Is the nation state dead?

[Theatre of Trees]

I'm really not trying to be facetious but can someone please tell me what a nation-state is rather than what it isn't?

To put it simply a nation state is a political entity which is largely ruled by one nationality, France is an obvious example of one whereas Switzerland is an example of one that is not. We are not one because we live in the a country called Great Britain or United Kingdom which is a union of what was once four distinct entities.

 

[Buzzer]

ta for the link and soz; poorly phrased question, i meant what do you mean, not disraeli. he's on about paternalistic upper classes, i would very much entertain the idea of a meritocracy; so that i am given a fair crack of the whip to attend my own botbots.
never heard of that chap, i'm the on case now

Ah, apologies. Conservatism but with a social conscience that's now sadly missing. Pro-business but not to the detriment of the community, definitely not Thathcherite.

 

[Buzzer]

To put it simply a nation state is a political entity which is largely ruled by one nationality, France is an obvious example of one whereas Switzerland is an example of one that is not. We are not one because we live in the a country called Great Britain or United Kingdom which is a union of what was once four distinct entities.

Please forgive my ignorance but what then was England until 1707 unless it was a nation-state? And isn't the UK then a sort of super nation-state where English/Scottish is replaced by Britishness? And whatever you call it, here we are 207 years after England and Scotland merged and you have an article predicting the end of the nation-state.....on the eve of a referendum where one of those constituent parts is voting to return to a nation-state.

In the words of Mark Twain "reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated".

 

[rogersix]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-nation_conservatism

This kind of sums it up. Iain Macleod is my hero.

yeah baby! injured, still does d-day; talkin about Doll's work whilst chain-smokin; and inventing words, i love that, stagflation, he was a boy alright

 

[Buzzer]

yeah baby! injured, still does d-day; talkin about Doll's work whilst chain-smokin; and inventing words, i love that, stagflation, he was a boy alright

Bestest mates with Enoch Powell up until the 'Rivers of Blood' speech and then wouldn't have anything more to do with him. Principled to the very end. Supported gay rights and strong advocate for pro-choice despite his religious beliefs. A great man indeed.

 

[beorhthelm]

...As I said in my previous post, you mustn't mix up nationality and ethnicity: one's a legal concept, one's a genetic/cultural one. There clearly was such a thing as English in Shakespeare's time but it didn't have the trappings of a nation state.

i think we should mix nationality and ethnicity as the definition of the former is a grouping of the latter. and that aside, while one could argue when it began, there certainly cant be any question that by Shakespeare's time England was very much a nation state. now, considering the rest of europe, it may have been an outlier in that concept, due to its island nature and clear border to the north.

having not read the article, and as interesting as it seems, i wonder what exactly is its point? because by targeting the "nation state" it seems to create a bit of an aunt sally. the arguements for it being a modern artifical constuction in most cases, doesnt seem to acknowledge the purpose of the state. by saying we'd be better or just as well off with city-state or regional state still means we have a state of some sort, just with different boundries. which all the arguments and examples mentioned here are suggesting is what most nation states are anyway. its just playing around with a niche acedemic ponderings isnt it?

 

[rogersix]

Bestest mates with Enoch Powell up until the 'Rivers of Blood' speech and then wouldn't have anything more to do with him. Principled to the very end. Supported gay rights and strong advocate for pro-choice despite his religious beliefs. A great man indeed.

yeah, ahead of his time, and sadly ours too

up the evolution

 

[rogersix]

i think we should mix nationality and ethnicity as the definition of the former is a grouping of the latter. and that aside, while one could argue when it began, there certainly cant be any question that by Shakespeare's time England was very much a nation state. now, considering the rest of europe, it may have been an outlier in that concept, due to its island nature and clear border to the north.

having not read the article, and as interesting as it seems, i wonder what exactly is its point? because by targeting the "nation state" it seems to create a bit of an aunt sally. the arguements for it being a modern artifical constuction in most cases, doesnt seem to acknowledge the purpose of the state. by saying we'd be better or just as well off with city-state or regional state still means we have a state of some sort, just with different boundries. which all the arguments and examples mentioned here are suggesting is what most nation states are anyway. its just playing around with a niche acedemic ponderings isnt it?

shirley, localisation of the power structure would encourage more people to get positively involved in the "project", what ever that might be.
colonising mars anyone?

 

[Theatre of Trees]

Please forgive my ignorance but what then was England until 1707 unless it was a nation-state?

A dynastic state, one which is still inherent within the structure and name of the United Kingdom today. The Act of Union was a political agreement between the elites of England and Scotland whereupon the latter preserved much of their culture and institutions in return for being subservient to the English crown and thus Parliament who ruled the country for the crown. The geographical layout of the Isles meant there were only ever two competing entities for power on the mainland and one was inherently stronger than the other.

