Complex Sovereignty: Reconstituting Political Authority in the Twenty-First Century

The way humanity governs itself is today changing very rapidly. Profound transformations in structures of political authority are underway in Europe, North America, and beyond. Nation-states remain central, but they cannot address the most pressing problems facing their own citizens without moving away from traditional understandings of sovereignty itself. Complex Sovereignty contends that just such a movement is underway.

Editors Edgar Grande and Louis W. Pauly and the contributors to this volume elucidate the meaning of ‘complex sovereignty’ through a set of conceptual and empirical studies including governance in the European Union and North America, the emergence of private-public partnerships, the adaptation of established international organizations, and the search for innovative mechanisms to manage risk. They reveal a fascinating and vitally important struggle to give coherence to a complicated governing system of multiple and overlapping hierarchies. This is an original, collaborative study crossing the disciplines of political science, international relations, sociology, and political economy.

Edgar Grande is a professor of political science at the University of Munich.

Louis W. Pauly is a professor and Canada Research Chair in the Department of Political Science and director of the Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto.