"Indra's net" is an infinitely-large net owned by the VedicdevaIndra, which hangs over his palace on Mount Meru, the axis mundi of Buddhist and Hindu cosmology. In East Asian Buddhism,
Indra's net is considered as having a multifaceted jewel at each
vertex, with each jewel being reflected in all of the other jewels. In the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism, which follows the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, the image of "Indra's net" is used to describe the interconnectedness or "perfect interfusion" (yuánróng, 圓融) of all phenomena in the universe.
Francis H. Cook describes Indra's net thus:
Far away in the heavenly abode of
the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by
some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely
in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of
deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye"
of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the
jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering "like"
stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now
arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely
at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected
all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only
that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also
reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting
process occurring.
The Buddha in the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra's 30th book states a similar idea:
If untold Buddha-lands are reduced to atoms,
In one atom are untold lands, and as in one, so in each.
The atoms to which these Buddha-lands are reduced in an instant are unspeakable,
And so are the atoms of continuous reduction moment to moment, going on for untold eons;
These atoms contain lands unspeakably many, and the atoms in these lands are even harder to tell of.
Book 30 of the Buddhāvataṃsaka is named "The Incalculable" because it focuses on the idea of the infinitude of the universe and as Thomas Cleary
notes, concludes that "the cosmos is unutterably infinite, and hence so
is the total scope and detail of knowledge and activity of
enlightenment."
In another part of the Buddhāvataṃsaka sutra, the actual metaphor of "Indra's Net" is used to refer to the all phenomena in the dharmadhātu ("dharma realm", ultimate reality, the ultimate principle, Chinese: 法界中):
They [Buddhas] know all phenomena come from interdependent origination.
They know all world systems exhaustively. They know all the different phenomena in all worlds, interrelated in Indra's net.
The metaphor of Indra's net of jewels plays an essential role in the metaphysics of the Chinese BuddhistHuayan school, where it is used to describe the interpenetration or "perfect interfusion" (Chinese: yuánróng, 圓融) of microcosmos and macrocosmos, as well as the interfusion of all dharmas (phenomena) in the entire universe. According to Bryan Van Norden, in the Huayan tradition, Indra's net is
"adopted as a metaphor for the manner in which each thing that exists is
dependent for both its existence and its identity upon every other
thing that exists."
The Huayan text entitled "Calming and Contemplation in the Five Teachings of Huayan" (Huayan wujiao zhiguan 華嚴五教止觀, T1867) attributed to the first Huayan patriarch Dushun (557–640) gives an extended overview of this concept:
The manner in which all dharmas interpenetrate is like an imperial
net of celestial jewels extending in all directions infinitely, without
limit. … As for the imperial net of heavenly jewels, it is known as
Indra’s Net, a net which is made entirely of jewels. Because of the
clarity of the jewels, they are all reflected in and enter into each
other, ad infinitum. Within each jewel, simultaneously, is reflected the
whole net. Ultimately, nothing comes or goes. If we now turn to the
southwest, we can pick one particular jewel and
examine it closely. This individual jewel can immediately reflect the
image
of every other jewel.
As is the case with this jewel, this is furthermore the case with all
the rest of the jewels–each and every jewel simultaneously and
immediately reflects each and every other jewel, ad infinitum. The image
of each of these limitless jewels is within one jewel, appearing
brilliantly. None of the other jewels interfere with this. When one sits
within one jewel, one is simultaneously sitting in all the infinite
jewels in all ten directions. How is this so? Because within each jewel
are present all jewels. If all jewels are present within each jewel, it
is also the case that if you sit in one jewel you sit in all jewels at
the same time. The inverse is also understood in the same way. Just as
one goes into one jewel and thus enters every other jewel while never
leaving this one jewel, so too one enters any jewel while never leaving
this particular jewel.
The Huayan Patriarch Fazang (643–712) used the golden statue of a lion to demonstrate the Huayan vision of interpenetration to empress Wu:
In each of the lion's eyes, in its
ears, limbs, and so forth, down to each and every single hair, there is a
golden lion. All the lions embraced by each and every hair
simultaneously and instantaneously enter into one single hair. Thus, in
each and every hair there are an infinite number of lions... The
progression is infinite, like the jewels of Celestial Lord Indra's Net: a
realm-embracing-realm ad infinitum is thus established, and is called
the realm of Indra's Net.
According to Rajiv Malhotra, the earliest reference to a net belonging to Indra is in the Atharva Veda (c. 1000 BCE). Verse 8.8.6. says:
Vast indeed is the tactical net of
great Indra, mighty of action and tempestuous of great speed. By that
net, O Indra, pounce upon all the enemies so that none of the enemies
may escape the arrest and punishment.
And verse 8.8.8. says:
This great world is the power net
of mighty Indra, greater than the great. By that Indra-net of boundless
reach, I hold all those enemies with the dark cover of vision, mind and
senses.
The net was one of the weapons of the sky-god Indra, used to snare and entangle enemies. The net also signifies magic or illusion. According to Teun Goudriaan, Indra is conceived in the Rig Veda as a great magician, tricking his enemies with their own weapons, thereby continuing human life and prosperity on earth. Indra became associated with earthly magic, as reflected in the term indrajal, "Indra's Net", the name given to the occult practices magicians. According to Goudriaan, the term indrajalam seems to originate in verse 8.8.8 from the Atharva Veda, of which Goudriaan gives a different translation:
This world was the net of the great
Sakra (Indra), of mighty size; by means of this net of Indra I envelop
all those people with darkness.
