HOW OBSOLETE IS THE NATION-STATE?

John Crowley

Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internationales56, rue Jacob75006 Paris

tel : +33-158717023fax : +33-158717090

e-mail : crowley@ceri-sciences-po.org

EUROCONFERENCE

Democracy beyond the nation-state: perspectives on a post-national order

Athens, October 5th – 7th 2000

1

To ask whether the nation-state is obsolete is not to askwhether it is desirable or deplorable, dangerous or peaceful,progressive or reactionary. These questions are important, andany discussion of the nation-state must in any case touch uponthem. But the main reason for writing this paper is the feelingthat normative and analytical critiques tend to be confused inmuch of the recent literature, to the detriment of both.Specifically, I wish to argue that opposition in principle tothe nation-state – on theoretical normative and practicalpolitical grounds – tends to lead to exaggeration and misplacedemphasis in analysis of contemporary forms of societalintegration. Public discourse in Europe would provide manystriking examples. My bank in France, for instance, has forsome months had a poster campaign about European monetary unionclaiming that the Euro will “bring Europeans closer together”.One does not have to be an obsessive sociologist to think thatthings are perhaps much more complicated; nor need one be arabid Euro-sceptic to wonder whether the legitimacy of the Euromight not derive from rather than create subscription to theEuropean idea. Wishful thinking, it seems, is at the heart ofsome forms of Euro-enthusiasm.

Rather than public discourse, however, I propose here to focuson theoretical argument, and specifically on the contributionsof Jürgen Habermas – partly simply because it is convenient todo so, but also, more importantly, because of their systematicnature and their influence. For the purposes of thisdiscussion, Habermas can, I am assuming, be taken as typical. Ishall try to unpack the various strands of his argument thatthe nation-state is an institutional-ideological form that canand should be superseded – “que l’État-nation a fait son temps”, to quotethe back cover of one of his most recent publications in French– in order to show that his analysis, while it undoubtedlypoints to the fraying of the nation-state, hardly amounts toits obsolescence. The claim that the nation-state isnormatively incoherent – which Habermas also advances strongly– must stand or fall on its own merits. Postnationalism, to putit rather differently, must come out as antinationalism.

What, for the purposes of this discussion, is a “nation-state”?Usage is sufficiently variable and opaque for some kind ofstipulative definition to be necessary, but conceptual

2

coherence and compatibility with usage are equally important.One cannot simply define a phrase such as “nation-state” in anyway one wishes without destroying opportunities for usefultheoretical conversation.

First, some formal points. If the hyphenated form “nation-state” is to serve any purpose, it must designate some kind ofcompound entity that is defined by its component parts and bythe relation in which they stand to one another. It musttherefore, on pain of pointlessness, be something distinct fromboth of its components. “Nation-state” is often used lazily asa synonym for “state” (in the sense “currently existingstate”): for example, “the nation-state is, as such, powerlessto act against global warming”. Here the national character ofthe state is entirely irrelevant to the argument, which simplystates (correctly) that current state – in the straightforwardsense “no current member of the (confusingly named) UnitedNations” – can meaningfully regulate greenhouse gas emissionson its own”.1 By contrast, our definition should make itpossible in principle for a state not to be a nation-state, andpossible to investigate empirically to what extent anyparticular state may usefully be described as a nation-state. Iam not aware, on the other hand, that “nation-state” is everused (at least in French and English) as a lazy synonym for“nation”: usage seems to dictate quite clearly that a nation-state is a kind of state. Finally the component parts must beclearly distinct if the compound is not to be meaningless. Thewords “nation” and “state” are often used as loosely inter-changeable (not least in the phrase “United Nations”), butthis, quite apart from definitional neatness, is compatiblewith neither the logic of the concepts nor the history of thewords. Our definition should therefore make it possible, notjust for a state not to be a nation-state, but also for thereto be nations that do not stand in the requisite relation (orperhaps in any relation at all) to any state. All this is no

1 There is also an implicit point in the phrase “nation-state” in suchsentences, viz. that any state capable of dealing with problems such asglobal warming – and particularly any kind of world state – wouldnecessarily have a fundamentally “non-national character”. That the scaleof contemporary states is sometimes inappropriate for policy purposes ishard to deny. Whether this really subverts the nation-state principle ismore arguable. These remarks, however, raise issues that can only bediscussed in the latter part of this paper.

3

doubt fairly obvious, but the tidying up can at least do noharm.

In the light of these preliminary points, the stipulativedefinitions will be as follows.

1. A state is a form of political organization characterized bysovereignty, defined as exclusive law-making capacity.2

2. A nation is a group of people thought of (by some or all ofits members or by an outside observer) as a permanentcommunity, i.e. one reproducing itself over time. By whatcriteria it may be judged permanent and by what processes itis supposed to reproduce itself are controversial issues.Instead of building “culture” – the usual but not invariableanswer – into the definition, it makes sense to keep thecriteria and processes definitionally open.

3. A nation-state is a state in which sovereignty is legitimizedby reference to a nation that the group of people subject tolaw are presumed to constitute.

