The history of sovereignty and global religions: a conceptual challenge between international relations, political philosophy, and legal theory

The paper aims at showing the essential role of interdisciplinarity in sovereignty studies. Firstly, it will try to point out three historical models of sovereignty as result of the interaction between international relations, political philosophy, and legal theory: the Westphalian, the UN Charter, and the global powers model. Secondly, it will trace changes in contemporary theory of sovereignty in order to highlight the reasons why it does not exclusively concern States. Moreover, it will pay specific attention to the “return” of religions as global actors: an underrated phenomenon. Eventually, the paper underlines the relevance of this interdisciplinary approach to sovereignty and religions to the construction of useful conceptual frames as the idea of religions as “new transnational nations”.