Reading Texts on Sovereignty : Textual Moments in the History of Political Thought

"Reading Texts on Sovereignty charts the development of the concept from the classical period to the present day. Defined in antiquity as an absolute or supreme type of power, sovereignty's history has been marked ever since by numerous moments of crisis and contestation through which its meaning has been redefined and reconfigured. Using extracts of key texts selected and analysed by leading contributors from the USA, the UK, Australia, Japan, Ireland, Cyprus, Finland and Spain, this volume examines these moments and how different societies have grappled with sovereignty through the ages. The book explores a diverse range of geographical and cultural contexts within which the issue of sovereignty became critical, including Medieval Islam, 19th-century Latin America and 20th-century Africa and the Caribbean. In addition the book includes chapters that respond to the vital interplay between the development of the theory of sovereignty and such momentous historical events and developments as the birth of the democratic polis in the classical world, the legal and political developments that attended the rise of the Roman and Islamic empires, the bitter struggles over sovereign rights between the 'temporal' and 'spiritual' authorities of Medieval Europe, the Treaty of Westphalia, the English Civil War, the French and American Revolutions, the October Revolution as well as anticolonial revolutions in two continents"-- Proporcionado por el editor Introduction / Stella Achilleos and Antonis Balasopoulos, (both University of Cyprus, Cyprus) -- 1. Aristotle / Kazukata Inamura, (Waseda University, Japan) -- 2. Polybius / Brian McGing, (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) -- 3. Roman sovereignty / Daniel Lee, (University of California Berkeley, USA) -- 4. Thomas Aquinas and Marsilius of Padua / Vasileios Syros, (Academy of Finland, Finland) -- 5. Theories of sovereignty in medieval Islam / Muhammad Ali Khalidi, (York University, UK) -- 6. Christine de Pizan / Karen Green, (University of Melbourne, Australia) -- 7. Jean Bodin / TBC -- 8. William Shakespeare / Stella Achilleos, (University of Cyprus, Cyprus) -- 9. Hugo Grotius / Marco Barducci, (Independent Scholar) -- 10. Charles I and Henry Parker / Alan Cromartie, (University of Reading, UK) -- 11. Thomas Hobbes / Quentin Skinner, (Queen Mary College, University of London, UK) -- 12. John Locke / Jacqueline Rose, (University of St Andrews, UK) -- 13. Jean-Jacques Rousseau / Christopher Bertram, (University of Bristol, UK) -- 14. The debate on the US Constitution / Carmen E. Pavel, (King's College London, UK) -- 15. Thomas Paine / Peter Linebaugh, (University of Toledo, Spain) -- 16. Percy Bysshe Shelley / Georgina Green, (University of York, UK) -- 17. Johann Kaspar Bluntschli / Duncan Kelly, (University of Cambridge, UK) -- 18. José Martí / Rosaura Sǹchez, (University of California San Diego, USA) -- 19. Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov (Lenin) / Antonis Balasopoulos, (University of Cyprus, Cyprus) -- 20. Carl Schmitt / Andreas Kalyvas, (New School for Social Research, USA) -- 21. Hannah Arendt / Peg Birmingham, (DePaul University, USA) -- 22. Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben / Stuart Elden, (University of Warwick, UK) -- 23. Jacques Derrida / James R. Martel, (San Francisco State University, USA) -- 24. Léopold Sédar Senghor / Gary Wilder, (CUNY, USA) -- 25. The debate on Catalonian sovereignty / Victor Ferreres Comell, (Pompeu Fabra University, Spain) Cover page 1 Halftitle page 2 Series page 3 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 CONTENTS 6 CONTRIBUTORS 9 SERIES EDITORS’ FOREWORD 13 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 15 Introduction Stella Achilleos and Antonis Balasopoulos 16 References 23 1 The Book of Lord Shang on the Origins of the State 24 Notes 31 2 Aristotle on Sovereignty 32 Notes 37 3 Divided Sovereignty Polybius and the Compound Constitution 40 Notes 47 4 Reading Sovereignty in Augustus’ Res gestae 48 Reading the Res gestae 50 Notes 53 5 Al-Fa ̄ra ̄bı ̄ The Sovereignty of the