Popular sovereignty, State autonomy, and private property

Abstract

The legitimacy of modern democratic institutions rests on the ideal of popular sovereignty. The purpose of this paper is to examine the contemporary status of this ideal.Since space limitations do not permit discussion that would place the concept of popular sovereignty in its historical and intellectual context, we simply postulate a definition. People, by whom we mean individuals acting on the bases of their current preferences, are collectively sovereign if the alternatives open to them as a collectivity are constrained only by conditions independent of anyone's will. Specifically, people are sovereign to the extent that they can alter the existing institutions, including the state and property, and if they can allocate available resources to all feasible uses.