Is Nationalism Defensible?

Introduction

What is nationalism? In spite of the popularity of the term there is no generally accepted definition for it. Some authors define nationalism as the belief that every nation should have its own state. (Glover, 1977) Others refer to it as the belief that a nation should be encompassed by a single state. Both notions are present in Giuseppe Mazzini’s slogan: ‘Every nation a state, only one state for the entire nation.’ (Mazzini, cited in Glover, 1997, p.12) All of these views are gathered by Gellner, who defines nationalism as the ‘political principle which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent.’ (Gellner, 1983, p.1) Of course, it would be possible to discuss other dimensions of the phenomenon, such as the moral one. Moral philosophers usually use the term with a different meaning, which is often associated with the issue of national partiality. (Hurka, 1997, Lichtenber, 1997) However, in this paper I will choose to focus on the political debate, and for that reason I shall adopt Gellner’s definition, since I think that it encapsulates what is most fundamental about the phenomenon in question.
Thus, the aim of this essay is to assess if nationalism, as the principle that the political and the national unit should be congruent, can be defended in a philosophical debate. In this essay I will critically examine some of the most relevant arguments used to defend nationalism and judge if those arguments can sustain proper scrutiny. My position will be that nationalist political theories cannot be sustained, since the arguments that support them cannot withstand a comprehensive critique like the one that will follow. In the first section, I will clarify the concepts of nation and state, which are central to this discussion. In section II I examine nationalist arguments in favour of self-determination (the right of every nation to have a state). And in the last section I argue that the state does not need the nation, and that a model based on allegiance to political institutions rather than a specific national group is a far better alternative than a model of political legitimization based on nationalist principles.
The tremendous importance of discussing the issue of nationalism derives from the obvious fact that it is the political force that has impacted the world the most in the last century. (Hall, 1995) From the nationalist movements of the first half of the century, most notably in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, to the rise of national liberation movements across the globe after the Second World War, culminating on the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, nationalism has truly shaped the world. Furthermore, the rise of nationalist parties in almost all western European countries and of separatist movements in Belgium, Canada, Spain, Italy and the UK in the last two decades, powerfully suggest that nationalism is not in decline but perhaps even growing. Not even the accentuated progress of globalization seems to have contributed to dilute the appeal of nationalism. As a topic of political philosophy, nationalism came into focus two decades ago, when the dramatic events in Yugoslavia and Rwanda reminded people of the potential of nationalism to generate incredible disasters in the way of violations of human rights (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) By assessing the main nationalist claims I wish to put into evidence the fact that nationalist excesses like those should and must be avoided, and that that can be achieved by looking at the inadequacies of the nationalist political model and replace it with one that is unlikely to lead to the same terrible results.  


                                                                        I


To begin with, it is necessary to clarify the distinct concepts of nation and state, central to the discussion that will follow.
The latter is easier to define, and a good definition is provided by Max Webber, who asserted that the state is the agency within society which possesses the monopoly of legitimate force. This definition encounters some difficulties, since some entities that are normally considered to be states do not, or did not in fact have a monopoly of force in the territories nominally under their control. However, in today’s world Webber’s definition seems to encompass the great majority of entities that are normally recognized as states, since most states today follow the western model of well-centralized state which is the perfect representation of Webber’s definition. (Gellner, 1983)
The concept of nation, on the other hand, is considerably more difficult to define and has resisted, thus far, a widely recognized definition. I believe that it is important to highlight two central aspects of the concept of nation. Firstly, a nation is not a state. Although in common usage sometimes the term nation is used to refer to a state, this is very different from the concept of nation that I will be referring to it in this paper, which implies ‘identification with and loyalty to the nation in the sense of a human grouping which may or may not be essentially coterminous with a state.’ (Connor, 2004, p.24) In this sense, the nation is a group of people that are united by a sense of unity that does not necessarily derive from belonging to the same state. (e.g.: Quebec, Catalonia, Basque Country, Croatia, Slovenia, Ireland, Germany or Ukraine)        
Secondly, whereas the state is primarily an objective phenomenon, the nation is primarily a subjective one. That is, whereas states exist in the world independently of what people think about them, a nation’s existence is conditioned by whether its members believe that it exists or not. This notion is central to the following definition of nation provided by Gellner:

Two men are in fact of the same nation if and only if they recognize each other as belonging to the same nation. In other words, nations maketh man; nations are the artefacts of men’s convictions and loyalties and solidarities. A mere category of persons (say, occupants of a given territory, or speakers of a given language, for example) becomes a nation if and when the members of the category firmly recognize certain mutual rights and duties to each other in virtue of their shared membership of it. It is their recognition of each other as fellows of this kind which turns them into a nation, and not the other shared attributes, whatever they might be, which separate that category from non-members. (1983, p.7)

As Gellner admits, this broadly voluntaristic definition of nation is not totally adequate, since it fails to show what elements, other than sense of membership, contribute to forming a nation. Yet, I am compelled to adopt Gellner’s as a working definition precisely because it avoids directly attributing other criteria to the nation. This is because the defining characteristics of a nation tend to vary in each case, to the extent that, other than a shared sense of belonging, to every other criterion that has been proposed to define the nation there are clear empirical counter-examples, as has been famously demonstrated by Ernst Renan, who concluded that a nation is a “daily plebiscite”, since its existence depends on a shared belief that its member belong together, and a shared wish to continue their life in common.
 (Renan, cited in Miller, 1995)


                                                                        II

    In this section I will examine some of the most relevant arguments proposed in favour of the principle of national self-determination, which consists in that every nation has the right to have its own set of political institutions. I shall examine 3 of the main arguments in favour of the principle of national self-determination. The first one is grounded on social justice, the second on the expression of collective autonomy and the third on national culture.
Let us begin by analysing the argument from social justice. This type of nationalist argument has been endorsed, among others, by David Miller, who has defended the view that national belonging generates a series of binding obligations that extend to all the members of the nation. Miller claims that nations are communities of obligation, in the sense that their members recognize duties to meet the basic needs and protect the basic interests of other members. Yet he acknowledges that nations are large and impersonal communities, and that without a mechanism to enforce the duties that nationalities creates, those obligations will hardly be fulfilled satisfactorily by the members of the nation. Hence, Miller argues that the nation needs to have a state that is able to develop and regulate a set of institutions which together allocate rights and responsibilities to people in the way that their conception of social justice demands. (Miller, 1995)
Miller’s argument is sound as long as we accept that the first premise is true: that nations are ethical communities. However, as I will attempt to demonstrate next, such a claim cannot be sustained.
Miller argues that nations are, among other things, ‘ethical communities’ (1995, p.49). He defends the moral significance of nationality by adopting a particularist view of ethics, in contrast to the more popular (at least in contemporary moral philosophy) universalist view. While universalist ethics is based on a set of universal principles which are applicable to all people at all times, moral particularists argue that morality flourishes in concrete relationships that give meaning to our lives. (Pojman and Fieser, 2006) Miller rejects the universalist approach to ethics because of two reasons.
In the first place, he argues that adopting a universalist ethical stance ‘involves driving a wedge between ethical duty and personal identity’ (Miller, 1995, p.57), since the universalist must abstain from taking in consideration vital components of his identity such as who he is, where he comes from, and which communities he is attached to, when making moral decisions. For instance, a person is commonly not expected to treat a member of his family or one of his friends in the same way as he is expected to treat a stranger.
 Secondly, Miller claims that the universalist approach ‘rests upon an implausible account of ethical motivation’ (p.57), since the ordinary man will not feel motivated to make moral choices solely based on pure moral reasoning, rather than influenced by his particular circumstances. This is important because an ethical theory must have practical ambitions in the sense that it aspires to be the theory which people will use to guide their activities. But if an ethical theory embodies a view of the subject which is far removed from people’s common understanding of it, then it will very likely fail to guide people to act in accordance. (Miller, 1988)
Hence, Miller argues in favour of a particularist approach, according to which the concept of nation as an ethical community becomes more plausible. From a particularist approach, nationality, as other communities to which one belongs, creates special obligations that are different from the general obligations that one owes to humanity in general. Miller puts it like this:

Because I identify with my family, my college, or my local community, I properly acknowledge obligations to members of those groups that are distinct from the obligations I owe to people generally. Seeing myself as a member, I feel a loyalty to the group, and this expresses itself, among other things, in my giving special weight to the interests of fellow- members. So, if my time is restricted and two students each ask if they can consult me, I give priority to the one who belongs to my college.’ (1995, p.65)

