Capital Markets and the Unification of Europe

1968 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans O. Schmitt

The expectation that a customs union in Europe will ultimately lead to political unification is based on the so-called spillover effect. This effect operates whenever any step toward integration creates new needs and fresh demands to proceed further in the same direction. Thus a customs union may create pressures to integrate not only commodity markets but capital markets as well. An integration of capital markets in turn may necessitate currency unification for its effective functioning, and a unified currency finally may imply a pooling of sovereignties sufficiently complete to destroy the separate identities of the participating nation-states. The process could also work in the opposite direction: from an insistence on the integrity of the nation-state to an ultimate rejection of the customs union itself.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5582
Author(s):  
Daniele Conversi

This article argues that we need to look at living examples provided by non-state communities in various regions of the world that are, perhaps unwittingly, contributing to the maintenance of the Earth’s optimal thermal balance. These fully sustainable communities have been living outside the mainstream for centuries, even millennia, providing examples in the global struggle against the degradation of social–ecological systems. They have all, to varying degrees, embraced simple forms of living that make them ‘exemplary ethical communities’ (EECs)—human communities with a track record of sustainability related to forms of traditional knowledge and the capacity to survive outside the capitalist market and nation-state system. The article proceeds in three steps: First, it condenses a large body of research on the limits of the existing nation-state system and its accompanying ideology, nationalism, identifying this institutional–ideological complex as the major obstacle to tackling climate change. Second, alternative social formations that could offer viable micro-level and micro-scale alternatives are suggested. These are unlikely to identify with existing nation-states as they often form distinct types of social communities. Taking examples from hunter-gatherer societies and simple-living religious groups, it is shown how the protection and maintenance of these EECs could become the keystone in the struggle for survival of humankind and other forms of life. Finally, further investigation is called for, into how researchers can come forward with more examples of actually existing communities that might provide pathways to sustainability and resistance to the looming global environmental catastrophe.


Exchange ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 360-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abamfo Atiemo

AbstractA revolutionary development that resulted from Africa's experience of colonialism was the emergence of the nation-state made up of previously separate ethnic states. By the end of the colonial period the rulers of these ethnic states — the chiefs — had lost most of their real political and judicial powers to the political leaders of the new nation-states. But in spite of the loss of effective political power the chiefs continued to wield moral influence over members of their ethnic groups. The limited reach of the nation-state in the post-colonial era has also meant a dependence on the chiefs, in many cases, for aspects of local governance. This, for example, is the case of Ghana. However, in the modern context of religious pluralism the intimate bond between the chiefs and the traditional religion exacerbates tension in situations of conflict between people's loyalty to the traditional state and their religious commitment. In some cases, chiefs invoke customary laws in attempt to enforce sanctions against individuals who refuse to observe certain customary practices for religious reasons. But this has implications for the human rights of citizens. This article discusses the implications of this situation for the future of chieftaincy as well as prospects for the protection of the human rights of citizens who for religious reasons choose to stay away from certain communal customary practices.


2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Tisdale Driskill ◽  
Paige LeForce DeFalco ◽  
Jill Holbert Lang ◽  
Janette Habashi

AbstractThe study of children's images as delineated in constitutional documents highlights the historical transitions that have occurred within and among countries, as manifested in the Convention of the Rights of the Child. As such, content analysis was administered to examine constitutional and amendment documents of 179 nation-states listed and recognized by the United Nations Development Programme in the Human Developmental Index. This analysis produced quantitative and qualitative data in which it described the ranking of each country and it's postulation toward children's protection, provision and participation as outlined by CRC. The findings provide greater understanding of the nation-state posture towards children as active rights bearers.


2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 1423-1463 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL EILENBERG

AbstractPost-independence ethnic minorities inhabiting the Southeast Asian borderlands were willingly or unwillingly pulled into the macro politics of territoriality and state formation. The rugged and hilly borderlands delimiting the new nation-states became battlefronts of state-making and spaces of confrontation between divergent political ideologies. In the majority of the Southeast Asian borderlands, this implied violent disruption in the lives of local borderlanders that came to affect their relationship to their nation-state. A case in point is the ethnic Iban population living along the international border between the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan and the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. Based on local narratives, the aim of this paper is to unravel the little known history of how the Iban segment of the border population in West Kalimantan became entangled in the highly militarized international disputes with neighbouring Malaysia in the early 1960s, and in subsequent military co-operative ‘anti-communist’ ‘counter-insurgency’ efforts by the two states in the late 1960–1970s. This paper brings together facets of national belonging and citizenship within a borderland context with the aim of understanding the historical incentives behind the often ambivalent, shifting and unruly relationship between marginal citizens like the Iban borderlanders and their nation-state.


