PAD 204 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE

MODULE 2

Unit 1 The Concept of Sovereignty

Unit 2 Power and Authority
Unit 3 Legitimacy and Influence
Unit 4 Political Ideas and Movements
Unit 5 Constitution

UNIT 1 THE CONCEPT OF SOVEREIGNTY

CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Development of the Concept of Sovereignty
3.2 Principal Characteristics of Sovereignty
3.3 Types of Sovereignty
3.4 Opponents of the Theory of Sovereignty
3.5 Limitations to the Sovereignty of the State
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment
7.0 References/Further Reading

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The term ‘sovereignty’ is from French and means ‘above’ or ‘one who is
superior to other’. The term was originally used to identify the king and
in this context, the king represents the supreme and final authority of a
state. The king by exercising this enormous power of state sovereignty
is known as the “sovereign”. Thus, any country/state that is able to
conduct its own affairs independent of other states is a sovereign state
and as such is equal to other states in international law.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

• define sovereignty
• explain the development of the concept
• describe its major characteristics and types, as well as its
limitations.

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3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Development of the Concept of Sovereignty

The concept of sovereignty has developed since the days of Aristotle

who contends that the Senate of the Athenian state is sovereign and that
its laws should be the final sovereign. However, in the sixteenth
century, the French political philosopher Jean Bodin gave it a new
meaning.

In his book titled “Six Books of a Commonwealth” Bodin (1576) argued

that “sovereignty” refers to the source of the state’s authority regardless
of its form of government. Sovereignty may be vested in a king or in
some elite group or even in the corporate citizenry of the society over
time. Whatever the form of sovereignty, Bodin explained, it is
distinguished by three attributes, it is absolute, perpetual and indivisible.

Bodin’s primary concern was to strengthen the authority of the French

monarch which some argued was constrained to honour certain
long-established traditions and principles enshrined in the common law
and in France’s feudal institutions. But if the king was limited by the
common law or by tradition, Bodin observed that the king was not
sovereign; as the sovereign power could not be divided among various
institutions, or formally limited by past experience, it followed that the
king could do whatever the king pleases. Sovereignty was absolute,
perpetual, and indivisible. However, Bodin admitted that Laws of God
and the Laws of Nature (that is laws perceived through reasons) and the
Salic Laws (that is the law of succession) were the only limitations on
sovereignty. Otherwise, the sovereign can do no wrong. Finally, Bodin
argued that the principal mark of the sovereign was the right to impose
laws on all subjects, their consent notwithstanding. To govern well,
Bodin believed that the sovereign must be above the law. Thus, law
itself was nothing more than the command of the sovereign.

Other notable political scientists who contributed to the development of

the concept of sovereignty include Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau,
Bentham, John Austin, Dicey and Field.

Hugo Grotius placed his emphasis on external sovereignty, that is, the
freedom or independence of the state from foreign control. Thomas
Hobbes also contributed to the development of the concept in his book
“Leviathan” published in 1651. Hobbes insisted that sovereign might be
one man or assembly but the power of the sovereign remained the same
in whomever it reside. Sovereign power is absolute and cannot be
shared, even though the sovereign may allow someone to exercise power
on his behalf. Hobbes argued that because the fundamental law of

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nature was self-preservation, human beings were inherently disorderly,

selfish and were generally in conflict with one another. Thus, only a
strong and powerful ruler (sovereign) can put these tendencies of the
“war of all against all” in check. Hobbes, a supporter of Charles I,
during the Puritanic Revolution in England strongly declared that
sovereignty was absolute and resided in the ruler (the king). His work is
the first statement of complete sovereignty in the history of political
thought.

John Locke and Rouseau redefined sovereignty in term of people rather

than one single ruler. They contended that the ultimate power in any
state rested with the people. Locke in his “Essays on Civil Government”
wrote that the supreme power in the state lay with the people.
According to him, “the power of the state is limited, not absolute
because it derives power from the people and because it holds power in
trust for the people.” Rousseau went further; he insisted that whenever
the ruler violated or betrayed the “trust of the people”, the people had
the right not to obey the sovereign and to even overthrow his
government.

Let us now examine some of the modern views on sovereignty.