Miller’s assertion that belonging to a community entails being partial in regard to the members of the community of which one is a part of has indubitable strength, since it builds on most people’s common belief that we should acknowledge some special obligations to family, friends, partner and co-members of exclusive organizations.
Yet, it is far from evident that nations can be seen as communities of the same kind as families, colleges or states. Once again, we should go back to the notion of nation as a community of which one is a part only when one believes that that is the case. In this sense, nations are quite different from the communities that I just mentioned. Nations differ from organizations such as colleges, country clubs and states in the sense that membership in those organizations is based on the assumption that the member consents in a number of obligations (amongst which some forms of preferential treatment towards co-members) in return for a number of privileges (including being treated in a preferential way by other members). There is nothing wrong with this. Yet, membership of nations is not based on consent but on involuntary characteristics, such as blood and culture. In this sense, it is akin to the family. But not quite. While the members of the same family are linked by objective ties of blood, the members of a nation are essentially connected by a collective belief in their nationality. In this sense, nations are in fact nothing more than “imagined communities” (Anderson, 2005) whose existence depends on the beliefs of its members. And mere belief hardly seems to provide a sufficient basis for constructing one’s identity or to ground serious moral demands, capable of defeating the usual moral demands of impartiality. (Miscevic, 2001)
Furthermore, Miller seems to suggest that descriptive facts, about the way people reason, have the power to determine normative facts, such as the way people should reason and behave. The fact that people have a tendency to show partiality towards their con-nationals can in no way justify them doing so. This would be the same as to say that, because owning slaves was a generalized practice in many civilizations throughout a substantial period in the history of Man, slavery should be deemed justified.
If the nationalist cannot come up with another argument in favour of the ethical significance of nationality, it seems as there are no good reasons to accept it over the demands of moral impartiality. We can then conclude that the central premise that nations generate binding moral demands which should be necessarily enforced does not hold. As such the whole argument based on the ethical significance of nationality fails.


A second argument used to justify the principle of national self-determination is based on the notion of collective autonomy. The argument can be put in the following terms: The first premise is that ‘people have an interest in shaping the world in association with others with whom they identify’ (Miller, 1995, p.88). The second premise is that a group of people who see themselves as a nation need a state in order to fully control their collective destinies. The conclusion is that people who identify with each other as a national community should be permitted to have their own state.
We should begin by questioning the first premise of the argument, since it relies on a conception of human nature that we have good reasons to be suspicious of. First, ‘it supposes that people have an interest in shaping the world in association with others with whom they identify’ (Miller, 1995, p.88). This is somewhat speculative, as Miller himself admits. Yet, the idea does have some appeal. What is most problematic, however, is that the argument relies on the assumption that people are primarily interested in “shaping the world” with their co-nationals, rather than any other group of people with whom they identify. This latter assumption cannot be accepted. For it to be true, the nationalist would need to prove that people’s primary focus of identification is the nation, which, as I will demonstrate next, he cannot do.
Let us begin by considering the following nationalist claim: ‘the only way in which individuals can realize themselves to the full is by identifying with the nation, serving it, obeying its customs, and unreflectively celebrating its greatness’ (Tamir1993, p.17) This argument has been identified by cosmopolitan Judith Lichtenberg who phrased it in slightly broader terms and named it “the flourishing argument”. She defines it as ‘the belief that human beings need to belong to or identify with some group beyond their immediate family or, in any case, that they flourish when they do’ (Tamir1997, p.160).
As Lichtenberg recognizes, the flourishing argument seems ‘to capture something undeniable’ (1997, p.161). Nevertheless, there are a number of reasons why we should doubt of the ability of this argument to prove that a person needs to identify with or belong to a nation in order to thrive. Most importantly, the nationalist must explain is why the nation is the best unit of identification/belonging. (Lichtenberg, 1997)  After all, there are a number of other entities that can hypothetically function as foci of identification and communities of belonging. Namely, the city where one was born, grew up or lives in, the province of birth or residence, the state of which one is a citizen or a resident, the continent or macro-region to which one feels most attached (e.g., Europe, Africa, the Arab World, the West) or even the whole of humanity. In what way exactly does the nation provide something in the way of identity that all those elements combined fail to produce?
  As Nenad Miscevic points out, ‘it is prima facie unclear why the nation should have such a special role in building an individual’s identity in comparison with all kinds of more local or universal, or simply incommensurable competitors. Mere assertion certainly cannot replace argument, and mere assertion is what one gets from quite a few pro-nationalist authors’ (2001, p.229). Even so, Miscevic identifies two possible nationalist answers to this problematic question.
The first one is that the nation incorporates various underlying traits that are to a good extent specific to that nation and distinguishes its members from the members of other nations. In this sense, the unique value of the nation as an identity-provider-community seems to derive from specific cultural traits such as a common language. Miscivic recognizes that this is a sensible proposal, since for many people their language is indeed an important part of their identity. However, Miscevic points out that the argument has a fatal flaw, ‘it is not general enough’ (2001, p.231). Concerning linguistic identity, for instance, ‘in all cases in which language is not the central distinctive trait, it fails to justify the ethno-nationalist program. Worse, it suggests that in all these cases ethnic identification itself is defective, lacking the central feature’ (2001, p.231). This would be the case for Austrians/Germans/Swiss Germans, most Arab nations, Serbs/Muslims/Croats, most nations in America and Africa as well as some other nations. We see then that in many cases linguistic identity does not seem to be a central or even a part of the national distinctiveness. This sort of reasoning can be applied to any particular element of identification usually assigned to nations, since there are always counter-examples that reveal that, whatever the criterion chosen, it cannot be found in all nations. This point has famously been made by Ernest Renan, who, in his essay What is the Nation?, highlighted the inadequacy of language, race, religion, geography and a community of interests to function as a single criterion that can be applied to distinguish every nation. (Renan, 1992) This becomes an even greater problem if we consider that every time that a nation does not share a national trait seen as central to identification, the very concept of national identity loses meaning. Miscevic uses the following examples to illustrate this:

If language is indeed so deeply important for identity, but Muslims and Croats share a language without sharing a national identity, then national identity is shallow. If a system of values is deeply important for identity, but Quebecois and Anglophones share values without sharing an ethno-national identity, then the latter is indeed shallow. (Miscevic, 2001, p.232)

We see then that the more the nationalist insists on the importance of a particular distinctive trait that nationality provides, the more he becomes vulnerable to the inevitable examples of cases in which that trait is not part of a national identity. Thus, the nationalist attempt to justify the centrality of nationality to personal identity on the basis of a particular trait fails under proper scrutiny. (Miscevic, 2001)
            The second way open to the nationalist is to try to ‘ascribe identity-providing power to the ethno-national “form of life” as such, regardless of particular features that underlie it in particular situations’ (Miscevic, 2001, p.233). This is a bold claim, since the nationalist must be able to prove that nationhood is decisively more successful as an identity provider than the other elements of identification against which it must compete. Yet, it seems quite unlikely that the nation can indeed perform the task of providing an identity and represent a specific way of life better than any competing element. Let us resort once more to an example provided by Miscevic, since it illustrates this claim rather well:

Being a German (nation), being a Bavarian (micro-region), or being Germanic (macro-region), taken in isolation from the particular traits that constitute each of them, seems to offer equally attractive foci for identification. There is nothing special about being a German-as-such, in contrast to being a Bavarian-as-such, that would a priori make the German- that is, the national-option preferable for young Hans in his search for a stable identity in comparison with the Bavarian-regional-one. Hans can equally well choose the cultural, all-Germanic option, identifying himself indiscriminately with a macro-culture which has produced Goethe, Beethoven, Berg, Schoenberg, Brentano, and Hegel, without weeding out the specifically Austrian, non-German part.’ (2001, p.234)

            This example helps us to appreciate how the nationalist is unable to explain how exactly the nation provides a better focus of identification than its competitors. Thus we should discard the nationalist’s claim that nations provide a unique and better element of identification than competing elements. As such, we should now begin to doubt if the nation can give us something in terms of identity that we otherwise would not acquire from the other entities with which we identify. At this point it certainly seems that national identity, far from being an essential part of personal identity, is a rather contingent one. Since the identity premise is indefensible, the whole argument from collective autonomy collapses.        


