U l usl ar ar as H uku k ve P ol it i ka Cilt 6, Say: 21 ss.

125-139, 2010

Globalization and New Medievalism: A Reconsideration of the Concept of Sovereignty

Lain dil ZTI
Abstract Globalization and rising ethnic nationalism have triggered discussions concerning borders, territoriality and sovereignty. Satellite technology, guerillas and global diseases have changed traditional roles of borders which are based on division and protection. These developments necessitate a closer look at the concept of absolute sovereignty which was established with the Peace of Westphalia. Recently, new medievalism argues that sovereignty is being weakened as in the medieval times. This article asserts that sovereignty is not eroded; rather, it is being transformed under current political and economic dynamics. Keywords: Borders, Sovereignty, Globalization, New Medievalism

INTRODUCTION Technological and financial developments, which increased after the Second World War, and ethnic and religious identities, which have flourished with the end of the Cold War, challenge the Westphalian notion of sovereignty. According to Westphalian logic, the state is the ultimate power within its territory and its existence is recognized by other states. According to the principle of non-interference, states are not allowed to interfere with the domestic policies of other states. To put it another way, its power has internal and external dimensions. As a result of these developments, the task of explaining the modern state within an increasingly transnational world arises.1 However, scholars disagree about the implications of economic and political globalization on the nationPhD Candidate, Tuebingen University Institute of Political Science Barry Buzan, David Held, Anthony McGrew, Realism vs Cosmopolitanism, Review of International Studies, Vol.24, 1998, p.395.

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state and sovereignty. One line of thinking suggests that with the globalization process, nation-states have lost power against market forces; borders have become insignificant and it has led to the borderless world.2 The other line of thinking holds that although with the intensification of globalization process, the concepts of territoriality and sovereignty have been transformed, nationstates still have control over their territories and borders still continue to be important entities in political terms.3 A consequence of dynamics of globalization and the emergence of different kind of actors, various alternatives to the Westphalian state-system are discussed.4 Castells defines the current world political and economic system as a network society. By doing so, he emphasizes interconnection rather than territorial limits.5 Fukuyama defines the new world orders as the end of history.6 Luttwak argues that geo-economics has replaced geopolitics. He stresses that economic rivalries are much more important than territorial

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Mathew Horsman, Andrew Marshall, After the Nation-State: Citizens, Tribalism and the New World Disorder (London: HarperCollins, 1995); Kenichi Ohmae, The End of the Nation-state: The Rise of Regional Economies (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996); Anthony McGrew, World Order and Political Space, in James Anderson, Chris Brook and Allan Cochrane (eds.) A Global World? Reordering Political Space: World Order and Political Space (Oxford: Oxford University Press:1995); Benjamin J. Cohen, The Geography of Money (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998); John Ruggie, Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations, International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 1, Winter 1993; Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Joseph S. Nye and Robert O. Keohane, Americas Information Age, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 75, No. 2, March/April 1996; Richard N. Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986). James Anderson, The Exaggerated Death of the Nation-State, in James Anderson, Chris Brook and Allan Cochrane (eds.) A Global World? Re-ordering Political Space? (Oxford: Oxford University, 1995); John Agnew, The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory, Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 1, No.1, Spring 1994; Anssi Paasi, Boundaries as Social Processes: Territoriality in the World of Flows, Geopolitics, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998; Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan (eds.) Nation and State at International Frontiers (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1998); Miles Kahler, Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization, in Miles Kahler and Barbara F. Walter (eds.) Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); David Newman and Annsi Paasi, Fences and Neighbours in the Postmodern World: Boundary Narratives in Political Geography, Progress in Human Geography, Vol.22, No. 2, 1998; Vladimir Kolossov and John O'Loughlin, New Borders for New World Orders: Territorialities at the Fin-de-Siecle, Geojournal, Vol. 44, 1998; David Newman, On Borders and Power: A Theoretical Framework, Journal of Borderland Studies, Vol. 18, No.1, 2003; Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Polity, 1999). For discussions, see Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1977), Ch.10. Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (London: Blackwell, 1996). Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992).

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ones.7 Huntington comes up with a different mode of reasoning by suggesting that rivalries between transnational geo-cultural blocks will shape the future rather than geo-economic ones.8 The global governance perspective has also been used as a tool to account for the change in the international system among scholars. The global governance perspective deviates from the state-centric approach and takes into consideration non-state actors9 such as international civil society, supranational institutions and the like. This perspective is interested in the interaction between different political levels, such as local, national, regional and international.10Although global governance proves to be a useful conceptual framework to account for the emergence of new actors on the international arena,11it lacks theoretical rigor to predict the future international system and explain the implications of the governance model on sovereignty and territoriality. This article, by discussing the implications of globalization and analyzing new medievalism, aims to understand the changing dynamics of sovereignty. The author argues that new medievalism, which is described as a system of overlapping authorities, is ill-suited to explain the current dynamics of the international system. Even in the European Union, which creates enthusiasm for new medievalism, member states strive to protect their sovereignty. I assert that sovereignty is neither absolute nor totally eroded. Rather the concept of sovereignty has changed. GLOBALIZATION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE NATION-STATE AND ITS SOVEREIGNTY The growing influence of the communication and finance sectors that operate beyond state borders coupled with the rise of ethnic nationalism and local identities after the Cold War, pave the way for changes at local, national and global levels. National governments are under pressure both from local and global actors.12 Due to these changes, the Westphalian system, which is based on absolute sovereignty of the nation-state, has started to be questioned.

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Edward N. Luttwak, From Geopolitics to Geo-Economics: Logi of Conflict, Grammar of Commerce, in Gearid Tuathail, Simon Dalby and Paul Routledge (eds.) The Geopolitics Reader, 2nd ed. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006). Samuel P.Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). Klaus Dingwerth and Philipp Pattberg, Global Governance as a Perspective on World Politics, Global Governance, Vol. 12, 2006, p.191. Ibid.,p.192. Ibid.,p.196. David Newman Geopolitics Renaissant: Territory, Sovereignty and the World Political Map in David Newman (ed.) Boundaries, Territory and Postmodernity (London: F. Cass, 1999), pp.5-6; Fabrizio Eva, International Boundaries, Geopolitics and the (Post) Modern Territorial Discourse:

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Changing dynamics of politics have compelled political scientists to give more attention to the state in analytical and conceptual terms.13 Critical theory of International Relations and critical geopolitics which are in line with poststructural presuppositions have started to question territoriality, identity and sovereignty of states. John Ruggie concluded that with the end of the Cold War, not only did the rules of power politics change, but the very ground on which the politics operated has been transformed.14 As a result of these developments, functions of borders are also increasingly changing.15 According to this line of thinking, the end of the Cold War and the intensification of the globalization process have changed the international political system, which was based on fixed conception of territoriality and sovereignty.16 According to extreme globalizationalists, the link between economics and politics has been dissolving and economic forces have started to dominate political ones.17 They suggest that borders have ceased to be lines of separation as cross border activities have increased. Borders which continue to exist on maps and as physical entities are now obsolete and will soon fade away.18 In global political system, the distinction between domestic and international becomes ambiguous. As a result of the growing role of local and international actors, complex networks operate on the global arena.19 Domestic problems, to a large extent, gain international characteristics.20 A growing number of issues go beyond national decision-making and require global action. These issues include terrorism, pollution, climate change, deforestation, loss of biological diversity, destruction of the ozone layer, human rights, and the like. Governments mostly operate in global, regional and multilateral contexts, which make them international rather than

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The Functional Fiction in David Newman (ed.) Boundaries, Territory and Postmodernity (London: F. Cass, 1999), pp. 32-51. James N. Rosenau, The State in an Era of Cascading Politics: Wavering Concept, Widening Competence, Withering Colossus, or Weathering Change?, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1, April, 1988, p. 17. Ruggie, Territoriality and Beyond, p. 139. Vladimir Kolossov, Border Studies: Changing Perspectives and Theoretical Approaches, Geopolitics, Vol. 10, 2005, p. 628. Ruggie, Territoriality and Beyond; John Allen, Global Worlds in John Allen and Doreen Massey (eds) Geographical Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Hirst and Thompson, op.cit., p.188. David Newman, Boundaries, Territory and Postmodernity: Towards Shared or Separate Spaces?, in Martin Pratt, Janet Allison Brown (eds.) Borderlands Under Stress (The Hague: Kluwer, 2000), pp.20-1. Anthony McGrew, World Order and Political Space, in James Anderson, Chris Brook and Allan Cochrane (eds.) A Global World? Re-ordering Political Space? (Open University, Oxford, 1995), pp.27-8. Rosenau, The State in an Era of Cascading Politics, p. 19.

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monolithic entities.21 Rather than governments, governance becomes the rule of the global system.22 Economic globalization has also implications for territoriality and sovereignty. With the changes in production, finance and trade, nations are becoming more interdependent. The policies of transnational corporations (TNCs) transcend national economic policies and foster a global political economy.23 The growth of post-industrial capitalism is increasing the role of knowledge-based industries, such as images and ideas, rather than physical goods.24 Knowledge-based industries and capital flows undermine the significance of territory. In the 19th and 20th centuries, territory was a determinant factor in agriculture and Fordist industry. In todays economy, territory is a less determinant factor to attract capital flows. Threats such as terrorism, cybernetic sabotage, narco-terrorism, global corruption, infectious diseases, humanitarian crises, environmental degradation and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction transcend the territorial dimensions of national politics.25 Changes in air transport, satellite and missile technology have changed the traditional role played by borders which focused on defense of the country.26 Nuclear threats transformed the security concepts of states.27 Distance is no longer a deterrent factor in terms of nuclear war. Television, radios and computers have facilitated the flow of information. Transformation, which takes place in the notion of citizenship, which constitutes the backbone of modern statehood and state sovereignty, and which establishes the link between the state and the nation, also challenges the state-centric view.28 The traditional notion of citizenship, which is based on singular identity, is eroded by global immigration and new understandings of human rights. First, citizenship is increasingly allocated according to the rights of residents rather than birthplace. Second, in some areas of the world, political rights transcend borders in terms of voting and pension rights. Third, new types of citizenship emerge, such as that of European citizenship. With the emergence of non-resident citizens, immigrant citizens, diaspora families and multiple citizenships, the traditional concept of citizenship, which is based on a

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McGrew, op.cit., p.35. Hirst and Thompson, op.cit., p.184. Horsman and Marshall, op.cit.,pp. xii, 47. Ibid. p.xiii. Gearoid O Tuathail, PostModern Geopolitics: The Modern Geopolitical Imagination and Beyond, in Gearoid O Tuathail and Simon Dalby (eds.), Rethinking Geopolitics (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), p.31. Ibid.,p.47. Ibid.,p.48. John Agnew, Geopolitics: Re-visioning World Politics, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2003), p.61.

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singular nation-state identity, is challenged. 29 These trends have reinforced the idea of a borderless world.30 Kobrin argues that with the emergence of a digitalized economy, the relationship between geography and economic and political arenas is being weakened.31 Globalization and the emergence of new actors have also changed the legal understanding of world politics. The new image of law is implicated not on the society of states, but on transnational society.32 States are not regarded as the unique form of political organization, but as actors among various types of actors such as private market actors and civil society organizations. In this understanding, complex transnational and transgovernmental networks, the emergence of transnational rule or global governance, transcultural dialogue is taken into consideration.33 NEW MEDIEVALISM The term new medievalism was introduced by Arnold Wolfers.34 After some time it was revived again by Hedley Bull.35 Bull describes medievalism as overlapping authorities and cross-cutting loyalties.36 In this system, no power is able to dominate the world; states lose their sovereignty and the international political arena consists of multiple political organizations like during the medieval ages. The political structure of medieval Europe provides inspiration for new medievalism. In order to account for new dynamics, which have the possibility of transforming the current state-system, some scholars look at the origins of the state-system.37 Friedrichs suggests that in order to account for the changes that led to the post-international world, we should first understand the structure of the pre-industrial world. There was no sovereignty and territorial
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Agnew, Geopolitics, pp.62-63; Agnew The Territorial Trap, p.75. Ulf Hannerz, Borders, International Social Science Journal, Vol. 154, December 1997, p.546. Stephen J. Kobrin, Back to the Future: Neo-medievalism and the Postmodern Digital World Economy, Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 51, No. 2, Spring 1998, p. 369. Allen Buchanan and Margaret Moore (eds.), States, Nations, and Borders: The Ethics of Making Boundaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p.285. Ibid.,pp. 285-6 Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1962). Jrg Friedrichs, The Meaning of New Medievalism, European Journal of International Relations , Vol. 7, No. 4, 2001, p.476. For other IR scholars are also interested in the subject, see David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Standford: Standford University Press, 1995); Stephen J. Kobrin, Neo-medievalism and the Postmodern Digital World Economy in Aseem Prakash and Jeffrey A. Hart (eds.) Globalization and Governance (New York: Routledge, 1999); Mario Telo, European Union and New Regionalism: Regional Actors and Global Governance in a Post-Hegemonic Era, 2nd ed. (Aldershot : Ashgate, 2007). Bull, op.cit.,p.245. Hedrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors: An Analysis of Systems Change (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), p.3.

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exclusivity in medieval Europe. There was no single locus of power; rather, power was divided unevenly between the Holy Roman Empire, the Papacy, feudal lords, dukes, bishops, abbots and counts. And their authority was not territorially limited. In the medieval times, territories were often discontinuous and ill defined.38 Laws were not homogenous. They entailed prefeudal elements, some parts of Roman law and Germanic customs.39 In addition, territory did not provide a basis of identification for people. Rather, personal bonds were much more effective.40 Groups were not tied together under the framework of individual equality or citizenship, but through loyalty and personal obligations. There were no definite borders to provide internal/external division. Hence a distinction between domestic and international politics did not exist. The Church and the Holy Roman Empire were dominant political organizations that had universalist claims.41 The Church was the representative of Gods authority in the world and the empire provided the secular dimension of this authority. To sum up, the feudal system was based on personal relations, overlapping authorities and multiple loyalties. Following the 14th century, the authority of the church was weakened; mercantilism became a major economic system. Improvements in military technology paved the way for the growing authority of monarchs.42 These processes led to the creation of modern state, which is based on absolute sovereignty. States did not share their power with any authority and noninterference and territorial integrity became the rules of the game. However changes that take place in local and global domains have started to undermine the absolute sovereignty concept and some scholars have looked at the previous periods to place these changes into larger theoretical premises. Bull reasons that regional integration of states, such as the European Union, the African Union, the Organization of American States; the rising ethnic tendencies that are visible in the aspirations of ethnic groups such as the Welsh, the Basques and the Quebecois; and the increasing usage of international violence, which is seen in the domain of states by non-state actors such as guerilla groups, strengthen the new medievalist approach.43 Lorenzo Ornaghi asserts that [t]oday we see an inverse passage whereby national states are ceding part of their sovereignty to a multitude of subjects

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Anderson, op.cit., p. 70. Ibid., p.41 Hendrik Spruyt, Sovereign State and Its Competitors, pp.35-6. Ibid., p. 42 Jean Gottmann, The Significance of Territory (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press: 1973). Bull, op.cit., Ch. 11.

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with universalistic aspiration.44 He further points out that in the medieval times universal and particular forms of governance co-existed for a long period of time. Today the sovereignty principle is not obsolete, but there are universalistic tendencies along with national ones. He thinks that the Pax Americana, which is based on the economic, ideological and political clout of the United State of America, is reminiscent of the Pax Romana. Polities such as the European Union, the Mercosur (Southern Common Market) and APEC (Asia-Pasific Economic Cooperation) are different than states. In addition, in the future NGOs, churches and pressure groups might play more important roles on the international arena by coming up with new solutions to the global problems.45 Friedrichs points to the weakness of IR theories paradoxical tendencies of local, national and global dynamics. He calls it the triple dilemma of current International Relations Theory. He asserts that it is difficult to reconcile contradictory processes, such as globalization, fragmentation and the continuance of the nation-state system, within a single perspective.46 He argues that new medievalism is suitable to explain these multiple processes. Friedrichs finds the definition of medievalism, which is overlapping authorities and multiple loyalties, as suggested by Bull too narrow. Rather he proposes that although in the medieval times authorities of political actors overlapped, there was also competition between universalistic claims of the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. Today this competition takes place between the nation-states and multinational corporations.47 To put it another way, new medievalism does not only refer to blurring the distinction between authorities of different actors, but it is based on the premise that there is a clash between universalistic tendencies as well. Barry Buzan foresees that sovereignty in Western Europe and North America will be disintegrated as sovereignty continues to be shared. He posits that [p]olitical authority will move upwards and downwards and will exist simultaneously on several different levels.48 Buzan sees this development in line of new-medievalist framework.49 Saul B. Cohen explains the new world order by looking from a geographical perspective and posits that: The [world political] system has overlapping spheres of influence, varying degrees of hegemony and hierarchy national components and transnational influences, interdependencies, and pockets of self-containmentits parts are
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Lorenzo Ornaghi, Towards a New Middle Ages, interview by Roberto Rotondo, 30Days, 19 August 2009. Ibid. Jrg Friedrichs, The Meaning of New Medievalism,.478. Ibid., pp.483-4. Buzan et.al. Realism vs Cosmopolitanism, p.397. Ibid.

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at different stages of development.Geopolitical regions, too, vary in attributes depending on their particular settings. And regional states play differing roles according to their spatial and economic interactions with major powers and neighbors.50 Although new medievalism is a good example to account for different types of actors and processes at different levels on the local, national and international arenas, it provides a distorted view of international reality with the way it perceives sovereignty. The creation of new actors, integration of states under economic or political organizations, tendencies for regionalism do not necessarily give rise to the emergence of overlapping authorities. Hence in order to understand the weaknesses of these two perspectives and comprehend the operation of international politics, reconsideration of the concept of sovereignty is essential. A CLOSER LOOK AT SOVEREIGNTY It is quite clear that the nation-state is not the sole authority in world politics. There are other forms of governance. However, the world has not turned into a global village. Neither has it fragmented into micro-states. Castells emphasis on network society is too plain for argument. Current global economic and global systems can be defined by interruptions as well as interconnections. The end of history thesis can be criticizes on similar grounds. Fukuyama based his prediction on the triumph of Western liberal democracy. Yet the current number of authoritarian regimes and failed states demonstrates the limitation of his prediction. Discussions on geo-economic, geo-political and geo-cultural blocks give a glimpse of how a world would look like in the future, but they are rather less fruitful in accounting for the transformation of sovereignty. They provide an oblique view from above. Another way of saying, they are more interested in the general characteristics of systemic changes. They pay a scant attention to the implications of these changes on specific issues. In order to understand the changing nature of sovereignty, attention should be given to empirical cases as well as theoretical approaches. In this respect, the European Union is a useful example. It attracts the most attention concerning the nature of its polity. I assert that only if we change our understanding of sovereignty, can we account for tendencies and countertendencies operating in the international arena. Changes in the diplomatic practices or the relative strengths of states may not necessarily bring about a change in the international system. However, unit
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Saul B. Cohen, Geopolitics in the New World Era: A New Perspective on an Old Discipline, in George J. Demko and William B. Wood (eds.), Reordering the World: Geopolitical Perspectives on the 21st Century, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), p.23.

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changes result in radical transformations in the system. For example, the system changes with the replacement of city-states by empires.51 However, if we look at the current state-system, we do not see any rival to nation-states. There are still entities like dependencies, self-governing administrative divisions which could be considered as opposite forms of nation-states. However, they can be considered as temporary entities before independence.52 Even though some remain permanent, the fact that ethnic groups that want to remain independent aspire to establish their own state, rather than forming dependencies, demonstrates that these entities do not pose a threat to the current-state system. The European Union, with its hybrid structure, may also be posed as an alternative to the nation-state. The European Union does not challenge the current state-system. There is a great deal of discussion concerning the sovereignty of states in the European Union. One line of thinking suggests that the sovereignty of European member states has been eroded by integration and the creation of supranational institutions. Political decisions are taken at different levels and EU institutions have independent roles to play. There is interconnection between different political arenas. Local actors interact with national and supranational actors. The distinction between domestic and foreign policy disappears; as a result, decision-making is characterized by mutual dependence and overlapping authorities. According to this logic, states are only one type of actors among this complex web of relations.53 The other line of thinking takes a state-centric view. According to this logic, European integration is the result of national preferences made by national governments.54 To put it another way, European states thought that sharing power would better suit their national interests rather than acting individually. Milward argues that by integrating, European states rescued themselves from demise after the Second World War.55 He points out that rather than being weakened, the power of European states grew even more. Hoffman reasons that the legitimacy of the nation-state model does not necessarily provide a guarantee for the survival of nation-states in the anarchical international system.56

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Spruyt,op.cit., p.23. For example, Kosovo was administrated by the United Nations between 1999-2008 before it gained its full independence in 2008. Gary Marks, Liesbet Hooghe, Kermit Blank, European Integration from the 1980s: State-Centric v. Multi-level Governance, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3, September 1996, pp. 346-72. Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht (London: UCL Press, 1999), p. 18. Alan S. Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation-state (London: Routledge, 1992), p.3. Stanley Hoffman, The European Sisyphus: Essays on Europe, 1964-1994 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), p.73.

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I assert that even in the European Union, with which new medievalism is most associated, authorities do not overlap and sovereignty of member states is not eroded. Issues are divided specifically between EU institutions and member states. The Maastricht Treaty created the European Union based on a pillar structure. While the European Community pillar is supranational, the other pillars, which are the Common Security and Defence Policy and Justice and Home Affairs,57 are intergovernmental. Each EU institution has its own area of expertise. There is cooperation between EU institutions and between EU institutions and member states, but it does not mean distinction between their tasks is blurred. While political structure of medieval Europe took shape naturally through time, the system in the European Union was designed by treaties. These treaties aimed at making European political system more functional, protect Europe from external threats and make European societies wealthier. A different mode of governance emerged, but it did not come into effect against the wishes of member states. The European Union example demonstrates that the power of states is not necessarily being weakened when they share their sovereignty. Shared sovereignty does not necessarily mean blurring distinction between authorities. Can we assume that there are overlapping authorities in Europe, while responsibilities of EU institutions and member states are specified by treaties, directives and regulations? Sovereignty can be explained as a manifestation of political power.58 Neither does shared sovereignty mean less power. Can we today claim that North Korea which does not let any outside actor to interfere with its domestic affairs is more powerful than France or Germany which share their sovereignty with European Council or Commission? So the division of sovereignty may lead to the transformation of traditional thinking about sovereignty, but not to its demise. Absolute sovereignty corresponds to an idealized state of nature rather than reality per se. If we think about the world from the prism of absolute sovereignty, how can we place Antarctica, Gaza Strip, and stateless nations in our political understanding? The very continuance of wars illustrates the vulnerability of external sovereignty of states.59 Religious non-interference and the growing importance of human rights in international relations demonstrated the limits of internal sovereignty of states.

