"Offers a novel and provocative framework for grasping the most urgent political problems of our time and the failures of standard solutions to them." —Sergei Prozorov, University of Jyväskylä

What sustains political order once legitimacy no longer secures authority and institutional purpose begins to thin? This is the central question animating Hollow Sovereignty.

Dean Caivano is concerned with the state of contemporary political systems, observing that they continue to function even as the basis of their authority appears increasingly uncertain. Sovereignty, Caivano argues, has not disappeared; but it persists in a hollow form, sustained only by administrative processes and institutional routines that function without requiring justification. These conditions reshape how political life is oriented and governance imagined--with critical implications for the future of democracy.

CONTENTS: The Death of Sovereignty?Power, Death, and the Genealogy of Sovereignty.The Emergence of Hollow Regimes.Expressions ... and Illusions ... of Sovereignty.Populist Movements: Masking Institutional Decay.Necrocracy: The Institutional Afterlife of Sovereignty.What Remains?Beyond Hollow Authority.