The third argument in favour of national self-determination is the one that justifies it on cultural grounds. Once more, Miller will be my point of reference, even though the argument of culture has been explored by many other pro-nationalist authors, notably Yael Tamir (1993) and MacIntyre (1994). Miller presents the argument as follows: 1) It is reasonably clear that distinct national cultures do exist. 2) It is valuable to the members of the nations in question that their national cultures continue to exist. 3) Since the state is the agent that can most likely guarantee the preservation of a national culture, than nations have a good claim to constitute their own state in order to preserve their unique national culture. (Miller, 1995)
The culture argument is one of the most commonly used weapons in the nationalist’s arsenal when it comes to justify national self-determination. And it should be recognized that the argument has some strength, since it draws on the force of the reasonably popular notions that distinct cultures should be preserved and that individuals have a right to culture. (Tamir, 1993) Yet, as I will try to demonstrate, there are important reasons why we should reject it.
Firstly we should question the soundness of the assumption that the nation is culture’s basic unit. (Miscevic, 2001) I believe that a strong case can be made in favour of both the supra-national and the sub-national characters of contemporary culture. Consider the American national culture. Now consider the specific(sub-national) culture of Louisiana, which be easily differentiated from generic American culture. Just because the culture of Louisiana is markedly different from generic American culture, and unique in the world, does it mean that a new state should be created to protect the culture of Louisiana? Furthermore, what should the nationalist make of the fact that, even in the absence of a state of Louisiana, the culture of the region has thrived? I have used the example of Louisiana, but I could have used countless other examples to demonstrate the same fact: that culture can be seen as primarily sub-national, just as it can be seen as primarily national. In addition, it must be taken into account that, in the age of globalization, culture is becoming increasingly more global and less local. Not only that, a key feature in the modern world is that cultures interact constantly and their evolution is a product of that interaction. (Tully, 1995, cited in Miscevic, 2001) As a result, to think of cultures as strictly national, independent of each other, is to ignore the important fact that “national cultures” are part of a more meaningful and coherent supra-national phenomenon. To give just a few examples, in the world of today most spectator sports, with only a few exceptions, are important parts of the culture of many very different nations (e.g. Rugby, Cricket, Volleyball, Football, Basketball); music also can be understood in terms of language and styles much better than it can be understood in terms of nation (e.g. Anglophone music, Spanish-Language music, classical music, rap). On the other hand, phenomena like the internet or videogames, are very much global in nature, and are much more a defining element of a particular generation than of a specific nation.    
After considering that it is just as (if not more) compelling to think of culture(s) in sub-national and supra-national terms rather than in strictly national terms, the premise that distinct national cultures exist loses much of its relevance, and the presumption that culture is fundamentally national is shattered. Yet, something else can be said against the national cultural argument for national self-determination. It regards the second premise of the argument: it is valuable for individuals that their national cultures continue to exist. Indeed it is true that for many people that the preservation of what they regard as their culture is important. But, as we have seen, the kind of culture that matters to a person is just as likely to be sub-national or supra-national as it is likely to be national. Furthermore, the fact that to feel part of a culture is important to many people does not mean that their culture should be preserved by remaining always the same. As Buchanan puts it, the right to cultural preservation ‘cannot be a right to cultural stasis- a right to preserve a culture just as it is at present. The basis of the alleged right is the good that cultural membership achieves for individuals, and this good does not require an unchanging culture. For the same reason, an appreciation of the value of cultural membership cannot by itself even support a right to the continued existence of any particular culture’. (Buchanan, 1995, cited in Miscevic, 2001, p.163) Hence, we should see the right to culture not as the right to preserve in its totality and indefinitely a certain culture, but the right to have a certain culture. But that culture need not be strictly national. In the modern world, in fact, culture is increasingly likely to be supra-national or, like in the case of Louisiana, sub-national.        
                                                                   

III


Let us now consider the last avenue open to the nationalist. Instead of arguing that the nation, through its very existence, justifies the creation of a state, let us now consider the reasons why, according to some nationalist authors, the state needs the nation. I would like to consider the 5 arguments of this type that I find most relevant. I will adopt the terminology used by Moore, who calls this sort of argument instrumental arguments (Moore, 2001).
The first instrumental argument in favour of nationality I wish to consider is Moore’s “gellnerian argument”. Moore argues that a careful reading of Gellner’s theory of nationalism suggests that “national identity is ineluctably bound up with modernity; and that it is precisely the features of modernity – mass literacy, standardized modes of interaction, mass education, a bureaucratic state, and so on – that give importance to cultural and national forms of identity” (Moore, 2001, pp. 76-77). According to Moore, two implications can be drawn from Gellner’s theory of nationalism. The first is that “there are aspects of the transition from agrarian to industrial (modern) societies that explain why cultural and national forms of identity have assumed importance (Moore, 2001, p.77). The second and most important one is that, given the nature of modern industrial states, there are substantial benefits that derive from situations where “the national and cultural boundaries of the state in part coincide with that of the political unit” (Moore, 2001, p.78).
The second argument in favour of instrumental nationalism I wish to consider is the “social justice argument”. It consists on the assertion that a sense of shared identity is instrumental in guaranteeing that policies of social justice (including economic redistribution) are accepted by the citizens of a state. This argument has been endorsed by a number of influential political philosophers such as Moore, Galston, Brian Barry, Mill and David Miller (Moore, 2001).
The third argument I wish to consider is the “democratic governance argument”. A generic version of this argument is well represented by Mill’s discussion on nationality in Considerations on Representative Government where he argues that democracy can only flourish where the boundaries of government coincide with that of nations. He supports that notion by suggesting that “among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion necessary to the workings of government, cannot exist” (Mill, 1861, cited in Moore, 2001, p.86). A more specific version of the argument is proposed by Moore, who argues that nationality is a particularly important requisite in terms of representation in the context of representative democracies. She claims that, on the one hand, it is a requisite of a representative democracy that those who are represented identify with each other and with their representatives at least up to a level in which the representatives can still be seen as legitimate representatives of those they represent. On the other hand, in the contemporary world nationalities are the most important source of identity and belonging, and hence are in a unique position to grant the community the level of union required by the functioning of a representative democracy. (Moore, 2001)
The fourth argument I want to highlight is what I shall call the “trust argument”. This argument basically consists in the following assertions: 1) To function well, a state, specifically a democratic one, needs its citizens to trust each other to a certain degree. 2) Nationality is an important source of trust. 3) Nationality is important for the functioning of the state.
Finally, let us consider the “stability argument”. It consists in the notion that multinational states are more unstable than states that are associated with only one nation. It is closely linked with the “trust argument”, since it presupposes that trust is always lacking between different national groups. This argument is well illustrated by the following quotation by Miller: “[In states lacking a common national identity] politics at best takes the form of group bargaining and compromise and at worst degenerates into a struggle for domination. Trust may exist within groups, but not across them (1995, pp 92-93).


