Conceptualising the Problematic of Sovereignty in Regionalism
| Author | Terri-Ann Gilbert-Roberts |
| Profession | Research Fellow of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) University of the West Indies Mona |
| Pages | 1-18 |
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Conceptualising the Problematic
of Sovereignty in Regionalism
Understanding the paradox of sovereignty is contingent on an
appreciation of the political dynamics of regional governance. The central
problematic presented by the latter phenomenon relates to an inherently
contentious relationship between traditional nationalist paradigms
of governance and contemporary strategies of regional integration. In
that regard, this exploration of the problematic begins with a review of
better associate it with regional integration as a strategy for enhancing
governance capacity in small developing countries. That juxtaposition
remainder of the study.
The History of Sovereignty
utility of the concept in supporting the claims to power of political elites
pursuant to the leadership aspirations of those who have claimed it.
FH Hinsley’s astute analysis of the concept is instructive. He remarked:
itself…[but] they have not everywhere and at all times enjoyed
the support or suffered the restraints which sovereignty, a theory
or assumption about political power, seeks to construct for
them.…It is a concept which men [sic] in certain circumstances
counterposed – to political power which they or other men were
exercising.1
Notably, prior to the emergence of a modern political discourse
on sovereignty, the idea of a ‘sovereign’ was generally applied by the
The Politics of Integration
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Republica Christiana of Medieval Europe to a description of the unitary
authority of God and, by extension, his papal representative. However,
that religious authority came under threat of being overthrown by several
kings who claimed the right to supersede the Pope’s rule within their
and the various territorial political authorities, particularly over freedom
of religion, contributed to the crumbling of Medieval Christendom and
the gradual emergence of a new ‘societas’ of states which accommodated
and acknowledged the power of multiple authorities under a shared set of
political rules and norms.2 The modern conception of sovereignty emerges
over four key stages of European and international political history which
are highlighted here in order to explain the nexus between claims to
sovereignty and the practice of governance.
The four stages in the history of sovereignty occur between the
sixteenth century and middle of the twentieth century. First, the collapse
of the Medieval Christian imperial authority in Europe left a power vacuum
which fuelled religious disputes among the various constituent units of
century, French philosopher Jean Bodin, himself convinced that religion,
in general, and Christianity, in particular, was a constraint on individual
Bodin coined the term ‘sovereignty’ to describe an ideal political order in
which absolute political authority would reside with the kings of Europe
rather than the Pope.3 This initial stage in the conception of sovereignty
represented an era of loyalty to king and country above the Church. With
further advances in European political philosophy into the seventeenth
century, by theorists such as Grotius, Hobbes and Machiavelli, the
space for the exercise of monarchical power.4 The conceptualisation of the
‘territorial state’ created a device for linking Bodin’s concept of absolute
philosophical concept of the sovereign state, political leaders eventually
won the battle against the Pope and gained the mutually recognised
right, under the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, to establish and then rule
over individual kingdom states. Conventionally, that Treaty represents a
watershed in Politics and International Relations because it introduced
two new principles of political conduct which governed the relationships
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