Obsolete sovereignty

Their reign consists only in meeting for a while every day and conjugating with the verb: I am sovereign, you are sovereign, we are sovereign. Poor and naive kings… how an illusion is upset.

Juan Rico Amat

For the jurist Reynaldo Reyes Rosas with admiration and solidarity.

The legal-political abstraction of the concept of sovereignty is a useless relic in the 21st century. Wanting to hide behind it only causes discouragement and precarious leadership. These are signs of weakness and illegitimacy. A review of the speeches of the rulers confirms that it has been discarded, it no longer says anything.

In very simple terms, sovereignty means concentration of power. Its etymological roots are super omnia : over all. It replaces the auctoritas and the majestas of Greece and Rome. Their “power of command, absolute power, indivisible power.” Its author, Jean Bodin, conceived the concept in 1576 in The Six Books of the Republic with the purpose of consolidating French and Spanish absolutism. These were the reigns of Henry III and Philip II, who were in conflict with the feudal lords and the power of the Church. However, Bodin was a fervent believer in the eternal right to which the ruler must submit. These were the preliminary stages in the formation of the European national states.

In 1648 the war ended and the Peace of Westphalia was signed, a document that emerged from the first modern diplomatic congress and gave rise to the political theory that generated the fundamental concepts. This is where thinkers emerged who, taking up the theses of human rights, spoke of international law.

Locke, with the fall of James II of England (1689), marks the beginning of the division of powers and the parliamentary assembly. In 1776, Rousseau incorporates a further element, “the general will”, and begins to speak of “popular sovereignty”. This bold and arbitrary exercise culminates in Prussia when Frederick II writes his Anti-Machiavelli in 1739 and, advised by Voltaire, lays the foundations of what in the 19th century would be called “the rule of law”.

Hermann Heller, a great political theorist, wrote a voluminous text on the evolution of the term. By interpreting it, we could perceive its evolution and its elements:

1. The need for a force recognized as supreme to organize society and shape the State.

2. The limitation of its powers so that it achieves its ultimate goal: the common good.

3. The support of legitimacy that is obtained through adherence to legality.

4. With the creation of the League of Nations (1919), it became intertwined with the law of other nations.

5. Its justification is obtained through citizen participation.

In Mexico, the word has caught us from the beginning of our independent life. In the 20th century, we grotesquely began to talk about energy and food sovereignty. It was confused with self-sufficiency and autarky. Today, President Claudia Sheinbaum uses it without any restraint and falls into frightening inconsistencies without understanding that the greatest threat to the aforementioned sovereignty does not come from outside, but from within, increasingly undermining her own hierarchy.

As far as I can remember, the federal Executive has never been so weakened in just the fifth month of government. The great danger is anarchy and social decomposition. There is not a single front that is not challenged. By ignoring this serious crisis, hidden by the abject submission of its officials and by the harmful influence of its predecessor, there are clear signs of the deterioration of political stability and governability.

We urgently need to recognize our reality in order to assume the role and tasks that correspond to the Presidency of the Republic. That is, to comply with the citizen mandate. Continuing to presume artificial popular support and leading useless and harmful changes is a suicidal attitude for which we will all pay the consequences.