Nation-State

Post-1945 decolonization involved the universal acceptance of nation-statehood as the alternative to imperialism. Nationalism vanquished its transnational competitors, notably imperialism and Marxism. Alternatives to imperial rule that avoided sovereign states on national lines, such as federations in the later 1940s and 1950s, have received less attention from historians. Federations involved alternative ways of thinking about sovereignty, territoriality, and political economy. British interest in creating federations, for example the Central African Federation (CAF) in 1953, offers some new perspectives on the strength of imperial ideology and the determination to continue a missionary imperialism after the Second World War. Federal thinking and practice was prominent at this time in other European empires too, notably the French and Dutch ones. The federal idea was also an aspect of the emerging European community. This is suggestive of a wider “federal moment” that points to the importance of linking international, trans-national, imperial, and world historical approaches.

"This accepted paper will be presented in the RSA Regional Studies Association Conference that will take place in Izmir, Turkey, from 15th to 18th June.
This paper examines two contrarily complementary EU cross border city-region case studies by applying the 5-System City-Region analytical framework discussed at the RSA 2013 Winter Conference (Calzada, 2013). On the one hand, the case of the Basque Country (OECD, 2013) nationalistic city-region (Calzada, 2011) in between Spain and France nation-states reflects surprisingly low cross border territorial development strategic synergies. On the other hand, in contrast, the case of the Oresund non-nationalistic city-region (OECD, 2013) shows a highly cooperative and fluent cross-border dynamic that started in 2000."

The modernist paradigm approaches nations as political entities constructed by the modern state. Avoiding reference to such pre-modern, even ancient, cases as Greece and Israel constitutes rather a 'topos' in modernist literature. Alternative approaches, such as the ethno-symbolist and perennialist ones, dare to study the aforementioned examples. Even Anthony D. Smith, however, interprets nations as strictly political entities. As the ancient Greeks lack the political unity of modern nations, he prefers to use other terms to designate them: 'ethnie' or 'ethnic group'. If we assume, nevertheless, that other political constructions suffice to define a nation, then our understanding of it would change. It is useful, therefore, to turn to Modern Greek political sociologists and examine their views. There are two scholars who have developed interesting, more culturally oriented approaches, beyond the Modern Greek struggle between primordialism and modernism: Contogiorgis and Ziakas. This paper concentrates on the former, for whom the point of departure is the connection of the nation with society rather than the state: the nation emanates from and serves the society rather than the state. In this respect this paper presents Contogiorgis' approach as a contribution to the question of the 'age of nations'.

"The article discusses a number of historical cases of nations that have
developed anti-miscegenation laws premised on a logic of “state mixophobia”,
with instances as diverse as the Spanish colonization of the Americas and later
of Equatorial Guinea; England and Australia during the colonial and postcolonial
eras; the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; Germany
during the Nazi period; and South Africa under apartheid. I argue that in all of
these cases, hybridity represented not so much the danger of external enemies,
but rather the destruction of internal borders: that is, a threat to the sociopolitical
and economic status quo. This historical-anthropological analysis can
help us in today’s world to better understand and reflect critically on the social,
political, and economic contexts in which reductionist views of hybridity
emerge and are used to legitimize social systems of exclusion.
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En este artículo se analizan varios casos paradigmáticos de naciones que históricamente han elaborado leyes anti-mestizaje dentro de una lógica de “mixofobia de estado”: desde España y la América colonial hasta la Sudáfrica del Apartheid, pasando por Inglaterra y Australia en la era colonial y post-colonial, Estados Unidos en los siglos XIX y XX, la Alemania durante el período Nazi, o Guinea Ecuatorial durante la época colonial española. En todos estos casos, el mestizaje o hibridismo representó no tanto el peligro de enemigos exteriores, como la destrucción de las fronteras interiores: del status quo socio-político y económico. Este análisis histórico-antropológico puede ayudarnos hoy día a comprender mejor y a reflexionar críticamente sobre los contextos sociales, políticos y económicos en los que han surgido visiones reduccionistas de la hibridez utilizadas para legitimar sistemas sociales de exclusión.
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For some months, a vivid intellectual debate takes place in the German press about the “finalité” of on-going European reformation. Its participants aim to widen the focus for a longer perspective. They seem to share the impression that the actual decision-making in European politics is lacking such an idea of the future of Europe and is driven by one wave of the unfolding crisis after another. Despite many fundamental controversies among them, almost all reject quite naturally the outlook of a European federal “nation state”. At first glance, their arguments seem very comprehensible. A complete “communitisation” (in the sociological sense of Tönnies’ distinction between “community” and “society”) of Europe and European politics (that does amount to a fully developed European federal “nation state” with a powerful European parliament at its core that democratically elects, controls and legitimizes European government) would be an excessive demand for the centuries old national traditions of political independence, cultural autonomy and solidarity. Accordingly, it seems reasonable to respect these and to restrict the EU to a limited form of supra-national cooperation between independent nation-states, which conclude intergovernmental contracts. However, the story seems to be more complicated. With the crisis of the EU, it has become obvious that with the inauguration of the economic and monetary union, the EU states lost an immense amount of national independence and sovereignty and already passed the line of limited contract-based interstate cooperation that follows the logic of “societalization” and not of “communitisation”. They now deeply depend on each other and are in need of joint action, which thoroughly affects their lives. They increasingly resemble a “totality” of a common live, of a “community”, but without perceiving themselves as such, i.e. as a developing new Nation “Europe”. My paper should explore some reasons and barriers for this.

