Sovereignty Frames and Sovereignty Claims

This Chapter argues that much of the contemporary confusion and controversy over the meaning and continuing utility of the concept of sovereignty stems from a failure to distinguish between sovereignty as a deep framing device for making sense of the modern legal and political world on the one hand, and the particular claims which are made on behalf of particular institutions, agencies, rules, or other entities to possess sovereign authority on the other. The Chapter begins by providing a basic account of the difference between sovereignty as framing and sovereignty as claiming; it continues by analyzing why and how our understandings and uses of sovereignty have altered in the contemporary wave of globalization; and concludes with thoughts about the distinctive ways in which the evolving state of sovereignty framing and claiming plays out in the specific context of the UK and its external and internal legal and constitutional relations today.