovereignty and its match with statehood – for instance still present in Bull’s analysis (Bull 2012 [1977]: 19 and 196) – Hardt and Negri argue that “We need to recognize first of all the crisis of political relations in the national context. As the concept of national sovereignty is losing its effectiveness, so too is the so-called autonomy of the political. […] Consensus is determined more significantly by economic factors, such as the equilibria of the trade balances and speculation on the value of currencies. Control over these movements is not in the hands of the political forces that are traditionally conceived as holding sovereignty, and consensus is determined not through the traditional political mechanisms but by other means” (Hardt and Negri 2000: 305). Accordingly, the UN would have its own sovereignty and shares it also with other non-state actors. This analysis illustrates how sovereignty can already be attributed to actors that do not produce symbols of sovereignty at all.

  77. 77.

    Conceiving symbols as one of the two main weapons in the sovereign’s hands to keep intact his dominant position not surprisingly brought to associate Marshall and Machiavelli’s traditional pragmatism of the councilman of the prince (Roucek 1939).

  78. 78.

    In Latin symbŏlum: the check mark, the identification mark. It derives from the ancient Greek sýmbolon that means symbállō (to match, to put together, to make corresponding, composed by bállō, I put, and the prefix syn-, together) (Cortellazzo and Zolli 1999; Devoto and Oli 2012).

  79. 79.

    Another matter is sovereignty conceived as a myth, as a normative statement, or as myth of normative statement – as rapidly evoked when by referring to Beaulac’s argument. As said, this will require further attention.

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Pusterla, E. (2016). Deconstructing Sovereignty. In: The Credibility of Sovereignty – The Political Fiction of a Concept. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26318-2_2

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