The Politics of Sovereignty: Segmentation and Stratification in International Order Today
type: CreativeWork
description: How does sovereignty order international politics? This question has inspired a rich body of literature unpacking the concept. Nevertheless, sovereignty remains taken for granted in large parts of the discipline of International Relations (IR) and, as a result, its role in ordering international politics is either ignored or misunderstood. This holds particularly true in areas of politics that are considered to challenge the foundations of the modern state system, such as international environmental politics or the politics of outer space exploration. How does sovereignty shape international efforts to combat climate change? Likewise, how does the conquest of extraterrestrial space impact the use of sovereignty on Earth? Starting from the premise that sovereignty is a complex, historically contingent and socially constructed concept, this thesis answers these questions by liberating the study of sovereignty from its traditional confines. The first part of the thesis focuses on establishing sovereignty studies as a distinct subfield of IR and identifies its strengths and weaknesses. I argue that understanding the role of sovereignty in ordering international politics requires us to re-think deep-seated assumptions about sovereignty in IR literature, most importantly the association of sovereignty with equality. In order to do so, I highlight the neglected role of sovereignty in producing and maintaining hierarchies among states. This is articulated in a theoretical framework combining the logics of segmentation and stratification to explain the dual role of sovereignty in ordering international politics. This theoretical framework is operationalised in the second part of the thesis, which focuses on international environmental politics and the politics of outer space. Individual chapters highlight the workings of sovereign segmentation and stratification in both domains. I challenge the unproductive repetition of debates on the resilience versus the obsolescence of s…
abstract: How does sovereignty order international politics? This question has inspired a rich body of literature unpacking the concept. Nevertheless, sovereignty remains taken for granted in large parts of the discipline of International Relations (IR) and, as a result, its role in ordering international politics is either ignored or misunderstood. This holds particularly true in areas of politics that are considered to challenge the foundations of the modern state system, such as international environmental politics or the politics of outer space exploration. How does sovereignty shape international efforts to combat climate change? Likewise, how does the conquest of extraterrestrial space impact the use of sovereignty on Earth? Starting from the premise that sovereignty is a complex, historically contingent and socially constructed concept, this thesis answers these questions by liberating the study of sovereignty from its traditional confines. The first part of the thesis focuses on establishing sovereignty studies as a distinct subfield of IR and identifies its strengths and weaknesses. I argue that understanding the role of sovereignty in ordering international politics requires us to re-think deep-seated assumptions about sovereignty in IR literature, most importantly the association of sovereignty with equality. In order to do so, I highlight the neglected role of sovereignty in producing and maintaining hierarchies among states. This is articulated in a theoretical framework combining the logics of segmentation and stratification to explain the dual role of sovereignty in ordering international politics. This theoretical framework is operationalised in the second part of the thesis, which focuses on international environmental politics and the politics of outer space. Individual chapters highlight the workings of sovereign segmentation and stratification in both domains. I challenge the unproductive repetition of debates on the resilience versus the obsolescence of s…
author: Prum, Marie
language: eng
keywords: environmental politics, hierarchy, international order, international relations, international relations theory, outer space, segmentation, sovereignty, stratification
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2021-12-19
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:57Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.88325