Europe, Nationstate and Globalisation

Citation

Krönig, J. (2001), "Europe, Nationstate and Globalisation", European Business Review, Vol. 13 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2001.05413bab.007

Europe, Nationstate and Globalisation

Europe, Nationstate and Globalisation

Jürgen KrönigJürgen Krönig is the UK Correspondent of Die Zeit

Keywords: Europe, Globalization

It has become fashionable to predict the end of the nationstate or at least to emphasise the need for its demise. There are certain parallels with the predictions about the end of religion at the end of the nineteenth century. Nietzsche thought faith was a pathological aberration. Lenin tolerated it as a doomed anachronism. H.G. Wells expected it to be superceded by progress. But now, 100 years later, we realise how difficult it is to get rid of divinity. Religion has survived and will continue to do so, albeit in different shapes and forms.

Now we hear similar predictions about the nationstate. And ironically enough, predictions that its shelflife is near its end come from the same quarters that got it wrong about religion. Left-leaning intellectuals and liberals, in both their versions, the social liberals and the neoliberals, tend notoriously to underestimate the emotions and instincts of humanity. In this respect, little, so it seems, has changed over the course of the last 100 years; Orwell wrote in his Collected Essays Vol. 2, My Country, Right and Left:

The energy that actually shapes the world, racial pride, leaderworship, religious belief, love of war, which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action.

Orwell wrote this during the first years of the Second World War. Today we would use different words to describe the emotions but one of these passions seems to be the strong wish for national identity and the preservation of national souvereignty.

Little seems to have changed since Orwell's times. I have come across the same conviction among politicians, business leaders and journalists – a belief combined with an astonishing blindness for the real world, for feelings and instincts of the vast majority of people around them. Whenever I hear well-meaning British proeuropeans proclaim that the UK will of course join the Euro soon after the next election and that the negative opinion polls about the Euro do not mean anything for the outcome of the required referendum, I feel reminded of Orwell's observation.

The tendency to replace cool analysis with wishful thinking exists in Germany where it is partly a result of the darkest period in its history. Many German liberals and left-leaning intellectuals are actually longing for the demise of the nationstate; they still dream of a future, where a "European nation" will supercede the squabbling peoples of the continent. This vision of the dissappearing nationstate may not be confined to Germany alone, but its appeal is stronger there than in other countries because in the eyes of many people National Socialism has tainted the very idea of patriotism and nationalism, if only because it is impossible to draw a clear dividing line between healthy pride in one's feeling of national identy and aggressive, deadly mutations. Therefore the "European Nation", evolving on the back of a continuing process of economic and political integration will remove any temptation to flirt again with the darker side of nationalism.

Of course the nationstate has its grim history. Nobody can deny that the nationstate was involved in disasters, atrocities and wars. But these disasters were not just confined to the centuries of the nationstate. They have more to do with the human condition; regardless how we organise ourselves, if in feudal states, in nationstates, in tribal or in theocratic societies or supranational entities like the Soviet Union – history has shown that the darker instincts of humanity have again and again spoilt beautiful concepts and ideas; quite often especially attractive utopias ended in disaster. The problem with the nationstate is not the desire for self-determination or the wish to be the master in our own house. The problem is an all too often overwhelmingly strong conviction that only people like ourselves deserve to be in this house.

To avoid or minimise this urge needs eternal attention and wise and farsighted governance; sometimes this demands reducing the speed of change or bring it to an halt, in order to assess the situation and give people a chance to reflect how far they would like to go. For Europe nothing is more dangerous than to pursue the project of integration without paying attention to the undeniable fact that too much change can frighten and lead to reactions which endanger the aim of peaceful cooperation. It seems unrealistic to believe that the forces of modernisation, together with secularisation and cultural homogenisation will reduce frictions and lead automatically to greater tolerance and mutual understanding. On the contrary, the levelling of differences might lead to a stronger wish to define your identy by emphasising the differences to other nations who are with you in the melting pot of globalisation and techocratic supranationalism.

The nationstate is under pressure from two different forces at the same time – there is globalisation and the demand to pool sovereignty with others in supranational conglomerates like the EU; and there is the subnational differentiation, regionalism and tribalism. The first process can be associated with the models of liberal internationalism. Driven by the visions of liberal internationalism the nationstates decided to link their economies and create a single market. But this was not all. The economic process of integration should and would eventually be followed by politics.

If this process continued Europe would be more united and at the same time become more varied than in the last three centuries. In some ways it would be more similar to the Europe before the enligthenment, the medieval Europe of Christianity.

The liberal internationalists still believe that Europe can be interpreted as a victory for their transnational ideas; they believe that it will only be a question of time before national identities will be fused and most of the remnants of national souvereignty be abandondoned. But I think such a conclusion would be premature. I don't see the historical inevitability of the integration process.