According to Goudriaan, the speaker pretends to use a weapon of cosmical size. The net being referred to here
...was characterized there as the antariksa-, the intermediate space between heaven and earth, while the directions of the sky were the net's sticks (dandah) by means of which it was fastened to the earth. With this net Indra conquered all his enemies.
Modern and Western references
"Imagine
a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dew
drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew
drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the
other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the
Buddhist conception of the universe in an image." –Alan Watts
Buddhism uses a similar image to
describe the interconnectedness of all phenomena. It is called Indra's
Net. When Indra fashioned the world, he made it as a web, and at every
knot in the web is tied a pearl. Everything that exists, or has ever
existed, every idea that can be thought about, every datum that is
true—every dharma, in the language of Indian philosophy—is a pearl in
Indra's net. Not only is every pearl tied to every other pearl by virtue
of the web on which they hang, but on the surface of every pearl is
reflected every other jewel on the net. Everything that exists in
Indra's web implies all else that exists.
Sarah Burton explains that Brook uses the metaphor, and its interconnectedness:
to help understand the multiplicity
of causes and effects producing the way we are and the way we were
[...] In the same way, the journeys through Brook's picture-portals
intersect with each other, at the same time shedding light on each
other.
Brave New World
In the 2020 TV series Brave New World inspired by the homonymous book by Aldous Huxley,
a new element is introduced in the original story: everyone in New
London is always connected to an artificial intelligence called Indra,
that observes, monitors and analyzes all citizens 24/7. Writer Grant Morrison
named this network after the Vedic deity, since Huxley was famously
fascinated by Indian mysticism and named another element of the story,
Soma, after a Hindu ritual drink which shares its name with another Vedic deity.
the profound cosmology and outlook that permeates Hinduism. Indra's
Net symbolizes the universe as a web of connections and interdependences
[...] I seek to revive it as the foundation for Vedic cosmology and
show how it went on to become the central principle of Buddhism, and
from there spread into mainstream Western discourse across several
disciplines.
Midnight Gospel
In the 2020 TV series Midnight Gospel, Indra's Net is discussed in the episode "Annihilation of Joy" where prisoners die over and over.
Sovereignty can generally be defined as supreme authority. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within a state as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or
institution that has the ultimate authority over other people and to
change existing laws. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme legitimateauthority over some polity. In international law, sovereignty is the exercise of power by a state. De jure sovereignty refers to the legal right to do so; de facto
sovereignty refers to the factual ability to do so. This can become an
issue of special concern upon the failure of the usual expectation that de jure and de facto sovereignty exist at the place and time of concern, and reside within the same organization.
Etymology
The term arises from the unattested Vulgar Latin *superanus (itself a derived form of Latin super – "over") meaning "chief", "ruler". Its spelling, which has varied since the word's first appearance in
English in the 14th century, was influenced by the English word "reign".
Concepts
The
concept of sovereignty has had multiple conflicting components, varying
definitions, and diverse and inconsistent applications throughout
history. The current notion of state sovereignty contains four aspects: territory, population, authority and recognition. According to Stephen D. Krasner, the term could also be understood in four different ways:
Domestic sovereignty – actual control over a state exercised by an authority organized within this state
Interdependence sovereignty – actual control of movement across the state's borders
International legal sovereignty – formal recognition by other sovereign states
Westphalian sovereignty
– there is no other authority in the state aside from the domestic
sovereign (such other authorities might be e.g. a political organization
or any other external agent).
Often, these four aspects all appear together, but this is not
necessarily the case – they are not affected by one another, and there
are historical examples of states that were non-sovereign in one aspect
while at the same time being sovereign in another of these aspects. According to Immanuel Wallerstein, another fundamental feature of sovereignty is that it is a claim that must be recognized if it is to have any meaning:
Sovereignty
is a hypothetical trade, in which two potentially (or really)
conflicting sides, respecting de facto realities of power, exchange such
recognitions as their least costly strategy.
There are two additional components of sovereignty that should be discussed, empirical sovereignty and juridical sovereignty. Empirical sovereignty deals with the legitimacy of who is in control of
a state and the legitimacy of how they exercise their power. Tilly references an example where nobles in parts of Europe were allowed to engage in private rights and Ustages, a constitution by Catalonia recognized that right which demonstrates empirical sovereignty. As David Samuel points out, this is an important aspect of a state
because there has to be a designated individual or group of individuals
that are acting on behalf of the people of the state. Juridical sovereignty emphasizes the importance of other states
recognizing the rights of a state to exercise their control freely with
little interference. For example, Jackson, Rosberg and Jones explain how the sovereignty and
survival of African states were more largely influenced by legal
recognition rather than material aid. Douglass North identifies that institutions want structure and these
two forms of sovereignty can be a method for developing structure.
