The Problem of Sovereignty in Contemporary Political Thought: Archaeo-genealogy and Deconstruction

The concept of sovereignty occupies a central place within the problematizations of politics developed by modernity. By virtue of this relevance, it is critically reviewed from certain perspectives of contemporary political thought. These reviews are responsible for pointing out complexities, tensions and aporias that would be intrinsic to it. But in some cases, these approaches leave aside the ambivalence shown by the notion of sovereignty in its historical display, a character that allows it to legitimize warfare and colonialist structures, but also to support independentist currents and resistance movements against forms ofoppression. This article intends to argue that, although it cannot be ignored that the blind reproduction of the logic of sovereignty entails great dangers, its rejection in toto is no less dangerous. For this, it is proposed to review the potentials contributions of Foucault's archaeo-genealogy and Derrida's deconstruction to the deployment of a critique of sovereignty that seeks to consider the risks involved not only in the uncritical appropriation of said notion, but also those that its weakening entails.