11. Federal and local government institutions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Loughlin
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Federal States ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Building Process ◽  
Territorial Organization ◽  
Post War ◽  
Modern Nation State

This chapter focuses on federal and local government institutions. More specifically, it considers the ways in which territorial governance has been understood and implemented within the nation-state model. The territorial organization of nation-states may be either federal or unitary, although each of these categories may be further categorized as being either more or less decentralized. The welfare states of the post-war period represent the culmination of the nation-state-building process and placed emphasis on central control over sub-national levels of government. The chapter begins with a discussion of the modern nation-state and territorial governance, citing the rise of nationalism in unitary states and federal states. It then considers territorial governance in welfare states, along with the classical distinction between federal and unitary states. It also examines trends towards regionalization and decentralization in unitary states before concluding with an assessment of local government and local autonomy.

Field Theory and Global Transformations in the Long Twentieth Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 81-98
Author(s):  
Julian Go
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Global Dynamics ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Conceptual Apparatus ◽  
International Issues ◽  
Post War ◽  
Modern Nation State

This chapter explores how the Bourdieusian field theory can be deployed to make sense of global dynamics. It mentions international relations (IR) scholars that have enlisted Bourdieu in their analyses, applied his work to international issues, and taken certain concepts, such as habitus and practice, from his larger theoretical conceptual apparatus. It also focuses on three transformative processes or macro-historical turning points: the expansion of colonial empires during the phase of 'high imperialism', the two world wars, and the post-war end of formal colonial empires that heralded the rise to dominance of the modern nation state. The chapter maps the points of differentiation between field theory approaches and other approaches. It recognizes other key elements of Bourdieusian field theory, such as fields that consist of objective relations between actors and the subjective and cultural forms of those relations.

The foundations of statehood

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siniša Malešević
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Territorial Organization ◽  
State Models ◽  
Interactional Processes

Conventional historical and popular accounts tend to emphasize sharp polarities between empires and nation-states. While an empire is traditionally associated with conquests, slavery, political inequalities, economic exploitation and the wars of yesteryear, a nation-state is understood to be the only legitimate and viable form of large-scale territorial organization today. This article challenges such interpretations by focusing on the organizational and ideological continuities between the imperial and the nation-state models of social order. In particular, I focus on the role coercive and ideological apparatuses as well as the transformation of micro-solidarities play in the formation of polities over long periods of time. I argue that although empires and nation-states are different ideal types of polity they are highly compatible and as such prone to metamorphosing into each other. More specifically I explore how, when and why specific coercive-organizational, ideological and micro-interactional processes make this periodic historical metamorphosis possible.

Migration, Membership, and the Modern Nation-State: Internal and External Dimensions of the Politics of Belonging

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogers Brubaker
Keyword(s):  
State Model ◽  
Minority Populations ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Modern Nation State

The politics of belonging—political struggles about the membership status of populations both within and outside the geographical confines of particular nation-states—derive from four conditions: (1) the migration of borders over people, (2) the deep and enduring inequalities between mainstream and minority populations, (3) the persisting legacies of empire, and (4) the migration of people over borders. New forms of external membership represent an extension and adaptation of the nation-state model, not its transcendence.

Welfare States as Nation States: Some Conceptual Reflections

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Social Coherence ◽  
Container Model

Social policy has treated welfare states as nation states. Contemporary processes seem to have unsettled the spatial, scalar and social coherence of nation-states. This article examines the challenge of rethinking the relationships of nation, state and welfare. It argues for a transnational conception of both the current remakings of nation, state and welfare, and of their past formations. Such a view casts doubt on the value of the container model of the nation-state, and makes visible the constitutive or nation-constructing role of welfare states.

scholarly journals THE JEWISH QUESTION, SECULARIZATION AND THE NATION-STATE CRISIS IN HANNAH ARENDT: FOR A POLITICS OF PLURALITY

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-205
Author(s):  
Tomas Borovinsky
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Before And After ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Modern Nation State

In the present paper we intend to rethink the “Jewish question”, in the context of religion’s secularization and the modern nation-state crisis, in Hannah Arendt’s political thought. She writes, on the other hand, in and over the decline of modern nation-states that expel and denationalize both foreign citizens and their own depending on the case. She also thinks as a Jew from birth who suffers persecutions and particularly theorizes on her Jew condition and the future of Judaism before and after the creation of the State of Israel. As we will see during this paper we can identify these three issues all together, particularly in the Zionist experience: modern secularization, decline of the nation-state and the “Jewish question”. And it is from these intertwined elements that we can draw a critical thinking for a politics of pluralism.

Revolution in the Hispanic World, 1808–1816

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime E. Rodríguez O.
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Nation States ◽  
New Nation ◽  
Modern Nation State

The collapse of the Spanish monarchy in 1808 precipitated a political revolution that shattered that worldwide polity into new nation-states, among them Spain itself. In the wake of France's invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, three broad movements emerged in the Spanish world: the struggle against the invaders, the great political revolution that sought to transform the Spanish monarchy into a modern nation-state with one of the most radical constitutions of the nineteenth century, and a fragmented insurgency in America that relied on force to secure home rule. Elections to form a representative government for the Spanish world were held in the midst of a crisis of confidence. As their first act, the deputies to the Cortes of Cádiz declared themselves representatives of the nation and assumed sovereignty. The insurgencies and civil wars that engulfed some regions of Spanish America were a response to the same events that generated the constitutional political revolution. Both movements sought to maintain the Spanish monarchy as an independent political entity and to expand local political authority and representation.

scholarly journals National Identity in the Democratic Multi-Cultural State

1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Rex
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Complex Model ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Ethnic Mobilization ◽  
National Ideology ◽  
Post War ◽  
Industrial Societies

It has been suggested that there is a crisis of national identity in the advanced welfare states of Western Europe following post-war immigration. The aim of this paper is, first of all, to clarify the concept of national identity in its application to these states prior to this immigration, secondly to analyze the concept of ethnic identity amongst immigrant ethnic groups, and, finally, to look at the kinds of institutions which have evolved to determine the relation of immigrant groups to the established national societies of settlement. The modern nation state is often thought of as part of a modernizing project in industrial societies. In this project the nation state is not thought of as being based upon a national identity, but is seen as having more universal aims. These include a modern economy, universal and uniform education and the compromise institutions of the welfare state negotiated between different classes and status groups. In some cases, on the other hand, the nation state may be established by a dominant ethnic group with its own values and institutions. In both cases the nation state will develop its own national ideology but will be corrosive of subordinate ethnicities and ethnic identities. New immigrant ethnic minorities have their own separate sense of identity. This should not however be thought of in essentialist terms as unchanging and clearly bounded. A more complex model of ethnic mobilization under conditions of migration is suggested. The response of established societies to the presence of these minorities might take one of three forms. It may involve attempts to assimilate the minorities on equal terms as citizens; it may seek to subordinate them to a dominant ethnic group as second class citizens or denizens; or, it may recognize cultural diversity in the private communal sphere while maintaining a shared public political culture. The new national identity of the host society will depend upon the outcome of processes which follow from the adoption of these different policies.

Imagining Nations and Making States

2020 ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
Christine Leuenberger ◽  
Izhak Schnell
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
State Building ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Nation State ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Building Process ◽  
New Geography

It is central for international relations to support state- and nation-building; “nation-building” entails forging common national identities, and “state-building” consists of establishing infrastructures to enhance governance. This chapter examines some of the ways that nation-states have been made—through narratives, ideas, and practices as well as through technologies and infrastructures—and how this has been reproduced in Israel/Palestine. Various disciplines were recruited to the service of nation-state building. Cartography helped stake out a territory, history and archaeology were used to make claims on it, and geographers were called on to formulate a new geography of the new homeland. At the same time, the Zionist vision and a Jewish metaculture as well as the quasi-state institutions of the Yishuv contributed to the establishment of the Israeli state. Throughout the 20th century, the high-modernist state used science and technology to take on its people as a state project. Israel exemplifies how the use of science and technology contributed to the belief that a society, its people, and its territories could be known, managed, and improved. Science and technology charted grand new futures for societies, furthering scientific and technical frontiers, expanding the power of states, and leaving behind all those people and lands that were not considered part of the state-building process.

scholarly journals Politics lost in translation: the African concept of time as a method to understand African conflicts

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-264
Author(s):  
Ramy Magdy
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
African State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Future ◽  
Conceptual Problems ◽  
Lost In Translation ◽  
Modern Nation State

Purpose This paper aims to explore John Mbiti’s concept of African time in line with the studies on the crisis of the post-independence African state. Then, how this concept offers new analytical spaces for understanding the modern nation-states inconveniences in African contexts. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyses the Mbitian African concept of time in light of the works on post-independence African state and communalism. Findings By using the Mbitian concept of time politically after explaining African communalism and African concepts of personhood and destiny, the paper reached a conclusion. This conclusion claims that due to the highly existential nature of the African concept of destiny and the past-oriented feature of the African concept of time, Africans cannot be restrained by any supernatural claim or any futuristic promises that are irrelevant to their context and cut from the communal values of ancestral past. Africans do not think supernaturally or bet for the future. However, those futuristic and supernatural claims that cannot restrain the African subjectivity – ironically – characterize the modern nation state with its “progress orientation” and “social-contract” metaphysics. Unfortunately, this radical difference in perceptions between the past-oriented African temporality and the future-oriented modern state temporality rendered the post-independence. African state dysfunctional and unable to operate as a medium for authority. This, consequently, opened the door for informal conflict and strife. Originality/value The paper is novel with regard to offering a new theory on the conceptual problems of the nation state in African contexts.

The Limits of Hospitality

Paragraph ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
HEIDRUN FRIESE
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Absolute Requirement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Modern Nation State

The arrival of migrants in search of a better life puts forward urgent questions for social and political thought. Historically, hospitality has been considered as a religious duty, a sacred commandment of charity and generosity to assign strangers a place — albeit ambivalent — in the community. With the development of the modern nation state, these obligations have been inscribed into the procedures of political deliberation and legislation that determine the social spaces of aliens, residents and citizens. Current debates are tied to notions of justice which question borders and undermine the congruence of citizenship, territory and belonging that make up modern nation states. These debates focus on the rights of others and the demands of unconditional hospitality, an absolute requirement on one hand, and political and legal limitations on the other. The paper will critically engage with these debates, and evidence the tensions and limits inherent in current notions of hospitality.

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