- supreme authority over a territory, population, or domain
- Westphalian sovereignty emerged from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia: each state holds exclusive authority within its borders
- three scales
- state sovereignty: territorial control, monopoly on violence, recognition by other states
- individual sovereignty: self-ownership, bodily autonomy, private keys as proof of will
- digital sovereignty: control over one’s data, identity, and computation
- network state redefines sovereignty as cloud-first community with collective action capacity, diplomatic recognition earned through growth
- cyber state extends sovereignty into knowledge space: whoever controls the knowledge graph controls the map of meaning
- cyberia as an exercise in layered sovereignty: physical territory + digital jurisdiction + tokenized governance
- decentralization is the structural guarantee of individual sovereignty against centralized capture
- sovereignty without censorship resistance is provisional: any authority that can silence speech can revoke rights
- see also constitution, federation, social contract, diplomacy