POLI 283 Nations and States - Fall 2024 PDF

ISSUES AND TRENDS IN WORLD POLITICS NATIONS AND STATES POLI 283 L02 (Fall 2024) Gavin Cameron NATIONS, NATIONALISM, NATION-STATE Key building blocks within global politics because much of the architecture of the world has been built around these three concepts Nations Are intang...

ISSUES AND TRENDS IN WORLD POLITICS NATIONS AND STATES POLI 283 L02 (Fall 2024) Gavin Cameron NATIONS, NATIONALISM, NATION-STATE Key building blocks within global politics because much of the architecture of the world has been built around these three concepts Nations Are intangible and exist because its members recognize each other as belonging to the same group Demographic and cultural similarities May be language, race or religion but may also be common cultural or historical experiences Feeling of community Collective sense of being different from other groups but this in-group/out-group perception is highly subjective Desire to be political separate Wish to have self-determination or self-government to control their own political fate NATIONALISM AND THE NATION-STATE Nationalism is the process of transforming the collective national identity into a political ideology - Always > connects to Connects people by providing a sense of attachment to a particular homeland, giving a a territory sense of identity and self-esteem, motivating them to help their country Loading… Nationalism holds that this should be the primary political identity people hold, even if they have multiple others (national identity tends to be the first (most significance) Potentially both unifying and divisive (because it implies creating an in-group and an out-group) Nation-states are where nations and states overlap Sovereign and where the population collectively identify with the country Decreasingly common in global politics so do not assume that nations and states always or even mostly overlap THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS AND NATIONALISM – EARLY HISTORY Tied to the development of the global system but worth remembering that nations in the modern sense are relatively recent phenomena (ie ideas of a timeless nation are often myths that serve to reinforce the legitimacy of a nation as the primary source of political identity) Nationalism can be traced from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the growth of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, the Holy Roman Empire, the Protestant Reformation and the wars of the 16th and 17th centuries Attempts to consolidate and centralize political power being resisted along religious and local/imperial divisions NATIONALISM – POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY AND SELF- DETERMINATION 18th century Enlightenment was important in promoting a sense of popular sovereignty and revolution which permitted nationalism in its modern sense Changed the relationship between governed and political authority into a social contract (based on liberal thought) Loading… Previously, little identification between monarch and subject and most people identified more with immediate area in which they lived than the country as a whole Disputed whether nationalism is best seen as a bottom-up phenomenon or a top-down version to create cohesion in an era of revolution In many countries the growth of nationalism led to the creation of new states through desire for self-determination State building eg Italy and Germany in the mid 19th century, Japan (1867+) Challenges to empires eg British in North America (l. 18th century+), Spain in Latin America (1820s), Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires (1918+) through to era of decolonization worldwide 1945+ NATIONALISM, COLONIZATION AND DECOLONIZATION The increased coherence of (mostly) European states, tied to industrialization, significantly increased the drive for colonial possessions to provide people, raw materials and markets Nationalism important both in state-building but also increasingly in driving competition between colonial states Nationalism also important in decolonization as demands for self- determination increased within empires in the 19th and 20th centuries Aftermath of World War 2 made empires impossible to maintain logistically as well as legitimately so a wave of decolonialization through to 1970s The process of decolonialization meant that in some places, states evolved separately and earlier than the nations that lived there Empires often broken up into political units that were arbitrarily took little account of the identities and connections of the people who lived there Highly problematic because it forced the joining of diverse peoples into a single political  entity NATIONALISM RECONSIDERED Positives of nationalism Provides cohesion and order within many societies and connects to the development of the global system by promoting the idea that political communities have the right to pursue self-government Liberal idea that nationalism promotes democracy through popular sovereignty so that political power and legitimacy ultimately depends on the people Nationalism discourages imperialism by increasing the costs of maintaining colonies Nationalism promotes economic growth through economies of scale and enhanced social cohesion NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF NATIONALISM Easy for identification with one’s nation to become contempt or lack of identification for those outside that group Parochialism or lack of concern for others has implications for many aspects of global politics such as aid or acceptance of policies that are harmful to those outside the nation Xenophobia and exceptionalism Fear/hatred of an out-group and belief that your nation is superior to all others has often led to past conflicts either