For a while, the United Nations highly valued juridical sovereignty and attempted to reinforce its principle often. More recently, the United Nations is shifting away and focusing on establishing empirical sovereignty. Michael Barnett notes that this is largely due to the effects of the
post Cold War era because the United Nations believed that to have
peaceful relations states should establish peace within their territory. As a matter of fact, theorists found that during the post Cold War era
many people focused on how stronger internal structures promote
inter-state peace. For instance, Zaum argues that many weak and impoverished countries
that were affected by the Cold War were given assistance to develop
their lacking sovereignty through this sub-concept of "empirical
statehood".
The people transferred all their imperium and power to the Emperor. Cum lege regia, quae de imperio eius lata est, populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat (Digest I.4.1)
The laws do not bind the emperor. Princeps legibus solutus est (Digest I.3.31)
A decision by the emperor has the force of law. Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem. (Digest I.4.1)
Ulpian was expressing the idea that the emperor exercised a rather
absolute form of sovereignty that originated in the people, although he
did not use the term expressly.
Medieval
Ulpian's statements were known in medieval Europe, but sovereignty was an important concept in medieval times. Medieval monarchs were not sovereign, at least not strongly so, because they were constrained by, and shared power with, their feudalaristocracy. Furthermore, both were strongly constrained by custom. Sovereignty existed during the Medieval period as the de jure rights of nobility and royalty.
Reformation
Sovereignty
reemerged as a concept in the late 16th century, a time when civil wars
had created a craving for a stronger central authority when monarchs
had begun to gather power onto their own hands at the expense of the
nobility, and the modern nation state was emerging. Jean Bodin, partly in reaction to the chaos of the French wars of religion, presented theories of sovereignty calling for a strong central authority in the form of absolute monarchy. In his 1576 treatise Les Six Livres de la République ("Six Books of the Republic") Bodin argued that it is inherent in the nature of the state that sovereignty must be:
Absolute: On this point, he said that the sovereign must be
hedged in with obligations and conditions, must be able to legislate
without his (or its) subjects' consent, must not be bound by the laws of
his predecessors, and could not, because it is illogical, be bound by
his own laws.
Perpetual: Not temporarily delegated as to a strong leader in an emergency or a state employee such as a magistrate.
He held that sovereignty must be perpetual because anyone with the
power to enforce a time limit on the governing power must be above the
governing power, which would be impossible if the governing power is
absolute.
The treatise is frequently viewed as the first European text theorizing state sovereignty.
Bodin rejected the notion of transference of sovereignty from people to the ruler (also known as the sovereign);
natural law and divine law confer upon the sovereign the right to rule.
And the sovereign is not above divine law or natural law. He is above (i.e. not bound by) only positive law,
that is, laws made by humans. He emphasized that a sovereign is bound
to observe certain basic rules derived from the divine law, the law of
nature or reason, and the law that is common to all nations (jus
gentium), as well as the fundamental laws of the state that determine
who is the sovereign, who succeeds to sovereignty, and what limits the
sovereign power. Thus, Bodin's sovereign was restricted by the
constitutional law of the state and by the higher law that was
considered as binding upon every human being. The fact that the sovereign must obey divine and natural law imposes ethical constraints on him. Bodin also held that the lois royales,
the fundamental laws of the French monarchy which regulated matters
such as succession, are natural laws and are binding on the French
sovereign.
Despite his commitment to absolutism, Bodin held some moderate
opinions on how government should in practice be carried out. He held
that although the sovereign is not obliged to, it is advisable for him,
as a practical expedient, to convene a senate
from whom he can obtain advice, to delegate some power to magistrates
for the practical administration of the law, and to use the Estates as a means of communicating with the people. Bodin believed that "the most divine, most excellent, and the state
form most proper to royalty is governed partly aristocratically and
partly democratically".
Age of Enlightenment
During the Age of Enlightenment,
the idea of sovereignty gained both legal and moral force as the main
Western description of the meaning and power of a State. In particular,
the "Social contract" as a mechanism for establishing sovereignty was suggested and, by 1800, widely accepted, especially in the new United States and France, though also in Great Britain to a lesser extent.
Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan (1651) put forward a conception of sovereignty similar to Bodin's, which had just achieved legal status in the "Peace of Westphalia",
but for different reasons. He created the first modern version of the
social contract (or contractarian) theory, arguing that to overcome the
"nasty, brutish and short" quality of life without the cooperation of
other human beings, people must join in a "commonwealth" and submit to a
"Soveraigne [sic]
Power" that can compel them to act in the common good. Hobbes was thus
the first to write that relations between the people and the sovereign
were based on negotiation rather than natural submission.
His expediency argument attracted many of the early proponents of
sovereignty. Hobbes strengthened the definition of sovereignty beyond
either Westphalian or Bodin's, by saying that it must be:
Absolute: because conditions could only be imposed on a
sovereign if there were some outside arbitrator to determine when he had
violated them, in which case the sovereign would not be the final
authority.
Indivisible: The sovereign is the only final authority in his
territory; he does not share final authority with any other entity.
Hobbes held this to be true because otherwise there would be no way of
resolving a disagreement between the multiple authorities.
Hobbes' hypothesis—that the ruler's sovereignty is contracted to him
by the people in return for his maintaining their physical safety—led
him to conclude that if and when the ruler fails, the people recover
their ability to protect themselves by forming a new contract.