Professor Dicey distinguishes between legal and political sovereignty.
According to him, the legal sovereignty is that person or body of
persons having the power to make law. The political sovereign on the
other hand is that body of persons in the state (the electorate) whose will
ultimately prevails because legal sovereignty in the making of law is
bound to act according to their will. By contrast, Field felt there was no
need to make a distinction between political and legal sovereignty.
Sovereignty is a legal term used in terms of law only according to Field.
Finally, Bentham thinks of sovereignty in terms of the unlimited power
of the Legislature, and he argued that this power is only morally limited
by the possibility of justifiable resistance to its authority by the
individual or by a group/groups.

So varied are the views expressed on the concept of sovereignty by

political scientists and jurists that it may take a long time in discussing
them. For the purpose of our study, however, we shall consider the
characteristics and types of sovereignty. Sovereignty can be used in
three senses. Firstly, sovereignty used in the legal sense means that
there is only one authority in the state that can exercise it. And in this
instance, sovereignty is unlimited, limitable, and indivisible. Secondly,
sovereignty used in the coercive term implies that it is the coercive
authority of the state.

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Since law has to be obeyed by citizens whether or not they like it, there
should be a coercive authority to enforce the laws of the land. Thirdly,
sovereignty is used to express the presence of a strong influence in the
society. Sovereignty is the distinctive mark of the state, distinguishing it
alike from individuals and associations in the community.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Who are the major contributors to the development of sovereignty as a

concept?

3.2 Principal Characteristics of Sovereignty

The main characteristics of sovereignty as developed by the political

theorists discussed above are:

(i) Indivisibility;
(ii) Absoluteness or unlimitedness,
(iii) Permanence,
(iv) Independence of foreign control, and
(v) Comprehensiveness.

a) Indivisibility - This implies that sovereignty is the supreme,

final, absolute, coercive power of the state over the people living
within the state. The possession of sovereign power by the state
enables it to make laws and enforce them with all the means of
coercion it can employ. The actions of the government of the
state are not subject to the control of any other associations
within the state. Sovereignty cannot be divided though the
government can delegate powers to certain agencies.

b) Absoluteness – This shows that the powers of a sovereign state

cannot be restricted. The modern state is essentially a sovereign
state which issues orders to all citizens and associations within its
area and receives orders from none. There is no limitation to its
legal powers. The absoluteness of sovereignty is necessary for
the effective running and the survival of any sovereign.

c) Permanence – This underscores the fact that as long as the state

exists, sovereignty continues without interruption. Government
may change and the state itself may be reorganized but
sovereignty is a permanent attribute of the state which does not
change.

There is an exception, however, sovereignty as a permanent attribute of

the state may change in case of war and conquest. In such a situation, a

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more powerful state may wage a successful war against a weak state and
thereafter annex it. What happened then is that the annexed state
becomes “sovereign void” in the sense that the state that annexed it now
exercises the lost sovereignty of the conquered state.

d) Independence from foreign control - A sovereign state does not

only exercise supreme power within the area of its jurisdiction, it
is also independent of foreign control or external authority.

e) Comprehensiveness - This denotes that the power of the

sovereign is wide, complete and extensive in scope. The power
of the sovereign is all-embracing and is binding on all persons or
groups within the territorial boundary of the sovereign, however
large the land area may be. It is this attribute that brought all
British colonial territories under the authority of the British
Monarch (i.e. the Queen of England) before their attainment of
independence in the 1960s.

3.3 Types of Sovereignty

The various types of sovereignty is a subject of controversy among

writers. Some have written on legal and political sovereignty, others on
de factor, de jure and external/internal sovereignty. From our discussion
of sovereignty above, it is possible to deduce and make a possible
distinction between legal, political, de facto, de jure, internal and
external sovereignty.

i) Legal Sovereignty

The body that makes laws and enforces them in a state is the legal
sovereign. For example, Parliament in Britain is the legal sovereign.
Dicey has defined legal sovereignty as “a merely legal conception and
means simply the power of law-making, unrestricted by any legal limit.”

According to John Austin, the authority that gives commands which are
habitually obeyed and which are not binding on itself is the sovereign
power in a state. Thus, the will of the sovereign is law; and it is a
command obliging the subjects to do or refrain from doing certain
things. Failure to obey such a command will result in sanctions been
imposed on the subject(s).

ii) Political/Popular Sovereignty

While parliament is the legal sovereign, political sovereign refers to that

body which is supreme in a state, the will of which is ultimately obeyed
by the citizens of the state. In this sense, the electorates, constitutes the

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