Sovereignty: Change and Continuity in a Fundamental Institution
| Author | Georg Sørensen |
| Date | 01 August 1999 |
| Published date | 01 August 1999 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00218 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Sovereignty: Change and Continuity
in a Fundamental Institution
GEORG SéRENSEN
Only a few years ago, sovereignty used to be taken for granted in the study of
world politics. J. D. B. Miller expressed the prevailing opinion in simple, but
clear terms: `Just as we know a camel or a chair when we see one, so we know a
sovereign state. It is a political entity which is treated as a sovereign state by
other sovereign states'.1 Today, few would be satis®ed with Miller's summation.
Sovereignty is being intensely debated among scholars and practitioners of
world politics. For example, the most recent International Studies Association
meeting had `The Westphalian System' as its overarching theme; the programme
chair explicitly emphasized that `traditional touchstones' such as sovereignty
must now be `open to question'.2 In July 1998, a large conference took place in
Munster in celebration of the 350 years birthday of the Westphalian treaties and
discussing current interpretations of sovereignty.
There are several reasons for the renewed interest in sovereignty. Processes of
globalization making the world hang closer together; humanitarian intervention
in weak states and attempts to promote democracy and human rights on a
global scale; new forms of intense cooperation in Europe and fresh attempts at
regional integration elsewhere; the emergence of a large number of newly
independent states; all these developments have helped spark new considera-
tions about the possible implications for sovereignty. At the same time, both the
end of the Cold War and the approach of a new millennium have boosted
interest in the long lines of world politics. Real or perceived, such moments of
transitions are watersheds which invite stocktaking. To know where we are
going from here, we need to know where we came from.
The intense scholarly interest in sovereignty is most clearly evidenced in the
spate of recent books and articles on the subject.3 A central issue in most of
1 J. D. B. Miller, The World of States: Connected Essays (London, 1981), p. 16.
2 R. Denemark, `A Note From the Program Chair', ISA Conference Program, Minneapolis 1998,
p. 5.
3 Only a selection of contributions can be mentioned here: F. H. Hinsley, Sovereignty
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn, 1986); A. James, Sovereign Statehood: the
Basis of International Society (London, Allen and Unwin, 1986); R. Lapidoth, `Sovereignty in
transition', Journal of International Aairs, 45 (1992), 50±74; S. D. Krasner, `Sovereignty: an
institutional perspective', Comparative Political Studies, 21 (1988), 66±94; N. Onuf, `Sovereignty:
outline of a conceptual history', Alternatives, 16 (1991), 425±46; R. H. Jackson, Quasi-states:
Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1990); R. O. Keohane, 'Hobbes's Dilemma and Institutional Change in World Politics: Sovereignty
in International Society', in H. H. Holm and G. Sùrensen (eds), Whose World Order? Uneven
Globalization and the End of the Cold War (Boulder CO, Westview, 1995); G. Lyons and M.
Mastanduno (eds), Beyond Westphalia? Sovereignty and International Intervention (Baltimore, Johns
Hopkins Press, 1995); J. Bartelson, A Genealogy of Sovereignty (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1995); S. Barkin and B. Cronin, `The state and the nation: changing norms and the rules of
sovereignty in international relations', International Organization, 49 (1995), 479±510.
# Political Studies Association 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
GEORG SéRENSEN
591
these contributions concerns the question of change. Is sovereignty a stable and
unchanging institution or has it undergone dramatic change, both in present
times and in earlier periods? If there is dramatic change, is the institution in the
process of disappearing or at least losing much of its signi®cance? Should we
consequently talk about `the end of sovereignty' or `the illusion of sovereignty'
as many analysts indeed propose to do? The debate about change and con-
tinuity is also apparent in the contributions to the present issue of Political
Studies with some arguing in favour of continuity (e.g. Alan James) and others
(e.g. Paul Taylor) arguing in favour of change.
