Under the pressure of internal and external developments the South African government dropped what had been its dominant concept of a segregated multi-nation state, announcing instead the new basic concept of an integrated one-nation state. This basic concept, however, does not imply that a one-nation South Africa will be governed according to democratic criteria and the principle of majority rule without regard to race. The new concept calls into question institutions and practices of apartheid that have developed over many decades and it will inevitably lead to the search for a new national identity among whites as well. (DÜI-Sen)
This is a comprehensive and accessible account of the nature of nationalism, which has re-emerged as one of the fundamental forces shaping world society today.
IN RECENT YEARS IT HAS BECOME A COMMONPLACE OF BOTH academic and financial discourse that we are living in a new economic and political world in which financial globalization is destroying the economic autonomy of individual states and hence the foundations of the nation-state as the focus of political authority and the possibilities of politics. Of course, other threats to the nation-state exist — most crucially, the inability to reconcile its virtual monopoly of political authority, and the constraints it imposes on cooperation between states, with ecological causality — but it is the macro-economic crisis of the state which has captured most attention. Undoubtedly, the contemporary international financial environment makes macro-economic management an extremely difficult practical task for many states. With the daily value of foreign exchange transactions amounting to over $1200 billion, governments run the perpetual risk that their choices, or indeed those of other governments, will precipitate an unsustainable rise or fall in the value of their currency. At the same time they must, if they wish to borrow in international capital markets, pursue policies which will secure, and retain, the confidence of international investors. This, of course, creates a very considerable incentive for governments to choose policies which, in both fiscal and monetary terms, prioritize low inflation over growth and employment.
The aim of this article is to revisit the significance of national and nation-state animal symbolism within the context of modern constitutionalism and its democratic emphasis on equal rights, regardless of gender. I discuss the problematic conveyance of gender inclusiveness through the animal sign, and how both at a linguistic and at a visual level (through sexual monomorphism and dimorphism), gender politics may become inscribed within the anthropomorphized animal and its body. I then turn to examine recent examples in which women's inclusion within the animal symbol has been debated or once again dismissed through a reinstatement of patriarchal expectations. I close the article with a few questions regarding how (and/or whether) the type of gender equality desired and proclaimed by modern nation-states could potentially become encrypted within the animal body.
The paper proceeds from the assumption that globalization has placed significant constraints on the autonomy of nation states in the making of social policy. It argues that the post‐World War II welfare state represented a social system highly successful in combining economic efficiency and dynamism with equity and solidarity. This historic achievement at the nation‐state level is being undermined by economic globalization. It is both necessary and feasible to recreate and institutionalize this mixed system globally. The paper argues that the concept of social rights, which has served as the basic underpinning of the welfare state, has many weaknesses—logical as well as empirical. While the principles of civil and political rights are being consolidated and extended worldwide the principle of social rights is in decay. The paper presents the case for replacing social rights by social standards as the major concept for buttressing systems of social protection. To be applicable globally a social standard must be conceptualized as a level of social development which corresponds to an appropriate level of economic development. Finally, the paper considers the problems and prospects of developing social standards transnationally. It reviews, briefly, the nature and extent of transnational social policy‐making by inter‐governmental organizations and concludes that despite difficulties of global action advances towards global social standards remain possible.
MANY HAVE ARGUED THAT THE NATION-STATE IS WITHERING IN THE FACE OF GLOBALIZATION, ON THE ONE HAND, AND A RISING ETHNIC CONSCIOUSNESS, ON THE OTHER. THE PURPOSE OF THIS ARTICLE IS TO REVIEW CRITICALLY THESE ARGUMENTS BY EXAMINING THE CASE OF SINGAPORE, WHERE NEITHER GLOBALIZATION NOR MULTI-ETHNICITY HAS INHIBITED THE DEVELOPMENT OF A STRONG NATION-STATE. IT ARGUES THAT VARIATIONS IN THE STRENGTH OF NATION-STATES CAN BE ELUCIDATED BY PERCEIVING THEM AS UNITS OF IDEOLOGICAL MANAGEMENT, RATHER THAN SIMPLY AS UNITS OF ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT.
