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Even in new theories of nation, which claim that nations were invented in modern times by the intellectuals, we still find some foundations for making the difference between "real" & "artificial" nations. This binarism usually introduces the "People" nations of the modernist first-comers, & "Volk" nations of all the others, as in "The Federalist Papers" introduction of representative democracy, & in Herder's "Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind." In both cases, national art is treated as an artificial constructive pillar of the nation & nation state. Comparing the case of Slovenia (the nation-founding story of "Martin Krpan" by Fran Levstik from 1858) with the cases of Greece as "the Dream Nation" & of new African nations, the author concludes that nations are not fictitious inventions of the intellectuals but necessary products of history, & that in their production art had an important position due to its aesthetic function. This function makes it possible to bridge & to universalize on a territory without any certain grounds & limits, across the gap of any modernist binarism. 21 References. Adapted from the source document.

The Nation-State in Question, T.V. Paul, G. John Ilkenberry and John
A. Hall, eds., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. x, 384The matter of globalization and state retreat has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. A phase of globalist europhoria or
alarm, depending on the writer's political tendency, was followed by a series of works debunking the idea as 'globalony' and assuring us that the nation-state was alive and well. This book belongs to
a third wave of writing that seriously tries to understand and measure the changes that states are experiencing, without committing itself in advance to sensationalist conclusions. The chapters come in four sections, on national identities, state security, state autonomy and state capacity.
They are generally empirically grounded, historically informed and balanced in their conclusions. Some are broad comparative reviews and others are case studies, but all of them deploy theoretical arguments capable of wider application and testing.

Argues that economic policy in welfare states is moving toward deregulated markets, reduction of subsidies, & improvement of conditions for investment at the same time that welfare benefits are shrinking & the unemployed face more economic pressure. This ends the welfare state compromise & creates the kind of crisis that the welfare state was designed to avoid. The subsequent social disintegration & emergence of an underclass will eventually destroy liberal political culture. Two main issues are the structural changes in the world economy (globalization) & the restrictions that national governments face in cushioning their populations against globalization. Nations need to devise new policies to adapt to global competition, eg, a state-guaranteed basic income. Implications of a global welfare regime in the new global world order are also discussed. M. Pflum