Sovereignty of the state is what? And what is it manifested in?

We all know in general terms that the sovereignty of the state is the ability of its government to make important decisions independently of external sources, guided only by considerations of state profit. However, let's take a closer look at the history and essence of this phenomenon.

The essence of the concept

The sovereignty of the state is the offspring of the European political thought of modern times. Finally, it took shape in the middle of the XVII century in the Westphalian system of international relations, formed after the Thirty Years' War in Europe. Then the concept of the sovereignty of the state began to mean the possibility of national governments (then royal ones) to act independently of the Catholic Church. After all throughout the Middle Ages the church had an overwhelming influence almost in Western and Central Europe. The kings were forced to sanctify their authority and coordinate their actions with the Pope, often adjusting to his interests. The epoch of enlightenment and humanism gave birth not only to a more attentive attitude towards a person (and, as a consequence, a drop in the role of the church), but also a fundamentally new political and legal freedom of states. The latter allowed national governments to take their own actions in foreign and domestic policy in accordance with their own interests. This phenomenon, however, manifests itself in various forms. So, for example, the absolute sovereignty of a state can be external and internal. External freedom presupposes independence in actions of an international character: declaring war, concluding treaties, joining blocs, and so on. Accordingly, internal independence is the government's ability to act freely within its own country in its economic, social, ideological policies and so on. It is interesting that the sovereignty of the state is only one of the variants of sovereignty. After all, the latter can extend not only to state entities, but also to society itself, in fact.

The sovereignty of a state is national sovereignty

In the modern legal interpretation of international rights , the concepts of national and popular sovereignty are clearly different. The idea of the first was born by the same enlighteners of the New Age, although its final form was acquired only at the end of the 19th century. Actually, at the same time, when the European nations were finally formed. Mass national movements for the independence of peoples who did not have a state (in the 19th century - Hungarians, Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Basques, Irish, Kurds, etc. in the first half of the 20th century) led prominent socio-political ideologists to the idea that Every nation has its right to self-determination. That is, the creation of their own state. It is through this formation that its highest aspirations can be expressed, connected with historical memory, through political, national development and so on.

People's sovereignty

Another type of sovereignty in contemporary international law is the people's one. It originated even earlier than the national one. The essence of this phenomenon lies in the idea that the source and the highest bearer of power in a specific state is the people (although earlier this was considered the unconditional right of the monarch sent down from above), and any domestic and foreign policies should be implemented with his consent and solely in his interests.