ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 problematises the international dimension of sovereignty changes by defining the importance of looking at the continuity of economic, military and political interventions undertaken by hegemonic powers and institutions in managing, limiting and violating the sovereignty of countries subject to interventions. The chapter clarifies how arguments based on the category of ‘gap’ are of limited epistemic utility; it looks then at the prolific literature on the state from a series of blind spots: the limits of the capacity-building approach, the ahistorical readings of Westphalia, and the inappropriateness of conventional explanations to grasp the role that unequal development plays in fragmenting or destabilising political orders. The chapter addresses the necessity of contextualising the dialectic relationship existing the production and reiteration of narratives about ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ states. In doing so, it brings the concepts of political autonomy and inequality among states back into our understanding of interventionism and sovereignty transformations.