Philosopher-King 56 Notes 61 6 Marsilius of Padua on Sovereignty 64 Notes 70 7 The King “Should Be” Sovereign Christine de Pizan and the Problem of Sovereignty in Fifteenth-Century France 72 Notes 78 8 Jean Bodin’s République 80 Notes 86 9 Hugo Grotius Absolutism, Contractualism, Resistance 88 Notes 94 10 Shakespeare on Sovereignty, Indivisibility, and Popular Consent 96 Notes 102 11 Sovereignty and the Separation of Powers on the Eve of the English Civil War Henry Parker’s Observations and Charles’ Answer to the XIX Propositions 104 Notes 110 12 Thomas Hobbes, Sovereign Representation, and the English Revolution 112 Notes 118 13 John Locke and the Language of Sovereignty 120 Notes 126 14 Rousseau’s Sovereignty as the General Will 128 Notes 133 15 Sovereignty in the American Founding 136 Notes 142 16 Thomas Paine Reinventing Popular Sovereignty in an Age of Revolutions 144 Notes 150 17 Sovereignty and Political Obligation T. H. Green’s Critique of John Austin 152 Notes 159 18 Divided Sovereignties Lenin and Dual Power 162 Notes 168 19 Carl Schmitt and the Sovereignty of Decision 170 I 170 II 173 III 175 Notes 176 20 Arendt on Sovereignty 178 Notes 184 21 Foucault and Agamben on Sovereignty Taking Life, Letting Live, or Making Survive 186 Notes 192 22 Derrida on the “Slow and Differentiated” Deconstruction of Sovereignty 194 Notes 200 FURTHER READING 202 INDEX 210 "Reading Texts on Sovereignty charts the development of the concept from the classical period to the present day. Defined in antiquity as an absolute or supreme type of power, sovereignty's history has been marked ever since by numerous moments of crisis and contestation through which its meaning has been redefined and reconfigured. Using extracts of key texts selected and analysed by leading contributors from the USA, the UK, Australia, Japan, Ireland, Cyprus, Finland and Spain, this volume examines these moments and how different societies have grappled with sovereignty through the ages. The book explores a diverse range of geographical and cultural contexts within which the issue of sovereignty became critical, including Medieval Islam, 19th-century Latin America and 20th-century Africa and the Caribbean. In addition the book includes chapters that respond to the vital interplay between the development of the theory of sovereignty and such momentous historical events and developments as the birth of the democratic polis in the classical world, the legal and political developments that attended the rise of the Roman and Islamic empires, the bitter struggles over sovereign rights between the 'temporal' and 'spiritual' authorities of Medieval Europe, the Treaty of Westphalia, the English Civil War, the French and American Revolutions, the October Revolution as well as anticolonial revolutions in two continents"-- Provided by publisher Reading Texts on Sovereignty charts the development of the concept from the classical period to the present day. Defined in antiquity as an absolute or supreme type of power, sovereignty's history has been marked ever since by numerous moments of crisis and contestation through which its meaning has been redefined and reconfigured. Using extracts of key texts selected and analysed by leading contributors from the USA, the UK, New Zealand, Japan, Cyprus, Finland, France, Austria, Israel, and Italy, this volume examines these moments and how different societies have grappled with sovereignty through the ages. The book explores a diverse range of geographical and cultural contexts within which the issue of sovereignty became critical, including ancient China and medieval Islam. In addition, the book includes chapters that respond to the vital interplay between the development of the theory of sovereignty and such momentous historical events and developments as the birth of the democratic polis in the classical world, the legal and political developments that attended the rise of the Roman and Islamic empires, the bitter struggles over sovereign rights between the 'temporal' and 'spiritual' authorities of medieval and early modern Europe, the English Civil War, the French and American Revolutions, and the October Revolution.