Insurrection and Intervention: The Two Faces of Sovereignty

Domestic sovereignty (the right of a government not to be resisted by its people) and international sovereignty (the moral immunity from outside intervention) have both been eroded in recent years, but the former to a much greater extent than the latter. An oppressed people’s right to fight for liberal democratic reforms in their own country is treated as axiomatic, as the international responses to the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya illustrate. But there is a reluctance to accept that foreign intervention is always justified in the same circumstances. Ned Dobos assesses the moral cogency of this double standard and asks whether intervention can be consistently and coherently opposed given our attitudes towards other kinds of political violence. His thought-provoking book will interest a wide range of readers in political philosophy and international relations.