Origins of the Concept of “National Sovereignty”: The Role of the Word “Nation”
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The thesis of this essay is this: the concept of “national sovereignty” is a “poisoned candy”. Their universalization prevents, among other things, the existence of “nations of nations”. Perhaps the clearest example is the “Spanish nation”, which includes territories that, for centuries, have been called “nations” without ceasing to be part of the “Spanish nation” or posing problems of sovereignty. Only the recovery of the original meaning of the Latin “natio” can eliminate this unavoidable lexical problem, which has become a conceptual obstacle. The author traces the history of the two words involved in the question, both from their Latin origin: “natio” and “soberanitas”. To explain their union, he then reviews the various forms and political theories with which the concept of “supreme authority” has been attempted to be expressed until he reaches that of “national sovereignty” with Sieyès. This forces him to review more than two millennia of history of political thought, from the fifth century B.C. to the end of the eighteenth century.
Source: Histories
Author: José Andrés-Gallego
Institution: Universidad San Pablo CEU
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,207
OpenAlex ID: W7211978692