And isn't the UK then a sort of super nation-state where English/Scottish is replaced by Britishness?

No, because there is no such ethnicity as British. Four distinct nations make up the state of the United Kingdom.

And whatever you call it, here we are 207 years after England and Scotland merged and you have an article predicting the end of the nation-state.....on the eve of a referendum where one of those constituent parts is voting to return to a nation-state.
.

I haven't read the article so can't comment on it and yes you are right, we have an entity wishing to become a nation state. Meanwhile in the east of Ukraine we have another nationality who wishes to join the rest of its nation in the neighbouring state of Russia. Elsewhere, there are two movements in Spain who wish to achieve the same thing.


The modern nation state is very much a product of the French Revolution, the desire to improve and educate its citizens meant having to teach them in a specific language, and as the 19th century progressed the old multi-national monarchies struggled with these concepts and became difficult to govern. I'm pretty certain England-Scotland is the last of the unions left in Europe, if you step back 100 years there were dynastic unions between Austria-Hungary, Austria-Bohemia (Now Czech Republic), Hungary-Croatia (Existed from 1000-1918), Russia-Finland (Prior to 1809 Finland was part of Sweden), Germany itself still retained a number of Kings subservient to the German Emperor, Sweden-Norway broke up in 1905. Go back further and you'll find more, Spain is a product of a political marriage that merged two states in the late 15th century, whilst the largest state in Europe during the 16th was Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. World War One began when a representative of a multi-national ruling dynasty visited a region that had been annexed to the Empire in 1908 and was shot by a representative of an organisation who saw that region (Bosnia) as being part of another (Serbia) whom they believed shared linguistic ties. The end of that war saw an American President advance a theory that people should no longer live in multi-national empires but in those where culture and language provided a dominating unifying structure thus reinforcing the idea of the nation-state. This failed in Eastern Europe because too many new states had too many minorities, it took another World War with eradication, expulsion and forcible population movements to sort that problem out. Non-national states or federations only work where those living within it decide it is for the greater good to share political responsibility, the Act of Union has worked for many centuries because it allowed Scots to advance within the English establishment. Likewise, the Swiss cantons merged as a federation to protect themselves from encroachments by their more powerful neighbours. Both will live side by side in the future rather than be one or the other.

 

[Gwylan]

I'm really not trying to be facetious but can someone please tell me what a nation-state is rather than what it isn't?

It's simple: a nation state issues passports/identity cards. While England obviously existed before Victoria's time, passports started to be issued in the 1850s. Not sure about other countries, but they'd be about the same time. The first unemployment benefits were issued by Prussia in the 1880s - bureaucracies and nation states go hand-in-hand. You don't passports to travel between the constituent countries of the UK but you do need one to enter it.

i think we should mix nationality and ethnicity as the definition of the former is a grouping of the latter

As I pointed out earlier (twice in fact), that belief is comprehensively demolished in the New Scientist argument. Let's look at an example the article doesn't mention: Gerard Depardieu. Here's a guy born and raised in France, of French parentage and descent and whose mother tongue is French. He has been given Russian nationality and travels on a Russian passport -how on earth is his nationality and ethnicity the same? Or take the Chinese billionaires who have been offered British passports by our government. Are British and Chinese ethnicity the same?
It's nonsense to say so.

there certainly cant be any question that by Shakespeare's time England was very much a nation state.

But there can be. By the New Scientist definition of a nation state it most certainly wasn't: it didn't issue passports or identity cards

wonder what exactly is its point? because by targeting the "nation state" it seems to create a bit of an aunt sally. the arguements for it being a modern artifical constuction in most cases, doesnt seem to acknowledge the purpose of the state

And as I also mentioned earlier, the article doesn't go into too much detail about what should happen, apart from a reference to Singapore, merely pointing out the limitations of the nation-state.What replaces them is a fascinating discussion.

Someone made reference to the end of benefits and that's certainly one possible consequence:the end of taxation is another. The conference I went to last year spoke of the abolition of passports but a world where you chose your own nationality (thus not doing away with the nation state at all). And the speaker mentioned using Facebook and Twitter as identifiers.

It's certainly an area that's ripe for debate and one that I expect will run and run

 

[beorhthelm]

As I pointed out earlier (twice in fact), that belief is comprehensively demolished in the New Scientist argument.

there's no "belief" involved, the point was about the definitions of the words and concepts. i can see where they are going with the Depiardieu and chinese examples, but this seems to over look that nation and nationality are not quite the same. a nation is created from a group with common ethnicity (and langauge and culture), giving 1 person from outside that group the rights of "nationality" doesnt invalidate that. though maybe in their thousands it erodes it.

