sovereign

Cockney Rhyming Slang

is one who owing to his right to proclaim a state of emergency, is ensured of remaining anchored in the legal order. He is outside, yet still inside the legal order in what amounts to an ecstasy belonging.

The sovereign, who can proclaim a state of emergency, is thereby ensured of remaining anchored in the legal order. But precisely because the decision here concerns the annulation of the norm, and consequently, because the state of emergency represents the control of a space that is neither external nor internal, 'the sovereign remains exterior to the normally valid legal order, and nevertheless belongs to it, since he is responsible for decision whether the Constitution can be suspended in toto.' To be outside and yet belong: such is the topological structure of the state of emergency, and since the being of the sovereign, who decides over the exception, is logically defined by this very structure, he may also be characterized by the oxymoron of an 'ecstasy-belonging.' (Agamben lecture NET).

is the leviathan, or mortal God, armed with the power and entrusted with the judgment of all his subjects 'bearing their person.

There is an original state of nature, a contract, a sovereign as its creature, but the sovereign is the Leviathan, or mortal god, armed with the power and entrusted with the judgment of all his subjects 'bearing their person.'

is the name of the body-politic when it is active and when it is passive it is called the state.

The members of a body-politic call it 'the state' when it is passive, 'the sovereign' when it is active, and a 'power' when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title 'people,' and they refer to one another individually as 'citizens' when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as 'subjects' when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

sovereign, n.Definitions

sovereign