^aDepartment of Political Science, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, National University of Singapore, 11 Arts Link, AS1 Level 4 (#04–05), Singapore 117570, Singapore. E-mail: polccs@nus.edu.sg

¹I thank John Charvet, Michael C. Williams and the anonymous reviewers of the JIRD for their constructive comments on earlier drafts. Acknowledgements for invaluable research assistance also go to Praveen. The responsibility for any errors of interpretation is solely mine.

Abstract

This article revisits the tension between sovereignty and intervention through the philosophical lenses of three classical realists — Machiavelli, Hobbes and Bodin. A close reading of their studies of sovereignty reveals that they have been animated by a common philosophical search for order and preservation by state authorities amidst the arbitrariness inherent in politics. Their quest for these goals was premised upon the construction of sovereignty in tandem with intervention. Explaining the realist premises of intervention also requires the co-constitution of a third idea: the logic of expedience intrinsic to sovereignty itself. This holds implications for the way one views sovereignty in contemporary international relations discourses.