But there can be. By the New Scientist definition of a nation state it most certainly wasn't: it didn't issue passports or identity cards

well thats definatly an aunt sally, they are redefining nation state to some precise administrative process, then saying if a state doesnt meet this (new) definition it doesnt qualify. does Singapore, as an example of a city state, not issue identification? a state issues indentification and passports, irrespective of if it is a "nation state" or not. maybe thats what they mean, though seems a lot of conflicts, contradictions and counter-arguments fall out of this and great circular mess. (and wheres the science to any of this...?)

 

[cunning fergus]

I'm surprised that you've read my post and interpreted it as predicting the nation-state's 'inevitably demise', and it advocates 'historical determinism' (you did it to Gwylan too). Perhaps you could indicate what passage indicates as much.
You finish your post by talking about Germany and England:
Germany -- has only been geographically the same entity for some two decades; it changed three decades before that; and two decades before that too, after having formed in 1871
England -- this is quite a moment to argue about the strength of English identity, as whatever happens in next week's referendum will result in a major transformation with another identity that the English have shared for centuries now.
To identify as English really is a modern frame of mind: there is much debate, but most nation-states didn't begin to consolidate themselves until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, whereas a national identity didn't appear until much later probably in the nineteenth century when we began to imagine ourselves as a national community.

Re the English point, you could not be more wrong........

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/histtexts/bedehist/

 

[Kevlar]

I think there will be a lot more nation states
one more on this island for a start(I hope not but probably soon if not now)
there is a defacto new one in Kurdistan
It is hard to see a reversal of the free movement of capital
But when it comes to military power and monetary power
it is hard to see a non national future
Can not see the UN becoming a military super power
Can not see Eurozone type currency unions succeeding
How national governments can govern in the interests of the majority
of it's citizens in a time of globalization ,the international free movement
of capital, is the big question?
As ever it comes down to power ,who wields what and for whom

 

[Gwylan]

there's no "belief" involved, the point was about the definitions of the words and concepts. i can see where they are going with the Depiardieu and chinese examples,

Those weren't mentioned in the article, they were my examples

but this seems to over look that nation and nationality are not quite the same.

Well yes, that's exactly the point I was making

a nation is created from a group with common ethnicity (and langauge and culture), giving 1 person from outside that group the rights of "nationality" doesnt invalidate that. though maybe in their thousands it erodes it.

How about Israel? If you're Jewish, then you can move to Israel even if you have no connection there (and millions have, particularly from Russia). But you could be Arab and have lived there for generations. Where's the common ethnicity and culture between a Russian Jew and a Palestinian? None: yet they share the same nationality.

they are redefining nation state to some precise administrative process, then saying if a state doesnt meet this (new) definition it doesnt qualify.

Again, that's the exact point. No-one is saying that England, Germany, France etc didn't exist as places - and no-one is saying that they'll cease to exist. What the article suggests is that the supporting bureaucracy will be different.

does Singapore, as an example of a city state, not issue identification? a state issues indentification and passports, irrespective of if it is a "nation state" or not.

Yes, it does but maybe it won't in the future. As I have said several times, the article doesn't delve too deeply into what will happen in the future but is about the limitations of the present.

(and wheres the science to any of this...?)

Yes, there are some spurious links to science. The article does quote some research on the number of connections an individual can have (150 apparently) and some research on the size of an optimal national enclave but I think it's fair to say that there's less rigour than is usual in NS articles.

 

[Buzzer]

So a nation-state is, as someone else said, just an administrative process and merely concerns passports? And on the back of this you and Machiavelli were describing how nation-states are ill-equipped to survive technology and modern business?

It does seem as if it's a very tortuous way of trying to downplay all those centuries of history and shared belonging and taking very poetic licence with the phrase 'nation-state'.

Honestly, when you said that nation-states are doomed it really did sound like you're predicting the end of national identities and countries. The evolution or abolition of passports may or may not happen but it certainly won't turn Europeans into a Euro Federalist's wet dream. There will be an England still losing to penalties against Germany 500 years from now.

Non-possession of a passport doesn't make Shakespeare less of an Englishman than me, you or Danny Dyer.

 

[Buzzer]

One other point is that Theatre of Trees definition is completely incompatible with Gwylan's.

Britain is not a nation-state but England and Scotland are according to ToT. But a nation-state issues passports according to Gwylan. And my passport is British...not English.

 

[Eeyore]

This thread is more ‘Athenian Agora’ than NSC, which would in essence form part of the debate itself. Ancient Greece was made of ‘city-states’, built up for trade, and most people identified with these autonomous entities rather than Greece itself. Nation States in those days were an abstract concept.

