Sovereignty, as it appears throughout the depth-psychology-adjacent corpus indexed in Seba, emerges less as a psychological category proper than as a contested political-philosophical concept whose tensions illuminate the psyche's relationship to power, authority, and legitimacy. The passages assembled here derive overwhelmingly from scholarly commentary on Hannah Arendt, and they reveal a sustained interrogation of sovereignty's inner contradictions: its antinomy with political freedom and plurality, its oscillation between internal and external registers, and its tendency toward tyrannical absolutism when unchecked. Arendt's central thesis—that sovereignty is antithetical to genuine political life, commanding obedience rather than enabling concert—anchors the most significant passages. Yet her critics demonstrate that she could not fully banish sovereignty even from her own preferred republican model; external sovereignty persisted as a structural necessity, and the 'boomerang effect' of imperial power abroad inexorably corrupted republican institutions at home. The tension between 'state sovereignty' and 'organ sovereignty,' the paradox of statelessness, the disintegration of the nation-state order, and the jurisdictional challenges posed by crimes against humanity each represent facets of this problem. For depth psychology, the relevance lies in sovereignty's function as a model of psychological domination—the solipsistic, monological will that forecloses the relational, plural, and communicative dimensions of genuine selfhood.
In the library
16 substantive passages
sovereignty (rule) and politics (no rule) are antithetical; the former is monological, the latter communicative or at least interactive. The former involves the solipsistic freedom and assertion of the will, and as such is anti-thetical to freedom, plurality
This passage establishes Arendt's foundational argument that sovereignty is structurally opposed to genuine political life, equating it with monological domination incompatible with plurality, equality, and constitutionalism.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981thesis
An 'organ' (a person, an assembly, an institution) may exercise all the powers of sovereignty that Jean Bodin assigned alternately to the state and its organ, the monarch
This passage introduces the critical distinction between 'state' and 'organ' sovereignty, arguing that popular sovereignty regimes require this differentiation to avoid usurpation and to reconcile Arendt's internal and external arguments.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981thesis
the banished sovereign tended to reemerge, and its preferred vehicle was the presidency. As we can see in retrospect, this was so because of the executive powers lodged in the president for reasons of maintaining the external sovereignty of the federal state.
This passage argues that Arendt's attempted abolition of internal sovereignty was structurally undermined by the necessity of external sovereignty, which perpetually reintroduced absolutist power through the executive branch.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981thesis
Unilateralism in questions of security and public safety as an expression of state sovereignty ended practically in the inability of the nation-state to act and, therefore, forced it also to dissolve its constitutional foundation without solving the problem.
This passage demonstrates how the assertion of absolute state sovereignty paradoxically destroyed the constitutional foundations that made the nation-state viable, contributing directly to totalitarian outcomes.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981thesis
Arendt considers the American abolition of sovereignty to pertain to internal affairs only... the point or one of the points of forming a more perfect union was to enhance external sovereignty.
This passage reveals the internal tension in Arendt's theory by showing that her celebrated abolition of internal sovereignty was always paired with a concession of robust external sovereignty, creating a structural contradiction.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
see this phenomenon that often appears in the form of 'constitutional dictatorship' as inherent in our sovereignty regime, rather than crime or usurpation, the effect of popular or consumer culture
This passage argues that constitutional dictatorship is a systemic feature of sovereignty regimes rather than an aberration, implicating the American constitutional order itself in the pathologies Arendt attributed to external causes.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
'monarchical sovereignty' in foreign affairs seems to be the same absolute, unlimited, solipsistic imperial sovereignty usually claimed and exercised by the executive power posing such threats to domestic republican institutions and to civil rights.
This passage traces the 'boomerang effect' by which unlimited external sovereignty returns to corrupt domestic republican institutions, suggesting that Arendt's internal/external distinction is ultimately unsustainable.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
'full national sovereignty was possible only as long as the comity of European nations existed.' Only as long as the 'spirit of unorganized solidarity and agreement' existed among the sovereign states was it possible that a balance of the different interests
This passage shows Arendt's insight that the viability of national sovereignty was always dependent on an informal European solidarity, whose collapse exposed sovereignty's internal fragility.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
The new theory of 'universal jurisdiction' allowed the court to circumvent the barrier of territorial sovereignty. Respect for the sovereignty of states is manifested in delineating the boundaries of criminal law according to territorial boundaries of states.
This passage examines how the doctrine of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity directly challenges the territorial principle upon which state sovereignty rests, opening a new international legal architecture.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
state sovereignty could manifest itself in questions of residency and nonresidency for 'foreigners.' Arendt points out that the presumable advantages of statelessness were not lost on the 'foreigners'
This passage illustrates how state sovereignty operated at the micro-level of deportability and residency rights, producing the paradoxes of statelessness that Arendt analyzed as exposing the emptiness of human rights guarantees.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
the Madisonian formula of blending sovereignty between the states and the federal union, sovereign powers monopolized by absolute monarchies (and some American state legislatures) were shared among these instances.
This passage describes how the American founding dispersed and divided sovereignty rather than abolishing it, providing the constitutional-historical basis for Arendt's celebrated but contested claim that Americans transcended sovereignty.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
it was these two doctrines in particular, of the two antagonists, that when mixed together provided the most explosive fuel propelling the dramatic reentry of sovereignty on the scene.
This passage identifies the historical mechanism—the combination of Lockean prerogative and plebiscitary legitimacy—by which sovereignty reclaimed the political stage in American constitutional history despite formal republican commitments against it.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
This index entry maps the systematic treatment of sovereignty in the volume, revealing its intersection with constitutional powers, rightlessness, international law, and totalitarianism across multiple analytical chapters.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
Arendt was deeply skeptical of cosmopolitan discourses on human or minority rights – reasoning from the failures of the League of Nations. She deemed these to be ineffectual within a system of international law that in her view was still one of absolutely sovereign states.
This passage articulates Arendt's skepticism toward cosmopolitan human-rights frameworks, grounded in her conviction that international law remained hostage to absolutely sovereign states unwilling to relinquish their prerogatives.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
This index reference locates a sustained treatment of totalitarianism's relationship to sovereignty within the analytical architecture of the volume, signaling that the two concepts are treated as structurally linked.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981aside
giving the president the whole nation's elect awesome powers in external affairs and then trying to limit them internally would be a very difficult task.
This passage captures the structural impossibility that haunted American constitutionalism: the grant of unlimited external sovereign power to the executive inevitably erodes the internal limits republican government requires.
Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981aside