This new volume shows how state sovereignty is more fluid and contested than is usually appreciated within both conventional and constructivist literature. Whereas previous constructivist works have investigated the temporal contingency of state sovereignty, the spatial contingency of this concept has been neglected. This book tackles this situation, showing the reader how the meaning of state sovereignty was constituted differently in the case of the intervention in Kosovo and the case of non-intervention in Algeria in the late 1990s. This essential study clearly and concisely: takes existing constructivist and poststructuralist work on state sovereignty one step further, arguing that state sovereignty not only is open to different constructions over time, but also across space probes further into the conceptual relationships between sovereignty/ intervention, arguing that legitimations of non-intervention also can be analyzed as a practice, which gives meaning and content to the concept of state sovereignty contributes to the emerging debate on the importance of 'methodology' in constructivist studies, turning the philosophical and meta-theoretical assumptions of constructivism and poststructuralism into an informed 'analytical strategy' guiding the book’s empirical discourse analysis.

Interventions in other states on behalf of their populations is often portrayed as a novel phenomenon in state practice, one which breaches the old principle of sovereignty. But is this really a new practice? Patrick Milton argues that such interventions occurred frequently as far back as the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.

In response to the civil war in Darfur, the African Mission in Sudan (AMIS) force was established in May 2004, and by June its first contingents were on the ground. For the first time since the founding of the African Union, a resolution about direct intervention in a conflict that involved wide-ranging abuse of human rights was accepted on a pan-continental level. Here, Irit Back looks at the changes in attitudes towards the ever-problematic tension between the concepts of humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty, using the example of the African Union's intervention in Darfur to illustrate this unique pan-continental approach to conflict resolution and peace-keeping. Additionally, Back analyses the challenges which international task forces, including AMIS and its successor the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), have faced ever since. Including an examination of the situation in the wake of the declaration of independence of South Sudan in 2011, this book offers a unique perspective on the problem of internationally organised intervention in local conflicts.

Between Cosmopolitan Ideals and State Sovereignty explores how philosophers and political theorists have recast principles of justice and human rights in the light of challenges posed by globalization. It discusses ethical issues that arise at a global level and considers whether human rights and sovereignty can ever be reconciled.

This book gives a compelling analysis and explanation of shifts in China’s non-intervention policy in Africa. Systematically connecting the neoclassical realist theoretical logic with an empirical analysis of China’s intervention in African civil wars, the volume highlights a methodical interlink between theoretical and empirical analysis that takes into consideration the changing status of rising powers in the global system and its effect on their intervention behaviour. Based on field research and expert interviews, it provides a rigorous analysis of China’s emergent intervention behaviour in some key African conflicts in Libya, South Sudan and Mali and broadens the study of external interventions in civil wars to include the intervention behaviour of non-Western rising powers. Obert Hodzi is Visiting Researcher at the African Studies Center, Boston University, USA, and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Seven essays grapple with some of the paradoxes of national sovereignty in today's world, examining such dimensions as pan-Islamism, new approaches to international human rights, ethnic conflict, lessons from Yugoslavia, and Japan and the tropical forests of southeast Asia. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

State sovereignty is the foundation of international relations. This thought-provoking book explores the gap between seeing sovereignty as either absolute or relative. It argues that state sovereignty is both factual and judicial and that the 'loss' of sovereignty exists only at the margins of the international society. With many interesting real-world examples of ambiguous sovereignty examined, this is an important argument against those who are quick to claim that 'sovereignty' is under assault.

This book is a critical inquiry into sovereignty and argues that the meaning and functions performed by this concept have changed significantly during the past decades, with profound implications for the ontological status of the state and the modus operandi of the international system as a whole. Although we have grown accustomed to regarding sovereignty as a defining characteristic of the modern state and as a constitutive principle of the international system, Sovereignty as Symbolic Form argues that recent changes indicate that sovereignty has been turned into something granted, contingent upon its responsible exercise in accordance with the norms and values of an imagined international community. Hence we need a new understanding of sovereignty in order to clarify the logic of its current usage in theory and practice alike, and its connection to broader concerns of social ontology: what kind of world do we inhabit, and of what kind of entities is this world composed? This book will be of interest to students of International Relations, Critical Security and International Politics.

China’s rise has aroused apprehension that it will revise the current rules of international order to pursue and reflect its power, and that, in its exercise of State sovereignty, it is unlikely to comply with international law. This book explores the extent to which China’s exercise of State sovereignty since the Opium War has shaped and contributed to the legitimacy and development of international law and the direction in which international legal order in its current form may proceed. It examines how international law within a normative–institutional framework has moderated China’s exercise of State sovereignty and helps mediate differences between China’s and other States’ approaches to State sovereignty, such that State sovereignty, and international law, may be better understood.