Has Globalization Ended the Rise and Rise of the Nation-State?

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of capitalism began across the globe, and it was not easy to assess the emerging situation, especially in terms of nation-states. There were several questions in the minds of people and people in power. Despite these questions, the first and foremost development of the post-Cold War world was the emergence of a coalition of major powers to maintain world order. The US, being the political and military leader; in economic matters, its leadership has weakened to that of being first among several equals. The new world functioned domestically within the same framework of liberal democracy and market-friendly economies.

The new idea was based on multilateralism that would sustain the hegemony of the industrial world and offer scope for maneuvering to the developing nations. The main characteristic of the emerging global order can be described as "competitive interdependence."

Globalization with capitalism resulted in the interdependence of national economies through the integration of markets and changing strategies of transnational corporations. The process of integration of markets has created tension between the power of states and the market forces, resulting in a situation where the reach of sovereign economic power is shrinking to the size of relative autonomy in decision-making.

There are currently five socio-spatial networks of social interaction: local, national, international, transnational, and global.

The Idea of the ‘Nation-State’

The term arose when the West, its colonies, and its inhibitors started claiming political sovereignty over its territories and legitimacy over them.

The claims have been expanded through the ages, starting with the monopoly of judicial regulation and military force in the middle ages to integrating communications infrastructure in the eighteenth century. The twentieth century saw a significant shift with a sense of mass nationalism and welfare states. This led to the legitimation through the citizenship of its people.

Since 1945, the nation-state has grown to dominate 'the north,' referring to the European continent and expanding portions of East and South Asia. Its institutional trappings have likewise ruled 'the south,' whereas all states convene on a platform known as the United Nations.

Capitalism and its Threat

Capitalism is the new global form of market in the world. According to Michael Mann, it was a result of two great political events: firstly, decolonization and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Except for countries like China, Iran, and Cuba, the rest of the world functions on capitalism.

Though we say that capitalism is based on universalism, it is not entirely true; Europe, North America, and East Asia control most of the capitalist activities and hold hegemony over others. For instance, the headquarters of the Bretton Woods institutions are based in the US, Washington. Numbers show over 85% of the world trade and 90% of advanced production are actually 'trilateral.'

This, however, does not imply that capitalism is not global. However, it does represent the West's control over others. "Clusters of nation-states provide the stratification order of globalism." The global economy is governed through loose and mostly soft inter-national institutions such as the G7, GATT, the World Bank, and the IMF. The north similarly dominates these. Some are engaging in trade liberalization discussions, which are likely to go much longer.

Its mobility and rapidity generate financial moves that overwhelm state budgetary resources. However, determining the overall relevance is problematic for two reasons. First, the paper value of 'financial flows' much outweighs that of global commerce and continues to rise. How efficient macroeconomic planning was in the northwest of England must be established. It was effective when tremendous growth took place and administrations had access to reserves. Many may be moderately interventionist, while selective incentives outperformed physical controls.

Its superpower, the USA, dominates North America. This has an unusual state, with its unique war machine and (relatively meager) social security system. Three significant industries are closely entwined with the federal government: agriculture, the military-industrial complex, and health care.

Japan's political economy varies from that of North America and Europe in that the state and capitalist firms work much more closely together. Such national cooperation has taken many forms in East Asia's smaller economies. These countries also have security and stability and a developed civilized society that is steady, literate, and generally trustworthy. They have likewise witnessed amazing growth, but at a halt.

Europe is the sole member of the three areas that have seen significant political change. The original impulse for this was primarily geopolitical and military: to connect Germany into a harmonious concert of nation-states to avert a third destructive war on the continent. As a result, Europe's economy has become significantly trans-nationalized. However, the European Union remains a union of nation-states, a global network of contact.

Even though the world has a single universal market, many essential goods are not sold as commodities on free markets. None of the three most significant industries in the US economy—defense, health care, and illicit drugs—are dominated by commodity production, though all involve multiple transnational networks. In defense, for example, the government is a monopolistic customer for high-tech weapons systems and decides what other states will be allowed as customers.

Though globalization and capitalism are universal/generally accepted in the world right now, they are still a combination of transnational and international.

