The Nation-State: Not Yet Ready For the Dustbin of History?

Abstract

Abstract At the turn of the millennia, the ideas of withering away of the Nation-State became, once again, widespread. The latest wave of globalisation was supposed to lead to a borderless world, where goods, money, capital and workforce would move without hindrance. Multinational companies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), big cities, regions (e.g., California or Bavaria), supranational entities, like the European Union, and even individuals would replace States as important decision-makers. This should have also been a triumph of liberal-democracy and the end of history à la Francis Fukuyama. This was also meant to be an American century where the only remaining superpower would lead the world either by example, by persuasion, or, if necessary, by punishing those who disobeyed. However, this was not to be the case. Excesses of globalisation, marked by financial and economic crises, the arrogant and naïve triumphalism of the West that attempted to remake the world in accordance with its own image, often using military power to carry out regime change, soon made it clear that the world is too big, complex and diverse to have its rich tapestry to be flattened into a carpet where only one pattern, be it of a Judeo-Christian, Anglo-Saxon, Confucian, Muslim or even secular liberal-democratic, would dominate. Moreover, the Nation-State, as a cradle of democracy and the main subject of international law, has made its comeback even in the Old Continent where it had emerged and was meant to make way for more progressive political arrangements. In places where the State authority was weakened or had collapsed, often as a result of foreign interference, chaos reigned instead of democracy and attempts to replace international law with imperial rule failed. It is becoming more and more obvious that democracy can be restored and reinforced by strengthening Statehood, not weakening it, and peace can be best guaranteed by balance of power between sovereign States cooperating with each other notwithstanding differences in their domestic arrangements.