The internet and the great anxiety over national sovereignty

The concept of sovereignty is widely believed to have originated at the end of Europe’s Thirty Years War, with the Treaty of Westphalia, in which, for the first time, the absolute authority of a nation-state over its territory was recognized. Until then, rulers could only claim dominion over the territory they controlled—meaning that sovereign power diminished the further you were from its centre. According to Westphalian notions of sovereignty, on the other hand, citizens owed allegiance to the territory—regardless of how far away they were from its capital—and through the territory, to the sovereign authority.