On Sovereignty and Post-sovereignty

Abstract

The author claims that we are entering an era of post-sovereignty. He considers this a cause of satisfaction.After a number of paragraphs in which he refines a number of conceptual distinctions (legal & political sovereignty, internal & external sovereignty, popular sovereignty, divided sovereignty...) the author observes that today, in the EU, not a single level of government posesses what could be called absolute or unitary sovereignty.This raises questions on subsidiarity and democracy, which the author will deal with in subsequent chapters of the book.