Neil Walker

Constitutional law scholar and leading theorist of sovereignty pluralism. Professor at the University of Edinburgh. His work explores the fragmentation and multiplication of sovereign authority in an era of globalization, European integration, and digital networks — asking how multiple overlapping claims to sovereignty can coexist without collapsing into either hierarchy or chaos.

Walker’s scholarship provides crucial theoretical grounding for the Network Nations concept of functional sovereignty as a form of authority that coexists alongside — rather than competing with — territorial state sovereignty. His analysis of “late sovereignty” and “constitutional pluralism” maps directly onto the Network Nations framework’s polycentric institutional model.

Appears in: Ep 8: Functional Sovereignty