A Genealogy of Sovereignty

Jens Bartelson provides a critical analysis and conceptual history of sovereignty, dealing with philosophical and political texts during three periods.

Jens Bartelson (Author)

9780521478885, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 6 April 1995

332 pages
23.4 x 15.5 x 2.1 cm, 0.5 kg

The concept of sovereignty is central to international relations theory and theories of state formation, and provides the foundation of the conventional separation of modern politics into domestic and international spheres. In this book Jens Bartelson provides a critical analysis and conceptual history of sovereignty, dealing with this separation as reflected in philosophical and political texts during three periods: the Renaissance, the Classical Age, and Modernity. He argues that the concept of sovereignty and its place within political discourse are conditioned by philosophical and historiographical discontinuities between the periods, and that sovereignty should be regarded as a concept contingent upon, rather than fundamental to, political science and its history.

Preface
1. Introduction: sovereignty and fire
2. The problem: deconstructing sovereignty
3. Beyond subject and structure: towards a genealogy of sovereignty
4. Inventing outsides: proto-sovereignty, exempla and the general theory of the state in the Renaissance
5. How policy became foreign: sovereignty, mathesis and interest in the Classical Age
6. Reorganizing reality: sovereignty, Modernity and the international
7. Conclusion: the end of sovereignty?

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS]