The doctrine of
sovereignty is another inseparable corollary of the nation-state just like the concept of national power.
As the system lies at the centre of international relations, so is the doctrine of sovereignty
intertwined with that of the nation state and the
international system. Sovereignty is an
attribute of the state system. Thus, no
discussion on the state system will be considered complete without featuring the doctrine and concept of sovereignty. The
correct phraseology will be “state sovereignty’ since there is no other social reality
that is imbued with the
doctrine of sovereignty, except the modern state system.
As a social
science concept, it has been subjected to a variety of conceptualizations. For
Palmer and Perkins, it is ‘the legal theory that gives the state unique and
virtually unlimited authority in all domestic matters and in its relations with
other states”13. Another
conception of the term sees it as the
‘claim to be the unlimited political authority, subject to no higher power as
regards the making and enforcing of
political decisions”.14 This
conception tends to restrict sovereignty
to the domestic environment of states. Realizing this, the
theorist quickly adds that sovereignty in the international system is the ‘claim by the state to full
self government ..” for the man credited
as the father of the doctrine of sovereignty,
the 16th century French lawyer and political thinker Jean Bodin (1530=96), sovereignty is “the absolute
and perpetual power of the state,
that is, the greatest power to command”15 in his, six books
on the state (les six livres de la republique) published in 1576, Bodin was not only the first to use the word sovereignty, but was also the first to
attempt a systematic and clear
conception of the doctrine as an
attribute of the state. In his conception of the doctrine with regards to the absolute monarchy in the
France of his time, Bodin declared sovereignty to be “the supreme power over citizens and
subjects, unrestrained by law”.16
it must be observed that in his
first conception, as we indicated,
Bodin rightly associated
sovereignty with the state- the absolute
and perpetual power of the state,
but subsequently, with deference to
the absolute monarchy of his period
which claimed a fusion of the state with the monarch himself, he now associated sovereignty with the power of
the monarch.
The must however
be state that the concept of sovereignty
remains as attribute of the state,
not the government.
The government only exercises sovereign rights on behalf of the state,
and as an agent of the state. And as
Bodin pointed out, sovereignty is perpetual, and so once it is
conferred on the state it continues to
retain and exercise it
until it, i.e the state , cases/
to exist.