AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

The motivation of this project is to revisit and reconsider the central concept of sovereignty within International Relations. From a social, historical and discourse-embedded standpoint, it will be argued that the known conception and narrative of sovereignty as tied to the Westphalian nation state, comprises only one definition of several other autonomous uprising and contesting loci of sovereignty in our contemporary transforming and globalised world. Thus, the concept of sovereignty as inherently bound to a demarcated territory and authority of the nation state needs reconsideration in the aim of exploring more suitable ways to describe and conceptualise emerging non-state agency and polities in our current globalised world order. Deconstructing sovereignty into the elements of territory, population, authority and recognition provides a useful framework for understanding the significance of transnational non-state polities’ claim to sovereignty. An examination the sovereignty claim of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, functions as an empirical example, possibly indicating new ways in which transnational and non-state polities are altering known conceptions of sovereignty within International Relations. The Inuit Circumpolar Council’s claim to sovereignty consequently exhibit how the concept of sovereignty is best understood as transformative by nature rather than static or insignificant.