because of historical wrongs that one group hopes to address or from a feeling that exceptionalism justifies dominance Nativism is the belief that established inhabitants of a nation-state should be preferred over recent migrants which is especially problematic as many states become increasingly multicultural because it reinforces the concept of a nation as exclusive rather than inclusive  Cultural discrimination and oppression is sometimes the result of a SELF-DETERMINATION Is self-determination a positive or a problematic goal? Positives A norm upon which much of the global system is based Potential to reduce abuses from ethnic, racial, linguistic or religious oppression of minority by majority populations Negatives Hard to achieve in practice since which ethnic groups that develop national consciousness should be accommodated in their desire for self-determination and on what basis? Existing states hold political power through recognition of new states and have an interest in the status quo since many have their own minority populations Fragmentation is usually messy and contested and there’s no guarantee that smaller territorial units correspond any better with the location of nations particularly in multinational states where there has been extensive inter-mingling WHY DOES NATIONALISM PERSIST? Ultra-nationalism was widely blamed as a cause of World War 2 and many liberal thinkers have predicted that, particularly after the end of the Cold War, a new global system would emerge that supersede the core role of nations and states with cooperation and cosmopolitanism Has not happened: continued calls for nations to have their claims to a state recognized Particularly a function of decolonization but also the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Generally, fragmentation rather than the creation of new larger states German unification the main exception Nationalism getting stronger again in some countries as a populist rejection of globalization, suspicion of institutions and elites, and resistance to immigrants and migrants THE SOVEREIGN STATE Academic debates over the future of the state are similar to those over nations The core actor of global politics (realists) / increasingly just one among many actors (liberals) / an actor that needs to be challenged because it solidifies a repressive status Loading… quo (feminists and other critical theorists) Emergence of modern states in the late medieval/early modern period in Europe came from the contestation for authority that occurred as a result of religious, economic and social changes in that period Uneven process and city-states, leagues, empires and monarchies continued to exist long after this period in Europe and elsewhere States have a role in providing security and societal goods to citizens so the ability to sustain social order and stability is critically tied to its claim of legitimacy and therefore to the state as holding the monopoly on coercive force (primarily internally but also externally when required) REQUISITES OF STATEHOOD 1 All states have certain characteristics and how they utilize these allows one to assess states individually for effectiveness, and collectively for continued dominance of global politics Sovereignty is the exclusive legal right to govern the territory and people within its borders and the formal legal equality among states Partially eroded by international legal institutions that safeguard international human rights etc Sovereignty and independence are different since independence is conditioned by power Territory is the physical boundaries that encompass a state, but this is problematic since these boundaries can be contested and change over time Population is the people within a state but both dual-citizenship and residency in another country are increasingly common, blurring the line between population and primary loyalty REQUISITES OF STATEHOOD 2 Internal organization includes the political and economic structure that permits governance to occur, but this is problematic since, in reality, the reach of the government has always been weak in some states and may be disrupted by turmoil in other cases Diplomatic recognition by other states matters, but it is not clear how many states must extend recognition for a state to exist within the global system or whether it is more about which states extend recognition rather than how many Taiwan and Palestine are examples of “embryonic states” that function as states in many ways but lack complete diplomatic recognition of their sovereignty Domestic support matters because it is hard to govern for long without at least the grudging acceptance of the people Even authoritarian regimes struggle to cope with widespread and open opposition  THINKING ABOUT STATES Regime type and governance How a state is governed affects not only the types of process and policies it pursues in foreign policy but also how that state is received by other actors within global politics Broadly differentiated between authoritarian (decision making by a few and generally more restrictive) and democratic (more inclusive decision making and generally less restrictive) but this is a continuum, and many countries do not neatly fall into one or other category Important to note that states can move in either direction on that continuum and the overall global trend can change over time Growing democratization after the Cold War but increased authoritarianism in some states more recently Weak and failed states are states that exist and have legal sovereignty but struggle with one or more of the requisites of statehood Since many of these factors can be problematized, it is worth thinking how many of them are either essential for a state to retain credibility as a viable actor or even continue existing