The Diffusion of Sovereignty

Summary

The transmission of ideas about sovereignty and its related practices from one time, place, or intellectual context to another is sometimes characterised as a process of ‘diffusion’ or even ‘contagion’. Intellectual historians may use such metaphors but the explanations they provide are historical, not scientific. Sovereignty was transmitted when European states brought their forms of government to other peoples and when those peoples embraced such forms in declaring their independence from imperial rule. It was also transmitted when the idea of sovereignty was itself transformed in the course of these and other historical passages. In Foundations of Modern International Thought, David Armitage explores some of these historical passages, the outcome of which he sees as the world of sovereign states that defines the modern period and the disappearance of which would signal its end. In doing so, he illuminates the larger enterprise of writing the history of international thought or, as he prefers to call it, international intellectual history, inviting reflection on its relationship to other kinds of historical inquiry and the opportunities and dangers it poses.     

Sovereignty and inconvenience: The significance of Bentham's exasperation

This article explores the meaning of ‘inconvenience’ and ‘convenience’ in legal and philosophical reasoning. The argument is that such considerations were crucial in the practice of Australian courts in marking out the boundaries of judicial propriety in relation to parliamentary proceedings. This argument is made with recourse to usages of the terms in constitutional debates of the seventeenth century. The older meanings of these terns have now been lost to Australian constitutional law. Hence, I argue, the problem of the boundaries of judicial propriety must be the subject of broader or more theoretical considerations such that the political preferences of judges will be less capable of insulation from their judgments.     

坚守还是让渡——二战后英国人主权观述论

英国人对主权让渡的认识经历了较为复杂的过程:从欧洲一体化初期不愿让渡主权,到加入欧共体时出现"无关主权"、"共享主权"和"威胁主权"三种认知,之后逐渐形成主流共识:一方面,让渡部分主权、融入欧洲一体化有利于增进英国国家利益;但另一方面,无论"亲欧派"还是"疑欧派"都坚持英国的核心主权不可让渡的原则,并且不认同欧洲联邦是欧洲一体化的终结目标。英国政府采取务实主义的态度,既通过"非政治化"努力避免主权让渡成为与欧共体/欧盟合作的障碍,又坚守英国的法理主权地位,部分主权的让渡与否取决于对本国利益的权衡和国内政治的需要。英国人对主权让渡的"保守"态度是他们认知主权的一种"英国方式",但它并没有改变英国人的上述主流共识。     

The Indigenous Challenge to Westphalian Sovereignty

Indigenous peoples achieved a diplomatic success in 2007 when the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This paper analyses why this occurred, and assesses what the Declaration means for state sovereignty. It highlights two reasons why the Global Indigenous Caucus gained widespread endorsement for a Declaration that strongly affirms Indigenous self-determination. First, as a transnational advocacy network the Caucus used a boomerang pattern of lobbying, by engaging the support of powerful allies. Second, the Caucus understood that the concerns of African states about territorial integrity differed from the concerns of states like Australia about external scrutiny of human rights. The Declaration enhances the likelihood of such scrutiny without threatening the territorial integrity of states.     

Diplomacy in a Global Early Modernity: The Ambiguity of Sovereignty

Abstract

This is a concluding comment on the chapters of this special issue. After a discussion of the articles, we will take a closer look at the new view of European diplomacy and foreign relations. The historiographical change regarding early modern foreign relations has fundamentally altered the way we interpret the roles, the agencies and the loyalties of early modern envoys. Taking the conclusions of this research into account, we ask if diplomatic actors of the ancient regime differed distinctly from their Asian counterparts at all. Then, as a final point, we examine how fundamental changes in the Sattelzeit–particularly in Europe, but also in the context of global power relations–affected intercultural diplomacy.     

Algerian Folktales,II

THE GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF THE CELTS. By HENRI HUBERT. London. Kegan Paul, 1934.

ARCHÆOLOGICAL PATTERNS IN POETRY : Psychological Studies of Imagination. By MAUD BODKIN. Oxford University Press. 1934. xiv, 340 pp. Reviewed by S. H. Hooke.

HANS SCHERB : DAS MOTIV VOM STARKEN KNABEN. Stuttgart, 1930. W. Kohlhammer. VIII, pp. 135. 8vo. 9½″ x 6½″. Reviewed by M. Gaster.

FAR-OFF THINGS. BY R. L. SPITTEL. The Colombo Apothecaries Co. 1933. pp.331. 8¾″ x 5½″. 12s. 6d. Reviewed by E. H. Hunt.

A HISTORY OF EMBRYOLOGY. By JOSEPH NEEDHAM, Sc.D. Pp. xviii + 274; PI. XVI; figs. 40. 1934. Camb. University Press, Price 15s. net. Reviewed by A. J. E. Cave.

VOLKSKUNPLICHE GABEN. John Meier zum siebzigsten Geburtstage dargebracht. Berlin : Walter de Gruyter. 1934. 11″ x 8″. Pp.316. N.p. Reviewed by H. Coote Lake.

SPUR-OF-THE-COCK. Publication of the Texas Folk-Lore Society. XI. 1933. Austin. Texas. $2.50. 9?x 6. Pp.113 Reviewed by Barbara Aitken.

