Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield

Delegating Divisible Sovereignty: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield David A. Lake University of California, San Diego October 11, 2006 Delegating authority to international organizations (IOs) has recently been attacked by observers on the right and left. Conservatives, especially in the United States, charge that delegating authority to a supranational body or agency violates the Constitution. Certain powers, it is maintained, cannot be transferred to other parties. Even delegating partial authorities to IOs can lead to a lack of accountability and, ultimately, the decline of constitutional order. Conversely, some progressives claim that delegating authority to a supranational body creates a democratic deficit and, in the limit, undermines the sovereign state that remains the most promising arena for liberal politics. At the extremes, right and left are joined in the claim that sovereignty is necessary for an authentic and accountable sphere of political action. Granting greater authority to IOs is anathema to both extremes, even while it is cautiously supported by moderates and is, indeed, slowly emerging “on the ground” in real ways. In this essay, I do not attempt to rebut the various positions on the value of this evolving trend. Rather, without taking any particular side, I aim only to clarify analytic