4 - The Nation-State

Summary

Like democracy, the nation-state is under attack. This should not come as a surprise as democracy is in many respects the political system born to support the nation-state. Like democracy, the strength of the nation-state is, or rather was, coherence, solidarity and a feeling among citizens of being in the same boat. Under the impact of information and communication technology, citizens shift their allegiance to other institutions or groups, cutting the link of mutual dependence holding the nation-state together.

• • It is being replaced by people shifting their adherence and loyalty from a nation-state (nationality as identity) to common and shared values.

• • The role of migration questions the prerogative of the nationstate as the “best” political system. Migration is rarely motivated by a wish to take on another national identity.

• • It is being undermined by the big data companies delivering instruments for communication—social networks overruling the privilege of a nation-state of controlling communication with its people.

A genuine nation-state with a single ethnicity, a single religion and a common culture is difficult to find nowadays. Fifty years ago, such could perhaps be found among the Nordic countries in Europe (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland), but since migration began in the 1970s and 1980s the picture has changed.

And with regard to the idea of the nation-state, it should be borne in mind that even if the label is used freely for countries around the globe, there is in reality a big difference among nation-states depending on where they find themselves and their history.

Almost all the genuine nation-states are to be found in Europe. The idea of the nation-state goes back to the end of the Thirty Years War with the Westphalian Peace in 1648. Over recent decades, minorities have risen to question their adherence to the nation-state, as seen in Britain with Scotland and in Spain with Catalonia. It is sometimes forgotten that two instances of what look like solid European nation-states— Germany and Italy—were first created in 1871 and 1861, respectively. In the early 1990s, Yugoslavia, an artificial nation-state created after the end of World War I, collapsed.