1. The social construction of state sovereignty Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber; 2. Contested sovereignty: the social construction of colonial imperialism David Strang; 3. Beyond the sovereignty dilemma: quasi-states as social construct Naeem Inayatullah; 4. The sovereign state system as political-territorial ideal: historical and contemporary considerations Alexander Murphy; 5. Sovereignty and the nation: constructing the boundaries of national identity Roxanne Lynn Doty; 6. Sovereignty, nationalism and regional order in the Arab states system Michael Barnett; 7. Popular sovereigns, bound states: the practices, structures and geopolitics of Philadelphian systems Daniel Deudney; 8. Hierarchy under anarchy: informal empire and the East German state Alexander Wendt and Daniel Friedheim; 9. Reconstructing the analysis of sovereignty; concluding reflections and directions for future research Cynthia Weber and Thomas J. Biersteker.