Firstly, we should question the argument that associating the state with a nation brings stability. Consider that nations are not objective entities, since their existence relies on the belief of a group of people that they form a particular nation. Thus, any nation is contingent, since if the people did not think of themselves as part of the nation, the nation would not exist. According to the nationalist “argument from stability”, the nation brings stability to the state, since when there are more than one nation in the same state, it is likely that the national groups will not trust each other and a conflict may erupt that can threaten the peaceful coexistence between the citizens of the state. But if the conditions for polarization on national grounds did not exist in the state in the first place, obviously there would be no stability problem caused by nations. This indicates that the nation might be the original problem, and not the solution; and that problem can be avoided precisely by thinking in state, rather than national lines.
Furthermore, if a sense of shared nationality promotes trust between individuals of the same state, the potential of generating distrust between different nations is far greater. The trust argument would only be valid for those few states where it is clear that there is no more than one nation. For all other states, a far more realistic expectation is that feelings of national belonging are likely to produce strong cleavages between the people who live inside the state’s boundaries. And even in the cases of states which do not have more than one nation nationality still creates a significant problem: although nationals/co-citizens trust each other more they are likely to do so at the expense of acquiring greater distrust of non-nationals/non-citizens, which can give rise to terrible consequences. National partiality generates a dynamic of discrimination that often leads, in practice, to disastrous results. By making the state the tool of a particular nation, the nationalist condemns the non-nationals to a fate of discrimination, exclusion or even, sometimes, physical extermination. A number of examples can be drawn from real life to illustrate this: the identification of the German state with the German nation and the following exclusion of Jews and Gipsies during Nazi rule; the identification of the Sudanese state with the Arabs in Sudan and the consequential exclusion of African Sudanese tribes which led to conflicts in Southern and Western Sudan; the identification of the South African state with white settlers and the exclusion of black people, which led to the Apartheid regime; the identification of the Rwandan state with Hutus, which led to the exclusion of Tutsis and culminated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide; etc... This list could be extended almost indefinitely and constitutes a powerful proof of how states that are identified with a nation often end in disaster, provoked by the inevitable exclusion of the people that are not members of the privileged nation and live within the state. This leads me to believe that an adequate theory of the state should reject the temptation to link state and nation.
Finally I wish to dismiss the assumption that only nationalism (as in identification of the state with the nation) can perform the duties that the social justice, democratic governance and trust arguments highlight. Such assumption is in my view unwarranted, since a committed form of patriotism can perform the same functions, without producing the undesirable consequences that I attributed to nationalism. Thus, I support the view that we should advance towards a model of non-nationalist patriotism, based on the respect for the political institutions to which one is committed and on the denial of any ethical obligations of partiality that supposedly derive from belonging to a nation. Such a view is supported by authors such as Habermas (1998) and Viroli (1995). Habermas proposes a Patriotism of the Constitution (Verfassungspatriotismus), consisting “on loyalty to the universalistic political principles of liberty and democracy embodied in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany” (Habermas, 1990, cited in Viroli, 1995, p.170). “Unlike nationalism, constitutional patriotism separates the political ideal of the nation of citizens from the conception of the people as a pre-political community of language and culture. This form of patriotism recognizes the full legitimacy and moral worth of different forms of life and is committed to the inclusion of difference cultures within the framework of the republic.” (Viroli, 1995, p.170). A political model on the lines of Habermas’ constitutional patriotism has the power to offer citizens a powerful element of unity and at the same time avoid the dialectic of discrimination produced by national partiality and the internal divisions that arise from tensions between different national groups within the same state, especially when they have the intention of constituting their own state. In his book For Love of Country Maurizio Viroli, emphasises that patriotism has the power to compete with nationalism for people’s affection, albeit by different means. Viroli argues in favour of a concept of patriotism as a common love of liberty and a rejection of the celebration of a sense of one’s group uniqueness. Viroli suggests that citizens can learn to love a republic, when that republic consistently shows sign of good governance and of being able to protect the interests of its citizens. Furthermore, in democracies where the citizens take an active part in the governance of the republic, they come to see the good of the republic as their own to a considerable extent (Viroli, 1995). Both Habermas and Viroli emphasise the potential of patriotism to capture the loyalty of people through universal values that are not exclusivist, thus avoiding the nefarious consequences of political entities which are guided by principles of nationality. At the same time, they make a good case for the power of patriotism to command people’s affections, and thus convincingly assert that patriotism can replace nationalism as the uniting element of any state.
I wish to conclude by making a final point. Constitutional patriotism should not be allowed to function as an instrument to legitimise the unwarranted exclusion and discrimination of those who are not citizens of the state. It should operate together with an international system that recognizes that which nationalism denies: that all men are made equal and have the same inalienable rights. It is not the object of this essay to establish how such an international system should be, but a critique of nationalism would not be complete without at least pointing to a solution to the violations of human rights that derive from the competition between states. Also, it follows from the rejection of the principle of national self-determination that sovereignty should not be a prerogative of nations, or in any case, of nation-states. If the protection of the rights of Man is better ensured by a model of shared sovereignty between states, than it should be acknowledged that there is no good reason why we should insist that the sovereignty of states must be absolute. Quite the opposite, the recognition of the equal rights of all men demands that those rights are protected accordingly, which may not be possible in a world where states are totally sovereign. Pogge for instance, has argued that human rights are best protected by a system of shared sovereignty between several levels of government, including sub-state as well as supra-state institutions, rather than a system of rigid state sovereignty. (Pogee, 1992) If this is true, a change in the structure of the international order would be welcomed. The EU, in particular, can be seen as a pioneering entity in the shift towards a model of shared sovereignty like the one Pogge suggests.

Conclusion

I have argued that a theory of political philosophy based on the principle of nationality is not defensible. In the first section my aim was to demonstrate that the nation and the state are clearly discernible entities. In section II I looked at the main arguments used to justify the claim that each nation should have its own state. I believe that I have proved that those arguments cannot be defended and that, therefore, the claim is indefensible. I concluded in section III by showing that associating the state with a particular nation brings more harm than good. Furthermore, it is possible to envisage a theory of political philosophy that rejects the principle of nationality, thus avoiding its crucial disadvantages, but at the same time offers everything that is tempting about nationalism such as loyalty to the (political) community. Such a theory must be based on the kind of patriotism devised by authors such as Habermas and Viroli.


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Nationalism and the State

One of the great difficulties that scholars face in discussions about the concept of nation is its unclear meaning. An unambiguous answer to the question “what is the nation?” is not easy to provide. This is primarily due to the fact that often the term nation is used indistinguishably to refer to two very different concepts. ‘At times it connotes identification with and loyalty to the nation in the sense of a human grouping which may or may not be essentially coterminous with a state (e.g., Croatian, Fleming, Scottish, or Ukrainian nationalism). More often it is used to connote identification with and loyalty to the “nation” when the latter is used to indicate the state structure regardless of the national composition of the state’s population (e.g., American, Argentinian, Indian, or Filipino Nationalism).’ (Connor, 2004, p.24)
In continuation, I shall criticize the first form, which Walker Connor has named ethnonationalism, which does not imply that I shall be criticizing the second form, which Connor referred to as Patriotism. (2004)
I shall attempt to prove that an ethnocentric theory of society cannot sustain rigorous scrutiny. I shall argue that history has proved over and over again that ethnonationalism is extremely destructive, and that political systems founded on its premises often lead to horrible atrocities and other negative consequences that are extremely undesirable. I sustain that a good theory of the state should accept patriotism, but vigorously refuse ethnonationalism. Thus, the principles that a state cannot have more than one nation in it, and that each nation must have it own state should be rejected.
The peril of associating the state with the nation is real and grave, and this has been clearly demonstrated by the historical events that took place in the 20th century. This is especially true when it is considered that the state must not have in it more than one nation. If a certain state corresponds to one nation alone than the members of other nations will inevitably be excluded. This leads to the exclusion of the people that do not correspond to the privileged nation within the state, which can range from measures like denying them some rights by law, discriminating them because of their nationality (understood in ethnic, not state terms), persecute them, expel them form the territory of the state or exterminate them physically.
A number of examples can be drawn from real life to illustrate this: the identification of the German state with the German nation and the following exclusion of Jews and Gipsies during Nazi rule; the identification of the Sudanese state with the Arabs in Sudan and the consequential exclusion of African Sudanese tribes which led to conflicts in Southern and Western Sudan; the identification of the South African state with white settlers and the exclusion of black people, which led to the Apartheid regime; the identification of the Rwandan state with Hutus, which led to the exclusion of Tutsis and culminated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide; the identification of the Australian state with European settlers and the exclusion of the Australian aborigines; the identification of the Chinese state with Han Chinese and the oppression of non-Han Chinese within the Chinese state; etc...
This list could be extended almost indefinitely and constitutes a powerful proof of how states that are identified with a nation often end in disaster, provoked by the inevitable exclusion of the people that are not members of the privileged nation and live within the state. This leads me to believe that an adequate theory of the state should reject the temptation to link state and nation.
Of course, the nationalist can argue that strife between nations is both natural and inevitable, and that a nation has the right to exclude other nations from the state it possesses. In order to prove the soundness of this claim, however, the nationalist must be able to prove that: 1) the world is divided in several nations which are independent, well-delimited and well-defined entities; 2) those nations cannot live together and thus must live in separate states and; 3) that if two nations share the same state, either they should split the state into two parts, one for each nation, or one nation should exclude the other and become the dominant or sole nation in that state. In practice, the nationalist must prove that it is indeed necessary that every state correspond to one specific nation.
Previously we have seen that to identify a state with a specific nation is undesirable, since it often leads to pernicious results. Next we shall see that, unlike what the nationalist wants us to believe, it is not necessary for a state to represent a specific nation, or for every nation to have its own state.
First, it is worth thinking about the notion that the world is divided into independent, well delimited and well defined entities. Often the nationalist will defend the claim that his nation is clear-cut different from all the others. However, this is seldom confirmed by factual evidence. In fact, it is often the case that it is rather hard to establish accurately who the members of a nation are. A good example of this is the ethnic confrontation between Hutus and Tutsis that led to the Rwandan genocide in 1994. In that particular episode, the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government, with the help of the Hutu civilian population, exterminated nearly the entire Tutsi population as the result of ethnic tensions as well as complicated political and economic dynamics in the country during that period. Yet, a careful analysis of Rwandan history suggests that the categories Hutu and Tutsi, as they are perceived now, are largely the product of colonial administration, and are therefore artificial labels given by the Belgian colonizers to the native Rwandans. In other words, the natural division of the Rwandan population in two races, Hutus and Tutsis, is largely a fiction created by the Belgian colonizers more than it is a natural historical fact. Moreover, evidence from the 1994 Rwandan genocide suggests that often Hutus were killed because they were identified as Tutsis. This is due to the fact that, without looking at someone’s ID, it is almost impossible to distinguish Hutus from Tutsis since despite being allegedly racially different they are in fact indistinguishable physically. The Rwandan example shows us how often ethnic/national divisions are the product of inaccurate historical facts, and that it is often hard to establish with exactitude who exactly are the members of a nation. By establishing that nations are often the product of a deficient understanding of historical, political and social facts, and that its membership is hard to define, we seriously undermine the argument that nations are natural entities which we cannot dispose of. If we conceive nations as artificial constructs, product of a deficient understanding of history, whose membership is difficult to define with exactitude, than there seems to be no evident reason why nations are not something that can be disposed of if needed be.
There is yet another reason that might make us doubt that the world is naturally divided into well defined and distinct nations. Let us consider the following example. Someone who is from London can rightfully claim that he is a part of the English nation. However, he is also a part of the British nation, of which England is a part. Furthermore, he is also a part of a larger cultural entity, made up of the English-speaking countries in the world, who share the same language and a remarkably similar culture. Someone could even argue that England is a part of the European family of nations, and of the even larger western world. This structure hardly indicates a world structure of very different, independent nations. It rather suggests that reality is comprised of a series of groups that are part of even larger groups, that in turn are part of even larger groups, which are in turn part of the ultimate group: humanity. This structure suggests that there are several groups, distributed in different levels, which are all related at one level or another. It also suggests that even a group like England, is probably divided into several small groups, such as northern and southern England and the several counties. Hence humanity seems to be structured in groups, but these groups do not seem independent from each other. On the contrary, they are apparently related, which means that there are several levels of identification that might rival for the primary recognition as “the nation”, which is often but not always attributed to the state.
This seems to be at odds with the nationalist assumption that each nation must have its own state. If each nation is divided into a series of sub-groups with the potential to become nations themselves, then statehood will always be claimed by some sub-groups which will lead to confrontation with the state they are a part of. But if the world is composed by a series of groups which are not independent, but part of other bigger groups, the claim that each group should have its own state can hardly be sustained. In fact, in accordance to the spiral nature of group division of the world, one should expect to find a myriad of groups, sub-groups, sub-sub-sub groups and so on, living in the same state. Thus, it does not seem necessary that each nation correspond to one state.
What then is the alternative to the uni-national state? The obvious answer is the multi-national state, but the multi-national state also has serious deficiencies. In the first place, in order to avoid the problems that a uni-national state poses, the multi-national state must give equal treatment to all nations, and thus avoid the oppression of smaller nations by a dominant one. However, this is often not the case in multi-national states, where one nation usually emerges as dominant (e.g., Serbia in Yugoslavia, England in the UK, Arabs in Sudan, Russians in the U.S.S.R., Anglophones in Canada, etc...) Even in the cases where a certain stability is deemed to have been achieved for a long period of time in a multi-national state, usually separatist tendencies emerge or re-emerge at some point, like the case of Scotland in the UK, the Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain or, most dramatically, the break-up of Yugoslavia into several republics in the early nineties. Hence it is evident that the record of multi-national states is too poor to recommend it as a formula for institutional stability.
Should we then reconsider the option of the uni-national state, even in spite of all of its problems? That would be, I believe, a mistake. A better option is to look further for a form of state that avoids the nuisances of the uni-national state, but is not as unstable as most multi-national states are. I shall call this brand of state the non-national state. It is a kind of state that is not associated with any nation. It is only divided in the individuals that are part of it, the sum of all of them forming the state. The state is seen as a strictly political entity, rather than the instrument of a specific nation or of a multitude of different nations. All the citizens of the state are linked by their connection to the state, but are unique in their personal history, race, culture, religion and even, at times, language. A non-national state avoids the problems that nations create, and as such provides a better model than uni-national and multi-national states.
One factor that could apparently be problematic is language. After all, the state must be either unilingual or multi-lingual. If it is unilingual, one language will become dominant, and speakers of other languages will feel oppressed. On the other hand, if a state is multilingual, divisions between linguistic groups will be preserved, allowing the growth of nationalist feelings. Either way, it seems, different languages create problems and obstruct the creation of a non-national state. A possible solution for this would be to agree on a common language, different from the ones in conflict. Another option is to use several languages, instead of just one, as the administrative languages.
I have argued here that we should reject the principle that each state must correspond to a nation, and that each nation must have its own state. The principle of identification between state and nation leads to problems of both state oppression and separatism. A better model is a non-national state, where the principle of identification between state and nation is rejected.
Nations, as differentiated groups of people with one or more characteristics in common will always exist. However, there is no logical reason why the nation should be the leading unit in the formation of political groups. In fact, as we have seen, to associate nations with states is neither desirable nor necessary. A better course of action is to use nations as elements of personal identification, independent of the states which should act independently as elements of political organization. We can call this the principle of division between state and nation.

The Last Social Contract, Chapter 3: Leviathan

The Last Social Contract, Chapter 3: Leviathan

“This is the generation of that great Leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence: For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the Commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad.”

Thomas Hobbes, “The Leviathan”


Introduction

 How many wars and tragedies could have been avoided, if only the humankind had decided earlier to create not many but just one Leviathan, a silent guardian of peace, an immortal defender of the human race… But it was necessary for our learning to suffer in the past in order to, gradually, go through the process of creating one single entity capable of protecting us all. The entire history of our kind has been but a series of lessons, necessary to teach us how much we can gain by cooperating instead of fighting each other. We have been capable of exiting the original state of anarchy by creating governments and armies to protect us. However, the sole existence of multiple armies, and governments, has inevitably produced awful and countless wars in the past. But the time has come for us to finally reach the true “end of history”! The formula for a world without wars has been revealed, and it is now time to finally seal that ultimate social contract, thus completing our long political evolution.
Let us then wait no longer and finally disclose the form of our mighty protector.

Sovereignty

Only in the dawn of mankind has man been truly and totally sovereign. And such a total lack of limits to what any man can or cannot do has produced a situation of war of all against all, where no one could be safe. Thus, since the formation of the first tribes and clans, or associations of any kind, man has learned to renounce to part of his sovereignty in behalf of a greater power which acted in his and at the same time everyone’s benefit. Thus, it is not too difficult to understand that any kind of social contract, from the most primitive to the most complex, requires a delegation of powers. The only way for nations to be completely sovereign is to give them the power to do everything that they intend doing, without any restraints of any kind. Naturally, this means that any nation, if it so intends, can decide to invade the territory of another, or to steal the resources that are the property of another, or to kill or imprison foreigners. It also means that, if two nations disagree on a certain matter, are unable to resolve the dispute through dialogue, and fail to accept the mediation of a third party or that mediation is ineffective, then they must resort to war in order to settle the dispute. Thus, a world where nations are fully sovereign is also a world where nations and their citizens can never be safe. The condition here described is one of war of every nation against every nation. The only way to avoid this condition of constant war is to transfer part of the sovereign of the nations to a higher entity: a world federation of nations. Total sovereignty (the ability to do everything one intends to) is not positive and should be avoided. The solution is a world where power is divided between many entities inserted in a global framework. I envisage a world federation where competencies are distributed between the three essential levels of government: regional, national and international. Whenever it is possible, governments should be as close as possible to the citizens, because this allows for more efficiency and popular participation. However, some competencies are better handled by a superior level of power, national, which will still hold a great power, primarily legislative. Concentrating the coercive power in an international level of government will allow nations to dedicate their resources to serving the people instead of allocating them to defence. Furthermore, conflicts between nations will no longer be solved by wars, but can instead be solved by an international court of justice, similar to the existent European Court of Justice. In a world federation where power is divided between multiple levels of governance, there is no such thing as absolute sovereignty. In a world where such a thing exists, order cannot be present at the same time, because absolute sovereignty also implies total lack of limits. That said, to transfer a part of one’s sovereignty does not mean transferring all of it. Nations can retain all of their prerogatives except for one: the power to wage war. The first and foremost prerogative of the federation must be to preserve order and peace, and allow the national and regional governments to serve the people efficiently.

