Abstract

National sovereignty presents a puzzle. On the one hand, this notion continues to figure importantly in our descriptions of global political change. On the other hand, factors such as the accelerating pace of international economic integration seem to have made the notion anachronistic. This paper is an attempt to resolve this puzzle. Distinguishing between internal sovereignty or supremacy and external sovereignty or independence, I investigate whether some insights from the discussion of the former can be applied to our puzzle concerning the latter. One response to the objection that the notion of internal sovereignty is inapplicable because no group in society holds unlimited political power is to distinguish between different types of internal sovereignty, such as legal and electoral sovereignty. The resolution of the puzzle lies in applying this response strategy to the objection that the notion of external sovereignty is inapplicable because no state is completely independent.