In-Person | For a Criticism of Sovereignism

Please note that the time allocated for this colloquia will be devoted to discussion.

Speaker: Professor Nadia Urbinati (Columbia University)

About the Session: People’s power over their society epitomizes the sovereignty/democracy pair.This pair is undergoing notable transformations. This chapter will focus on an aspect of these transformations, which the term "sovereignism" coined in Europe in recent years renders well. Sovereignist ideology claims the nation-state must regain its sovereign power against international and global forces. To critically analyze this ideology, this chapter places sovereignism in the historical context in which sovereignty and democracy have stabilized and argues that it constitutes a rearguard battle against nonpolitical, supranational entities. Sovereignism has its feet firmly planted in the challenges of the present but its head turned to the past. It reflects a concrete problem but addresses it with obsolete theoretical and practical tools.

About the speaker

Nadia Urbinati is a political theorist specializing in modern and contemporary political thought, particularly democratic and anti-democratic traditions. She is a permanent visiting professor at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa and a regular faculty member at Columbia University, having also taught at other prestigious institutions such as SciencesPo and UNICAMP. Urbinati has authored several influential books, including Me The People (2019), The Tyranny of the Moderns (2015), and Democracy Disfigured (2014). She has edited works by prominent thinkers like Carlo Rosselli and Piero Gobetti, and co-edited books on political representation and cosmopolitanism. In 2024, Urbinati co-authored The Lottocratic Mentality: Defending Democracy Against Lottocracy with Cristina Lafont, a work published by Oxford University Press. This latest book explores the dangers of anti-democratic forces in contemporary politics and argues for the preservation of democratic principles in the face of rising populism and technocratic governance.

She has received numerous accolades, including the 2008 Lenfest/Columbia Distinguished Faculty Award and the Commendatore della Repubblica from the Italian President. Urbinati is a member of the prestigious Accademia dei Lincei and has been involved with renowned institutions like the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Feltrinelli Foundation. She regularly publishes in international journals and is a political columnist for Italian newspapers.

About the Institute

The Institute brings together political and legal theorists from Law, Political Science and Philosophy and organises regular colloquia in terms 2 and 3. Read more about the Institute's work.

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