Hobbes's theories decisively shape the concept of sovereignty through the medium of social contract theories. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's (1712–1778) definition of popular sovereignty (with early antecedents in Francisco Suárez's
theory of the origin of power), provides that the people are the
legitimate sovereign. Rousseau considered sovereignty to be inalienable;
he condemned the distinction between the origin and the exercise of
sovereignty, a distinction upon which constitutional monarchy or representative democracy is founded. John Locke, and Montesquieu
are also key figures in the unfolding of the concept of sovereignty;
their views differ with Rousseau and with Hobbes on this issue of
alienability.
The second book of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Du Contrat Social, ou Principes du droit politique (1762) deals with sovereignty and its rights. Sovereignty, or the general will,
is inalienable, for the will cannot be transmitted; it is indivisible
since it is essentially general; it is infallible and always right,
determined and limited in its power by the common interest; it acts
through laws. Law is the decision of the general will regarding some
object of common interest, but though the general will is always right
and desires only good, its judgment is not always enlightened, and
consequently does not always see wherein the common good lies; hence the
necessity of the legislator. But the legislator has, of himself, no
authority; he is only a guide who drafts and proposes laws, but the
people alone (that is, the sovereign or general will) has authority to
make and impose them.
Rousseau, in the Social Contract argued, "the growth of the State giving the trustees of public authority
more and means to abuse their power, the more the Government has to
have force to contain the people, the more force the Sovereign should
have in turn to contain the Government," with the understanding that the
Sovereign is "a collective being of wonder" (Book II, Chapter I)
resulting from "the general will" of the people, and that "what any man,
whoever he may be, orders on his own, is not a law" (Book II, Chapter
VI) – and predicated on the assumption that the people have an unbiased
means by which to ascertain the general will. Thus the legal maxim,
"there is no law without a sovereign."
According to Hendrik Spruyt, the sovereign state emerged as a response to changes in international trade (forming coalitions that wanted sovereign states) so that the sovereign state's emergence was not inevitable; "it arose
because of a particular conjuncture of social and political interests in
Europe."
Once states are recognized as sovereign, they are rarely recolonized, merged, or dissolved.
Post World War II world order
Today, no state is sovereign in the sense they were prior to the Second World War. Transnational governance agreements and institutions, the globalized economy, and pooled sovereignty unions such as the European union have eroded
the sovereignty of traditional states. The centuries long movement
which developed a global system of sovereign states came to an end when
the excesses of World War II made it clear to nations that some
curtailment of the rights of sovereign states was necessary if future
cruelties and injustices were to be prevented. In the years immediately prior to the war, political theorist Carl Schmitt
argued that sovereignty had supremacy over constitutional and
international constraints arguing that states as sovereigns could not be
judged and punished. After the Holocaust,
the vast majority of states rejected the prior Westphalian
permissiveness towards such supremacist power based sovereignty
formulations and signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. It was the first step towards circumscription of the powers of sovereign nations, soon followed by the Genocide Convention
which legally required nations to punish genocide. Based on these and
similar human rights agreements, beginning in 1990 there was a practical
expression of this circumscription when the Westphalian principle of
non-intervention was no longer observed for cases where the United
Nations or another international organization endorsed a political or
military action. Previously, actions in Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, Cambodia or Liberia
would have been regarded as illegitimate interference in internal
affairs. In 2005, the revision of the concept of sovereignty was made
explicit with the Responsibility to Protect
agreement endorsed by all member states of the United Nations. If a
state fails this responsibility either by perpetrating massive injustice
or being incapable of protecting its citizens, then outsiders may
assume that responsibility despite prior norms forbidding such
interference in a nation's sovereignty.
European integration is the second form of post-world war change
in the norms of sovereignty, representing a significant shift since
member nations are no longer absolutely sovereign. Some theorists, such
as Jacques Maritain and Bertrand de Jouvenel
have attacked the legitimacy of the earlier concepts of sovereignty,
with Maritain advocating that the concept be discarded entirely since
it:
stands in the way of international law and a world state,
internally results in centralism, not pluralism
obstructs the democratic notion of accountability
Efforts to curtail absolute sovereignty have met with substantial resistance by sovereigntist movements in multiple countries who seek to "take back control" from such transnational governance groups and agreements, restoring the world to pre World War II norms of sovereignty.
Definition and types
There exists perhaps no conception the meaning of which is more
controversial than that of sovereignty. It is an indisputable fact that
this conception, from the moment when it was introduced into political
science until the present day, has never had a meaning which was
universally agreed upon.
Lassa Oppenheim (30-03-1858 – 07-10-1919), an authority on international law
Absoluteness
An important factor of sovereignty is its degree of absoluteness. A sovereign power has absolute sovereignty when it is not restricted by a constitution, by the laws of its predecessors, or by custom, and no areas of law or policy are reserved as being outside its control. International law;
policies and actions of neighboring states; cooperation and respect of
the populace; means of enforcement; and resources to enact policy are
factors that might limit sovereignty. For example, parents are not
guaranteed the right to decide some matters in the upbringing of their
children independent of societal regulation, and municipalities do not
have unlimited jurisdiction in local matters, thus neither parents nor
municipalities have absolute sovereignty. Theorists have diverged over
the desirability of increased absoluteness.
