World Regions Quiz 2 - I. Speaking of Sovereignty a. What...

I. Speaking of Sovereignty
a. What is it? How do you get it?
 Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme independent authority over a
territory; nobody else can supersede the governing actions of that state
 You have to be able to kill your own citizens; if you can do the most extreme
things in your territory and get away with it then you are a sovereign state
 The U.S. government can kill its own citizens (death penalty) because it is a
sovereign state
 U.S. can drop a nuclear weapon on New Jersey; they would say that is crazy but
they wouldn’t invade
 Reciprocity = sovereign states respect each other so they don’t get involved in
each other’s business
 State sovereignty is new (300-500 years ago); European phenomenon
 For most of history, monarchs ruled the day; INDIVIDUALS who were bestowed
with the ultimate sovereign power over their people; this power was reinforced
by God or obtained a holy relic (Sword, crown); religious leader passed these
tangible items down to perform the Divine Right of Kings aka Mandate of
Heaven
 Why would ultimate power have been based on something so bizarre such as a
sword or crown? The ultimate power itself is from God; if God supports me as
king then obviously I have ultimate power over these people or a place
 Shift 1 – Rule over peoples to rule over place
 Europeans beat the living shit out of each other (1600) and would draw lines to
form their territories and created a Nation-State
 Shift 2 – shift from individuals to people holding power; shift away from
individuals as the holders of sovereignty to the individual state or the people
themselves as the holders of sovereignty
 Defendability was the only true way to claim sovereignty (defend invasions)
 Serbia has a strong ally (Russia) so you either defend your state yourself or you