Sovereignty and its Two Dimensions

Sovereignty is the authority to do anything in a country without being held accountable, such as making rules, enforcing and enforcing laws, collecting and impressing taxation, creating war and peace, and forming alliances and agreements with foreign nations. Sovereignty in government, on the other hand, applies to the public body that directs what each member of the partnership can do regarding the end of the relationship (Camani, 2011, P. 15). It is also the only authority that rules every lawful citizen, and there is no political dominance in the state. A sovereign state is one who can govern itself independently of any foreign influence. Sovereignty entails the combination of all power and exists in in the body of the state that fits the societies. However, these supremacies are mostly implemented by delegation.

Sovereignty also acts as the ultimate overseer in the process of making decisions in the state as well as maintenance of order. The term was derived from the Latin word superanus and was originally meant to be equivalent to supreme power. However, when put in practice, it has often departed from its initial meaning (Camani, 2011, P. 35). Despite the fact that the doctrine of sovereignty has had a significant impact on progress and growth within different states, its greatest influence is apparent in the relations among the various states. Sovereign is not bound by laws and cannot be responsible for anybody as well. However, to some extent, the sovereign is obliged to observe some ground rules that are derived from the law about its citizens.

Dimensions of Sovereignty

Internal Sovereignty

It also refers to a formal freedom and characterizes the real power of the state or indigenous government to create and administer policies within their influence. A country that has core freedom is one in which the administration has been chosen by the publics and has to possess the prevalent legality (International Commission on Intervention, 2001, P. 18). It exercises complete power over all characters or associations of persons within a given state. Internal sovereignty issues guidelines to all men and groups in its area and accepts commands from none of them and does not always subject to any limitation of any kind. Internal sovereignty can also refer to the situation in which an individual or organization does not have any challenge to its laws and views within its geographical jurisdiction. The power is unchallenged by any entity within the geographical dispensation in question.

External Sovereignty

The country is subject to no other control and is sovereign of any form of coercion of other nations. Each independent state had the power to relinquish trade accords as well as indulging into military agreements. Each state that possesses external sovereignty is self-governing of other countries, and every state that is independent is at freedom to decide its foreign policies and join any union of authority it pleases (International Commission on Intervention, 2001, P. 27). Similarly, any state does not have any right to tamper with obvious issues of a country that is independent. Therefore, foreign sovereignty is an indication that every state is independent of other nations. It means political freedom that demonstrates the sovereignty of the modern states.

Socially Constructed Nations

Social constructions of a nation entail concepts such as race, ethnicity and the nation itself. Race is a social construction that is used to categorize human beings from biologically transmitted characters that are thought to be socially significant. In historical perspective, the reason behind categorization has been to legitimize inequalities of power to create an order in which some people in the society are powerful and dominant. The race concept has deeply affected the formation of identity (Campbell, 2000, P. 76). Ethnicity, on the other hand, is socially constructed based on historical representations of people in the society. Ethnicity provides people with both the sense of inclusion and exclusion from one group to another. It is determined by the social interaction of individuals through the use of symbols, and the symbols represent an identity of a person within part of a particular group.

Social constructions of nations refer to the basic structures of international politics that are social and not materialistic in nature. It also relays the structures that do not only demonstrate behavior but define actors as well as identifying their interests. However, people within a country that are socially constructed have the historical memory that strengthens the sovereign bonds. Myths or origins and shared history provide the individual with the impression that the nation is eternal and the cultural attributes alongside values that existed before will help the person through in society (Campbell, 2000, P. 93).

Social identities are useful in defining the structure of social structures among various nations. In this respect, European Union serves as an outstanding example that explains the concept of social construction. Social identities play the critical role in defining the structure of social development of nations. EU in the context of social construction should be agreed as a sanctuary civic that is defined by definite rehearses and denotations that are shared. It, therefore, indicates that nations are socially constructed through group and duplicate of characteristics as well sharing of collective understandings that are divergent (Campbell, 2000, P. 115).