Exclusivity
A key element of sovereignty in a legalistic sense is that of exclusivity of jurisdiction
also described as the ultimate arbiter in all disputes on the
territory. Specifically, the degree to which decisions made by a
sovereign entity might be contradicted by another authority. Along these
lines, the German sociologist Max Weber proposed that sovereignty is a community's monopoly on the legitimate use of force;
and thus any group claiming the right to violence must either be
brought under the yoke of the sovereign, proven illegitimate or
otherwise contested and defeated for sovereignty to be genuine. International law, competing branches of government, and authorities reserved for subordinate entities (such as federated states
or republics) represent legal infringements on exclusivity. Social
institutions such as religious bodies, corporations, and competing
political parties might represent de facto infringements on exclusivity.
De jure and de facto
De jure, or legal, sovereignty concerns the expressed and institutionally recognised right to exercise control over a territory. De facto sovereignty means sovereignty exists in practice,
irrespective of anything legally accepted as such, usually in writing.
Cooperation and respect of the populace; control of resources in, or
moved into, an area; means of enforcement and security; and ability to
carry out various functions of state all represent measures of de facto sovereignty. When control is practiced predominantly by the military or police force it is considered coercive sovereignty.
Sovereignty and independence
State sovereignty is sometimes viewed synonymously with independence, however, sovereignty can be transferred as a legal right whereas independence cannot. A state can achieve de facto independence long after acquiring sovereignty, such as in the case of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Additionally, independence can also be suspended when an entire region becomes subject to an occupation. For example, when Iraq was overrun by foreign forces in the Iraq War of 2003, Iraq had not been annexed by any country, so sovereignty over it had not been claimed by any foreign state (despite the facts on the ground).
Alternatively, independence can be lost completely when sovereignty
itself becomes the subject of dispute. The pre-World War II
administrations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia maintained an exile existence (and considerable international recognition) whilst their territories were annexed by the Soviet Union
and governed locally by their pro-Soviet functionaries. When in 1991
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia re-enacted independence, it was done so on
the basis of continuity directly from the pre-Soviet republics.
Another complicated sovereignty scenario can arise when regime itself is the subject of dispute. In the case of Poland, the People's Republic of Poland
which governed Poland from 1945 to 1989 is now seen to have been an
illegal entity by the modern Polish administration. The post-1989 Polish
state claims direct continuity from the Second Polish Republic
which ended in 1939. For other reasons, however, Poland maintains its
communist-era outline as opposed to its pre-World War II shape which
included areas now in Belarus, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovakia and Ukraine but did not include some of its western regions that were then in Germany.
At the opposite end of the scale, there is no dispute regarding
the self-governance of certain self-proclaimed states such as the Republic of Kosovo or Somaliland (see List of states with limited recognition, but most of them are puppet states)
since their governments neither answer to a bigger state nor is their
governance subjected to supervision. The sovereignty (i.e. legal right
to govern) however, is disputed in both cases as the first entity is
claimed by Serbia and the second by Somalia.
Internal sovereignty is the relationship between sovereign power and the political community. A central concern is legitimacy: by what right does a government exercise authority? Claims of legitimacy might refer to the divine right of kings, or to a social contract (i.e. popular sovereignty). Max Weber
offered a first categorization of political authority and legitimacy
with the categories of traditional, charismatic and legal-rational.
With "sovereignty" meaning holding supreme, independent authority
over a region or state, "internal sovereignty" refers to the internal
affairs of the state and the location of supreme power within it. A state that has internal sovereignty is one with a government that has
been elected by the people and has the popular legitimacy. Internal
sovereignty examines the internal affairs of a state and how it
operates. It is important to have strong internal sovereignty to
keeping order and peace. When you have weak internal sovereignty,
organisations such as rebel groups will undermine the authority and
disrupt the peace. The presence of a strong authority allows you to
keep the agreement and enforce sanctions for the violation of laws. The
ability for leadership to prevent these violations is a key variable in
determining internal sovereignty. The lack of internal sovereignty can cause war in one of two ways:
first, undermining the value of agreement by allowing costly violations;
and second, requiring such large subsidies for implementation that they
render war cheaper than peace. Leadership needs to be able to promise members, especially those like
armies, police forces, or paramilitaries will abide by agreements. The
presence of strong internal sovereignty allows a state to deter
opposition groups in exchange for bargaining. While the operations and
affairs within a state are relative to the level of sovereignty within
that state, there is still an argument over who should hold the
authority in a sovereign state.
This argument between who should hold the authority within a
sovereign state is called the traditional doctrine of public
sovereignty. This discussion is between an internal sovereign or an
authority of public sovereignty. An internal sovereign is a political
body that possesses ultimate, final and independent authority; one whose
decisions are binding upon all citizens, groups and institutions in
society. Early thinkers believed sovereignty should be vested in the
hands of a single person, a monarch. They believed the overriding merit
of vesting sovereignty in a single individual was that sovereignty
would therefore be indivisible; it would be expressed in a single voice
that could claim final authority. An example of an internal sovereign is
Louis XIV
of France during the seventeenth century; Louis XIV claimed that he was
the state. Jean-Jacques Rousseau rejected monarchical rule in favor of
the other type of authority within a sovereign state, public
sovereignty. Public Sovereignty is the belief that ultimate authority
is vested in the people themselves, expressed in the idea of the general
will. This means that the power is elected and supported by its
members, the authority has a central goal of the good of the people in
mind. The idea of public sovereignty has often been the basis for
modern democratic theory.
