The National-Global Paradox
Mekela Panditharatne explores the evolving power of the nation-state in a post-globalised world.
For many of us, the concept of ‘the nation’ is an almost subconscious vector of identity, and the nation-state system a somewhat rudimentary compass that we use to orient ourselves economically, culturally and socially in a world that grudgingly humours our human need to compartmentalise. Yet if it were ever possible to identify a period in the past in which one could understand national processes as independent phenomena, governed by localised mechanisms and existing outside global variables, clearly this is no longer the case.
The modern world is one of multiple and motley interconnections between nations and regions, where mundane experiences on a local scale may be rooted in events many thousands of kilometres away. The immense irony of this is that the nation-state in this modern world is nonetheless proving to be vexingly tenacious in its hold over conceptions of geopolitical power, if not in the exercise of actual power in any tangible sense.
How may we resolve this seemingly dichotomous position in which the nation finds itself today: this state of quasi-limbo in which it teeters precariously between the seductive serenades of the neo-liberal economy and the dogmatic demands of an increasingly socialised working class? Perhaps the answer is that understanding globalisation as it is presented to us by state institutions necessarily involves a ‘dialectic’ of opposing principles. This requires us to conceive of the global as a specific type of discourse, carefully constructed to mould and transform the power of the state. It is almost as if state actors – presaging the precipice of redundancy – have recognised that, instead of back-pedalling against the tide of globalisation, they should work to ensure that the relationship between nations and the globe remains mutually constituting at both the practical and conceptual levels.
The modern world is one of multiple and motley interconnections between nations and regions, where mundane experiences on a local scale may be rooted in events many thousands of kilometres away.
The way in which this works is disarmingly subtle. At first glance, the arena of modern global rhetoric seems to be awash with metaphors of global proximity, from Marshall McLuhan’s well-worn term ‘global village’, to the United Nations maxim ‘our global neighbourhood’. As Brian Tomlinson observes, the word ‘global’ itself seems to convey an envelopment of nations and individuals by the spherical cast of the earth. Globalisation consequently describes modern spatial dimensions as consistently pushing outwards, beyond the nation and towards the regional and global.
However, the discursive lens through which we view globalisation is also unmistakeably formed through a stubborn fixation with the national, and with the interpretation of ‘global’ as ‘international’. Labour migration, financial and commodity trading, and international trading agreements are all global; yet they simultaneously confirm the existence of the national. The United Nations is, after all, an international body structured around the nation-state system, and while its purpose may be informed by an abstract paradigm of global unity, this is balanced uneasily against the need to express principles of sovereignty and cultural difference. This is perhaps the reason why discussions on the creation of a global currency seem unlikely to progress, and why the corporate accumulation of capital continues to be defined nationally, rather than globally.
So why do we continue our wilful fixation with the nation and all things national? Benedict Anderson, in his seminal work on ‘imagined communities’, theorises that the mental image by which one envisages communal affinity with one’s fellow compatriot is a product of modernity, and is carefully constructed to meet political and economic ends. As such, a nation was and is “an imagined political community [that is] imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign”. Anthony Smith tentatively agrees with this analysis that the concept of the nation is in many senses fictitious: “Nations were built and forged by state elites or intelligentsias or capitalists; like the Scots kilt or the British Coronation ceremony, they are composed of so many invented traditions.” However, he also proposes that there is a tangible basis for national feeling, which is contingent upon the sense of collectivity shared by people inhabiting the same location, and encompasses “feelings and values in respect of a sense of continuity, shared memories and a sense of common destiny”.
Let us consider for a moment the disciplinary roots of the state as a geopolitical entity. Geographer Peter Taylor has criticised the ‘embedded statism’ that he claims defines the mainstream social sciences and that has had the effect of nationalising knowledge. He suggests that disciplines like political science, economics and sociology have, until recently, failed to understand the extent to which they are actually creatures of the states, owing their very processes to a particular historical configuration. In this way, the cooperative partnership between state as political “power container”, and nation as constituting the roots of cultural identity (presupposing that it has some primordial ethnic core), results in the naturalisation of the nation-state, so that it becomes, in some abstract way, synonymous with other natural spatial features like “rivers, mountain ranges and coastlines”. Hence, by “being ‘natural’, states precluded all other social worlds, and the spatiality of fragmented sovereignty became ingrained in modern society”.