Membership

From the moment when nations join the world federation, they give up many powers, and they do so willingly. This procedure can be currently observed in many international organizations, but most prominently in the EU. Since from the moment when they join the federation nations will have to respond to a higher power, it is important to clarify which powers they will keep, and which powers they will lose. In particular, it is important to establish if nations will be able to leave the federation after they become members, or if the contract is permanent and irrevocable. I argue that nations should conserve the option to leave the federation when they so desire. Although this option diminishes to some extent the degree of stability and cohesion of the union on the short run, it has vital advantages on the long run. Firstly, it is a mechanism that can prevent civil wars; when the southern states decided to secede from the USA in the nineteenth century, the union alleged that their action was illegal, and did not allow the southern states to peacefully abandon the federation. The result was a bloody civil war that cost millions of lives. Such an event could have been avoided if the states had been allowed to peacefully abandon the union. Secondly, the option to peacefully abandon the union at any time grants more legitimacy to the federation. The federation should always remain a voluntary union of republics. The ultimate social contract should work in a way that all parties involved agree with the conditions of the agreement, not only when they first join the union, but always. It should not be expected that the parties agree to belong to a perpetual union, but rather it should be agreed that the parties will respect the agreement up to the moment they decide that it is not in their interest to belong to the union anymore. This option is essential in order to maximize the legitimacy of the union and to avoid civil wars.

Constitution

The term constitution is somewhat ambiguous. The term is usually used for nations, and it is commonly a set of the fundamental rules of the republic it applies to. In a way, every political organization has a constitution, but only some have explicit constitutions. In other words, every political organization has a fundamental set of rules, but only some have a document called constitution where all those rules are written down. Countries like the USA, Portugal, Spain or France have formal constitutions, whereas countries like New Zealand, Great Britain or Israel do not have actual constitutions but still have a fundamental set of rules. International organizations commonly do not have a formal constitution like Spain or France, but still have a fundamental set of rules in the same way as Great Britain or New Zealand do. The EU almost approved a formal constitution, but it was ultimately rejected by the Europeans. Nevertheless, the EU has a set of treaties which establish the fundamental rules of the organization like any national formal constitution would. Obviously, the world federation would need to have a set of fundamental rules, and those rules should be gathered in a single document called the constitution of the world federation. The document should establish the terms of the social contract, that is, in which conditions do nations join the federation. It must also determine the competences and powers of the federation and the nations, as well as determining which organs the federation has, their functioning, competences and powers. The prerogatives and functions of the federative institutions should not be extensive, but rather thin. This will allow the nations to keep their own laws and political systems, and restrict the functions of the federation to the maintenance of peace.

Institutions

The world federation must be composed by three institutions: 1) A Council of Nations, in charge of negotiating, writing and ratifying the treaties, including the constitution; 2) A Coercive Authority, in charge of protecting the federation from the external enemies and maintaining the order within the federation; and 3) A Court of Justice, in charge of solving conflicts between nations, between the nations and the federation, and competent to interpret and enforce the treaties of the federation, especially the constitution.

The Council of Nations is the assembly of all the representatives of the member-states, who negotiate, write and ratify the treaties of the federation, by unanimous decision. The council first meeting is the original social contract that will create the world federation. The first treaty produced by the council is the constitution of the federation. All new members of the federation must ratify the constitution in order to join the union, and their application must be accepted by all existing members before they can do so.

The Coercive Authority is the combination of the federal army, the federal police and the military leadership which controls both. The federal army exists to defend the federation against its external enemies, as well as to make sure that nations do not attack each other. The federal police are in charge of fighting crime in the federation, and therefore assist the national and regional police forces in that function. The leadership controls the army and the police, and is appointed by the council of nations for a short period of time. The military leadership can also be removed by the council of nations if it exceeds its competences.

Finally, the Court of Justice is in charge of solving the disputes between countries, the disputes between the federation and its member-states, to interpret the treaties and to enforce them. The decisions of the court of justice are binding for every national, federal and regional institution, and are enforced by the coercive authority.

Identity

To many people, national identity is a very important thing. People with nationalist inclinations would probably see a world federation distrustfully, since they would regard it as a direct threat to the power of nations. This is true in the sense that nations would no longer be totally sovereign, yet a world federation, built in this way, would not threaten or dissipate national identities anymore than the EU has erased European national identities or the OAE has erased national identities in the Americas. A world federation would not change traditions or even laws in the existent nations, but it would only prevent them from destroying each other, thus benefiting all of us, no matter one’s nationality.

Conclusion

In this paper I have argued that the creation of a world federation is highly desirable for the future well being of the human race. I have explained, in chapter 1, why the state of the world today is one of anarchy and why that state is not desirable. In the second chapter I have argued that a revised formula of the social contract is what we need in order to leave the state of anarchy and guarantee world peace. In the final chapter I have put forward a model of political organization that can maintain the independence of nations in almost every sense and preserve national identities while preventing conflicts between nations and avoiding both civil and international wars.

Almost 400 years ago Thomas Hobbes wrote his most famous work “The Leviathan”, founding modern political philosophy and starting the social contract tradition. He experienced on first hand the horrors of a civil war, and provided an answer for that kind of situation in the form of “his” Leviathan. However, in order to escape from another kind of anarchy, a anarchy of nations, a new kind of Leviathan must be created, one that is so powerful that can control entire nations, and at the same time is so weak that it is not capable of doing anything without the consent of the people who appoints it and who I serves. So let us create this new Leviathan, a powerful but benign monster, the only one who can protect us against the anarchy of nations.

The Last Social Contract, Chapter 2: Contract

The Last Social Contract, Chapter 2: Contract

“The only way to erect such a common power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort as that by their own industry and by the fruits of the earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly, is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will.”

Thomas Hobbes, “The Leviathan”

In “The Leviathan” Hobbes explains that, in order to escape from a state of anarchy, which is a state of war of every man against every man, all men have to agree to transfer their sovereignty to one man or to an assembly of men, which will therefore hold the power to do all that is necessary in order to guarantee their protection against foreigners and to uphold the peace within the republic.

What I propose is a revised form of the social contract, where the parties are not individuals but republics. Since we live in a situation of international anarchy, which is a state of war of every nation against every nation, in the same way as the state of nature is a situation of war of every man against every man, then every nation should transfer its sovereignty to a common power, who will hold the necessary powers to maintain the peace between nations.

After hearing this proposal, many will criticize it. Some will say it cannot be done. Some will say it cannot be sustained. And some will say it should not be done. However, to all those critiques, I have answers. And if human kind truly aspires to perpetual world peace, than there is no other way to achieve it but this one.

To those who say that such a contract cannot be done, I must say they are wrong, and I shall explain how this contract is possible. There are in the world many international organizations. Some of these are more powerful than others. Amongst the most relevant of these are the UN, the EU, the African Union, the MERCOSUL, NATO, NAFTA and the Organization of American States. These are organizations which are composed of nations, like nations are composed of men. Of the organizations which have been mentioned, only one has a global scope: the UN. To a great extent, the UN has been created in an attempt to fulfil the role of a world power capable of maintaining world peace. It has been created after the most destructive war in the history of mankind: the Second World War. In an attempt to avoid new global wars, the UN has been established. In fact, the UN is not an original idea, since it was preceded by the League of Nations, which in turn had been created as a response to the First World War. The problem is that, like the League of Nations, the UN does not have the powers which are necessary to enforce the peace in the world. Thus, it comes as no surprise that neither the League of Nations nor the UN have been successful in avoiding wars between nations. Imagine a small country. Now imagine that the sovereign of that country does not have an army. Imagine also that, although he is given the power to create laws, and is allowed to build courts of justice and to hire judges, he isn’t allowed to recruit men to enforce the laws and the courts’ decisions. If these were the conditions in such republic, could there be any order in the country? Although people might still consider their sovereign as such, his position would hold no significance other than a title, devoid of power and significance. It happens that the UN, like the sovereign in the example, is only a name and a symbol and has no real power or significance. Where there is no coercion, there is no power. A powerless sovereign cannot keep order. Where there is no order, there is anarchy. If there is anarchy, there can be no peace. International Law, which is embodied in the UN, is useless because it cannot be upheld. If a nation decides to attack another the UN can say it is acting against the law, and tell it to stop the aggression, but if that nation does not stop, the UN has no power to enforce the law. If a dispute between two countries is settled by the International Court of Justice, and the losing party does not agree with the decision, than there is no way to enforce the sentence. Thus, international law without an enforcer is void. The solution to this problem is to provide the enforcer. Either the United Nations must be transformed in order to become an efficient super-structure, capable of enforcing international law, or another organization must be created to assume this function.