Building on our comparative research about policies and politics of redress in Tanzania and Fiji, we identify and explore nation-building in post-colonial ethnically and racially divided states. The historical legacies of colonial and post-colonial state formation give rise to two issues. The problem of national identity arises from the need of post-colonial states to overcome legacies of colonial racial formations that created strong elements of group identification. With independence, nation-states face competing pressures to address enduring inequality but also to respond to political mobilisation, both of which may be grounded in group identities. The dilemma of democratic legitimacy derives from the competing pressures of nation-states to follow global norms of behaviour while responding to the domestic electorate. In such instances, states may be judged on different, incompatible criteria. Because national identity did not grow in tandem with the administrative apparatus of the state in these societies, the state may become spoils for political victors, prolonging existing divisions. Overcoming these problems will require enlightened leadership, both domestically and internationally. Adapted from the source document.
The second disintegration of the empire this century has reopened the debate over Russian state and nation building with direct implications both for Russia's reform process and for its relations with other newly independent states. In December 1991, the Russian Federation was transformed into an independent state as a historically formed regional entity, not as a nation state. Scholars argue that the Russian empire was built "at the cost of Russia's own sense of nationhood." In the past, the efforts spent conquering and ruling vast territories and diverse populations diverted the Russian people and their leaders from the task of consolidation and nation building. This was true not only in the prerevolutionary but also in the Soviet period, during which the majority of Russians saw the entire USSR rather than the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) as their homeland. Now, after the disintegration of the USSR, the questions arise whether the majority of Russians can accept the borders of the Russian Federation as final, and, if not, what the alternative myths of Russia's national homeland are? The answers to these questions determine whether Russians will ever be able to define themselves other than as an imperial people.
THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN BORDER QUESTION ALWAYS CONSISTED OF FAR MORE THAN SIMPLY A TERRITORIAL DISPUTE. IT INEVITABLY BECAME BOUND UP WITH QUESTIONS OF STATE AND NATION-BUILDING, THE CREATION OF NEW POST-SOVIET NATIONAL IDENTITIES, AND THE FORGING OF CIVIC NATIONS. THIS ARTICLE SURVEYS THE ROOTS OF THE UKRAINIAN-RUSSIAN TERRITORIAL DISPUTE AND HOW HISTORY HAS BEEN BROUGHT INTO PLAY AS A MEANS TO ARGUE FOR THE "RIGHT" OF FIRST SETTLEMENT. IT THEN DISCUSSES ATTITUDES WITHIN UKRAINE TO ITS TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY.
AbstractWith the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have entered a period of nationstate building, which had been started to a large extend by the political elites of the former Soviet Union. These republics were not prepared for independence that came to the region suddenly. The former communist leaders of the Soviet era became the new national elites to take their countries by publicly declared goals and policies through the path of independent nationhood and independent statehood. However, it remains unclear whether this top-to-bottom approach will prove successful in the long run. This article discusses nationstate building in the region by first looking at problems of external sovereignty. Second, domestic state building policies and structures, more specifically, the newly formulated official discourse on-building nation- and the political-legal framework to develop that discourse, are analyzed. Then, the limitations of this process with specific emphasis on supranational identities (basically religious identity of Islam), subnational identities (local and/or tribal identities), and ethnic minorities (with a specific on the Russians in these five countries) are examined. It is concluded that the process of nation-state building in Central Asia is not complete yet and that each republic has unique problems that may challenge this process. For the time being, there exist certain frictions between the goals of the official discourse and nonofficial levels of identity that may hinder the success of the nation building process in the region.