The Elastic European Ideal takes issue with the dominant "realist" and "neo-realist" views in Dutch historiography, in which European integration is considered as a specific form of foreign policy, in which a major role is attributed to national interests in the process of integration and which devalues the role of ideas and ideals in the integration process. The Dutch national interest certainly played a dominant role in the discourse of civil servants and ministers on the question of European integration, but within the political parties ideological arguments were emphasised.

""This book develops a sociologically informed theory of constitutionalism in the global realm, addressing both national and transnational forms of constitutional ordering. The book begins with the argument that current approaches to constitutionalism remain tied to a state-based conception of constitutions, and overlooks underlying structural transformations that trigger the emergence of constitutional forms of ordering. Poul F. Kjaer aims to address this shortcoming by offering a sociological and historically informed analysis of the evolution of constitutionalism in the face of globalisation. The analysis contextualises on-going constitutional developments through the use of a long-term historical perspective, which is capable of highlighting the impact of deeper structural transformations unfolding within society.
The book looks at the ways in which national and transnational legal forms have evolved alongside one another. It demonstrates that the formation of global constitutions has not resulted in a corresponding decrease in the power of nation states, but instead, legal and political aspects of both the nation state and the transnational have been reconfigured and intensified in a mutually supportive manner.
In combining insights from a range of fields, this interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to students and scholars of constitutional law, sociology, global governance studies, and legal, social and political theory.

List of Content
Introduction: The Metamorphosis of Constitutionalism
Part 1: Structural Transformations
2. The Implosion of the Euro-Centric World
3. The Multiplicity of Normative Orders in World Society
Part 2: Re-configurations of Law and the Political
4. The Law within and in-between Normative Orders
5. The Political within and in-between Normative Orders
Part 3: Constitutional Stabilisation
6. The Breakdown of Constitutional Ordering through Globalisation-induced Crises
7.The Transmutation of Constitutional Ordering
8.Re-calibrating the Constitutional Concept
9. Conclusion

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Focusing on daily (re)productions of national identities online, in this article, I investigate a particular country-code Top-Level Domain, .tr for Turkey. I follow Billig’s concept of ‘banal nationalism’ to argue that .tr (re)produces online Turkish national imaginations. Furthermore, I inspect the hegemonic Turkish norms of sexuality to examine what kind of Turkishness .tr (re)produces. The analyses of the policies governing the allocation process of .tr and the email interviews with the authors of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* websites in Turkey show that .tr works to (re)produce, in a banal way, queer-free notion of Turkishness online. My analysis also demonstrates that some authors of the analysed websites do not dismiss .tr as banal but refuse to use it in resistance against the Turkish national requirements embedded in the domain. More broadly, I argue for the acknowledgement of cultural structures in internet governance studies.

"In the 1920s, Germany quarrled about its colors and symbols with high emotion. The flag controversy was a mass sport. GERMAN: In den 1920ern stritt Deutschland emotional um Farben und Symbole. Der Flaggenstreit war Breitensport.
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• Schlagwörter: Ästhetik, Boykott, Bundesadler, Corporate Identity, Demokratie, Expressionismus, Fahne, Flagge, Flaggenkunde, Flaggenstreit, Flaggenverordnung, Gedenktag, Großdeutschland, Handelsflagge, Inszenierung, Kampagne, Kapp-Putsch, Kriegsschuld, Kulturhoheit, Kulturpolitik, Kulturstaatsminister, Logo, Misstrauensvotum, Nationalismus, Obrigkeitsstaat, Österreich, Propaganda, Präsidentschaftswahl 1925, Primitivkunst, Reichsadler, Reichsarchivar, Reichseinheitsflagge, Reichsfarben, Reichsflagge, Reichskanzler, Reichskunstwart, Reichstag, Republikschutzgesetz, Revolution, Schwarz-Rot-Gold, Schwarz-Weiß-Rot, Staatsbegräbnis, Symbolik, Symbolpolitik, Trikolore, Verfassung, Verfassungstag, Vexillologie, Wahlkampf, Weimarer Republik
• Organisationen: NSDAP, Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, Reichsblock Schwarz-Weiß-Rot, Roter Frontkämpferbund, SA Sturmabteilung, SPD, Stahlhelm, Volksblock Schwarz-Rot-Gold
• Personen: Eduard David, Paul von Hindenburg, Paul Löbe, Hans Luther, Wilhelm Marx, Arnold Rabbow, Walther Rathenau, Edwin Redslob, Philipp Scheidemann, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Veit Valentin, Otto Wels, Christian Welzbacher
• Publikationen:  Simplicissimus
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"This paper, written for the Organization of American States Democracy Project, examines some of the most innovative ways indigenous peoples, nation-states, and international and non-governmental organizations are confronting current challenges by offering solutions through expanded democratic means that defend Indians’ cultural identity, protect their resource patrimony and land rights, while increasing nation-state sovereignty based on the strengthening of their property rights and sense of citizenship.

In particular, it focuses on the critical issue of land and what it means to Native peoples; offer a realistic look at indigenous peoples’ possibilities and limitations regarding the natural environment and its protection, and examine U.S. tribal administration of justice and other issues as points of comparison for future democratic development.

(Andersen served as the lead consultant on native peoples in the Western Hemisphere to the OAS Democracy Project headed by former Argentine Foreign Minister Dante Caputo.)"