IB Global Politics - Internal and External Sovereignty

A complete lesson that begins by asking students to provide their own definition of sovereignty, largely based on the previous lesson. Students are then introduced via a teacher-led Socratic discussion to the concepts of internal and external sovereignty. A major part of this is the discussion that all states have sovereignty and are thus legally equal. The discussion is furthered with the two theories on sovereignty: realism and liberalism. The lesson concludes with a one page written task, asking students to find a contemporary news item in which a government is justifying its actions based on sovereignty and to describe this case study.