Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective

Abstract

Contemporary social science analysis is dominated by utilitarian or functional approaches in which institutional structures are assumed to adapt in an optimal fashion to changing environmental conditions, and the preferences and capabilities of individual actors are ontologically posited. In contrast, an institutional perspective insists that past choices constrain present options; that the preferences and capabilities of individual actors are conditioned by institutional structures; and that historical trajectories are path dependent. Institutional structures persist even if circumstances change. In a world of nuclear weapons and economic interdependence, any adequate analysis of the nature of sovereignty operationalized with regard to transborder controls and extraterritoriality must be informed by an institutional perspective.