Within the modern governmental system, internal sovereignty is
usually found in states that have public sovereignty and is rarely found
within a state controlled by an internal sovereign. A form of
government that is a little different from both is the UK parliament
system. John Austin argued that sovereignty in the UK was vested neither in the Crown nor in the people but in the "Queen-in-Parliament". This is the origin of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty
and is usually seen as the fundamental principle of the British
constitution. With these principles of parliamentary sovereignty,
majority control can gain access to unlimited constitutional authority,
creating what has been called "elective dictatorship" or "modern
autocracy". Public sovereignty in modern governments is a lot more
common with examples like the US, Canada, Australia and India where the
government is divided into different levels.
External sovereignty concerns the relationship between sovereign power and other states. For example, the United Kingdom
uses the following criterion when deciding under what conditions other
states recognise a political entity as having sovereignty over some
territory;
"Sovereignty." A government which exercises de facto administrative
control over a country and is not subordinate to any other government in
that country or a foreign sovereign state.
(The Arantzazu Mendi, [1939] A.C. 256), Stroud's Judicial Dictionary
External sovereignty is connected with questions of international law – such as when, if ever, is intervention by one country into another's territory permissible?
Following the Thirty Years' War, a European religious conflict that embroiled much of the continent, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 established the notion of territorial sovereignty as a norm of noninterference in the affairs of other states, so-called Westphalian sovereignty,
even though the treaty itself reaffirmed the multiple levels of the
sovereignty of the Holy Roman Empire. This resulted as a natural
extension of the older principle of cuius regio, eius religio
(Whose realm, his religion), leaving the Roman Catholic Church with
little ability to interfere with the internal affairs of many European
states. It is a myth, however, that the Treaties of Westphalia created a
new European order of equal sovereign states.
In international law,
sovereignty means that a government possesses full control over affairs
within a territorial or geographical area or limit. Determining whether
a specific entity is sovereign is not an exact science, but often a
matter of diplomatic dispute. There is usually an expectation that both de jure and de facto
sovereignty rest in the same organisation at the place and time of
concern. Foreign governments use varied criteria and political
considerations when deciding whether or not to recognise the sovereignty
of a state over a territory. Membership in the United Nations
requires that "[t]he admission of any such state to membership in the
United Nations will be affected by a decision of the General Assembly
upon the recommendation of the Security Council."
Sovereignty may be recognized even when the sovereign body
possesses no territory or its territory is under partial or total
occupation by another power. The Holy See was in this position between the annexation in 1870 of the Papal States by Italy and the signing of the Lateran Treaties
in 1929, a 59-year period during which it was recognised as sovereign
by many (mostly Roman Catholic) states despite possessing no territory –
a situation resolved when the Lateran Treaties granted the Holy See
sovereignty over the Vatican City. Another case, sui generis is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the third sovereign entity inside Italian territory (after San Marino and the Vatican City State) and the second inside the Italian capital (since in 1869 the Palazzo di Malta and the Villa Malta receive extraterritorial
rights, in this way becoming the only "sovereign" territorial
possessions of the modern Order), which is the last existing heir to one
of several once militarily significant, crusader states of sovereign military orders. In 1607 its Grand masters were also made Reichsfürst (princes of the Holy Roman Empire) by the Holy Roman Emperor, granting them seats in the Reichstag,
at the time the closest permanent equivalent to an UN-type general
assembly; confirmed 1620. These sovereign rights were never deposed,
only the territories were lost. Over 100 modern states maintain full
diplomatic relations with the order, and the UN awarded it observer status.
The governments-in-exile of many European states (for instance, Norway, Netherlands or Czechoslovakia) during the Second World War
were regarded as sovereign despite their territories being under
foreign occupation; their governance resumed as soon as the occupation
had ended. The government of Kuwait was in a similar situation vis-à-vis the Iraqi occupation of its country during 1990–1991. The government of Republic of China (ROC) was generally recognized as sovereign over China from 1911 to 1971 despite the 1949 victory of the Communists in the Chinese civil war and the retreat of the ROC to Taiwan. The ROC represented China at the United Nations until 1971, when the People's Republic of China obtained the UN seat.The ROC political status as a state became increasingly disputed; it became commonly known as Taiwan.
The International Committee of the Red Cross is commonly mistaken to be sovereign. It has been granted various degrees of special privileges and legal immunities in many countries, including Belgium, France, Switzerland, Australia, Russia, South Korea, South Africa and the US, and soon in
Ireland. The Committee is a private organisation governed by Swiss law.
Shared and pooled
Just as the office of head of state
can be vested jointly in several persons within a state, the sovereign
jurisdiction over a single political territory can be shared jointly by
two or more consenting powers, notably in the form of a condominium.
Likewise the member states of international organizations may
voluntarily bind themselves by treaty to a supranational organization,
such as a continental union. In the case of the European Union member-states, this is called "pooled sovereignty".
