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What takes the place of the nation-state?
The nation-state as a primary locus of power in the world is a paradigm that dates back only a few hundred years. Could that model be replaced in our lifetimes by something different?
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Posted by Sean on 02/23 at 07:43 PM
Just some simple math but if 22 people in the poll are about 7% of the total votes then that means around 300 people actually voted on it. Of these 300 most if not all of them share similar interests as they navigated to this page. This poll is sounding pretty biased to me...
Posted by Mike Treder on 02/23 at 07:54 PM
You're right, Sean, that about 300 people voted in this poll. But please note that it was never intended to be, nor was it presented as, a scientifically conducted survey; rather, it's an informal poll of our readers. Just that and nothing more.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 02/24 at 11:20 AM
I hope today's nation states will disappear -- not replaced by a global government (aka the Big Brotheresque Benevolent and Idiotic Dictatorship of the Nanny State Bureaucracy), but replaced by network of smaller, autonomous city states. Or, even better, replaced by geographically distributed intentional communities (called Emergent Social Media in the poll).
But I don't see this happening, and 40 years seem too short a timeframe anyway, so I voted "Nation-states will continue to rule - Forty years is a long time, but maybe not long enough to dislodge the nation-state as primary sovereign".
Posted by Kyle Munkittrick on 02/24 at 04:19 PM
Giulio, I agree. The nation-state has existed since the Treaty of Westphalia and, really, was effectively the model of international relations long before that. The only counter-model that one might consider are corporations. China is effectively a corporate nation-state, running its affairs like a giant company, a blend of the two concepts.
What I think is more likely to happen is that "Emergent Social Media" will begin to take hold and people who try to use it to reject the nation-state model will be reminded, severely, that even the most democratic of governments do not seed their sovereignty willingly or gently. I find this whole discussion humorous in the light of Martine's post on "bemes" that is, aspects of consciousness that wish to replicate themselves (I'm not wholly convinced, btw). State power always seeks to create and justify state power: that is why democracies are primarily structured to hamstring themselves.
In short, I don't think we'll see an end to the nation-state system within the next century short of a cataclysm.
Posted by jhughes on 02/24 at 04:40 PM
> I don't think we'll see an end to the nation-state system within the next century short of a cataclysm.
One of the few things we can reliably predict...
> Governments do not seed their sovereignty willingly
Agreed, but then you can see the slow and grudging victory of existing transnational institutions over nation-states already, from the World Bank, IMF and WTO, to the European Union and NATO, to the IAEA and UN human rights regimes. Its painfully slow, but the trend is toward transnational governance.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 02/25 at 04:32 AM
@James: in most of the examples you give, the transnational institution has no real decision making and enforcement powers, because the participating nation states do not wish so. They are just means to protect the sovereignty of the participating nation states while paying lip services to transnational sovereignty.
The EU, which is beginning to get some autonomous powers, is much worse and on its way to becoming a Big Brotheresque Benevolent and Idiotic Dictatorship of the Nanny State Bureaucracy. At least with nation states you always have the option of moving somewhere else if you don't like things where you are.
No, I look forward to seeing things evolving the other way: fragmenting today's nation states in smaller autonomous communities or city states, with global coordination for global issues and full autonomy for local issues.
Posted by Kyle Munkittrick on 02/25 at 10:53 AM
@James: I can see the "victory" in some cases, but I'm not sure those systems are tenable. The UN has been successful in preventing another world war, but not much else. The EU is starting to see some serious problems both with its economic structure and membership ranks. It's mostly dependent on whether or not the UK signs on. Qualifications aside, you're right. The movement of the past 200 years has been more and more international. I don't see that trend reversing, the way Giulio does.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 02/25 at 01:51 PM
@Kyle: I don't see that trend reversing, the way Giulio does.
I don't see that trend reversing either. But my point is, it is a bad trend. I don't wish to live in a dictatorship, benevolent or not, and I am happier knowing that there is a different place to go if things become bad where I am.
Therefore, I am in favor of fragmentation and decentralization of power -- which is also a trend in some nations like Spain and Italy.
Posted by Kyle Munkittrick on 02/25 at 04:09 PM
@Giulio Ah yes, Italy, that libertarian haven, where the state media is controlled by a philandering mafia moron who enjoys litigating against Google in an effort to quash the internet. A great example of decentralization.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 02/26 at 03:11 AM
@Kyle You cannot expect the government to push for decentralization, can you. There are regional movement campaigning for decentralization.
Posted by Ben Zaiboc on 02/27 at 05:49 PM
I can think of nothing worse than a global government. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket! It baffles me why this option seems so popular.
Posted by Sean Henderson on 03/04 at 05:04 AM
The threats to humanity posed by biotechnology and our advanced weaponry, as well as the pollution of industrialization - require that we act as one on many levels.
There will always be regional laws and cultures, yet these will be eroded over time, replaced by universality.
Technology will create the new world order - the singularity.
Those who are powerful will attempt to remain powerful.
Posted by Cyber-Communist on 03/11 at 06:54 AM
"Judging that both national governments and global institutions have proven ineffective in addressing worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual nation-states to solve, some political scientists, such as Mark C. Partrige, argue that regionalism will be the major force in the coming decades, pockets of power around regional centers: Western Europe around Brussels, the Western Hemisphere around Washington, D.C., East Asia around Beijing, and Eastern Europe around Moscow. As such, the E.U., the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the G-20 will likely become more influential as time progresses. The question then is not whether global governance is gradually emerging, but rather how will these regional powers interact with one another."
One World Government: Conspiracy Theory or Inevitable Future?
http://www.diplomaticourier.org/kmitan/articleback.php?newsid=259
Posted by Dwight Jones on 03/15 at 12:25 AM
The World State will by 2050 be governed by the UN's Parliamentary Assembly, and the globe itself locally eligible to be made up of cantons reporting only to the UN.
Some federations of such cantons will resemble 'nations", but essentially we will have hub-and spoke governance as a species at last.
The main focus will be on the terraforming of Venus for the latter part of the century.
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