The concept of popular sovereignty is grounded in three terms: popular, which refers to behavior or sentiments associated with the common people or with all of the people, as in popular culture and popular opinion; sovereign, which refers to a person or group invested with the highest authority and exercising supreme power, as with a sovereign monarch or government; and sovereignty, which refers to the condition or quality of being sovereign, as with the sovereignty of states in the international community.

The idea of popular sovereignty took root in the West with the onrush of modernism. This was especially evident in the sphere of governance and politics. By the end of the sixteenth century, new states, mostly in Europe, were being carved out of old empires—a process that spread across the world and continued to almost the end of the twentieth century. Early on, a...