Confederation Of States Research Articles

Suwerenność państw w procesie integracji europejskiej

The paper concerns an attempt to determine the status of European Union member states. It takes as its starting point the statement that the EU’s organizational structure provides for more than a confederation of states but less than a federation. At the present stage of the EU’s development a unique organization has been established that has not predecessor in the standards of international organizations. This is accompanied with a new approach to the interpretation of the nature of sovereignty of integrating European states, which is connected with intensifying processes of decomposition and the loosening of sovereign control by states over their territories and populations. States achieve their sovereign interests within the framework of international structures. They can also voluntarily restrict their sovereign rights on the basis of the commonly accepted rules and principles of international organizations. In this way they assign a comparative degree of state authorities’ competencies to these organizations. As a consequence, numerous issues that were formerly regulated by states are increasingly more often solved by means of corporate operations. This naturally leads to the states’ opening to the international environment without any threat to their sovereignty. The process of integration in Europe has not resulted in sovereignty of the European Union itself. Sovereignty remains an attribute of states. European states maintain their ability to

The “Tower Of Babel” Of Modernity and the Future Prospects of a Nation State

[only abstract in English; full article and abstract in Lithuanian]
 This article discusses the future prospects of nations and nation states in the era of globalization by critically analyzing the theoretical justifications of the philosophical idea that one of the inevitable consequences of globalization is a gradual disintegration of nations and nation states. The origins of this idea are traced back to the political theory of Immanuel Kant, particularly to Kant’s vision of a cosmopolitan, civil society and the concept of the worldwide confederation of republican states. The article introduces an argument that the position that Kant’s vision of the civil society and confederation of states is internally incoherent and utopian, and it should be viewed as a normative moral and political ideal (or, in Kantian terms, a maxim of the practical historical reason that every human being should strive for) rather than as a theoretically coherent and justified political project. This normative ideal of modernity is viewed as the driving force of history, since it facilitates attempts to implement it in practice and achieve the end result – a peaceful, global civil society. In such a state of peaceful coexistence, the nation, as a form of political organization, loses its relevance, and the nation state gets replaced by a cosmopolitan confederation of republican states.The modern vision of a cosmopolitan and apolitical global order is viewed as one of the most important ideas of political philosophy, which has a tremendous influence on the history and geopolitical development of the modern world. It is shown that, for over two centuries, this idea has been both a theoretical and an ideological inspiration for global governance projects. The article suggests that a conceptual “overlap” between the two conceptions of a nation – the traditional natural law and the modern constructivist one – may have been one of the primary reasons of why this idea has retained philosophical and political significance for over two centuries. The article defends the view that this conceptual confusion led to a theoretically and empirically unjustified conviction that the disintegration of nations and nation states will be an inevitable outcome of the development of the modern world, and that this conviction facilitates further political experiments aimed at realizing the utopian apolitical society.

Core of State Sovereignty and Boundaries of European Union's Identity in theLissabon – Urteil

In the 2009 judgment dealing with the Treaty of Lisbon, the German Federal Constitutional Court urges to modify a domestic statute in order to guarantee the rights of the internal rule-making power and also provides a reasoning on the role of the European Union (EU) as an international organization, the principle of sovereignty and the relations between European Institutions and Bodies and the EU Member States. According to the German Court the Treaty of Lisbon does not transform the European Union into a Federal State(Staatsverband), but into a Confederation of States(Staatenverbund).In spite of the 1993 landmark judgment, the so-called “Maastricht Urteil”, the Court steps forward and focuses also the subject-matters that necessarily have to pertain to the Member States jurisdiction, the so-called “domain reserve”. The German Federal Constitutional Court decision on the Lisbon Treaty arouses the reflection on the core of State sovereignty and on the boundaries of the EU legal system and focuses on the force of the right to vote of every citizen, the basis of democracy.Furthermore, the decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court highlights the well-known issue of the EU's identity and the balancing between EU democracy and Member State sovereignty. In the light of the German Constitutional Court statements, the present work aims to understand which could be actually the EU's identity and how could be approached “democratic deficit” of the EU.