The ‘Nation State’ is definitely a more recent phenomena in history, before then we had the ever changing boundaries of Empires. People tended to be more localised and never travelled very far, hence identities were probably more based around languages and ethnicity, perhaps even industry. The improvement in transport, transient populations, and modes of media would have changed that. You only have to look at a map of Europe from a couple of hundred or so years ago to see how this point is proved. Certainly the United Kingdom, as long as it lasts, is a sore thumb to the above, but it has natural boundaries. So it’s a bad example. If we had been stuck in the middle of Europe life would be a lot different now.

The quite brilliant [MENTION=5200]Buzzer[/MENTION], who mentions Ian Mcleod, my inspiration to join the Conservative Party in 1992 (until I found out that they were the Conservative Party), mentions the battles that England once fought as a nation (or at least the aristocracies concept of it). Surely these battles were less to do with one nation theology though, and more the advancement of the ruling classes. Most of those who fought had little more interest than surviving the various plagues or feeding their families. I would imagine England was quite lawless in those days, a place of local fiefdoms, Lords and Barons, I don’t believe it was a place of unity and nationhood. Most people had never visited towns any more than ten miles from their doorstep.

To make a point about the folly of Nation States, one only has to point to the Victorian cartographer’s rulers and protractors. I was recently speaking to a Ghanaian friend about the make up of his country. He immediately pointed out to me which tribe he came from and how that is the first point of ‘identity’. Certainly this applies to Europe when we think about the bloody break up of Yugoslavia, and how ethnicity was at the core of identity. So out came the rulers and protractors again, and peace holds-for now.

I was also talking to a Greek-Cypriot friend, who, for obvious reasons, is all too aware of the short-comings of Nation State ideology, about the break up of the Union. He, understandably, and perhaps from an emotion standpoint, hoped for the independence of Scotland, but probably more that it would lead to a more sociocratic form of government. I was critical, saying that what this world needs is less boundaries, not more. But he is right, in smaller unions we give sociocracy a chance, yet I argue that Nation States are a barrier to progress and just create more political obstacles. You don’t change society to change man, you change man to change society. I am a socialist anti-socialist. I love Engel’s, but he would hate me.

A Nation State is often derived out of political necessity, expediency, or another Nation States imperial agenda. Therefore, to me, it is a folly. Being supporters of Brighton & Hove Albion we know how football often defines our emotions and ideologies, and is the greatest example of how we has humans prefer to identify with something close and reachable, rather than something stern and distant.

 

[Machiavelli]

It's quite simple. Gwylan has said that it's "not a question of if but when in regards to nation-states" and you agreed and stated that the idea of the nation-state is a modern phenomenon and doomed to failure.

Germany has been Germany for well over 2 centuries. A political split did not change that one iota.

I think (hope) you'll agree that historical determinism is a socialist concept. So please tell me what you mean by 'nation-state' and on what basis do you stand by your assertion that nation-states are either a modern phenomenon or unable to cope with a modern global economy?

It seems to me that those countries with a laissez-faire economy are doing quite well despite predictions to the contrary and once again socialist economies in practice are abject failures.

Both of you are under the impression that nation-states are doomed to failure in place of some other system hence my comments about historical determinism. I've heard it so often before yet here we are, the free market actually working and the theoretical socialism destined to replace it being shown to be the failed experiment that it is.

Human nature is not socialist. That there is your problem.

You have a remarkable ability to over-analyse things, and read whatever you want into a comment. You put some comment you claim that Gwylan made in quotation marks, but Gwylan never said that (as his posts illustrate). You then attribute all sorts of philosophical concepts to me (socialism, historical determinism, globalisation/global state).
And in case you hadn't realise, you're claiming that there's such a thing as human nature and, if there is, then history is determined, so you're the historical determinist: you not only want to essentialise human nature, you want to essentialise the nation-state too.
Languidly clinical.

 

[Machiavelli]

I was always taught that the modern legal nation state - as opposed to just countries, which evolve over time and are far more nebulous - was brought about by the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which after the Thirty Years War clarified a lot of stuff regarding the sovereignty of these European entities that are headed up by sovereigns. But I think a lot of it is a 19th century construction.

Anyway, as a dedicated Europhile, I've always liked the idea of a Europe of the regions myself: there's a lot of examples around where a country/nation/region has never matched up with the historical accident of the legally defined nation state, often with disastrous consequences.

This is the standard interpretation adopted by most historians and political theorists, who also point to the French Revolution as the point at which national identity (ie nationalism merged with the nation-state) became more prominent -- whatever else anyone else says on this board.

 

[Machiavelli]

Okay, accepted but 150 odd years is near to 2 centuries as opposed to the 2 decades stated by Machiavelli. And England has been a nation-state for a lot, lot longer.

There you go again. Germany re-united two decades ago, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As I said in my previous post, you have a remarkable ability to read whatever you want into comments.