Justifying Shared Sovereignty

This chapter examines the normative debates around sovereignty sharing. It discusses the possible benefits of the practice and the numerous critiques of deep external intervention into fragile-state governance. It argues that three factors bear upon the perceived legitimacy of a sovereignty-sharing venture: host state consent, genuine humanitarian need, and strong observed or expected external performance in service delivery. It argues that to be perceived as legitimate by diverse audiences, sovereignty-sharing arrangements generally must rely heavily on performance.