Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ContWorld Module 4
ContWorld Module 4
and 8 Weeks
Political Globalization
The Nation-State
• “Sovereign authority in a specified territory, with the right to use
force both to maintain internal order and defend its territory
against aggression. Sovereignty, in turn implies that the state is
the ultimate authority in its territory, exercising legal jurisdiction
over its citizens and the groups and organizations they form in the
conduct of daily life.” (Lechner & Boli, p. 219)
• Nation-state, a territorially bounded sovereign polity—i.e.,
a state—that is ruled in the name of a community of citizens who
identify themselves as a nation.
• The legitimacy of a nation-state’s rule over a territory and over
the population inhabiting it stems from the right of a core
national group within the state (which may include all or only
some of its citizens) to self-determination.
Members of the core national group see the state as belonging to them
and consider the approximate territory of the state to be
their homeland. Accordingly, they demand that other groups, both
within and outside the state, recognize and respect their control over
the state.
As a political model, the nation-state fuses two principles: the
principle of state sovereignty, first articulated in the Peace of
Westphalia (1648), which recognizes the right of states to govern
their territories without external interference; and the principle of
national sovereignty, which recognizes the right of
national communities to govern themselves.
As a political model, the nation-state fuses two principles: the principle
of state sovereignty, first articulated in the Peace of Westphalia (1648),
which recognizes the right of states to govern their territories without
external interference; and the principle of national sovereignty, which
recognizes the right of national communities to govern themselves.
That requirement does not mean, however, that all nation-states are
democratic. Indeed, many authoritarian rulers have presented
themselves—both to the outside world of states and internally to the
people under their rule—as ruling in the name of a sovereign nation.
Political Globalization?
Almost all of the world is organized by a single type of unit: the
nation-state.
Decolonization in the 20th century: 130 colonies became
independent nation-states.
State sovereignty a central part of global society (and the
sovereign state is the most desirable way to structure political life.
Similarities in the goals, structures, programs and internal
operations.
For example…what do most nation-states have in common in
terms of structuring and organizing societies…?
What do NS have in Common?
1. Education, Heath Care, Economy & Finance, Welfare, Retirement,
Environment, Poverty, Unemployment, Foreign Policy, Military &
Defense. (Others? Arts & Culture? Language?)
2. Bureaucracy to take care of all of these things.
3. Formalized structures (legal and governmental) to ensure
democratic participation.
So, the basic model is in place, and global in nature. But, exactly
how this model is implemented can differ quite broadly from
country to country.
Examples…?