Regionalism and Globalization: Post-Nation or Extended Nation?

Abstract

In "the Postnational Constellation and the Future of Democracy," Habermas argues that a democratic regionalism could provide the necessary infrastructure for the democratic coordination of globalization in the absence of a global government. This paper asks, what is "postnational" about democratic regionalism? And to what extent can Habermas's regional polity serve as a general model for the form of democratic practice beyond the nation-state? Part I of the paper argues that globalization poses a significant enough challenge to the nation-state to warrant a reexamination of the forms of democratic practice. Part II addresses the project of regionalism as one such political response, indicating the challenges presented by political integration on the regional scale. Examining the concept of the "postnational," the paper argues that European democratic integration as described by Habermas maintains elements of an extended civic-nationalism. Political solidarity in the postnational polity is premised upon a territorially based political identity situated in a shared history, and in this sense it does not transcend the national model. Part III explores how this affects the model's claim to represent a general form of democratic practice beyond the nation-state, examining the tensions thus revealed between the particular contexts of democratic legitimacy and the broader project of cosmopolitan global governance.