Research Handbook on the Law and Politics of Sovereignty

This Research Handbook offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary account of sovereignty as one of the most contested concepts in law and politics. Bringing together leading scholars from a wide range of traditions, it examines sovereignty not only as a legal doctrine and political claim, but also as a symbolic form.

Chapters trace the epigenesis of sovereignty from Ancient Greece, Rome and Byzantium to the modern state, revealing how religious, metaphysical and philosophical ideas shaped its development. A unique comparative section explores Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Confucian, Indigenous and settler-colonial traditions, showing how different worlds imagine authority, legitimacy and collective self-rule. The volume also investigates the functional, normative and symbolic dimensions of sovereignty in contemporary constitutionalism, including debates on democratic authority, European integration, secession, illiberalism and populism. Further contributions analyse sovereignty’s entanglement with exceptionalism, labour, biopolitics and trans-constitutionalism. The concluding chapters examine why sovereignty persists as a powerful political imaginary, assessing its critiques and re-articulations—from political theology and relational ethics to feminist, anarchist and decolonial perspectives.

The Research Handbook on the Law and Politics of Sovereignty is an essential resource for scholars and students of law, political theory, intellectual history and international relations, as well as practitioners concerned with constitutionalism and global governance.