Environmental Limits, New Social Movements, and A New Transnational Civil Society

The dangers of biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare reinforce another form of globalism. With population growth, natural resource shortages and environmental pollution can occur. They say we are living in Beck's 'risk society.' As we have discussed earlier, the south suffers from abject poverty and a lack of even the basic integrity of a human, but the entire world shares a common environment. Thus, humanity as a whole suffers from it. 'Mastery' and 'exploitation' of nature are also attributable to industrialism and other modes of production. State socialism (and fascism, too) was even more destructive to the environment. To address these concerns, remedies must extend beyond the nation-state and capitalism. Organizations are already implementing variations on the well-known environmental maxim. The term ‘soft geopolitics’ is also becoming more used in this context. The deployment of intergovernmental agencies is increasing, including macro regional and continental agencies, UN conferences, and so on.

Their key participants are representatives of nation-states. It is usually argued that those concerned with the 'new politics' of the identity of gender, sexuality, lifestyle, age cohort, religion, and ethnicity weaken national (and nationally regulated class) identities. But for other social movements based on identity politics, I argue that they strengthen existing nations on balance.

In addition to focusing their efforts on their home nation and the UN, feminists, gay people, religious fundamentalists, and other groups use new global communication networks and NGOs. However, the majority of contesting actors call for more regulation by their nation-legal state or welfare agencies, including restrictions or liberalizations on abortion, premarital conception, and single parenting; clarification of harassment, child abuse, and rape; and protection or limitation of the rights of those who have unconventional sexual preferences or lifestyles. Since the nation-state dominates authoritative social control, the rise of new identities may ultimately re-energize its politics and widen its remit. Class politics, it is claimed, discourages new social movements. Possibly, class politics won't go away.

Some recent examples could be 'COP26' and social movements such as 'LGBTQIA+' and 'Black Lives Matter.'

Post-Nuclearism

The year 1993 started with the signing of the START II agreement between the US and Russia, which would reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals of nearly 24000 warheads by almost two-thirds.

The end of the Cold War has highlighted severe contradictions in the nuclear field. First, the altered political and economic relationship between the US (and West Europe) and the former USSR has undermined the very rationale of nuclear weapons. The logic that nuclear weapons have kept the peace in Europe is no longer valid. In fact, 50,000 warheads created for this purpose have not prevented the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and the trans-Caucasian region. And yet the USA and Russia, even after START-II, fully implemented by 2003, would possess 6,500 strategic (and unspecified non-strategic) warheads. There can be cold comfort in the knowledge that the world could be destroyed only twenty times as compared to the capacity to destroy it sixty times over at the peak of the Cold War!

Northern states are less willing to engage in wholesale war than most states in history. Europeans are the most hesitant militarists. Germans continue to be the most limited by anti-militarism. The most causally influencing modern alteration is the decision to break with the mysterious nature of European history. East Asia is a dangerous place.

The United States suffered little during the two great northern wars—indeed, its economy greatly benefited. Who knows what eco-tensions may arise due to water scarcity and foreign-dominated exploitation of a country's habitat? It is doubtful that militarism or war will disappear.

While India fully believes in the importance of non-proliferation, it hesitates to sign the NPT as the latter appears to be an ineffective guarantee against proliferation. A study case is North Korea. While joining the NPT in 1985, this country managed to prevent the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from inspecting any of its facilities until last year, claiming that the sites are entirely civilian nuclear power plants.

There is no firm evidence yet of a nuclear-free world and durable peace. It is for the enlightened leaders of the international community to decide how to tackle the nuclear menace effectively and evolve an arrangement that would be equitable and free of discrimination on any ground, race, color, economic or military status, and political complexion.

Conclusion

The four major threats to contemporary nation-states are capitalist transformation, environmental limits, identity politics, and post-nuclearism. What can be threatening to some can be beneficial to others. This is what generally happens.

With a bit of history, they exaggerate the former strength of nation-states and their current decline. In all four spheres of 'threat,' we must distinguish the following:

1. Differential impacts on different types of states in different regions.
2. Trends were weakening, and some trends were strengthening nation-state systems.
3. Trends displacing national regulation with international as well as transnational networks.
4. Trends simultaneously strengthening nations and transnationalism.

Global interaction networks are indeed strengthening, but they entwine three main elements. Part of their force derives from transnational relations originating principally from capitalism's technology and social relations. But these do not have the power to impose a singular universalism and global networks. Global networks are also somewhat split by the unique characteristics of nation-states, particularly the more powerful ones in the north.

Kumar Aryan is a student pursuing Sociology from Jamia Millia Islamia.

Edited By: Sidra Aman

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The Jamia Review or its members.