This edited volume brings together leading international researchers in an attempt to disentangle and understand the multiple conflicts of sovereignty within the European polity in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. While most research on sovereignty focuses on its international dimensions, what makes this volume distinctive is the focus on the mobilization of sovereignty discourses in national politics. Contrary to tired paradigms studying clashes between national and supranational sovereignty, the various chapters of the volume offer a provocation for the readers – what if these old vertical conflicts of sovereignty are increasingly complemented by horizontal conflicts between executives and parliaments at both the national and international level?
Author(s): Julia Rone, Nathalie Brack, Ramona Coman, Amandine Crespy
Series: Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 265
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Praise for Sovereignty in Conflict
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Sovereignty in Conflict: Political, Constitutional and Economic Dilemmas in the EU
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Research Journey
1.3 Sovereignty Conflicts Under Scrutiny: The Book’s Contribution
1.4 The Causes, Manifestations and Effects of Sovereignty Conflicts in the EU
1.5 Looking Ahead
Notes
References
2 Conflicting Sovereignties and the Sustainability of the Brexit State
2.1 Introduction
2.2 From Member State to Brexit State
2.3 Known Sovereignty Conflicts
2.4 Potential Sovereignty Conflicts
2.5 Resolving Sovereignty Disagreements
2.6 Conclusion
Notes
References
3 Procedural Battles on Sovereignty: Interpreting the Rules in the UK House of Commons
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Brexit and the Debate on Sovereignty
3.3 Parliamentary Procedure and Its Contentiousness
3.4 Selecting Amendments
3.4.1 The 2013 Queen’s Speech
3.4.2 The 2019 Business Motion2
3.5 Controlling the Agenda
3.5.1 Parliament as Agenda-Setter
3.5.2 The Use of Emergency Debates
3.6 Conclusions: Looking Back and Ahead
Notes
References
4 Sovereignty and Democratic Legitimacy in Spain: The Case of Catalonia
4.1 Introduction
4.2 A Brief History of Spain’s Catalan Problem
4.3 The Fiasco of the New Statute of 2006–2010
4.4 The Fiasco of the Referendum of 2017
4.5 Dual Sovereignty? Re-Reading the Spanish Constitution
4.6 Some Possible Comparisons
4.7 Conclusions
Notes
References
5 Defending Sovereignty in the Name of Post-sovereignty: Liberal and “Illiberal” Constitutional Idioms in the EU
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Is “Illiberal” Democratic Constitutionalism Possible?
5.2.1 From Models of Constitutional Democracy to Constitutional Democratic Idioms
5.2.2 A Grammar of Constitutional Democracy
5.3 The Paradox of Post-Sovereignty in the EU
5.3.1 Constitutional Pluralism and Constitutional Identity
5.3.2 Exploring the Uses of Post-Sovereignty
5.4 The Liberal Idiom: Towards European Demoi
5.4.1 Post-Sovereignty at the ECJ
5.4.2 Rights and the Sovereign Demoi
5.5 The “Illiberal” Idiom: Reasserting the Ethno-National People
5.5.1 Post-Sovereignty in Hungary and Poland
5.5.2 The Historical Constitution and the Sovereign Ethnos
5.6 Conclusion
Notes
References
6 The Technocratic Populist Loop: Clashes Between Parliamentary and Popular Sovereignty in EU’s Eastern and Southern Periphery
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Conflicts of Sovereignty in the EU
6.2.1 A Decade of Mobilization: Citizens Versus Parliaments or Citizens and Parliaments United?
6.3 Understanding the Historical Context of Sovereignty Conflicts
6.3.1 Bypassing the Democratic Legislative
6.4 The Greek 2015 Referendum and the Slovenian Non-Referendum
6.5 The Bulgarian and Italian Constitutional Referenda: Better Poison Than the Cure
6.6 Conclusion
Notes
References
7 Direct Democracy and the Impact of the Alternative for Germany (AfD)? “Populist” Demand for Popular Sovereignty as Latent Political Conflict
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Sovereignty, Direct Democracy and the Impact of the Far Right
7.3 The Case of Germany
7.3.1 High Public Demand and Limited Institutional Supply
7.3.2 The Rise of the Far Right and Demands for More Direct Democracy
7.3.3 The National Level: Direct Democracy as a Declining Demand in Germany’s Party System?
7.3.4 The Subnational Level: The Centre Right as New Proponents of Direct Democracy?
7.4 Conclusion
Notes
References
8 National, Popular, or Neither? Sovereignty in the Rassemblement National’s Contestation of European Integration
8.1 Introduction
8.2 The Meanings of Sovereignty
8.3 Defenders of European Autonomy into Guardians of National and Popular Sovereignty: The Rassemblement National’s Approach to Sovereignty in European Integration
8.4 Conclusion
Notes
References
9 Left-Wing Populism and Sovereignty: An Analysis of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Discourse (2011–2022)
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Left-Wing Populism and the Multiple Dimensions of Sovereignty
9.3 Methods and Corpus
9.4 An Exploratory Lexicometric Analysis of the Weight of Sovereignty in Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Discourse
9.5 Popular Sovereignty as the Backbone of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Discourse
9.6 The Defense of Parliamentary Sovereignty Against the “Presidential Monarchy” (National Elite) and the European Union (Supranational Elite)
9.7 The Nation-People Against Supranational Entities
9.7.1 A Civic Definition of the Homeland
9.7.2 Defending French Independentism Against the UE and NATO
9.7.3 Inter-Partisan Conflicts Around the “National-Popular” Discourse
9.8 Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
10 Sovereignty in Political Discourses of the European Populist Radical Right: The Right of the People and the Right of the Peoples
10.1 Introduction
10.2 The Discursive Construction of Sovereignty: A Theoretical Framework
10.3 Research Methodology and Data
10.4 Right to Sovereignty in the Case of the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość
10.5 Right to Sovereignty in the Case of the Rassemblement National
10.6 Discussion
10.7 Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
