The modern state system

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 3 traces the origins of the modern state system and how it has come to function and be perceived as natural rather than a construct relating to specific historical contingencies. The chapter elucidates the relationship between nationalization and territoriality and how borders were integral to this sea-change in governance and identity. Borders were once predominantly linked to natural geographic features, but they eventually became associated with more abstract ideals of belonging, identity, and citizenship. This mode of dividing political space was exported throughout the world through colonialism, gradually displacing alternative means of governing and controlling political, economic, and cultural spaces. Ultimately, this mode of spatial thinking provided the foundations for the modern state system, including notions of sovereignty and the nation-state which in turn shaped domestic and international sociospatial structures and practices.