There is growing resistance among the European nations; they have become more wary and sceptical, and not only in Britain. No government, perhaps with the exceptions of Italy and Ireland, would today be in a position of winning a referendum on the Euro, if it was forced to hold one. The latest Europe-wide opinion polls indicate a worrying dissatisfaction even about the working of the Union as a whole. It is important not to deny that some of the forces which are vociferous advocates of the nationstate are dark and unpleasant; but I would like to present a positive argument in favour of the nationstate. Civil society and democracy are not only more important than supranational institutions or a European state; they both need the nationstate to flourish. Democracy, citizenship and equal rights have evolved in the framework of the nationstate. It is no coincidence that civil rights and democratic institutions took longer to evolve in those countries in Europe which were the late nations. The first nationstates were the democratic frontrunners.

Citizenship needs the nationstate to create a constitution and a canon of law. So far there is no other way to develop a system of democratic accountability on a supranational or even global level too. One of the least attractive features of the EU is its democratic deficit. This deficit is damaging, because it drives the erosion of popular support for the European project as a whole. Politicians have begun to notice that. Therefore we have heard a flood of visionary speeches in which all sorts of remedies have been suggested, such as the creation of a second chamber of the European Parliament, formed with representatives of the national parliaments. All this is in a way an admission that something went wrong and only greater involvement of the nationally elected representatives can help the EU.

On a global level it is even more obvious that we need the nationstate. All international institutions, which drive the process of globalisation forward, Worldbank, IMF or WTO, are lacking accountability and democratic control. They are dominated by bureaucrats, all too often symbiotically linked with multinational corporations and conglomerates. Benjamin Barber, the American political scientist, analysed in his book Jihad versus Mcworld the central conflict of our time, between consumerist capitalism and religious and tribal fundamentalism. These forces are diametrically opposed to each other. Jihad pursues a bloody politics of identity, Mcworld a bloodless, if possible, economy of profits. In between the world is caught in what William Butler Yeats called the two eternities of race and soul – that of race reflecting the tribal past, that of soul anticipating the global future. The first offers the prospect of the Balkan, holy wars of narrowly conceived faiths against any form of interdependence and cooperation. The second eternity offers a future of onrushing economic, technological forces that demand integration and uniformity and turn people into ever more hectic, never quite satisfied consumers – a world tied together by infotainment and commerce. In between Jihad and Mcworld, democracy, civil society and the nationstate are damaged. Everyone is a consumer, no one is a citizen. But without citizens there can't be democracy.

The nationstate is of course not the end of history. It would be silly to suggest that. But the nationstate is, in Ralph Dahrendorf's words, an enormous achievement of civilization. It is and remains the political space in which a feeling of belonging can develop. It delivered the framework for individual rights and it still is the place in which those institutions exist that we need to deal with the challenges of our time. The fight against unemployment still remains mainly a task for national governments.

They have to decide over finance, the rules, the launch of programmes like the New Deal in Britain. Welfare states, too, are rooted in national cultures and traditions. Reforming the welfare state therefore means that each country has to find its own way. To deal with the challenges of the welfare state and to develop instruments for reform remains for the time being at least duties of the nationstate, even if a group of states like the members of the EU, might agree on the broad principles of reform.

The advocates of further integration in Europe should be aware of another challenge, which affects modern governance. The growing disillusionment with politics on a national level is bad enough. But past experiences indicate that the institutions of Europe, Commission, Parliament and Central Bank, have increased this problem. They are widely regarded as remote, faceless and at the same time relentlessly interfering, with no chance to do something about it. At the same time Europe's embrace of the forces of globalisation has driven more people into the camp of the sceptics. I would even argue that deeply-felt unease about globalisation and the international market forces have significantly contributed to a growing scepticism in Britain, Germany and the Scandinavian countries about the European project. The Commissions' love affair with globalisation continues. But the summit of Nice represents a setback for the Eurocrats. Its proposal to get rid of qualified majority voting in matters of free trade was rejected, unanimity is still required, the commission, representing the 15 members on the level of WTO, did not get the free hand it had hoped for. This was one positive result of the summit, which may turn out to be a turning point of European politics – the relentless drive to an ever closer Union has at least been slowed down. If this really represents the beginning of a shift it is highly welcome.

The nationstate despite its weaknesses deserves to be defended, against the onslaught from above and below, not least in the interest of democracy and civil society. The positive development of Europe after 1945 was achieved by enlightened nationstates who decided to cooperate and pool sovereignty. Too much integration, driven forward by an élite, ignoring the peoples, will not only be counterproductive, it might even endanger the achievements. Europe should be a family of nations, tied together by cooperation and elements of integration, guided by mutual respect for differences.