Please note that the time allocated for this colloquia will be devoted to discussion of the paper.

Speaker: Professor Nadia Urbinati (Columbia University)

About the Session: People’s power over their society epitomizes the sovereignty/democracy pair.This pair is undergoing notable transformations. This chapter will focus on an aspect of these transformations, which the term "sovereignism" coined in Europe in recent years renders well. Sovereignist ideology claims the nation-state must regain its sovereign power against international and global forces. To critically analyze this ideology, this chapter places sovereignism in the historical context in which sovereignty and democracy have stabilized and argues that it constitutes a rearguard battle against nonpolitical, supranational entities. Sovereignism has its feet firmly planted in the challenges of the present but its head turned to the past. It reflects a concrete problem but addresses it with obsolete theoretical and practical tools.

About the Institute: The Institute brings together political and legal theorists from Law, Political Science and Philosophy and organises regular colloquia in terms 2 and 3. Read more about the Institute's work.

If you would like to be added to the ILPP mailing list please contact us at laws-events@ucl.ac.uk.

Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash

ILPP DC - For a Criticism of Sovereignism