“We must take our country back.” The most salient political refrain of our time is so widely endorsed that it is impossible to locate its origin. Populists from every corner of the globe all seem to share the same message, but they rarely quote each other. Their appeals to fear of subversion and to the necessity of pure autonomy have become incredibly successful in contemporary politics by building a movement around a timeless objective.
Sovereignty is an old concept in tension with a new world. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia enshrined the principle among European monarchies. For centuries, the idea that a state ought to be free from foreign interference held. When this norm has been violated – by assassinations of nobility or invasions of neighbors – massive conflicts have ensued. Even as the world democratized, the concept was transferred from the rights of the crown to the rights of the public.
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Nicholas J. Romanow 