The broad view of state sovereignty
Realists in international relations define sovereignty in terms of states, whether these
states are ancient or modern, but it is not difficult to see that state sovereignty is a
problematic concept, however the state is defined.
James’s theory of state sovereignty is a case in point. James (1986) regards
sovereignty as an attribute of any state, ancient or modern, and defines it as a state’s
legal claim to constitutional independence. Sovereignty, James argues, is a formal
attribute: a state is sovereign no matter how much it may in practice be beholden
to the will of other states. However, his argument comes to grief over the question
of identifying sovereignty in situations when it is explicitly contested.
James contends that sovereignty expresses a legal, not a physical, reality. Yet this
position is contradicted by the position he takes on Rhodesia (today, Zimbabwe).
In 1965 Ian Smith, a right-wing white Rhodesian leader, declared a ‘unilateral
declaration of independence’ to prevent Britain from pushing the country into some
kind of majority rule. However, James argues that the Smith regime was a sovereign
state, even though it came about in what he concedes was an unlawful manner.
What is the basis for arguing that the Smith rebel regime was sovereign? Because,
James tells us, it was able to keep its enemies at bay – to defend itself through force
of arms.
This implies that it is not legality that ultimately counts but physical effectiveness.
In another of James’s examples, he argues that the country Biafra (which broke
away from Federal Nigeria in the late 1960s) did not become a sovereign state
because it was defeated by the superior strength of the federal state of Nigeria (after
a long and bloody civil war). James makes it clear that sovereignty is ultimately the
capacity of a state to impose its will through force. But if this is what sovereignty
is, then it suffers from the same problem that afflicts states in general: the problem
of asserting a monopoly that it does not have. James speaks of sovereignty as a
statist effectiveness that rests upon ‘a significant congruence between the decisions
of those who purport to rule and the actual behaviour of their alleged subjects’
(Hoffman, 1998: 27–9). But this congruence, in the case of Smith’s Rhodesia – a
state that only lasted 14 years – was met with massive resistance from those who
challenged this sovereignty and sought to achieve a sovereignty of their own.
In other words, the supposedly absolute and illimitable will is shared with wills
that have a power of their own. State sovereignty is as illogical and problematic as
the state itself.Rescuing the idea of sovereignty
The idea of sovereignty is too important to be chewed to pieces by those who
embrace the concept of the state uncritically. We will suggest a way in which the
notion can be reinstated without the problems that inhere in the state.
The classical liberals saw individuals as sovereign, and they were right to do so.
The problem with classical liberals is that they assumed that individuals could enjoy
their supreme power in complete isolation from one another, and indeed, for this
reason, depicted individuals as living initially in a ‘natural’ condition outside of26 Part 1 Classical ideas