ABSTRACT
Sovereignty is to be understood as a representation of the autonomy of the political, and as providing the foundational concept of the discipline of public law. An explicit acknowledgement of the importance of this distinction it is therefore necessary to turn to French scholars who grappled with the issue of sovereignty. The maintenance of the distinction between political power and the power exercised through property is nevertheless essential to an understanding of sovereignty. Public power is formed by harnessing political power through the institutionalisation of authority. The authority invested in the institutional framework of government rests on the foundation of a political relationship. Sovereignty is quintessentially an expression of a political relationship and, from a juristic perspective, sovereignty constitutes the essence of the modern state. Political sovereignty is what George Lawson termed 'real sovereignty', which is 'the power to constitute, abolish, alter, and reform forms of government'.