The concept of social construction among nations has been the primary challenge of neoliberal ideologies. Social construction focuses on the interpretation of the world by individual agents such as counties, and the definition alters over time as various people relate to each other. It does not let go the authenticity or the importance of secular states but explores how these countries as a bearing on the actions of people and their identities. Apart from economic wealth, population size, military prowess is also significant (Campbell, 2000, P. 101).

Deliberative Democracy

It is a political theory that claims that decisions in politics should be a fair and reasonable debate with the inclusion of the ordinary citizens. In deliberation, citizens are allowed to exchange arguments while considering various claims that are put in place to secure the public good (Dryzek, 2000, P. 13). Through the conversation, citizens can come to an agreement about a given policy or procedures that will best suit the interest of the public. The type of democracy also maintains that citizens should reach in political decisions through reasoning and collection of arguments and viewpoints that are competitive. That suggests that preferences should be shaped by deliberation and not self-interest.

Deliberative also shifts the emphasis of the outcome of the decision to the quality of the process concerning the quality of the process (Dryzek, 2000, P. 17). In most cases, the outcomes generated by deliberative democracy are of universal benefit through reason instead of political power. It is based on competition between interests that are in conflict and can exchange information and justification that supports various perspectives of the public good. Therefore, citizens should be swayed by the urge of better argument rather than private concerns or views that are not justifiable by the public (Dryzek, 2000, P. 34).

Arguments against Deliberative Democracy

Despite the deliberative democracy having demonstrated value to the task of effective governance, it is an exception rather than a rule. In most cases, the arguments that are meant to produce the common good are always distorted by the voices that aim for a particular interest. Sometimes it efforts is discouraged by politicians who possess the ultimate power to amend the rules or policies suggested by the citizens hence proving the ineffectiveness of all process (Dryzek, 2000, P. 43).

Engaging citizens in the course of making decisions that need to be urgently implemented in a given country is challenging with the process. It is because the process will consume much time due to numerous people with various ideas that want to contribute in the process hence making it time-consuming (Dryzek, 2000, P. 54).

Authoritarian Regime

Such systems can be attractive because they always benefit some people. They depend on complex networks of support, and the supporters are rewarded by such regimes with either power, money or the change of status (Huneeus, 2007, P. 24). The regimes are not disliked by everyone because if they were bad for everyone, the dictator could have been quickly overthrown by the people. Similarly, the people might believe that the replacement of such regime might even be worse than the authoritarian regime. In some instances, if a country has gone through a series of instability and war, then the only option of restoring peace and order in such a country is to swear in a no-nonsense man who can rise to the occasion to restore peace. Such regimes are capable of manufacturing support through propaganda and suppress opposing powers in appropriate distinct ways. If this happens, they support inflates, and they become famous (Huneeus, 2007, P. 56).

Authoritarian regimes tend to exist within democracies and champion for their desires as they tend to be useful and welcomed in particular situations. A good example is after post 9/11 in which the Bush administration restricted the rights of Americans through arresting people based on suspicion and trying them in secret courts (Huneeus, 2007, P. 73). But the approach is justifiable to some extent especially if a country is in the state of emergency and needs to bring things to level. The regimes will tend to control all aspects of the society by expressing principles that are essentially at odds with democracy like a regulation by a select few and suppression of the opposition.

Sometimes they may get hold of acceptability by bringing the much-needed stability in economy and growth to the state through initiating development projects that will deviate the attention of people from their rigid tactics of leadership. The presence of a leader in the authoritarian regime that is charismatic can also be a source of popularity to such systems as was the case with the former president of Libya (Huneeus, 2007, P. 78).

References

Caramani, D., 2011. Comparative politics. Oxford University Press.

Campbell, D., 2000. The socially constructed organization. Karnac Books.

Dryzek, J.S., 2000. Deliberative democracy and beyond: Liberals, critics, contestations. Oxford University Press on Demand.

International Commission on Intervention, State Sovereignty and International Development Research Centre (Canada), 2001. The responsibility to protect: report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Idrc.

Huneeus, C., 2007. The Pinochet Regime. Boulder^ eColorado Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers.