The University of Sheffield

Graduate Student, Politics

PhD Student

Thesis Title: Decolonising Sovereignty? A Critical Analysis of the Civilisational Discourse of Sovereignty in International Relations

About

This PhD aims at studying the concept of sovereignty in international relations from a post-colonial perspective. Sovereignty is usually understood in (the discipline of) international relations as an equivalent of ‘independence’ giving rise to the corollary rule of ‘non-intervention’. However, this understanding cannot account for the actual workings of sovereignty in international relations (characterised by violations, status of semi-sovereign states, etc...).

The objective of this PhD is to explain what we learn when we focus on the intrinsic civilisational aspect of sovereignty. As will be argued, sovereignty is far from being a technical and objective concept, and should not be considered as a neutral and value-free assessment of a state’s ability to be independent. The main hypothesis that will be developed is that sovereignty should be understood as ‘conditional independence’ (the condition being the presence of what is considered as ‘civilisation’ and as a ‘civilised’ way to govern at different periods). This inherent Western-centric nature of sovereignty will be revealed and analysed through different case-studies. This conceptualisation of sovereignty is relevant both for past and present international relations.

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