Amazon.com description: Product Description: This study rearticulates the discourse of sovereignty in modern political and legal theory, and it outlines a democratized model of sovereignty. The underlying aspiration is to show that contemporary tendencies to move beyond the idea of sovereignty are, in fact, based on a misunderstanding of this term. The book traces the roots and nature of this misunderstanding by analyzing the ambiguity of the early modern paradigm of sovereignty. First, through a re-reading of the work of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes, it separates a common misconception that sovereignty amounts to the absolute and unlimited power to make law by command from more plausible elements of the concept, namely the idea of the political supremacy constituted and expressed in legal terms. The second part of the book reflects on the implication of the reconstructed concept of sovereignty for democratic and constitutional theory. Three legal theories, centered around the notion of sovereignty, are discussed: the theories of Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt, and Jurgen Habermas. It is argued that only Habermas succeeds in overcoming the absolutist paradigm of sovereignty. Using a discursive conception of public autonomy, the book demonstrates the continuing relevance of sovereignty for contemporary liberal democracies.