Abstract
What does sovereignty as a descriptive concept refer to at the level of states and similar entities? Since, in epistemological terms, any concept may refer to any phenomenon at any level, the first step in the analysis must be a certain modification of this question: what does sovereignty, or more precisely, terms like “state sovereignty,” “sovereign statehood,” or “sovereignty of states and similar entities”1 reasonably refer to when employed as a nonnormative, analytical tool at the level of states and similar entities? To introduce reason in this fashion opens the way for an attempt to apply a loosely defined set of criteria, such as analytical utility generated by a high degree of precision, logical coherence, consistency with previous usage, and relative imperviousness to rhetorical abuse, to an apparently fruitless discussion. To speak about nonnormative, analytical tools, on the other hand, delimits the analysis to the sources of actual and potential controversies to be found in those scientific disciplines that endeavor to understand the referent of the concept.
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Notes
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See also Robert H. Jackson, “Continuity and Change in the State System,” in Robert H. Jackson and Alan James (eds.), States in a Changing World—A Contemporary Analysis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) p. 347.
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See also Robert O. Keohane, “Hobbes’s Dilemma and Institutional Change in World Politics: Sovereignty in International Society,” in Hans-Henrik Holm and Georg Sorensen (eds.), Whose World Order? Uneven Globalization and the End of the Cold War (Boulder, San Francisco, and Oxford: Westview Press, 1995) p. 177.
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See Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society -A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., Second edition, 1995) p. 8.
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Cf. Harold Laski, A Grammar of Politics (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, Fifth edition, 1967) pp. 48–49.
Cf. K. W. B. Middleton, “Sovereignty in Theory and Practice,” in Wladyslaw Jozef Stankiewicz (ed.) In Defence of Sovereignty (New York, London and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1969) p. 153.
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Cf. David Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis (London and Sydney: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1965) p. 50.
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See Robert Alan Dahl, “Power as the Control of Behaviour,” in Steven Lukes (ed.), Power (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1986) pp.39 and 40.
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Italics are added. K. W. B. Middleton, “Sovereignty in Theory and Practice,” in Wladyslaw Jozef Stankiewicz (ed.), In Defence of Sovereignty (London, New York, and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1969) pp. 141–142.
Cf. Janice E. Thomson, “State Sovereignty in International Relations: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Empirical Research,” International Studies Quarterly (Vol. 39, No. 2 1995) p. 227.
See John Gerard Ruggie, “Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity-Toward a Neorealist Synthesis,” World Politics (Vol. 35 1983) pp. 274–275.
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© 2005 Ersun N. Kurtulus
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Kurtulus, E.N. (2005). Sovereignty of States and Similar Entities: A Conceptual Analysis. In: State Sovereignty. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403977083_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403977083_4
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