Redefining the nation-state for a new global order

James Anderson states that “there is a growing belief that the nation-state has outlived its usefulness”, but he questions the accuracy of this observation – whether the nation-state is truly dying. Upon reflection of this debate, I find myself at an uneasy conclusion. I can accept the idea that in a very real sense the nation-state, in its current form, has in many ways become ineffectual and useless, but that is not to say, however, that the nation-state is dead or dying. Rather, I believe that what the nation-state is undergoing is not as simple as life nor death, but something else entirely – a reshaping; a redefinition; an evolution.
 

The debate surrounding the status and utility of the nation-state is complex. First, is the very obvious argument that the nation-state is dead, weakened by the crushing, combined pressures of powerful supranational entities pushing down from above, and regional interests pushing up from below the level of the nation-state. There certainly is validity within this argument, as growing external and internal forces are clearly challenging the power of the nation-state, spurred on by the spread of neo-liberal ideologies and the rise of globalization. While the former promotes the decentralization of authority within the nation-state and a greater involvement in economic markets, the latter brings the world together on a scale never experienced before.
 

As a result of these forces – liberalization and globalization – we see the rise of powerful transnational companies, made rich and influential through the stimulus of our liberalized, capitalist economy, and  supported by the framework laid down by globalization. In a world where time and space are compressed, and the friction of distance is lessened substantially by advanced telecommunications and increasingly rapid transportation networks, national borders begin to blur. This is exacerbated by decentralization within nation-state governments, as lessening of control in the economic markets mean transnational companies have even greater ease of moving in, while the creation of authoritative bodies above the level of the state – supranational institutions like the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO work to remove even more power from the hands of the nation-state in order to invest it in the economic markets. Surely, it is hard to argue in favour of the nation-state’s lasting authority when faced with countless examples of a nation-state, like Jamaica, that have been crippled by the economic and socio-political restrictions imposed on them by the Structural Adjustment Programs of the IMF and World Bank. If the nation-state was still useful, how could a country be controlled by outside forces? And what of regionalization, the forming of economic and political blocs, like the European Union, where membership requires nation-states to concede some their authority? How much authority can be conceded before the nation-state is just a shell of what it was?
 

Just as there are external forces forming over-arching interests above the level of the nation-state, there are also internal interests removing themselves from beneath the direct control of the state. As mentioned earlier, a side-effect of neo-liberalization is the decentralization of nation-state governments to allow for greater market freedom. Part of this process involves the off-loading of state responsibilities either to more local governments or the private sector. This is illustrated within the Canadian context in the form of federal off-loading of costs for social programs and health care onto the provincial governments. As local governments take on more responsibility however, the control of the state over them steadily diminishes. What results is the creation of regions within nation-states that are able to compete on the same level as, or more effectively than, the nation-state as a whole. Indeed the power of the nation-state seems to be eroding.
 

But, what of the other side of the argument, you ask? The side that suggests that the nation-state surely cannot be dead when nationalistic attitudes are growing?  While I agree that nationalism is on the rise, I do not agree that it is a nationalism based primarily on a shared belonging to a territorial nation. Instead, I think that nationalism too has been elevated above the nation-state, and I attribute this to globalization in a number of ways. For one, globalization has meant that now, more than ever before, people are spread out across the globe, living in places that may be thousands of kilometres away from their cultural origins, but at the same time globalization has enabled individuals to stay connected with the value systems they’ve left behind – via the internet, and satellite television. In this way, globalization has given birth to a kind of supranationalism – as exemplified by the nation of Islam – which has no tangible territorial borders, but is nonetheless a powerful cultural and political phenomenon.
 

I believe that the nation-state has outlived its usefulness in many aspects, indeed I think the fact that nationalism is no longer confined by territorial borders is evidence that the past ideologies of the nation-state are changing. Although I feel that the nation-state’s utility has been challenged, I would not suggest that the nation-state is dead. Rather, the nation-state is still very important for manoeuvring within a national and global context – we use it still as a regulatory body, at home and abroad, to protect common interests, just as we use our nation-state affiliations in a manner of comparison, as a way to relate to the ‘other’.
 

The nation-state, I think, cannot really die simply because it is a social construction – an imagination of ourselves. It may become ineffectual; it may no longer serve the purpose we set out for it initially, but that is not a sign of death. Instead, ineffectiveness is a sign that we have reached the point where we must re-imagine the nation-state. In that sense the nation-state does not die, rather it evolves and is given a new mandate, a new purpose. As long as there are those who believe in the power of the nation-state it will exist.