In the course of human history, the myth surrounding ‘state sovereignty’ has been exposed, and world politics has shown that it has indeed lived of its usefulness. This conclusion is only natural since the dominant discourse on state sovereignty emerged around an exclusive and narrow understanding of humanity. Evidently, the existence of state as the ultimate political institution of sovereignty emerged through the Treaty of Westphalia, at the expense of people’s aspiration. It is no wonder that monopoly and exercise of force by State to establish its legitimacy is a contradiction which belies its moral relevance and political legitimacy.
Through its hegemonizing and homogenizing characteristics, the State has ensured that the question of war and peace is a matter of State prerogative. Nonetheless, experience has shown that priority of a State is its interest to protect what it considers its national interest and to compete with other existing States. In essence, the notion of statebuilding is in direct confrontation with peoples’ aspiration to decide their own future and to live in peace. Real politik has ensured that just because a people have rights does not necessarily mean that they enjoy and exercise them.
However, absolutism of state sovereignty which dominated international politics has been critically interrogated by the forces of global events that unfolded since 1991. The idea of State and Territorial Sovereignty no longer remains in an unchallenged position. Foucault says that the end of sovereignty is circular in the sense that the end of [State] sovereignty is the exercise of [Peoples] sovereignty. This is indispensable for the rehumanization of a people which would empower ordinary people to exercise their sovereign powers to become self-determining.
Struggling people around the world have consistently called for an early political solution to the issue of renegotiating power between state and people; and have called upon world powers to embrace the values of a shared humanity in which different nations come together to live in a shared dignified peace. Even within political movements, it has been the indigenous people who have best articulated the need to go ‘beyond the state’ and have asserted that their call for freedom and sovereignty is not to create another state modeled along the ‘Westphalian State’ but to create alternative models of state, which promotes values of decentralization, overlapping territorial boundaries and a shared sovereignty.
There is a strong yearning for alternative political systems that respects values of a shared humanity that cuts across all racial, tribal, political and territorial lines to give a united expression in which people and nations can exercise their sovereign rights. It demands breaking the oppressive system of misery and ignorance so that people can live with dignity and honor. History has shown that the question of war and peace has been made a matter of the State, and therefore no government can simply ignore the fact that the present model of Westphalian state has become too limited in scope and in time to embrace all peoples as equal entities. It is time to move beyond the state.
