Sovereignty in the Philosophy of Jean Bodin: A Critical Study

Abstract

This paper examines the concept of sovereignty in Jean Bodin's philosophy, as developed in Les Six Livres de la République (1576). It situates Bodin’s theory within the turmoil of sixteenth-century France, where religious civil war and a weakened monarchy prompted his defence of a supreme, absolute, and perpetual power vested in the commonwealth. The work expounds the central features of Bodinian sovereignty, its location in a single ruler, its indivisibility, its unlimited character with respect to citizens, and its grounding in the family model of the state. It further examines Bodin's insistence that, although sovereign power is unrestrained by positive law, it remains answerable to God, to natural law, and to the fundamental laws of the realm (leges imperii), thereby permitting disobedience but not armed resistance. Using an expository and analytical approach, the paper interrogates the theory's internal tensions, highlighting contradictions between absolutism and natural law and between indivisibility and the delegation of power, while also assessing its strengths and weaknesses. It argues that while Bodin’s conception of indivisible, unlimited sovereignty is difficult to reconcile with modern three-tier democratic governance, his theory remains the first systematic account and a foundational step toward contemporary ideas of internal and external sovereignty.