This research stream of After Order project investigates how today’s political order relies on an increasingly decentralised distribution of power, and how this reconfiguration has resulted in a system in which political authority is exercised through violence. We observe how “legitimate” authorities – increasingly coercive and autocratic – now share the prerogative of sovereignty with non-state actors, such as corporations, paramilitary groups, and even criminal organisations. 

Fragmented sovereignties examines how the disorder that results from this dispersion of power is managed. We explore how new forms of power emerge at the edges of legitimacy, and where disorder is also invoked by old, autocratic platforms, now standing on the disruption, capture and destruction of the democratic state.

Many contemporary authoritarian movements now arise within liberal democracies, claiming electoral legitimacy while undermining democratic choice. As these new authoritarian political actors gain influence and popular support, they reclaim  sovereignty as a powerful banner to justify their disruptive rule, challenging any established order – international or constitutional.