Kant on sovereignty

Resumo

This paper aims at explaining Kant’s concept of sovereignty as defined in the Doctrine of Right as well at showing its relation to the idea of republicanization and of political progress. Since Kant emphatically claims that sovereignty (intended as the power of legislating) belongs solely to the united will of the people but, at the same time, does not want the people to intervene directly in the process of decision making, we shall distinguish between the real and the actual sovereign (respectively: the people and the head of state), as well between a synchronic and a diachronic concept both of the “united will” and of “the people”. By doing this, it will become clear in what sense Kant claims that every republic is necessarily a representative political system.