Another example of shared and pooled sovereignty is the Acts of Union 1707 which created the unitary state now known as the United Kingdom. It was a full economic union, meaning the Scottish and English systems
of currency, taxation and laws regulating trade were aligned. Nonetheless, Scotland and England never fully surrendered or pooled all
of their governance sovereignty; they retained many of their previous
national institutional features and characteristics, particularly
relating to their legal, religious and educational systems. In 2012, the Scottish Government, created in 1998 through devolution in the United Kingdom, negotiated terms with the Government of the United Kingdom for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum
which resulted in the people of Scotland deciding to continue the
pooling of its sovereignty with the rest of the United Kingdom.
Nation-states
A community of people who claim the right of self-determination based on a common ethnicity, history and culture might seek to establish sovereignty over a region, thus creating a nation-state. Such nations are sometimes recognised as autonomous areas rather than as fully sovereign, independent states.
Federations
In a federalsystem of government, sovereignty
also refers to powers which a constituent state or republic possesses
independently of the national government. In a confederation,
constituent entities retain the right to withdraw from the national body
and the union is often more temporary than a federation.
Different interpretations of state sovereignty in the United States of America, as it related to the expansion of slavery and fugitive slave laws, led to the outbreak of the American Civil War.
Depending on the particular issue, sometimes both northern and southern
states justified their political positions by appealing to state
sovereignty. Fearing that slavery would be threatened by results of the 1860 presidential election, eleven slave states declared their independence from the federal Union and formed a new confederation. The United States government rejected the secessions as rebellion, declaring that secession from the Union by an individual state was unconstitutional, as the states were part of an indissoluble federation in Perpetual Union.
Sovereignty versus military occupation
In
situations related to war, or which have arisen as the result of war,
most modern scholars still commonly fail to distinguish between holding
sovereignty and exercising military occupation.
In regard to military occupation, international law prescribes
the limits of the occupant's power. Occupation does not displace the
sovereignty of the occupied state, though for the time being the
occupant may exercise supreme governing authority. Nor does occupation
effect any annexation or incorporation of the occupied territory into
the territory or political structure of the occupant, and the occupant's
constitution and laws do not extend of their own force to the occupied
territory.
To a large extent, the original academic foundation for the concept of "military occupation" arose from On the Law of War and Peace (1625) by Hugo Grotius and The Law of Nations (1758) by Emmerich de Vattel. Binding international rules regarding the conduct of military occupation were more carefully codified in the 1907 Hague Convention (and accompanying Hague Regulations).
In 1946, the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal
stated with regard to the Hague Convention on Land Warfare of 1907:
"The rules of land warfare expressed in the Convention undoubtedly
represented an advance over existing International Law at the time of
their adoption ... but by 1939 these rules ... were recognized by all
civilized nations and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and
customs of war."
A number of modes for acquisition of sovereignty are presently or
have historically been recognized in international law as lawful methods
by which a state may acquire sovereignty over external territory.
The classification of these modes originally derived from Roman
property law and from the 15th and 16th century with the development of
international law. The modes are:
Cession is the transfer of territory from one state to another usually by means of treaty;
There
exist vastly differing views on the moral basis of sovereignty. A
fundamental polarity is between theories which assert that sovereignty
is vested directly in the sovereigns by divine or natural right, and
theories which assert it originates from the people. In the latter case
there is a further division into those which assert that the people
effectively transfer their sovereignty to the sovereign (Hobbes), and
those which assert that the people retain their sovereignty (Rousseau).
During the brief period of absolute monarchies in Europe, the divine right of kings was an important competing justification for the exercise of sovereignty. The Mandate of Heaven
had similar implications in China for the justification of the
Emperor's rule, though it was largely replaced with discussions of
Western-style sovereignty by the late 19th century.
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some
significant portion of them, retain sovereignty over the government and
where offices of state are not granted through heritage. A common modern definition of a republic is a government having a head of state who is not a monarch.
Democracy is based on the concept of popular sovereignty. In a direct democracy the public plays an active role in shaping and deciding policy. Representative democracy permits a transfer of the exercise of sovereignty from the people to a legislative body or an executive (or to some combination of the legislature, executive and Judiciary). Many representative democracies provide limited direct democracy through referendum, initiative, and recall.
Parliamentary sovereignty
refers to a representative democracy where the parliament is ultimately
sovereign, rather than the executive power or the judiciary.
Realists view sovereignty as being untouchable and as guaranteed to legitimate nation-states.
Rationalists
see sovereignty similarly to realists. However, rationalism states that
the sovereignty of a nation-state may be violated in extreme
circumstances, such as human rights abuses.
Internationalists
believe that sovereignty is outdated and an unnecessary obstacle to
achieving peace, in line with their belief in a global community. In the
light of the abuse of power by sovereign states such as Hitler's
Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union, they argue that human beings are not
necessarily protected by the state whose citizens they are and that the
respect for state sovereignty on which the UN Charter is founded is an obstacle to humanitarian intervention.
Imperialists
hold a view of sovereignty where power rightfully exists with those
states that hold the greatest ability to impose the will of said state,
by force or threat of force, over the populace of other states with
weaker military or political will. They effectively deny the sovereignty
of the individual in deference to either the good of the whole or to divine right.
According to Matteo Laruffa "sovereignty resides in every public
action and policy as the exercise of executive powers by institutions
open to the participation of citizens to the decision-making processes."