This article makes an attempt at resolving the continuity versus change
debate by arguing in favour of both positions; there are core aspects of the
institution of sovereignty which remain unchanged and there are other aspects
of the institution which have changed dramatically over time. In making that
argument, I employ a distinction between constitutive rules of sovereignty
(which remain unchanged) and regulatory rules of sovereignty (which have
changed in several ways), and I introduce the notion of dierent sovereignty
games played by dierent types of sovereign states.
Sovereignty: Continuity of Constitutive Rules
If institutions are de®ned as `persistent and connected sets of rules, formal and
informal, that prescribe behavioural roles, constrain activity, and shape
expectations'4 then sovereignty is an institution. It is common to tie the
emergence of that institution in with the peace of Westphalia in 1648 which
undermined the power of the church and strengthened secular power. The
choice between Catholicism and Protestantism became the privilege of local
rulers; that is the principle of cujus regio ejus religio. The corresponding secular
principle gives the King authority over his own realm: Rex in regno suo est
Imperator regni sui. Dispersed medieval authority was replaced by centralized
modern authority, the King and his government. The world did not change
overnight at a speci®c point in time; elements of the old system remained in
place for a long period. There was no momentous change from one day to the
next in 1648. Still it is justi®ed to look at 1648 as a crucial point in the transition
from feudal to modern authority. The old system was decaying; a new system,
with sovereign statehood as its basic principle of political organization was
growing ever stronger. In 1648 we could, to borrow a phrase from Sir Ernest
Barker, `hear the cracking of the Middle Ages'.
In order to ®nd out whether the institution of sovereignty is changing drama-
tically, we have to know what it was and is. It is helpful to look at the rules of
sovereignty as making up a special kind of game played by a special type of
player, the sovereign state.5 We may distinguish between two qualitatively dier-
ent kinds of rules in the sovereignty game: constitutive rules and regulative rules.6
4 R. O. Keohane, `Multilateralism: an agenda for research', International Journal, 45 (1990), 732.
5 The game metaphor is also employed in Jackson, Quasi-states, p. 34. My re¯ections on
sovereignty games in this paper is greatly indebted to intense discussions with Robert Jackson.
6 A distinction introduced by J. Rawls, `Two concepts of justice', Philosophical Review, 64 (1955),
1±33; the use of it here is based on J. R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (London,
Penguin, 1995).
# Political Studies Association, 1999
592
Change and Continuity in a Fundamental Institution
Constitutive rules are foundational,7 they de®ne the core features of what
sovereignty is. Constitutive rules `do not merely regulate, they also create the very
possibility of certain activities'.8 This type of foundational rules, says Searle,
comes in systems which characteristically have the form: `X counts as Y in
context C'.
Let us try to apply this reasoning to sovereignty. First, what are the features
of the entities which satisfy the X term in the game of sovereignty? Not any
association can become sovereign; transnational corporations, churches, or
football clubs do not satisfy the X term. Only a certain type of player does, the
one we label `state'. Which features must the state have to satisfy the X term? It
is commonly agreed that three elements are necessary: territory, people, and
government.9 Georg Schwarzenberger and E. D. Brown put it in the following
way:
The State in quest of recognition must have a stable government . . . it must rule
supreme within a territory ± with more or less settled frontiers ± and it must
exercise control over a certain number of people. These features have come to be
taken as the essential characteristics of independent states.10
That is to say, the emergence of the constitutive rules of sovereignty (the
Y term) is predicated upon the previous existence of states with a delimited
territory, a stable population, and a government. A well-known study of inter-
national law published in 1968 makes the point in the following way: `The
international legal order does not provide foundation for the State; it pre-
supposes the State's existence. Recognizing the appearance on a territory of a
political entity showing the characteristics generally attributed to the State, it
merely invests it with personality in the law of nations'.11 Robert Jackson
concludes: `Classical international law is therefore the child and not the parent
of states'.12
Once we have the X term we can proceed to the constitutive rule of
sovereignty (the Y term). What is the de®nitorial content of sovereignty that is
bestowed on some (but not all) states? It is recognition of the fact that the state
entity possesses constitutional independence. As...
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