Competing Sovereignties provides a critique of the concept of sovereignty in modernity in light of claims to determine the content of law at the international, national and local levels. In an argument that is illustrated through an analysis of debates over the control of intellectual property law in India, Richard Joyce considers how economic globalization and the claims of indigenous communities do not just challenge national sovereignty - as if national sovereignty is the only kind of sovereignty - but in fact invite us to challenge our conception of what sovereignty ‘is’. Combining theoretical research and reflection with an analysis of the legal, institutional and political context in which sovereignties 'compete', the book offers a reconception of modern sovereignty - and, with it, a new appreciation of the complex issues surrounding the relationship between international organisations, nation states and local and indigenous communities.

Competing Sovereignties provides a critique of the concept of sovereignty in modernity in light of claims to determine the content of law at the international, national and local levels. In an argument that is illustrated through an analysis of debates over the control of intellectual property law in India, Richard Joyce considers how economic globalization and the claims of indigenous communities do not just challenge national sovereignty - as if national sovereignty is the only kind of sovereignty - but in fact invite us to challenge our conception of what sovereignty 'is'. Combining theoretical research and reflection with an analysis of the legal, institutional and political context in which sovereignties 'compete', the book offers a reconception of modern sovereignty - and, with it, a new appreciation of the complex issues surrounding the relationship between international organisations, nation states and local and indigenous communities.

Brilliant...explains how the rhetoric of competition has invaded almost every domain of our existence." —Evgeny Morozov, author of To Save Everything, Click Here" "In this fascinating book Davies inverts the conventional neoliberal practice of treating politics as if it were mere epiphenomenon of market theory, demonstrating that their version of economics is far better understood as the pursuit of politics by other means." —Professor Philip Mirowski, University of Notre Dame "A sparkling, original, and provocative analysis of neoliberalism. It offers a distinctive account of the diverse, sometimes contradictory, conventions and justifications that lend authority to the extension of the spirit of competitiveness to all spheres of social life...This book breaks new ground, offers new modes of critique, and points to post-neoliberal futures." —Professor Bob Jessop, University of Lancaster Since its intellectual inception in the 1930s and its political emergence in the 1970s, neo-liberalism has sought to disenchant politics by replacing it with economics. This agenda-setting text examines the efforts and failures of economic experts to make government and public life amenable to measurement, and to re-model society and state in terms of competition. In particular, it explores the practical use of economic techniques and conventions by policy-makers, politicians, regulators and judges and how these practices are being adapted to the perceived failings of the neoliberal model. By picking apart the defining contradiction that arises from the conflation of economics and politics, this book asks: to what extent can economics provide government legitimacy? Now with a new preface from the author and a foreword by Aditya Chakrabortty.

The present international system, composed for the most part of sovereign, territorial states, is often viewed as the inevitable outcome of historical development. Hendrik Spruyt argues that there was nothing inevitable about the rise of the state system, however. Examining the competing institutions that arose during the decline of feudalism--among them urban leagues, independent communes, city states, and sovereign monarchies--Spruyt disposes of the familiar claim that the superior size and war-making ability of the sovereign nation-state made it the natural successor to the feudal system. The author argues that feudalism did not give way to any single successor institution in simple linear fashion. Instead, individuals created a variety of institutional forms, such as the sovereign, territorial state in France, the Hanseatic League, and the Italian city-states, in reaction to a dramatic change in the medieval economic environment. Only in a subsequent selective phase of institutional evolution did sovereign, territorial authority prove to have significant institutional advantages over its rivals. Sovereign authority proved to be more successful in organizing domestic society and structuring external affairs. Spruyt's interdisciplinary approach not only has important implications for change in the state system in our time, but also presents a novel analysis of the general dynamics of institutional change.

Imagined Sovereignties provokes new ways of imagining popular politics by critically examining the idea of 'the power of the people'.

Food sovereignty has been a fundamentally contested concept in global agrarian discourse over the last two decades, as a political project and campaign, an alternative, a social movement, and an analytical framework. It has inspired and mobilized diverse publics: workers, scholars and public intellectuals, farmers and peasant movements, NGOs, and human rights activists in the global North and South. The term ‘food sovereignty’ has become a challenging subject for social science research, and has been interpreted and reinterpreted in a variety of ways. It is broadly defined as the right of peoples to democratically control or determine the shape of their food system, and to produce sufficient and healthy food in culturally appropriate and ecologically sustainable ways in and near their territory. However, various theoretical issues remain: sovereignty at what scale and for whom? How are sovereignties contested? What is the relationship between food sovereignty and human rights frameworks? What might food sovereignty mean extended to a broader set of social relations in urban contexts? How do the principles of food sovereignty interact with local histories and contexts? This comprehensive volume examines what food sovereignty might mean, how it might be variously construed, and what policies it implies. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Globalizations.

Winner, 2019 John W. Frick Book Award Winner, 2020 Ann Saddlemyer Award Finalist, ATHE Outstanding Book Award for 2020 Mention Spéciale, Société québécoise d'études théâtrale In Encounters on Contested Lands, Julie Burelle employs a performance studies lens to examine how instances of Indigenous self-representation in Québec challenge the national and identity discourses of the French Québécois de souche—the French-speaking descendants of white European settlers who understand themselves to be settlers no more but rather colonized and rightfully belonging to the territory of Québec. Analyzing a wide variety of performances, Burelle brings together the theater of Alexis Martin and the film L'Empreinte, which repositions the French Québécois de souche as métis, with protest marches led by Innu activists; the Indigenous company Ondinnok's theater of repatriation; the films of Yves Sioui Durand, Alanis Obomsawin, and the Wapikoni Mobile project; and the visual work of Nadia Myre. These performances, Burelle argues, challenge received definitions of sovereignty and articulate new ones while proposing to the province and, more specifically, to the French Québécois de souche, that there are alternative ways to imagine Québec's future and remember its past. The performances insist on Québec's contested nature and reframe it as animated by competing sovereignties. Together they reveal how the "colonial present tense" and "tense colonial present" operate in conjunction as they work to imagine an alternative future predicated on decolonization. Encounters on Contested Lands engages with theater and performance studies while making unique and needed contributions to Québec and Canadian studies, as well as to Indigenous and settler-colonial studies.