DISINTEGRATION OF NATION-STATES HAS BEEN A LONG TIME COMING

She neglects to draw the rather obvious comparison with the disintegration of the Roman Empire, and of course the barbarian issue is different this time, but otherwise this is excellent.

WASHINGTON -- In the mid-'80s, after I had been covering the post-colonial Third World for rather too many trying years, I began to notice some disturbing developments across the world.

Oh no, I said to myself at first, of course it cannot be true! We were, after all, the children of the euphoric aftermath of World War II, when we rebuilt the world for the good of mankind. America assumed that the dozens of poor states of Asia, Africa and the Middle East that had emerged from years of colonialist humiliation would stand tall as new, spontaneously born, independent states -- and we assumed that we would help them.

But slowly I began to realize, instead, that we were witnessing the first stages of a massive disintegration of fragile nation-states, or what today we call "failed states." At that point, I tried to put all my fears together in a lead piece for Encyclopedia Britannica, called "Our Disintegrating World: The Menace of Global Anarchy."

"What has happened in the 1970s and 1980s," I wrote, "is that the world is quietly but relentlessly being rent by a slow-motion disintegration. The components of this dangerous new world: tribes, clans, religious fundamentalism of every faith, city gangs, death squads, terrorist movements, guerrilla movements and other narrow and rabid self-interest groups." Then, ironically, I used Lebanon as the example of the disintegration at the hands of these "irregulars," which occurred when the careful compacts that ruled the power structures in that unfortunate land broke down in the mid-'70s.

Yahoo

The nation-state is a fairly modern concept, only about 200-300 years old. It's a construct developed after the "general crisis" of the 17th century, around a variety of notions of shared background and/or heritage creating a "national identity" (a parallel development) that somehow naturally created an organisational model. But the theory really developed in tandem with the improving communications and infrastructure that made the administration of the "state" part possible.

The decline of the nation state - and it has always been a problematic concept - is a worrying prospect because there are no real alternative constructs waiting in the wings. Or, at least, no palatable ones.

It is true that the OP discusses the disintegration of nation states, but that is just a recent western cultural bias, most nation states today are in fact empires that have become settled, and in fact many of what are called nation states today are artifacts of colonial rule, that is imperial constructs. It is for example confusing to call the USA a nation state, as one cannot really identify the nation in question. It is the modern state as a coercive governing form that is in question. You are right of course about the development of the modern form of the nation state based on mass armies etc. In my view she takes too narrow a view of the problem.

The analogy with Rome cannot be pushed too far, perhaps I should have left it out.

I think chaos looms myself.

"It is for example confusing to call the USA a nation state, as one cannot really identify the nation in question"

The US is a nation /state just like France,New Zealand, etc and I don't see any identity problem.

A nation-state is a specific form of state (a political entity), which exists to provide a sovereign territory for a particular nation (a cultural entity), and which derives its legitimacy from that function. The concept of nation-state implies the parallel occurrence of a state and a nation, according to the nationalist views of a particular ethnic group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation-state

Definition: nation

1. (Ethnol.) A part, or division, of the people of the earth,
distinguished from the rest by common descent, language,
or institutions; a race; a stock.

http://dict.die.net/nation/

A "nation", in the usage intended, is not the same thing as a country, and that is the usage in "nation-state". The USA is not a nation-state, although it likes to pretend it is when it is not glorying in being a "melting pot". Israel or Iran are closer to the idea, but rigorously true examples are not all that common.

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--This week the White House baldly stated that George W.'s beloved "doctrine" of military pre-emption has been changed to diplomatic pre-emption. How dumb do they think we are?

--big nation-states such as the U.S. are also sporting some of the characteristics of failed states -- for instance, privatized armies or "military contractors."

--The fact is that neither country(U.S., Israel) has any real strategy in the Middle East, except to bomb more and see what happens. Meanwhile, each bomb creates only more anger -- and eventually more insurgents, just like Lebanon in 1982, or Gaza, or the West Bank since 1967, or Iraq since 2003, or ... or ...

--It all started back in the '80s when I stuck my foot out and wrote that then-unpopular piece about disintegration. Now it's here -- but instead of my country standing as an agent of cohesion, we speak to the world sadly as only another agent of disintegration.

It's one of my hobby-horses, a thing that interests me. The issue is usually not framed in the way Ms Geyer does here. One usually reads only of the military aspects, Lind's "4th generation war" and that sort of thing, without considering the long term political or social consequences.

Jonathan Schell's work "The Unconquerable World" examines the issue in better historical context, and I can recommend it. He takes a more positive view of the situation.

Most states aren't nation-states, of course, although some have tried to build a sense of nationhood based on citizenship.

I think that the problem is mostly in states with lots of little mutually antagonistic nations, or where there really isn't a clear sense of nation, but a strong sense of a supranational or tribal identity. But that's nowhere near a precise delineation of the problem, and I'm not going to take time now to ponder it. Perhaps next year.