ON THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATE

Abstract

Today, when the emerging digital society is reshaping all economic and political dimensions thus affecting the life of citizens, and when the role and functions of state institutions are seriously questioned, the work of the British political scientist and political theorist Harold Joseph Laski "Studies in the problem of sovereignty" acquires a particular significance. The scholar believes that the sovereignty of the state should not be viewed in terms of coercion mechanisms, but rather as “the fused good will for which it stands”. On this basis, Laski shrewdly notes that the law is the result of consent that suits everyone, rather than some kind of command. The British thinker comes close to the modern political theory of legitimacy, arguing that the will of the state always competes with other wills and prevails over them as long as it gains universal acceptance and retains “the ability to cope with its environment”. The translation was performed by Ya. Yu. Moiseenko, Junior Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, from the text of the original edition: Laski H. Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1917. P. 1-18.