State Sovereignty

“This fine collection of essays grapples with the slippery notion of state sovereignty and with the fate of the so-called Westphalian state. . . . It shows how state sovereignty . . . is put in question both by internal fragmentation and by economic and ecological interdependence, which not only deprives states of much of their power but also seems to transfer portions of ‘legitimate authority’ to public and private international organizations and to the free and largely rogue market. It shows that the evolution of sovereignty in recent centuries results from material, technological developments, from the ever-changing realities of power, and from the influence of ideas such as self-determination, or human rights, or pan-Islamism.” —Stanley Hoffmann, from the Foreword