Sovereignty marks the boundary between politics and law. Highlighting the legal context of politics and the political context of law, it thus contributes to the internal dynamics of both political and legal systems. This book comprehends the persistence of sovereignty as a political and juridical concept in the post-sovereign social condition. The tension and paradoxical relationship between the semantics and structures of sovereignty and post-sovereignty are addressed by using the conceptual framework of the autopoietic social systems theory. Using a number of contemporary European examples, developments and paradoxes, the author examines topics of immense interest and importance relating to the concept of sovereignty in a globalising world. The study argues that the modern question of sovereignty permanently oscillating between de iure authority and de facto power cannot be discarded by theories of supranational and transnational globalized law and politics. Criticising quasi-theological conceptualizations of political sovereignty and its juridical form, the study reformulates the concept of sovereignty and its persistence as part of the self-referential communication of the systems of positive law and politics. The book will be of considerable interest to academics and researchers in political, legal and social theory and philosophy.

About the Author
JiA (TM)A PA (TM)ibA!A is Professor of Law at Cardiff University, UK. He has published extensively in the areas of sociology of law, legal philosophy, constitutional and European comparative law, and theory of human rights. He is author of monographs Dissidents of Law (2002) and Legal Symbolism (2007), and editor of a number of books, including The Rule of Law in Central Europe (with J. Young, 1999), Law's New Boundaries (with D. Nelken, 2001) and Liquid Society and Its Law (2007). He has also published a collection of essays on contemporary art Pictures of Czech Postmodernism (2011).

Reviews

"In his impressive book Jiri Priban tackles the controversies currently surrounding the key concept of sovereignty in a truly magisterial way. Not only does Priban provide an in-depth interdisciplinary account of sovereignty, but also, in a veritable tour de force, he develops a novel approach based on autopoeitic systems theory that repositions sovereignty as a semantic connector between law and politics. Priban's hypothesis deserves careful consideration by anyone seeking to overcome the impasse between an obsolete nation-state based conception of sovereignty and ill-fitting transnational counterparts." - Michel Rosenfeld, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, USA

"If popular sovereignty still holds a key to the political imaginary of the age, despite its continued erosion in the face of the supposed givens of economic science, the aim of this fascinating book is to bring the concept back to the fore in all its productive ambivalence. Priban brings an impressive knowledge of systems-theory to navigate the field of post-sovereignty in an incisive analysis of the dialectic between the persistent political and legal semantics of sovereignty and the changes in the underlying structures of political organization in a globalized world."- Emilios Christodoulidis, University of Glasgow, UK

"This book provides an important reconstruction of theories of sovereignty and an original discussion of their position in current legal and political realities. It contains a distinctive argument in a generally crowded field of research, and it shows how systems-theoretical approaches, placing emphasis on semantics and self-description, can be applied to illuminate theoretical constructions in law and politics." - Christopher Thornhill, Manchester University, UK

Book Information
ISBN 9781138701496
Author Jiri Priban
Format Paperback
Page Count 262
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g