I argue that the best way is to create a new organization, rather than to reform the already existent United Nations. This is because the UN has a considerable amount of structural flaws that do not allow it to become an efficient enforcer. In order for the current system of International Law to work the UN must possess a coercive power that allows it to surpass the power of even the strongest of nations. Naturally, in order for this to come true, the creation of a UN army would be necessary. The creation and existence of such an army, however, poses certain difficulties. For instance, who would pay for this army and who would control it? An army that big would cost a great amount of money to maintain and that money would have to come from member–nations, some of which would probably be unwilling to contribute with their share. However, the biggest difficulty comes from the fact that an army that powerful would be in the hands of a small body of people who are not even elected by the people. It is unthinkable to assume that the most powerful nations in the world would abdicate their power in favour of the secretary of the UN. Yet, in order for a UN army to be viable, such a transfer of power would be necessary. It is for this reason that the creation of a UN army is so difficult and unlikely to happen. Yet, other forms of coercion are not sufficient to allow the enforcement of International Law. The system of collective security, for instance, which is supposed to be used like a United Nations army and for the purpose of punishing governments that invade countries illegally, is extremely flawed. Arguably the system could be improved in a number of ways, but it would always be ultimately dependent on the will of the superpowers to work. In fact, the inadequacies of the system of collective security as a mechanism of enforcement of international law have been put in evidence in a consistent way for the last sixty years, with the sole exception of the gulf war, which can be seen as the only successful application of the system. History has equally demonstrated that the economic sanctions imposed by the UN are not, by themselves, sufficient in order to uphold international order. If we combine all these factors, it becomes clear that the UN has structural problems which make it very hard for it to be used as a guardian of International peace. Another very different system should and must be used in order to, in an efficient and feasible way, guarantee perpetual world peace.

Thus, I propose the creation of a world federation, where the power is divided between three levels of government: regional, national, and international. A federation is the only way to successfully transfer the power from the nations to a super-entity, capable of ensuring that the nations do not attack each other. Therefore, the ultimate social contract must be agreed upon between the nations of the world in which each one of them give up their sovereignty to create an organization with the means to enforce world peace.

Unlike the UN, in such a world federation the very condition of member would reflect the willingness of the member-state to be part of this new community, and thus to transfer part of its sovereignty to a higher structure of power. As such, the world federation should and could not be built in a day, since its members should join the federation progressively and slowly, and not all at the same time. This kind of federation has only one precedent in the history of mankind: the EU. The process of European integration stands as a perfect example of how a new order of international law must be formed, where sovereignty is divided between multiple levels of government, replacing a situation of competition between nations for a situation of cooperation between them. The European integration process has proven two things. The first is that the best way to transfer sovereignty to a higher level of government is by a slow and progressive process of power transfer. The second is that a superior entity, capable of providing a framework of cooperation between nations, and thus prevent war between them, ultimately benefits all the citizens of the federation.

However, the process of European integration is not yet complete. The last stage is still to come, and it is essential that it should come. Because without that last step, the social contract between the nations of Europe, and later the social contract between the nations of the World will never be complete. The last stage of integration is the transfer of military power. Until the moment when the armies of the member-states become one single federal army, war is always going to be a possibility, albeit remote. But when all the nations are “kept in awe” by one “common power” (the federal army, which is controlled by the institutions of the federation) than peace is guaranteed since there will be no power in the world capable of generating chaos anymore. (Hobbes, 1660, chapter XIII) This is how the mere existence of a federal army, and the non-existence of national ones, is a sufficient condition to guarantee perpetual world peace. The only thing which would be then left to be feared would be that great common power itself, the federal army and the ones who control it, the ultimate Leviathan.

Yet, aren’t we already afraid of our current national armies and rulers? And haven’t we found ways to control those? Even a beast so powerful can be controlled by good laws, fine institutions and the reverential will of the people. We are not obliged to create a Leviathan with no restraints, because if we did we could all end up as victims of the monster. Let us then create a Leviathan which serves the people, which is a servant of the laws, and which is controlled by institutions that are democratic and accountable. Let these be the terms of the ultimate social contract, which has been designed to grant the people of the world lasting peace and freedom.

The Last Social Contract, Chapter 1: Anarchy

The Last Social Contract, Chapter 1: Anarchy

"It is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known".

Thomas Hobbes, "The Leviathan"

I : Social Contract Theory

Traditionally, political philosophers have dedicated a great deal of attention to the formation of the first republics, and what existed before that. Some have tried to provide a historical account of the phenomenon, while others have dedicated themselves to mere suppositions. Many names have been used to describe the situation that existed before the first republics were created. Thomas Hobbes, the father of modern political philosophy and the first social contract theorist, has used the name “state of nature” to describe a world without republics or laws. John Rawls, the most influential political philosopher of the last century, has preferred to use the term “original position” to describe a state previous to the creation of the laws in a community.

The reason why many influential political philosophers keep going back to “the state of nature” is because most of them believe that is essential, for the construction of a political theory, to start from the very beginning, that is, the moment where the republics came into existence. Hobbes, in particular, decided to provide a description of the “state of nature” in order to illustrate the fact that a world without laws, far from being a utopia, would be a nightmare. His thesis was that, because the “state of nature” was such an undesirable situation, than any form of organized state, any republic, would be preferable. I believe that he was right on that matter. However, Hobbes, like many authors after him, made important mistakes when he described the passage from the “state of nature” to the state of laws. In this paper, I aim at correcting that account by providing one that is more accurate. I agree, nevertheless, with Hobbes on the opinion that a world of total anarchy is not desirable, and that it is paramount, in order to improve our conditions of life, for men to adopt laws and create republics. I agree with Hobbes when he states that a state of anarchy is not desirable, and that the only way to guarantee our safety, is by agreeing to create an artificial political construction, even if that means losing some of our freedoms.
In the next section, I will present a historical account of the political evolution of men which, despite not corresponding exactly to Hobbes’ theory of the social contract, nevertheless gathers the most crucial elements which are present in Hobbes’ explanation of the creation of republics.

II : Theory and Practice
 
In the dawn of mankind certainly there was a time when people lived without laws and republics, and had no organizations more complex than families. But the vulnerability of any single man, living in a similar world, is enough to explain why soon men decided to create republics. At first they weren’t more than clans and tribes, groups that lived together in order to protect themselves against powerful predators and to hunt big animals. The necessity to survive in a wild world would be enough to convince anyone to become more sociable and less solitary. A single man in a world full of predators, and potentially hostile groups of other men, would probably not survive for a long time. Especially if a man was to take a wife and to have children, the need to protect them would certainly persuade him to find the protection of a bigger group of people.

Numbers are not only important for protection, but are also convenient for other reasons. A group of people can do many things that a single individual cannot do. They can hunt big animals; they can build big and strong shelters, as well as bridges and other important works that one man alone could not; and they can make sure that one’s family is taken care of even after one’s death. These reasons were probably behind the creation of the first communities, and thus that state of perfect anarchy, the original position, was forever abandoned.

Thus, the humankind has reached a stage where men, for the most part, lived in small communities, mostly for protection and the gathering of food. In the early stages, these communities were made of hunters-gatherers, until they could master the skill of agriculture. With the constant birth of new members, the assimilation of outsiders, and the merging of different communities, it is not hard to imagine how great communities started to be formed, giving birth to the first real republics.

Even the smallest groups often feel the need to elect a leader, and the bigger the group, the greater the need for a government. In other words, at some point it is common for any group to feel the urge to establish specific functions for its members. Even a small group of hunter-gatherers would feel the need to assign its members to different tasks, such as hunting, gathering, childcare, cooking and building.