The question that then leaves itself to be pondered is whether, and to what extent, economic, social and political actors have constructed, and continue to construct, the idea of the nation as an endemic vector of identity. Dick Bryan argues that there is nothing ‘natural’ about the nation as an economic entity. Rather, the nation is continually being created and reproduced tangent to the dominant ideology of the time. Hence, globalisation as a Janus-faced phenomenon has confounded economic conceptions of the dynamics of the world, shaking the perception of national identity as synonymous with economic identity. Impoverished Mexican farmers are left scratching their heads as the El Dorado promised by the global vision of NAFTA crumbles to dust, despite the mirage of a strengthened national economy.
The paradigmatic modern experience of mobility might well seem to undermine the static nature of the state, were it not for the empirical existence of key points of difference between nations. Yet these very points of difference – regulation, taxes and currency – which are constructed and maintained by nation-states, serve to justify the measurable existence of the nation as an economic unit. As Bryan states: “The nationalist assumption generates the nationalist policies that in turn create national differences that in turn justify the assumption. This is a self-fulfilling framework.” The difficulty then is how to depart from these innate assumptions so as not to evaluate nations and nationalism purely on their own terms.
It could … be argued that the diverse textures of everyday cultural practices are still defined more by the local than the global.
One possible solution is offered by proponents of the free market, who construe the policy and regulatory differences between nations as ‘distortions’ in the global economy. States are believed to inhibit the free flow of capital and therefore prevent competition in its truest sense. In this light, the nation is seen to be a unit that is anachronistic in the modern economy, a concept that is nostalgically retained in our cultural imagination, but which holds little meaning in a globalised world.
An essential point here is that in a globalised society, territorial borders, whilst not entirely meaningless, might well be redrawn to more accurately represent collective interests. Japanese business strategist Kenichi Ohmae is one such advocate of reconstituting territorial demarcation: “Traditional nation states have become unnatural, even impossible, business units in a global economy.” He suggests, instead, that we should think of a world of regional economies, “where the real work gets done and the real markets flourish”. Ohmae explains: “What defines [these regional economies] is not the location of their political borders but the fact that they are the right size and scale to be the true natural business units in today’s global economy. Theirs are the borders – and the connections – that matter in a borderless world.”
Whilst the view that nations are becoming dispensable and powerless entities might seem attractive in its transcendence of the statist grand narrative, perhaps this may prove to be equally limited in its unilateral approach. Though global processes unmistakeably dislocate individual experiences through transnational corporate enterprise and global finance, it could also be argued that the diverse textures of everyday cultural practices are still defined more by the local than the global. The justification for this might be as simple as the observation that, despite increasing global mobility, physical distance continues to be an operative factor in our lives. Consider Marc Augé’s proposal: “When an international flight crosses Saudi Arabia, the hostess announces that during the over flight the drinking of alcohol will be forbidden in the aircraft. This signifies the intrusion of territory into space. Land = society = nation = culture = religion: the equation of anthropological place, fleetingly inscribed in space.”
Thus, there is an inherent danger in formulating theories at a sweeping and abstract level, so as to dismiss key inferences that may be drawn from an examination of politics and culture at a specific and local level. That is not to say that we should discount the very significant strides that global society is taking towards homogeneity in cultural and economic standards, but rather that we should not take this to be some sort of linear, numerical process by which diversity will have been eliminated by X number of years.
The debate over whether the nation is the ‘natural’ economic and cultural unit will no doubt continue to attract vehement discussion, played out on the world stage through the creation of regional economic blocs and ethnic battles for autonomy. However, as alternative spatial conceptions of the global currently exist in tandem with the state-centred paradigm, and until nations find themselves on the outer edges of popular and academic discourse, they are unlikely to lose their power and influence.
