ABSTRACT
Whether sovereignty is a ‘real’ or an ‘imagined’ concept, it is fair to say that it captured the public imagination in a very real way during the 2016 referendum on European Union (EU) membership. A commonly cited reason for leaving the EU was ‘the principle that decisions about the UK should be made in the UK’. It is unpacking the potency of sovereignty – as a longstanding form of ‘democratic nostalgia’ within UK politics in opposition to a ‘failure of democratic internationalism’, and as a proxy for the rational desire for political control in a changing world – on which the present authors feel they can add some reflections to Professor John Agnew’s valedictory lecture.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Anand Menon http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0304-6528
Alan Wager http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1854-5135