Timothy Garton Ash wrote a superb essay last week on this subject, mourning the fact that Berlusconi the Clown is the only European politician known all across Europe, and including the unpleasant jibe that Garibaldi had not unified Italy but rather he had divided Africa.
5 comments:
he is only known because of his idiotic jibes. and as for Italy's unsuccessful national unity, who cares really? nation states are going to be exctinct in 2 centuries, Italy is just ahead of its time...
I rather agree with you: the nation-state seems like an ill-fitting structure given the way the world is evolving.
Genius historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto argues that the "natural" structures of human social and political organisation are city-states and empires, and it's only in the last couple of hundred years that the nation-state has emerged as a "Third Way" (and not everywhere, of course -- some places that pretend to have a nation-state are not really anything of the sort, from Yemen to some of the frontier areas of South America).
His view is that nation-states are inherently unstable, constantly on the brink of tipping over into either an empire or a city-state. He makes a compelling case (he argues that empires can be economic, like the current US empire, rather than only being military).
I think there's also an argument that the growing successes of asymmetric warfare are undermining the credibility of the nation-state as a guarantor of security (which has always been its biggest claim). Depending on how technology develops, this may accelerate the move away from the nation-state.
I agree that history is not static, but i'm not quite sure whether changes should only be restricted to nations (or what exactly differentiates nations from empires, if you boil it down to the facts).
I'm not aware of the usage of the term 'nation' with regard to the kingdom of Britain (no empire anymore ;-) (i.e. is Britain a nature?), but there is at least constant talk about some political parties in Scotland trying to separate from Britain (and in Wales too?).
In contrast there seems to be no talk of the Bretagne and Camargue trying to separate from 'La grande nation' France, where the term nation was invented according to my thesaurus (as voluntary federation of peoples in a state; i assume to legitimate the state of France after the 'loss' of the justification via the kingdom). And de Gaulle addressed the french as 'peuple'?
Our first nation state was a 'Reich' (the second empire ;-); and with Sweden i associate the term nation regardless of the facts that their parliament is the Riksdag and that they have a Rikspolisen.
But maybe i fail to see, what exactly is the difference between a nation and an empire. With regard to the growing (?) success of asymmetric warfare the first state to fail in recent times here coming into my mind are the USA (nation or empire?).
Okay, i forgot about the Corse and the OAS. And Spain (is the spanish state a nation?). Was Yugoslavia a nation?
China is an empire, but there is a second definition of nation, encompassing people of the same culture (and afaik chinese politics argues 'along this line' in inner conflicts).
My point is i don't understand why an empire (e.g. China) is a 'natural' structure and the real difference between an empire and a nation-state. It looks like that all failures will be classified per se as nation-states (at least judging from the few sentences describing the arguments of Fernandez-Armesto).
Not a big deal; just some thoughts which came into my mind when reflecting about this topic.
Glad this has stimulated you!
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is far better placed to argue this than me (I strongly recommend you look out for one of his public lectures), but to take the UK as an example, he would argue that Scotland is in fact already an empire -- the lowlanders invaded and engaged in genocide against the highlanders (my Scottish readers will be appalled by this crass generalisation, but it serves to make the point), crushing dissent and imposing (mostly) their own language and culture on their "colony". The Scots are brilliant at empire, which is why they are now regarded as a nation rather than an empire.
Even the "core" of China is already made up of different cultures (even at the level of Mandarin versus Cantonese speakers, before we consider cuisine!) which suggests it is already more empire than nation; but throw in Mongolia and its assorted conquests and its nature is clear. And in some ways it now seems to be following the US model of global dominance through an economic empire.
I suspect my historian would argue the city-state is a "natural" structure (after all, humans have organised in this way for the vast majority of their agricultural history), and that, occasionally, circumstances conspire to let one of them grow into an empire (from Carthage and Rome to Venice and London. London sort of...).
Appropriately enough, there's lots of scope for arguments about definitions and boundaries in any discussion of this subject!
Post a Comment