In his long reign, King Chulalongkorn displayed deep wisdom and political acumen in laying down the foundation of the Siamese nation-state. He continued the project of his father in modernizing Siamese state and society. In the early period of his reign, his efforts were opposed by conservative forces and vested interested, but he bid his time and pressed on when situation improved. With a weak military and no support from Britain, he was forced to give outlying territories to France under gunboat threats. The event spurred him on to speed up and intensify the program to modernize and build a unitary and absolutist modern state. His visits abroad and other exposures to the outside world stimulated him to take steps to build a Siamese nation by nurturing a collective sense of identity of the peoples in Siam. By virtue of his achievements, he left behind a significant legacy and a distinctive imprint on the Thai political culture. The paper discusses to what extent was Siam different from her neighbors, given the fact that she was able to escape being colonized.
Crafting an adequate and cohesive global response to climate change has presented a monumental challenge. Fairly distributing climate responsibility, the concept of common but differentiated responsibilities for climate action, has been a key obstacle. Traditionally, climate responsibility has focused on the nation-state, yet these methods of responsibility allocation have failed in their key goal; to drive effective action to respond to the social and environmental consequences of climate change. This paper seeks to strengthen the link between climate responsibility and effective action across society. Building on currently accepted methods of responsibility allocation, particularly the 'Carbon Majors', I map the transfer of wealth during the production of greenhouse gases from extraction location to end recipient in company shareholders, with the aim of better representing a problem that is not neatly contained within national borders.
Accounts of new forms of society and economy supported by advances in information and communications technology have both identified and fostered a belief in the growing importance of cities and urban–regions. Cities, indeed, would appear to be replacing nation–states as the dominant unit of economic organization and social identification. Yet conceptualizations in the existing literature are derived from a small number of supposedly paradigmatic urban cases. This article argues that urban and regional studies should be attentive to a diversity which is perhaps lost in the universalizing epochal phrase 'Information Age'. The on–going development of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), a high–tech urban expansion of the Malaysian national capital, Kuala Lumpur, is used as a case study to (re)examine city–nation–state relations. Rather than presuming a substitution of 'cities for nations', the article identifies dimensions of reworked mutuality between the MSC city–region and the Malaysian nation–state. MSC urban development is shown to be: (1) an expression of re–scaled central (federal) state power; (2) a 'national node' for plugging Malaysia into the global information society; and (3) an exemplary space of high–tech Malaysian nationalism. These traits may have resonances elsewhere. However, the intention here is not to posit a set of generalized new city–nation–state mutualities, but rather to highlight the importance of exploration through specific urban–national cases.Les récits de nouvelles formes de société et d'économie facilitées par les progrès de la technologie de l'information et des communications ont à la fois instauré et renforcé une croyance en l'importance croissante des grandes villes et régions urbaines. Les villes remplaceraient mÁme les États–nations en tant qu'unités prédominantes de l'organisation économique et de l'identification sociale. Pourtant, les conceptualisations existantes sont tirées d'un petit nombre de cas urbains supposés typiques. Cet article affirme que les études urbaines et régionales devraient s'attacher à une diversité peut–Átre effacée par l'expression généralisatrice incontournable: l'ère de l'information. Le développement actuel du Super Corridor Multimédia (MSC), extension urbaine de la haute–technologie de la capitale de la Malaisie, Kuala Lumpur, sert d'étude de cas pour (ré)examiner les relations ville–État–nation. Au lieu de supposer une substitution des nations par les villes, l'article définit les dimensions d'une mutualité refaçonnée entre la ville MSC–région et l'État–nation malais. L'extension urbaine du MSC est présentée comme une expression redimensionnée de la puissance de l'État (fédéral) central, un 'nœud national' permettant de connecter la Malaisie à la société d'information mondiale, et un espace caractéristique du nationalisme malais High–tech. Ce portrait peut trouver un écho ailleurs. Cependant, le but n'est pas ici de poser en principe un ensemble de nouvelles mutualités généralisées ville––État–nation, mais de souligner l'importance d'une exploration à travers des cas urbains–nationaux spécifiques.
