What is Sovereignty? Discuss the difference between internal and external sovereignty?

Sovereignty is an important element of the state. It distinguishes the state from other political associations within a society. The origin of the concept of sovereignty is linked with the origin of territorial state in the modern days. Social groups and associations in the territory of the state can establish their own rules but within the limits defined by the law of the sovereign state. The concept of sovereignty primarily lay on the assumption that the state is supreme to citizen. In other words, sovereignty is a constitutional arrangement of political life.

To trace the history of emergence of sovereignty, one can find that in the classical Greek city state or the Polis, where earliest political systems emerged there was no difference between the state and the society. The citizens in these city states were the subjects of state authority as well as the creators of public rules and regulations. It was through the Roman Empire that came to Greece that the ruling subject was brought under a single central authority. Then, the concept of the sovereignty emerged as a mechanism to enforce a centralized law over the ruling subjects. During later stages of world history, with the emergence of theocratic states, the idea of sovereignty was discouraged as the law of nature or religious rules came to be considered as superior to the laws of the state.

The renaissance and the reformation in Europe challenged the existing theocratic state leading to the formation of territorial monarchic states in Europe. The philosophers in those days started to embrace the political changes and started to write on the nature of functioning of territorial states. After observing the politics of the city state of Italy, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote that, the prince in the modern state should not be bound by natural or cannon laws. For him, there should be a set of rational, scientific and secular laws to regulate the ruling subject. Martin Luther on the other hand, proposed for a two-fold arrangement of the functioning of modern territorial state: spiritual realm controlled by priests and the worldly matters controlled by the prince and judges. These writings later helped scholars to develop the idea of sovereignty.

Jean Bodin proposed that religious and civil conflicts prevalent in France during his time could be solved with the formulation of an unrestricted ruling power, sovereign authority, which is competent to overrule all religious and customary authorities. According to this, within every political community there must be a determinate sovereign authority whose power are decisive, unquestionable and recognized by the community as the rightful basis of authority. Later Thomas Hobbes projected the idea of sovereignty where individual has to surrender all his or her rights and powers to the hands of an individual who thereby become the sovereign, the ruler. On the contrary, writings of Rousseau reflected the transferring of the sovereignty from the rulers to the people, as they become mere co-coordinators of the rules and regulations made by the people for their goods. This idea later becomes the corner stone for the democratic ruling system in different parts of the world.

Internal sovereignty

Internal sovereignty refers to the sovereignty enjoyed by the state within its territory and jurisdiction. The legal and political sovereignties are crucial to understand the internal sovereignty of a state. Through the legal sovereignty, state can impose rules and regulations upon its citizen, regardless of his

or her social, political and economic positions. In return, individual rights are provided by the state to its citizen aiming their safety, security and dignity of life. Political sovereignty of the state deals with the political power enjoyed by the state to impose certain power on its citizen to attain any of its motives even using repressive actions. Police and military organizations are set up for this purpose. The internal sovereignty thus generally mean that within its territory, the state have the right to enjoy a sovereign power over its citizens, resources, institutions etc. no other state can interfere in the decision making process of the state in these areas.

According to the type of ruling system existing in a political community, the nature of internal sovereignty also changed. In the monarchic set up therefore, the sovereignty is centered on an individual or the legislative body. While in a federal set up, it would be shared by the union as well as the provincial states. It is the constitution of a state which determines and put up guideline about the nature of sovereignty of the state. The internal sovereignty is also found to be shared by number of groups and institutions of the state. Thus the law making aspect of State is dealt by the legislative body, Judiciary its constitutional aspects whereas the bureaucratic organizations and other administrators functions for the implementation of rules and regulations of the state.

External sovereignty

The external sovereignty is related with the fact that, every state in the world is sovereign and constitutionally independent from other states. In the external sovereignty, if one state encounters any issues with its neighboring or any other state, they are supposed to mitigate with each other. However, the two world wars and the globalization in last two decades lead to a situation where, the issues between two or more states does not limit to themselves and affect the whole world. This further lead to the formation of international rules, regulations and guidelines to be followed by all nations in the world. The formation of United Nations after the Second World War therefore aims to form a general consent among the nation regarding international relations. The liberalization of the economy in more than last two decades leads the nations to form alliances and associations in economic spheres. The European Union in Europe and SAARC in south Asia are prominent examples for this. Apart from this we have witnessed various trade agreements between nations in the world like general agreement of trade and tariff (GATT), general agreement on trade and services (GATS) etc. These changing situations further prompted nations to liberate their sovereign power in certain sectors where, other nation can play vital role in determining their policies.

Thus, the history of the emergence and development of the idea of sovereignty suggests that, with the changing nature of the political and economic areas in the world, the nature of the idea of sovereignty is also getting changed.