In this article, the term «decontestation» coined by the British scholar of the Oxford School Michael Freeden whose main work is dedicated to the studies of ideologies and political theory is introduced. Decontestation is employed when a political concept is put to the matrix of other concepts on the framework of one ideology. The process of decontestation is illustrated on the basis of the concept «sovereignty» in the written statements of countries made on the request of the International Court of Justice on the issue of self-declaration of independence by Kosovo. In these written statements, the concepts that act as contextual for the concept “sovereignty” are marked out. It is shown which of the concepts prevail in the texts of countries that support Kosovo and, vice-versa, which concepts are delegitimized. These concepts provide a conceptual setting for the concept “sovereignty”, thus specifying its meaning. Similar conceptualization of political terms leads to the “family resemblance” of texts. The article demonstrates that the method of the concepts’ deconstestation proposed by Michael Freeden can be potentially useful for the linguistic study of concepts and ideology, including ideological texts and mechanisms of conceptualization of political terms.