• DFG Single Project application
• Sole applicant
• Funds amount ca. 250,000 €
• Approved in March 2011; the project was transferred from the HU Berlin to Trier
• Commencement in Trier: November 2012
• Conclusion: December 2014

The objective of the research project is to move from an analysis of a concept of sovereignty in the transnational constellation to a reorientation of the foundations of political normativity. Such a reconfiguration is necessary, as most political-theoretical approaches to assessing transnationalisation processes are based on a questionable normative foundation and suffer from a methodical fixation on the nation-state. What makes the concept of sovereignty so central when examining the foundations of political normativity is that it encompasses the conditions under which political action takes place. As a result of processes of supra- and transnationalisation, however, it is becoming increasingly questionable as whether to what extent this concept is still significant. The discussion about the meaning, function and internal constitution of the sovereignty concept is being conducted primarily in the fields of legal science and the empirical social sciences. The discipline of political theory has not yet engaged in this debate to a satisfactory degree, which means that it has failed so far to identify the chances, potential and dangers of the transnational constellation. By systematising the legal and sociological debates about the sovereignty concept, by revealing the different levels in the concept of sovereignty in the transnational constellation, and by highlighting the necessity of interdisciplinary study, the research project should achieve a “realistic” reorientation of the foundations of political normativity.