Is the Age of Sovereignty Over essays

Is the Age of Sovereignty Over essays In order to fully examine the extent of any demise in state sovereignty, we need first to set definitions of key terms. Andrew Heywood, in his book Key Concepts in Politics offers the following as an outline of sovereignty: The principle of absolute and unlimited power (Heywood: 37). The context of this remark is that the state and its institutions hold legitimate authority over all organisations and individuals within the state territory. A core implication is that no man is above the law. The state, then, can be considered the sole purveyor of justice, and the only body with licence to employ force as means to achieve goals. This brings us to the distinction between legal and political sovereignty. Whilst the legal element relates to the situations described above, where the state uses law and legislation to control subjects, political sovereignty refers to the state as an agent that uses its monopoly on force and coercion to gain obedience. An example could be the Chilean regime of the 1970s under General Pinochet, where Legitimate violence (Weber) was a tool frequently wielded. Both these are cases of internal sovereignty, involving the states ability to control its own nationals. External sovereignty, however, looks at a nations standing on an international level. Heywood calls this the states Ability to act as an independent and autonomous entity (Heywood: 38). Indeed, the United Nations defines a state as a body possessing Independence and sovereignty (Lechner & Boli: 205). Thus we can say that a sovereign nation-state is one which is able to keep legitimate control of its inhabitants, and is distinguishable in a global context. Through these criteria we are able to eliminate bodies with huge international standing (e.g. Microsoft), and organisations capable of influencing individuals (e.g. the church) from classification as states. In ...