Sovereigntist

The term sovereigntist has two meanings in political discourse. The more established meaning alternatively describes the position favouring the independence of Quebec from Canada and of France from the European Union. More recently, the term has been used to describe anti-internationalist academics and policymakers in the United States who argue that U.S. participation in international legal regimes may in many cases violate domestic constitutional constraints.

Quebec/France

Here "sovereigntist" (also spelled sovereignist), or souverainiste in French, refers to proponents of two distinct political ideologies, depending on the society.

*In Quebec, a "sovereigntist" is an advocate of the Quebec sovereignty movement that calls for an independent Quebec. The term derives from the neologism "souverainisme" that René Lévesque initiated to qualify the movement, notably with the manifesto Option Québec and the founding of the Mouvement Souveraineté-Association, the direct predecessor of the Parti Québécois.

*In France, a "sovereigntist" is a "eurosceptic" proponent of retrieving the French Republic from the European Union.

While the two deal with the concept of political sovereignty, they actually differ on mainly one aspect. Most Quebec sovereigntists are not opposed to the idea of relatively decentralized supranational unions of a confederal nature, where partner nations are considered equal, quite on the contrary.

The main current party with the Quebec sovereignty ideal, the Parti Québécois, actually has a long history of basing itself on the European Union to sketch its plan for a similar union between eventual sovereign, equal countries of Quebec and Canada. Many renowned Quebec sovereigntists are admirerers of the European Union, like former PQ leader Bernard Landry. René Lévesque himself spoke of "independence within interdependence" and slightly preferred the word "souverainiste" to "indépendantiste" because, in his opinion, it highlighted this dichotomy.

United States

In the context of US foreign policy, "sovereigntist" has been applied to describe those who, working from anti-internationalist premises, hold that the United States Constitution precludes the undertaking of certain international obligations. This position, well developed by a cohort of American legal academics in the late 1990s and following in a long tradition of American exceptionalism, has been influential in setting US foreign policy during the administration of George W. Bush. Among those who have been identified as sovereigntists include John Yoo and John Bolton. The term appears to have been coined by Peter J. Spiro in a 2000 essay in the journal Foreign Affairs.

External links

* [http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20001101facomment932/peter-j-spiro/the-new-sovereigntists-american-exceptionalism-and-its-false-prophets.html Peter J. Spiro, The New Sovereigntists: American Exceptionalism and Its False Prophets, Foreign Affairs (Nov.-Dec. 2000)]