Sovereignty for and against what? Varieties of sovereignist claims in Mediterranean Europe and South America

The literature on sovereignism has largely focused on Europe, often updating studies on Euroscepticism. However, sovereignism is a global phenomenon and does not always oppose regional integration. This paper offers a cross-regional qualitative analysis of party manifestos from Mediterranean Europe (ME) and South America (SA) to explore how different regional contexts and party ideologies influence national parties’ sovereignist claims. In both regions, especially in ME after the Great Recession, parties across the ideological spectrum have adopted sovereignist positions, providing rich grounds for comparison. Sovereignism can be seen as a reaction to various challenges to national and popular sovereignty, including institutional systems, economic regimes, migration flows, supranational institutions and hegemonic global powers (like the US and China), among others. This study analyses manifestos from eight countries (France, Italy, Portugal, Spain; Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile) between 2012 and 2024, focusing on political, economic, and international dimensions of sovereignist claims. The results show that variations in sovereignist claims are primarily linked to party ideology, and the common equation of sovereignism with the radical right is misleading.