Legal sovereignty is supreme but not omnipotent. Legally his will is absolute and unlimited, but politically he cannot act independently and exclusively. His will is actuated by many and varied influences and forces which are unknown to law. As Dicey says, “behind the Sovereign which the lawyers recognise, there is another Sovereign to whom the legal Sovereign must bow”.
He is the political sovereign. Dicey defines it thus: “that body is politically sovereign the will of which is ultimately obeyed by the citizens of the State”. The political sovereign is the sum-total of the influences and forces in a State which stand behind the law.
The concept of political sovereignty is less exact than the concept of legal sovereignty. Its nature and location differ in different States. By its very nature, it is unorganized, vague, indeterminate and inexact. It may be the power of the people, the public opinion, the electorate or the dominant class or a section of the people such as the army, the landed aristocracy or a powerful priesthood. It depends upon the nature of a particular State as to which of these forces and influences will actually exercise political sovereignty at any particular time.