Država, puk, nacija: Ogled o suverenosti i pretpostavkama demokratske konstitucije političke zajednice
The State, the People, the Nation

Summary/Abstract: The author looks at the problem of the sovereignty of the modem state in the light of its historical genesis. Originally, J. Bodin links the concept of sovereignty with the power of the absolute monarch within the political order of the modem state. In terms of organization such a definition of sovereignty comprises the building or a centralized state apparatus and of a unified legal order where the state is the only source of norms that arc binding for everybody. In terms of legitimization the sovereignty of the absolute monarch is explained in two ways: through the theory of the king’s divine mandate and through the contractual construction of the political community in the rational natural law (Hobbes). Bourgeois revolutions bring that process of the institutional building of the modern state to an end as they change the legitimizational paradigm of sovereignty. From the proposition (belonging to natural law) concerning the original freedom and equality of all individuals follows the construction of the people as hearer of sovereignty. The people is an abstract community of individuals as citizens, i.e. bearers of political rights. This theoretical construct has its counterpart in the historical constitution of the people through the me chum isms of political mobilization and the inclusion of previously non political social strata. At the end the author analyzes two patterns of political mobilization (the social/working class and the national movements) and warns about the actual totalitarian potentials of the latter pattern.

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