This papers aims to illustrate the implications of constitutional thoughts in light of the changing nature of state sovereignty in international relations. In so doing, it takes a theoretical and historical approach to the problem of state sovereignty, while examining divergent literature in the field of international relations, international law and political theory.
The paper claims that the concept of state sovereignty has been transformed according to changes in domestic as well as international society. Constitutionalism is one of the major political thoughts which have affected the concept of sovereignty, although the discipline of international relations has paid little attention to the topic. This paper identifies constitutionalism as a political tradition often expressed in the term “the rule of law.” It represents a political view according to which there is a higher set of norms above political power. This does not necessarily require the existence of a written constitution. Constitutionalists are usually skeptical about any form of “the rule of man, ” but do not go so far as to abolish sovereignty completely. They believe that sovereignty should be subject to a higher law. This tradition explains political history in Britain after the Glorious Revolution, as well as the discussions on the establishment of the United States concerning the doctrine of divided and limited sovereignty. This tradition of constitutionalism characterized by its commitment to the rule of law may be found in the international field too, which the scholars of the English School tried to prove by referring to “the Grotian Tradition.”
International constitutionalism strongly arose among Anglo-American intellectuals after the First World War. However, their tendency that pointed to the establishment of an international government was destined to be betrayed by reality. This paper argues, following the English School scholars, that the presupposition predominant among interwar scholars was “the domestic analogy.” The failure of international constitutionalism in the interwar period was a result of the analogy between men and nations, between domestic and international society, that must lead to the extremely difficult attempt of establishing a world government. It is no wonder, therefore, that current critics of realism and sovereignty avoid talking about any form of world federation.
This paper then claims that a new form of international constitutionalism in the present era does not hold the domestic analogy, but rather tries to implement human rights and other traditional constitutional values directly. The paper discusses the norms of jus cogens in international law and the discourses on global civil society as examples of such a new trend. The former shows that there is a higher set of international norms binding upon sovereign states, which is more or less derived from traditional values of constitutionalism. The latter illustrates that the limitation of state sovereignty in international society is based on the distinction between the spheres of the state and civil society, which is the very foundation of constitutionalism.

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John Maynard Keynes is known to have frequently changed his opinion on free trade and protection. There have been two contrasting interpretations of Keynes’s thought on the external economic policy, with one considering him essentially a free trader and the other finding him a protectionist. This article elucidates an original coherent explanation for Keynes’s ambiguous thinking on Britain’s external economic policy by observing the contradictory coexistence of economic nationalism and pacifist free-trade ideology among the New Liberals (left-leaning Liberals), of whom he was one. Since the 19th century, Britain had a peculiar political tradition in that the proposal of a protectionist policy almost entirely came from the political right, whereas the political left monolithically supported unconditional free trade under the influence of Richard Cobden’s idealistic internationalism. New Liberals, such as J.A. Hobson and Keynes, were sympathetic to the vision of a balanced national economy in which the manufacturing, rather than the financial sector, played a central role. In this sense, New Liberals had much in common with the historical economists, such as William Cunningham and William Ashley, who supported the Conservative Party’s protectionist campaign. Both Hobson’s theory of underconsumption and Keynes’s theory of effective demand emphasized the importance of domestic, rather than foreign markets. This meant that the New Liberals’ economic thinking was essentially more congruent with a protectionist policy to safeguard domestic manufacturing industries than free trade. Nevertheless, the New Liberals found it extremely difficult to support a protectionist policy because of protectionism’s strong association with right-wing politics in Britain and its incommensurability with their belief in a pacifist free-trade ideology. This dilemma formed the backdrop of Keynes’s allegedly inconsistent attitudes on the external economic policy of his time. JEL classification numbers: B10, B20, B27.

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