Contours of the Naga Upsurge

The Naga upsurge is the manifestation of one of the earliest ethnic unrests in North East India. The Nagas claim that they have been living in their present quarters since ancient times and that they have never been conquered by any foreign force. In their view their fight cannot be considered to be secessionist and is rather a freedom movement. But there are others who view that the Naga nation formation is rather a post British phenomenon. Nagas are a very heterogenous group with various linguistic affiliations. But they have been able to carve out a niche and many new tribes are being drawn to the Naga constellation. The Naga drive may be correct, but their rationale needs to be viewed from the process of formation of the Indian nation–state and its democratic foundation which is rather skewed. In a just confederation of states, the Nagas can hope to attain an equal share as any other nationality. But it needs to be realized that the Indian nation–state cannot be looked upon in a frozen time frame as political boundaries are bound to alter with changing aspirations of the people, in line with the shifts in politico–economic equations globally and regionally.

De grootste crisis ooit? De Europese Unie in 2005

On December 1st 2005, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt proposed the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’: a core group of Eurozone countries surrounded by a confederation of states. A European social-economic policy, technology cooperation, a common justice and security policy, a common diplomacy and army will make the EU stronger and less patronizing, said Verhofstadt. In this article, we look back over the main political and economic developments in the EU in 2005. This year will probably go down in EU history as the year in which the constitutional treaty was rejected. Yet, as demonstrated, despite a feeling of total malaise, a number of knotty dossiers came to a conclusion and new initiatives were taken.

‘Intermarium’ and ‘Wedding to the Sea’: Politics of History and Mental Mapping in East Central Europe

In the perception of the outside world, i.e. of politicians, media representatives and the public as well as historians applying a comparative approach, East Central Europe appears as a historical region framed by the Baltic, the Adriatic and the Black Seas. The perception of the inhabitants, however, does not correspond with this outside view—neither historically nor with regard to the present. Their ‘continental’ and decidedly national, not regional, self-perception has not been changed despite explicitly ‘maritime’ rhetorics and geopolitical arguments by governments and political parties in the region. The article exemplifies the tension between elite-driven ‘maritime’ identity management on the one hand and the ‘landlocked’ world-view and oceanophobia of the majority in the case of society and state in Poland from the early modern period to the threshold of the twenty-first century. Whereas the nobility of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth ‘turned its back to the sea’ and the non-nobles shared this attitude, ‘maritime politics’ and ‘maritime identity’ became the pillars of the project of a restoration of Poland as a state after the partitions of the eighteenth century. The most prominent phenomena in this regard were the subregional programme of an ‘Intermarium’, i.e. Poland, a Polish federation or a confederation of states dominated by Poland reaching ‘from the Baltic to the Black Sea’, as well as the political ritual of Poland's ‘wedding to the sea’, a national ‘tradition’ which was ‘invented’ in 1920, adopted by communism, passed on to Solidarnos´c´ and finally taken up by the Third—democratic—Polish Republic in 1990.

The New Europe: a Federal State or a Confederation of States?

AbstractIn its search for new forms of federal arrangements appropriate to its contemporary situation, Europe is again at the cutting edge in developing new political arrangements for the postmodern epoch. With the collapse of Westphalian statism, those new arrangements are perforce federal, but not in the manner of modern federations. Instead they are postmodern confederations and various kinds of confederal arrangements. The European Union is rapidly becoming the model post‐modern confederation, while other arrangements linking the states of contemporary Europe represent other forms of confederal arrangements. All fit into the spirit and form of globalization and are helping to provide economic globalization with a political and constitutional anchor. Several questions remain, however. How can the European Union become or remain federal rather than hierarchical in orientation, given the pulls of traditional European statism? How will the new confederalism accommodate the various arenas in existing European national state federations?

The Politics of Abortion in Australia: Freedom, Church and State

Through legislation against abortion the State has claimed an interest in, and indeed rights over, women's bodies, and reproduction. Consequently, the Parliaments and legal systems were the institutional arenas in which the initial battles for abortion rights had to be fought. Australia is a confederation of states, each with its own criminal code. Abortion law, and hence practice, differs from state to state and territory. The prevailing situation in each, however, has its origins in particular historical conditions and localized struggles. In each state the outcome of conflicts over legislative reform or repeal in the late 1960s and early 1970s defined particular parameters which have both enabled and constrained the actions of protagonists since, and marked out boundaries around a range of possibilities for political action and abortion practice. This article will focus firstly, then, on abortion struggles at the level of parliamentary, party and electoral politics during the period of liberalization. Analysis of each particular struggle will show, however, that the outcomes were less the result of debates over the issue of