The more complex and more numerous a group is, the highest is the level of organization it needs. Probably even small communities of hunter-gatherers would develop a system of leadership. This would happen naturally, as the group’s most influential personalities asserted their innate influence over the others. Even a small group, when alone and surrounded by a potentially hostile world, needs to develop some kind of system of decision-making in order to survive. Often the natural cohesion of small groups is enough to prevent great conflicts between its members, but it is not enough to deal with the making of important decisions in an efficient way. This is why, even in small communities, it is common for one or a small number of members to be in charge of making the decisions in the name of the entire group. As communities grow in size, leadership tends to be institutionalized. And hence the first kings of men are crowned, and the first monarchies are created.

When the first sedentary agricultural communities were settled, the first cities emerged, and around them republics were built. These communities were infinitely more complex than the small hunter-gatherer communities, and thus required a much higher degree of organization. Complex societies need written laws, because of the great number of people that composed them. One cannot imagine how, in any big city, people could ever live without having written laws and courts of justice. Laws are necessary for many reasons, which derive from the cohabitation of a great number of people in the same community. Laws are necessary in order to determine who owns what, and by what right. If they did not exist, no one could be certain of what they owned, and if that were the case any type of business would become impossible to manage. If people were not granted exclusive rights to their properties, what would prevent other people from taking them away from them? And if thieves were not punished, then what would prevent people from assaulting other people in the street in order to take their possessions? Laws were created because they were, and still are, absolutely indispensable for any large community. Without rules there can be only chaos, and the greater the complexity of a Republic, the greater is the need for a set of written rules and the establishment of courts of law. The first communities were small and did not have the need for written laws and established courts of justice since, because of its small number of components, it would be unlikely for them to attack and steal from each other. In larger communities however, this is inevitable, and therefore the consequences of a lack of written laws are infinitely worse in these societies than the consequences of their absence in the primitive communities. For these reasons, the worst type of anarchy is the one that comes from the disruption of authority and laws in a republic where both once existed. This is what people experience when they have the misfortune of inhabiting the territory of a republic that, for some reason, ceases to be guided by one authority or whose laws cease to be applied. In those cases—which are usually brought about by civil wars—man becomes the wolf of man, a process which can only be reversed when authority is re-established.

III : International Anarchy, are we still in the State of Nature?

We live in a world which is divided in Republics. Each of those Republics is guided by a central leadership, and has a set of written rules. Therefore, when living inside of one of those republics, one can affirm that he lives in a state of order. And this is true as long as he doesn’t look at the world around him, outside the borders of his republic. Because if he did, he would see that he still lived in a state of anarchy, albeit of another kind. Men exist in a state of anarchy because there is no leadership common to all, and there isn’t a single republic, but many. There is no set of rules that apply to all men, but only sets of rules that apply to specific republics. Amongst republics, there is no law except for the law of the strongest. There is no judge capable of settling the conflicts between countries; these are only settled by the clash of armies. If a strong republic decides to invade a weak Republic, to steal its land, its goods, or to enslave its people, then it does and it is not punished for what it has done. The citizens of a republic can only be safe if they have a powerful army protecting them, and even then, there is no guarantee of success against any invasion or attack since it has happened many times in history that a number of republics have joined forces to destroy an otherwise stronger enemy.

So is anyone safe in the world we live in? The twentieth century has demonstrated that the Anarchy of Nations can be as dangerous as any other kind of anarchy. The First World War was responsible for millions of deaths, and an incredible level of destruction in the European Continent. That war has devastated the European Continent from 1914 to 1918. It was then followed by an even worst conflict, the Second World War, which lasted from 1939 to 1945 and was responsible for the greatest atrocities ever committed by men against men in our history. The Second World War generated six years of incommensurable destruction in Europe, Africa and Asia, also dragging into the conflict nations from America and Oceania. It was followed by the Cold War, an arms race between the world’s two superpowers, and only by miracle did not evolve into a world-wide nuclear war. With more and more nations acquiring nuclear capability, the rise of communist China, and the revival of Russia, is there much hope that we will not see a global nuclear war happening in this century or the next?

It is not my intention to incite fear into the readers of this text but to assert the thesis that there are several kinds of anarchy, and that none of them is optimal. Throughout history we managed to greatly reduce the degree of anarchy in the world, and by doing so we have been able to acquire comfort, progress, wealth and safety. In return, we had to sacrifice certain freedoms. However, we have not yet achieved a state where we can say that the Human Race has left the stage of political anarchy. We are still confined to the Anarchy of Nations, which is a threat to our very survival as a race, as we make quick and substantial advances in military technology, particularly in the department of weapons of mass destruction. It is therefore convenient to find a solution that allows us to abandon the dangerous state of anarchy we find ourselves in, and thus complete our political evolution from a state of anarchy to a state of order. Our very survival depends on it.

The Real War on Terror

The Real War on Terror

It is normal that fear plays an important part in people’s political choices. This is not something new, and should not surprise us. However, fear usually leads to wrong political decisions, and we should try to avoid this. As in every aspect of life, to let fear dominate our choices is the fastest way to lose control. Since politics is all about control, losing it usually leads to very undesirable consequences. Every type of political system is defined by who has control of society. In a monarchy, the monarch controls the people. In a democracy, the people control the monarch, the president or the prime-minister. In an aristocracy, the people are controlled by a select group of aristocrats. In a dictatorship, the whole society is under the control of a dictator or of a number of dictators. Therefore, control is the key element in any political system. In order for a democracy to keep being a democracy, it is thus essential for the people to keep controlling their ruler or rulers. If the people lose the ability to control their rulers, then the rulers gain absolute control over the people, and democracy is replaced by a different system of government. Democracy means the rule by the people; if the people have no power, then democracy cannot persist.

However, sometimes people are tempted to renounce some of their power. Sometimes the people are even willing to relinquish the power they have over their rulers. Usually this happens when the people are afraid. The new millennium has been, so far, a millennium of fear. Many of us have been brought up watching the so called war on terror. After a decade of relative peace (the nineties) the west has been awaken by the events that occurred on the 11^th of September of 2001. Those events marked the beginning of a new era where terrorists have become the new number 1 enemies of the west. However, terrorists are not the only threat that we now must face. There are two great parallel wars, and not only one, going on in the world today. One is the war against Muslim fundamentalists. The second is the war against state oppression. The first is being fought by the governments of the west against Muslim fundamentalists in the name of the people that those governments represent. The second war, the one against oppression, is being fought by the people of the west against their own governments.

It has become common for governments to justify the violations of civil liberties in the name of the war on terror. Governments claim that, in order to protect their citizens against terrorists, they must be given more power. In other words, the people are expected to renounce to their power to control the government, and allow the government to control them more than ever. However, perhaps it is time to ask ourselves if we should give up our civil liberties in order to fight terrorism. If the people relinquish control in order to allow their governments to protect them from terrorists, then who will protect the people from their governments? Are civil liberties a fair price to pay for protection against terrorism? It is my opinion that they are not, that civil liberties are never a fair price to pay, since without civil liberty there can be no freedom or hope or democracy.

The events described have remitted us to one of the most fundamental political disjunctives: freedom v. security. It is likely that our future will depend on our choices now. If we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by fear then we will chose security. However, relinquishing freedom in order to obtain security will inevitably leave us at the mercy of our governments. Such a decision would ultimately lead to state oppression, and oppression would create even more fear. This path is dominated by the politics of fear, where political decisions are driven by fear and lead only to more fear instead of a real state of security. Freedom, on the other hand, requires courage to preserve. And without freedom there cannot be any lasting happiness or democracy. People who have lived in police states know that it is never worth it to sacrifice freedom. Terror can assume many forms. It is not only represented by religious fundamentalists. State oppression is also a form of terror, and it is often one that is much harder to fight off. The true war on terror cannot be won by sacrificing freedom because it would only lead to more terror. Terror must be extinguished in all its forms, and this is only possible if the people can keep the power to control their representatives.

The war on terror is upon us. The wars on terror have already started and it is likely that they will not be over soon. The challenge we face is to fight terrorists and at the same time protect our civil liberties. We can only win this war if we can fight it without sacrificing the freedom we are trying to protect. It is of vital importance that we stop the western governments from using the excuse of terrorism in order to take our freedom away. The war on terror is not only a war against terrorists, it is also a war against oppression, and to acknowledge this is the first step to start winning the war.