This book is a critical inquiry into the meaning and function of sovereignty in the present 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.

Jens Bartelson is Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden

Preface, Introduction: Revisiting Sovereignty, Chapter 1 Sovereignty as Symbolic Form, Chapter 2 The Fetishism of Sovereignty, Chapter 3 Restoring Sovereignty? Conclusion: Reinventing Outsides?