State and Sovereignty

Original Preamble
• Purpose of preamble- Supremacy of people, Declares ideals and
aspirations of India, contains enacting clause- date, legal
interpretation
• Is preamble a part of Constitution?
- Conventional versus Modern
- Re. Beruberi Union case 1960- not numbered, well function without
it,
- Modern/ legal adopted and enacted the same way as other parts,
amendment, Philosophy of the constitution Keshabanand Bharati
versus state of Kerala 1973
- 42nd Amendment Act 1976
- Socialist, secular and integrity.
 State
• actor in international society
• resolutely statist in their approach
• Anti-Statist approach
• Parag Khanna, How to run the world (2011)
• how state-centric international society emerged, and why?
• Why the state has been such a successful international actor, especially in the
20th century?
• criticism of states and state sovereignty
• State’s existence
• Kal Holsti - 15th-century Europe- 16th- 17th century- History- political
allegiance only to their state of citizenship as today.- power of Royal over
local- centralization- detach religion from politics- court synonymous with
state institution- expensive wars
Sovereignty
• Sovereignty is the defining principle of statehood- aspiration and an institution
• Sovereignty itself consists of two main characteristics: - Internal and external.
• Establishing the principle of sovereignty got Challenged
• endemic warfare
• Peace of Westphalia – sovereignty was formally established as an institution of
international.
• Non-intervention over any other feature
• Stephen Krasner (2002)- the principle of sovereignty has created a society based
on ‘organised hypocrisy’.
• Krasner four components: Vatellian sovereignty
• interdependence sovereignty
• international legal sovereignty
• domestic sovereignty
• State’s success
• Sovereignty- its adoption by actors who oppose other aspects of international society
• Need of strong state for socialism
• Cold war
• 20th and 21st centuries - the increasing number of states around the world
• Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, adopted by the Organization
of American States in 1933. It reads:
• The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications:
a) a permanent population;
b) a defined territory;
c) government; and
d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Failed state quasi state, stateless

State
• State versus Non-state actors: states can do things that others cannot.
• Statelessness
• Non State actors- TNCs, NGOs, Terrorist organizations, Transnational criminals,
International laws and conventions
• Problem with sovereign states
- statist- non state actors TNCs- Susan Strange
- David Held- paradox of our time
- E H Carr – new international order
- EU
- Nicolas Wheelers – Saving strangers- humanitarian intervention
• Security and the state
- State or individual
- State as the cause of insecurity- North Korea, Zimbabwe
• What does it mean for a state to be ‘sovereign’?
• What do you think represents the greatest challenge
to the primacy of the state as the leading actor in IR?
• Do you think that there will ever be a world
government?
• ‘It is impossible for states to be properly sovereign
the sort the world has today.’ Discuss.