The Three Citizenships*

We are at once citizens of the nation, the states and their local governments. To the extent this citizenship is more than a legal formality, it implies a loyalty, a loyalty of varying degrees to three distinct though by no means separate political communities. The degree of loyalty evinced toward these communities has differed widely over time and over place as circumstances have made one or other plane of government a source of attachment and instrument of common purpose more meaningful to all or some of the nation's inhabitants. Jefferson saw the ward republics as perhaps the most significant level of loyalty to be followed by states and federal government in that order. The nationalist of the Civil War saw in the nation the paramount value center and had little patience with claims of the states. And indeed the Civil War transformed the Union from what many regarded as a confederation of states into a nation state. The federal government which initially was the creation of the states became as the result of the Civil War the final judge of its own powers, if not an Austinian sovereign. Furthermore the new states carved out of the territories were creations of the federal government rather than creators of that government. The thousands of immigrants coming from abroad came to America, not to the individual states, though ethnic concentrations gave particular states a special character and attraction. Vast internal migrations loosened the ties of local territorial loyalty and made many an American a transient with little if any in the way of political roots. The thrust of national market capitalism and the nation state has been to batter down the walls not only of the city as Max Weber saw but of the states as well. How can you *Presented at the Center for the Study of Federalism's Conference Toward '76 Serving the

The Brazilian Tenentes after the Revolution of 1930

The “Tenentes” or “lieutenants” were an important factor in Brazilian politics between 1922 and the end of the government of President Castelo Branco early in 1967. They had an active and occasionally decisive role in most major political events for almost half a century. The emergence of the Tenentes in the 1920s was part of a broader movement of discontent with the Old Republic, a relatively loose confederation of states dominated by rural landed interests and the politicians associated with them. Subsequently, the Tenentes played a key part in overthrowing the Old Republic in the Revolution of 1930.Getúlio Vargas came to power in the 1930 Revolution and stayed in the presidency for fifteen years. As provisional chief executive for more than three years, he suppressed a serious revolt against his authority by the state of Sao Paulo between July and October of 1932, and summoned the assembly that wrote the Constitution of 1934 and chose him to be the first president under it.

Regionalism VS. Sectionalism in the South's Place in the National Economy

T HE assumptions underlying this discussion are that there are certain fundamental distinctions between such as authentic earlier sectionalism of South or Frederick Jackson Turner's equally authentic, historical, political, and economic sectionalism of whole nation, on one hand, and developing cultural and administrative regionalism of United States of I930's, on other. Moreover, Professor Turner's prophecy that sectionalism America was likely to increase rather than decrease seems well on way to fulfillment a sort of recurring new sectionalism, which appears to be primarily a revivification of older sectionalism rationalized into new regionalism. The common confusion of Turner's sectionalism newer prospects of regionalism is not academic and is of critical importance at this time. What distinctions and their implications are and how important it is to turn this present trend toward sectionalism into realistic regionalism will be discussed another paper. It will suffice here, therefore, simply to point to certain distinctions which have a particular bearing upon southern regions national economy. In first place, regionalism envisages Nation first, making national culture and welfare final arbiter. On other hand, sectionalism sees region first and nation afteiwards. Or, Professor Turner's characterization, section thinks in other words, of nation terms of itself. This is no more nor less true of one section than another; no less applicable if leaders who happen to be federal control interpret, to quote Turner again, their own particular sectional culture, economics, politics, and well-being as best for all nation. In second place, sectionalism emphasizes political boundaries and state sovereignties, technical legislation, local loyalties, and confederation of states with common interests, menaced by federal action. Where sectionalism features separateness, regionalism connotes component and constituent parts of larger national culture. Or, to use Turner's definition again, sectionalism is characterized by those manifestations of economic and social separateness involved existence a given region of a set of fundamental assumptions, a mental and emotional attitude which segregates section from other sections or from nation as a whole. Or still again, the various sections of which country is composed are thus seen as potential nations, and the imagination stirs at possibilities of future, when these

The Intercantonal Law of Switzerland (Swiss Interstate Law)

Interstate law is the law governing the relations between the members of a confederation of states with each other, in so far as these are opposed to each other as states. It is distinguished from international law because its subjects are not sovereigns, but belong to a governed body of a superordinate commonwealth. As opposed to federal state law it is characterized by having for its object not relations of supremacy and subordination between the federation and its members, but relations of coordination between the members of the federal state. Interstate law is an intermediary conception between the law of confederations and the law of nations.