2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 91-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tijana Bajovic

This paper aims to describe the development of the recent wave of interest in memory and the past in general (so-called ?memory boom?), as well as the overall cultural climate that encouraged this ?invasion? of the past in both public and scientific discourses. While the first wave of memory boom was supposed to legitimate the emerging nation-states, the second boom signified the exhaustion of the old paradigm of nationalism, decline of the nation-state, as well as the emergence of a new paradigm: globalization.


Author(s):  
E. G. Ponomareva

The processes of globalization have determined significant changes in the prerogatives of nation states. In the twenty-first century the state no longer acts as a sole subject having a monopoly of integrating the interests of large social communities and representing them on the world stage. An ever increasing role in the global political process is played by transnational and supranational participants. However, despite the uncertainty and ambiguity of the ways of the development of the modern world, it can be argued that in the foreseeable future it is the states that will maintain the role of the main actors in world politics and bear the responsibility for global security and development. All this naturally makes urgent the issues related to the search for optimal models of nation state development. The article analyzes approaches to understanding patterns, problems and prospects of the development of this institution existing in modern political science. These include the concept of "dimensionality" based on the parameters of scale (the size of the territory) of the states and their functions in the international systems, as well as the "political order". In the latter case the paper analyzes four models: the nation-state, statenation, consociation, quasi-state. The author's position consists in the substantiation of the close dependence of the success of a model of the state on its inner nature, i.e. statehood. On the basis of the elaborated approach the author understands statehood as "the result of historical, economic, political and foreign policy activity of a particular society in order to create a relatively rigid political framework that provides spatial, institutional and functional unity, that is, the condition of the society’s own state, national political system." Thus statehood acts as a qualitative feature of the state.


2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 623-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Pershai

Katherine Verdery writes that “[i]n the modern period, nation has become a potent symbol and basis of classification within an international system of nation states”; in turn, nationalism “is a political utilization of the symbol nation through discourse and political activity, as well as the sentiment that draws people into responding to this symbol's use.” However, the idea of “nation state” and its functioning can be seen as a part of the larger hegemonic constructions that operate on the level of “common” beliefs that legitimize existing social hierarchies and divisions of economic resources, and on the level of relationships between states and nations.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Ikram ul Haq ◽  
Dr. Aqeel Ahmed

The concept of nation state presented by the West at its core is the idea of humanism. In which man was given a central position and freed from the concept of God. Denied everything that was not observed. Therefore, man expelled religion in all matters of life. The logical consequence of which was that the head of human unity was scattered. The slogan of nationalism was used to unite man in the struggle for unity. Which eventually manifested itself in the formation of nation-states the western colonial powers ruled the world in the form of the United Nations change the way of life in the Western World and especially in Muslim society. Which has a profound effect on the Islamic system of government. Islam envisioned divine sovereignty in the system of government. Today the Muslim rulers have forgotten it, and the Western system considered its survival in democracy. The article explains what the core concern of the nation state and Islamic Government is and whether it is based on its own ideas in modern times has been considered.


2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (11) ◽  
pp. 91-102
Author(s):  
I. Semenenko

Analyzing discourses on interethnic relations can contribute to a clearer understanding of the focal points of tensions in contemporary political communities sharing a common territory and common political institutions. These discourses represent the complex of problems related to nation-building and are generated both in the public sphere and in academic discussion. As such, they often develop separately one from the other. Assessing the current academic discourse on nations and nationalism, on nation-building and the nation-state, on citizenship, cultural diversity and interethnic conflict can contribute to the formation of the agenda of a politics of identity aimed at building a civic nation. Memory politics deserve special attention in this context, as the interpretation of historic memory has today become a powerful instrument that political elites can use to consolidate the nation and, in different contexts, to politicize ethnicity and deepen cleavages in existing nation-states. The affirmation of a positive civic (national) identity is a reference framework for modern democratic societies, and it is in meeting the challenges of politicizing ethnicity that political priorities and academic interests meet. However, the current domination of politics over academia in this conflict prone sphere contributes to its radicalization and to the formation of negative and exclusive identities that can be manipulated to pursue elitist group interests. Evaluating models of political organization alternative to the ones known today (such as “the nation-state”) does not aspire to “write off” the nation, but this can help to come up with visions and ideas politics can take up to overcome the conflict potential that contemporary societies generate over ethnic issues. Acknowledgements. This article was prepared with financial support provided by the Russian Science Foundation [research grant № 15-18-00021, “Regulating interethnic relations and managing ethnic and social conflicts in the contemporary world: the resource potential of civic identity (a comparative political analysis)”]. The research was conducted at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), RAS.


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