Sovereignty as Symbolic Form [Paperback]

This book is a critical inquiry into sovereignty and argues that the meaning and functions performed by this concept have changed significantly during the past decades, with profound implications for the ontological status of the state and the modus operandiof the international system as a whole.

Although we have grown accustomed to regarding sovereignty as a defining characteristic of the modern state and as a constitutive principle of the international system, Sovereignty as Symbolic Formargues that recent changes indicate that sovereignty has been turned into something granted, contingent upon its responsible exercise in accordance with the norms and values of an imagined international community. Hence we need a new understanding of sovereignty in order to clarify the logic of its current usage in theory and practice alike, and its connection to broader concerns of social ontology: what kind of world do we inhabit, and of what kind of entities is this world composed?

This book will be of interest to students of International Relations, Critical Security and International Politics.

Preface, Introduction: Revisiting Sovereignty, Chapter 1 Sovereignty as Symbolic Form, Chapter 2 The Fetishism of Sovereignty, Chapter 3 Restoring Sovereignty? Conclusion: Reinventing Outsides?

Bartelson offers a sophisticated and compelling analysis of the relationship between the way we think about concepts and their deployment in practice. He shows how the symbolic form of sovereignty morphed into a foundational one, with profound consequences for the theory and practice of international relations. It is stunning proof not only about how ideas matter but how ideas about ideas matter. Ned Lebow, Professor of International Political Theory, King's College London, UK. 

Sovereignty no longer finds its ultimate justification in the provision of domestic peace and order, butlc,