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It was changed as Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters after Amsterdam and Nice Treaties. Michael G. Roskin, Robert L. Cord, James A. Medeiros and Walter S. Jones, Political Science: An Introduction, 5th ed. (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1994), p.7. Alexander B. Murphy, International Law and the Sovereign State: Challenges to the Status Quo, in George J. Demko and William B. Wood (eds.) Reordering the World: Geopolitical Perspectives on the 21st Century (Boulder: Westview Press:1994), p. 213.

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CONCLUSION Sovereignty, which is the legitimate form of power, should be reconsidered under current developments that take place in international politics, technology and economics. Today power is not limited with territorial or military power. The possession of large territories does not necessarily mean being powerful. In the nuclear age, a state can buy any amount of nuclear warheads as it wishes, but it cannot provide protection from threats such as guerillas, refugees or drug gangs. The notion of absolute sovereignty, which was theorized by Jean Bodin, is about to change. Today the character of sovereignty is not the same as it was during the 17th century. Can states claim full sovereignty within their territories while they cannot protect their borders from threats such as Sars, Swine Flu, AIDS, smuggling, or the flow of refugees? By the same token, what is the relevance of absolute internal sovereignty while power of states is increasingly being limited in terms of issues such as human rights, ecological concerns and the like? However, it does not mean that sovereignty principle is faded away. States are still powerful on the global economic arena. The global financial crisis of 2008-2009 demonstrated that the power of multinational companies is limited compared to those of states, and that the global financial system cannot function without guarantees provided from states. The state system is far from obsolete. Although ethnic identities increase and threaten the existence of specific states, the creation of new states is a political decision that is taken by the international community. The independence of Kosovo was realized with the support of most European Union member states and the USA. The international community did not give consent to the secession of Biafra from Nigeria. Hence while the creation of new states depends on the acceptance of other states, it does not pose a threat to the state-system per se. Moreover, taking a snapshot of current international politics is one thing and making assumptions about future international system is another. If, in the future, the organic link between territoriality and sovereignty totally dissolves, local governments and international organizations may feel sovereign in the same way as national governments do. Sovereignty, then, would be issuespecific, rather than territorially bound. Sovereignty would not disappear, but it would go under a radical transformation and take a new form. I argue that in making assumptions about future role of sovereignty in International Relations, postmodern premises should be taken into consideration. In postmodernism, the single-point perspective on which

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modernism is based gives way to a multi-point perspective.60 It means than there is not one explanation of reality, but different explanations are possible in the same time-space context. On this account, the explanation of sovereignty would not be limited to a state-centric perspective, but local, regional and international perspectives would also be taken into consideration. REFERENCES
Agnew, John. Geopolitics: Re-visioning World Politics, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2003). Agnew, John. The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory, Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 1, No.1, Spring 1994, pp. 53 80. Allen, John. Global Worlds in John Allen and Doreen Massey (eds.) Geographical Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Anderson, James. The Exaggerated Death of the Nation-State, in James Anderson, Chris Brook and Allan Cochrane (eds.) A Global World? Re-ordering Political Space? (Oxford: Oxford University, 1995). Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). Buchanan, Allen and Margaret Moore (eds.). States, Nations, and Borders: The Ethics of Making Boundaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Bull, Hedley. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1977). Buzan, Barry, David Held, Anthony McGrew. Realism vs Cosmopolitanism, Review of International Studies, Vol.24, 1998, pp. 387-398. Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society (London:Blackwell, 1996). Cohen, Benjamin J. The Geography of Money (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998). Cohen, Saul B. Geopolitics in the New World Era: A New Perspective on an Old Discipline, in George J. Demko and William B. Wood (eds.), Reordering the World: Geopolitical Perspectives on the 21st Century, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999). Dingwerth, Klaus and Philipp Pattberg. Global Governance as a Perspective on World Politics, Global Governance, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2006, pp.185-203. Fabrizio, Eva. International Boundaries, Geopolitics and the (Post)Modern Territorial Discourse: The Functional Fiction in David Newman (ed.) Boundaries, Territory and Postmodernity (London: F. Cass, 1999). Friedrichs, Jrg. The Meaning of New Medievalism, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2001, pp.475-501.

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