CREATION AND EVOLUTION IN PRIMITIVE COSMOGONIES, AND OTHER PIECES. By SIR JAMES GEORGE FRAZER. 8VO. 8½ x 5½ in. London: Macmillan &; Co. Ltd., 1935. 8s. 6d. net. Reviewed by Warren R. Dawson.

ARTS OF WE S T AFRICA (excluding Music). Edited by SIR MICHAEL SADLER, with an Introduction by SIR WILLIAM ROTHENSTEIN. Oxford University Press, 1935. Pp. xi + 101. 10″ x 8″. Plates 32, bibliography. 5s. Reviewed by Trevor Thomas.     

The United Nations and State Sovereignty: Mechanism for Managing International Security

Recently, some analysts have accused the United Nations of eroding the sovereignty of its members. However, these critics often ignore the fact that the creation of the United Nations was itself one incident in the process of reinterpreting sovereignty which has gone on for centuries. Before 1945, sovereignty was often reinterpreted to fit the changing norms and institutions. As a principle which legitimises political control and helps enhance international security, sovereignty often reflects the prevailing notions of international order. While the Security Council has tried to redefine sovereignty after the cold war, the UN Charter remains a constraint on such reinterpretation. If the Charter is not amended to reflect post-cold war changes, the international society might be split between supporters of the Charter principles of sovereignty and those who seek change.     

权力的让渡和主权的坚持:略析欧洲一体化中的“主权让渡”

欧洲一体化实行了一定程度的权力让渡和共享,但成员国仍然保持着主权,并主导着一体化。证诸欧洲一体化进程可以看到:一、所有的权力让渡都需要成员国全体一致同意,体现了成员国主权的行使;二、"辅助性原则"限制着权力让渡;三、偏向于"政府间主义"的"机构间平衡",共同体/欧盟的决策/立法权始终掌握在由成员国代表组成的理事会手中;四、种种"灵活性"和"例外",使成员国在权力让渡的问题上保持最大限度的自主性。     

The Social Life of Robots: The Politics of Algorithms,Governance, and Sovereignty

This symposium aims to broaden the way scholars theorise and empirically treat the increasingly complex relationships between robots and social life, especially in the context of our historically anthropocentric human geographies. The authors of this symposium engage a range of diverse epistemological, ontological, and methodological commitments, but all in some way address the power dynamics and shifting political economies involved in human–robotic interactions as well as possibilities for resisting and overcoming particular forms of domination and oppression. At the same time, the papers present new avenues for conceptualising the rise of robots and robotics and the everyday socio-spatial relations of contemporary algorithmic life. In a rapidly evolving present and future, where life is increasingly managed in relation to algorithmic imaginaries and automated fantasies, these papers demonstrate the potential for geographers to make significant interventions and contributions to investigate the limits, contradictions, and messy contingencies of socio-technical assemblages, to trace the shifting spatialities and temporalities of the geographies of algorithmic governance, and to envision radical democratic, post-capitalist, emancipatory alternatives. These futures are unlikely to be “robot free”, so the question remains how will we build a future set of geographies that acknowledges this reality while also claiming space for the diverse and rich expansion of all forms of life, both human and non-human?     

华洋诉讼中的法理与国权:熊希龄与华昌公司案研究

1922年美国人怀德在上海公共租界会审公廨控告湖南华昌公司拖欠钱款。原告胜诉,但华昌公司处于破产托管中,包括前国务总理熊希龄在内的股东们消极应诉,无意协助执行判决。1926年6月会审公廨借熊希龄访沪之际将他拘传受审。彼时正值中外交涉收回会审公廨的关键时刻,熊希龄质疑法庭的管辖权和传唤程序,将个人受辱引申为西人藐视中国主权,引发各界声援。这一华洋纠纷变为交涉事件,有利于中方收回会审公廨。该案于1927年审结。华昌公司案在舆论中由隐到显以及会审公廨管辖权不断被"问题化"的过程,反映了1920年代中国高涨的民族主义情绪和北洋政府收回利权的努力,亦构成租界法权变迁和近代中国废除治外法权的缩影。     

经济全球化与民族国家的主权保护

经济全球化是一个发展过程,也是一个客观现实。经济全球化对威斯特伐利亚体系所确立的传统的民族国家主权进行着挑战,但并未导致主权的终结。对包括中国在内的发展中国家来说,必须积极参与国际经济秩序的重构,才能有效地维护国家利益和捍卫国家的主权。     

Sovereignty in the North Moluccas: Historical Transformations

The re-establishment of the Sultanates of Ternate and Tidore (North Moluccas) in the wake of the political decentralization in Indonesia was accompanied in 1999 by violent confrontations of Muslims and Christians, in which the Sultans reactivated their “traditional” sovereign claims on their former overseas dependencies in Halmahera. This article examines the representations and ritual exchanges, in terms of which from the mid-nineteenth century onwards sovereignty used to be conceptualized and enacted in the societies concerned. Focusing on the monetary dimensions of these models of sovereignty and tributary relations, it analyzes the interventions that were implemented successively by the Sultanate of Ternate, the Dutch Colonial Government and missionaries of the Dutch Reformed Protestant Church. It is argued that these interventions eventually resulted in transformations of the diarchically structured and cosmologically authorized models of sovereignty into religiously grounded claims at universal sovereignty, thus paving the way for inter-religious violence.