Okuzeka
History vocabulary · Empires, States and Rulers

Sovereignty

Meaning in history, with examples

/ˈsɒvrənti/nounCommon term

In history, sovereignty means: Supreme authority over a territory and its people, including the right to make laws and to govern without control from any outside power.

In Turkish: egemenlik, hakimiyet

How it is used

Used in diplomatic, legal and political history. States claim, assert, recognise, transfer or lose sovereignty. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) is often linked with the modern idea of state sovereignty, though historians debate how far it created it. Popular sovereignty means power belongs to the people.

Example sentences

  1. Under the treaty, the empire recognised the new state's sovereignty.

  2. Debates about popular sovereignty shaped many nineteenth-century constitutions.

Common collocations

  • national sovereignty
  • popular sovereignty
  • recognise sovereignty
  • claim sovereignty over
  • state sovereignty
  • independenceThe situation of a country that governs itself and is not ruled or controlled by another state.
  • treatyA formal written agreement between two or more states, for example to end a war, settle borders or create an alliance.
  • monarchyA system of government in which a king, queen, emperor or other hereditary ruler is head of state, or a country governed in this way.
  • vassalIn medieval Europe, a person who held land from a lord in return for loyalty and service; more broadly, a ruler or state that accepts the authority of a stronger power.
  • annexTo take control of a territory and make it officially part of one's own state, often by force or without the agreement of the people living there.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Empires, States and Rulers

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