The post-Western era, considered by some to be a post-American era,is a conjectured time period starting around the 21st century or afterward in which the West is no longer dominant, and other civilizations (particularly Asian ones) gain power.In the context of rising Asian powers (sometimes as part of a broader Global East) or a rising Global South, the terms Easternization and Southernization respectively are sometimes applied (analogous to Westernization).
Proponents often argue in favor of a post-Western era by pointing out Western abuses of power during the colonial and post-colonial eras, while opponents argue that Western values and civilization
are pivotal to human progress and an orderly world, and that a
post-Western world might not honor them to the same extent as the West
has.
The Russo-Ukrainian War
was noted to have demonstrated the emergence of some features of a
post-Western world order during its major escalation in the 2020s, as
the West was unable to rally Global South
nations to support Ukraine despite Western solidarity, in what was seen
as various countries prioritizing their own interests and a blow to the
rules-based world order.The COVID-19 pandemic and the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in the early 2020s have also been identified as possible starting points for a post-American era. Some columnists believe that the Gaza war
that started in 2023 created further doubts about the West maintaining
leadership of the world order, as Southern countries alleged a double
standard by the West resulting in the genocide of Gazans.
A protester at an Occupy Wall Street protest, an American movement against economic inequality and corporate greed from 2011.
In some sense, Europe itself has been argued to be increasingly
post-Western, as it has successfully integrated a previously fractious
and conflict-ridden group of countries into the European Union
and into institutions that command respect for certain values such as
democracy. With the acceptance in the rest of the world of Western
systems, Europe has become increasingly open to mixing with and
acknowledging its influences from other civilizations.
The West has a significantly aging population, with the cost of
care associated with the elderly along with decreasing standards of
living for those on a median income and other negative economic factors creating the possibility of a decline in Western military and economic power. Opposition by some in the West to various forms of globalization, which are perceived to have spurred on economic inequality
and primarily be for the benefit of a global elite, has also created a
decline in desire within the West to fully engage with the rules-based
order.
Some debate has emerged within the West around how it should
manage its relations with other parts of the world to best transition
into a post-Western era, with some calling for the West to maintain
internal solidarity around its values, while others call for the West to less stringently uphold its values in
its foreign relations so as to better integrate with and potentially
influence the increasingly influential non-Western nations.
The non-West
An advertisement for China's 2010 Asian Games on the MTR KTT train that runs from mainland China through Hong Kong. China has increasingly incorporated e-sports and technology into its Asian Games events.
Various factors are said to indicate the decline of Western power and
potentially Western values around the world. Asia's youth population
has grown significantly relative to the West, with countries such as
China acquiring more technological capabilities that can influence the
world and potentially be used to reduce individuals' abilities to
express their individual rights and/or share power with other
individuals in a democratic form of government (see Techno-nationalism).
South–South cooperation has become more discussed, with the developing world trading more within itself than with OECD countries since 2013. By 2050, one projection shows that the world's economic center of gravity may lie between India and China.
Authoritarian non-Western nations have increasingly sought to
reshape global institutions to reduce human rights enforcement upon
themselves.
India has come to exemplify a kind of neutral, self-interested
model among non-Western countries during the Russo-Ukrainian War,
demonstrating a desire to move towards a multipolar world where it can work with multiple partners. It has also shown a decreasing interest in full democracy and pluralism, as seen in the rise of Hindu nationalism and increasing attacks upon political opponents of the Indian government.
Civilizational exceptionalism
has increasingly been used as a rationale by non-Western countries to
carve out space for themselves on the world stage and to justify
domestic authoritarianism.
Some post-Western advocates believe that non-Western countries can do
a better job than the West in terms of addressing climate change,
referencing climate change's origins in various actions taken by the
West. Western voices have debated how to address climate change in an era
where the West is less likely to lead or be able to create cooperation
with non-Western countries.
Christianity's decline in the West
has been argued by some to be contributing to what they see as the
West's declining ability to enforce its values both within itself and in
the wider world.
Christianity's strong historical identification with the West has
also become increasingly relevant, as Christians seek to modify their
promotion of the religion in a way which can better reach non-Western
peoples, and as the religion increasingly grows in the Global South in a
form that comes in some conflict with Western-style Christianity. Over time, more Western Christians have come to the conclusion that the
spread of Christianity need not be strongly paired with Western culture or values to be successful or beneficial. There has also been some debate around how Western Christians should
engage with or protect non-Western Christians, particularly in the
context of religious repression of non-Western Christians.
Postcolonial migration to Western countries
has been described as "super-diverse", raising questions around how the
migrants can be assimilated and what it means for the world order. Internal migration has also become a notable topic in countries such as China.
The Indian Premier League, the second-most valued sports league in the world in terms of per-match media rights fees.
Though many modern sports came from the West
and were originally dispersed through the world via colonialism, there
is now an increasing tendency of former colonies to dominate these
sports' organizational apparatuses. For example, India has been noted for becoming the dominant power in world cricket, a sport which it had been introduced to during British rule, through its ability to use its large population and market to earn vast revenues through the Indian Premier League and the commercial appeal of the T20 format (see also: Cricket in South Asia). It now generates over 80% of international revenue for the sport.
