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Shifting Sovereignties

A Global History of a Concept in Practice
  • Moritz Mihatsch and Michael Mulligan
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2025
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About this book

Shifting Sovereignties explores practical manifestations of sovereignty from antiquity to the Anthropocene. Taking a global-history perspective and centring Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, it destabilises overly neat theoretical notions of the concept. Shifting Sovereignties shows that, in practice, sovereignty is far from absolute, perpetual, indivisible, or supreme; rather it is fuzzy, compromised, fragmented, and layered. From these observations, the authors derive a historical conceptualisation which makes change and contingency core aspects of the understanding of sovereignty. Rather than understanding sovereignty as a characteristic of individual states, Mihatsch and Mulligan propose the notion of “sovereignty regimes”: frameworks of legitimation enforced through mutual recognition. These regimes are created and managed by more or less institutionalised structures which embody what the authors call “system sovereignty.” Sovereignty regimes and system sovereignty are, like sovereignty itself, continuously changing and contingent. This process of change forms the core of the book. Shifting Sovereignties thus contributes a practical, historical perspective on a concept which is foundational in political science, international relations, and international law.

Author / Editor information

Moritz A. Mihatsch, University of Cambridge, UK; Michael R. Mulligan, Euro University of Bahrain.


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I

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Part 1: Many Beginnings

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Part 2: Illusions of Coherence

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Part 3: A Man in the Desert

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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
January 27, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9783111447117
Hardcover published on:
January 27, 2025
Hardcover ISBN:
9783111446561
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Front matter:
11
Main content:
383
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