These definitions are neither original nor controversial. Theyare, in particular, entirely consistent with Habermas’s usage,although he never summarizes them in quite that way. Theymerely serve to clear the decks by outlining the key featuresof two competing models of democratic political organization.Democracy, which was deliberately excluded from the previousset of definitions, I define here as sovereignty of the people,subject to Habermas’s valid and important points about the “co-originarity” of sovereignty and human rights. (Note that“people” means here nothing more than “group of people subjectto law”. The more substantive sense of people [peuple, Volk,

2 This differs significantly from the classic Weberian definition. Forreasons that cannot be gone into here, I am rejecting Weber’s emphasis onforce as the specific means of the state. This does not mean thatsovereignty is inherently peaceful or that the use or threat of force isnot intimately connected to its exercise. On the contrary, as I have soughtto argue elsewhere (“War, politics and sovereign violence”, forthcoming inFred Dallmayr & José Maria Rosales (eds), Beyond nationalism, Rowman andLittlefield, 2001), sovereignty is inseparable from violence. But there is,pace Weber, nothing specific about the state’s use of force (or violence,the two notions being far more difficult to distinguish than thephilosophical tradition has generally considered). What is specific, on theother hand – as Weber correctly saw –, is the state’s claim to recursiveauthority.

4

narod…] is either definitionally irrelevant, if interpreted as“pre-political”, or taken over by “nation”.) The two modelsare: the democratic nation-state (defined as above with theadded constraint of conformity to democratic principles) andthe democratic postnational state (in which reference tonationhood plays no role in legitimizing sovereignty). The gistof my argument is that, however competitive may be the relationbetween the two models, they are far less sharply contrastedthan their proponents seem to realize.

In light of the above definitions, the generic postnationalclaim that the nation-state is obsolete can be formulated moreprecisely. For present purposes, it is most conveniently splitinto two complementary but by no means identical claims.1. It does not make sense, in the contemporary context, to

think of the group of people subject to law as a “nation”.Note that this is not dependent on the stronger claim thatit is impossible in principle to equate the group of peoplesubject to law with a nation. Nor is the claim strictlyrelated to any particular normative position: there nothingabsurd in regarding nationhood as deplorably obsolete.

2. The traditional definition of sovereignty as exclusive law-making capacity has little relevance to the contemporaryworld. And if states cannot be characterized cogently bysovereignty, their status as conceptual and institutionalorganizing principles of politics seems at the very leasthighly questionable.

Prima facie, these claims are plausible, and they are certainlynot absurd or ridiculous. I wish to challenge themsociologically by calling upon a key notion missing both fromthe definitions and from the generic postnational claims:society. In order to see why society matters, let us howeverfirst consider in more detail Habermas’s sophisticated andpowerful version of the postnational claims. I shallconcentrate first, for purposes of exposition, on his mostrecent statement of them in French.3

3 Après l’État-nation. Une nouvelle constellation politique, Paris, Fayard, 2000.Unfortunately, Habermas’s works are never simply translated into French,but “remixed” – and arguably, to extend the musical metaphor, rearranged.The volume referred to includes three excerpts from the much more extensiveDie postnationale Konstellation. Politische Essays (Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1998): portionsof the preface (pp. 9-10 of the French text); “Aus Katastrophe lernen? Ein

5

Habermas’s conclusion can be summarized very briefly: economicglobalization puts the final touch to the obsolescence of thenation-state, which was, owing to factors such as culturalpluralism and the dangers of nationalism, in any case faradvanced. The new configuration – where economics, hitherto oflimited concern to Habermas, is of central importance – con-stitutes a “postnational constellation” within which the movebeyond the nation-state is both necessary and inevitable. Thisconclusion depends on the conjunction of three sets of argu-ments, each of which is somewhat shaky. This does not mean thatthe diagnosis is incorrect or the remedy inadequate. But forthe conclusions to be more than interesting and relevant opi-nions, more support would be required than Habermas offers. Isuspect that the increasingly philosophical tone of Habermas’swritings over the last decade indicates an unwillingness to getbogged down in sociological detail that explains the shakinessof some arguments – especially on economic issues where he hasno particular expertise. However this is no reason to let himoff the hook when he indulges in vague generalizations.

In order to clarify the critique, it is helpful to state whatone might call Habermas’s implicit “antithesis”: while he doesnot formulate it and does not refute it directly, his ownarguments cannot be correct unless the antithesis is disproved.It may be sketched as follows: any roughly democratic state isnecessarily “national” in the sense that it must equip itselfwith institutions of the kind that, historically, constitutedthe nation-state, viz. institutions providing forms of concretesocietal integration which, in presupposing the nation, tend tocreate it. (“National identity” may be in people’s minds, butit is produced socially.) This thesis has a crucial corollary:the borders of nations defined in this way – by states embodiedin historically deep and sociologically thick institutions –are not fixed. Forms of inclusion – legal, territorial,symbolic – may shift or be deliberately redefined. To move

zeitdiagnostischer Zurückblick auf das kurze 20. Jahrhundert” (pp. 13-39);and “Die postnationale Konstellation and die Zukunft der Demokratie” (pp.43-124). It adds to them a later article: “Der europäische Nationalstaatunter dem Druck der Globalisierung” (pp. 127-149; it was first published inBlätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, n°4, 1999). I adapt here a review ofthe book first published in L’Économie politique, n° 6, 2000.

6

beyond currently existing nation-states does not necessarilyentail moving beyond the nation-state principle.

If Habermas is right, the antithesis and its corollary arefalse. Conversely, if has not refuted it, his arguments,however valid, fail to prove his conclusion. In order toclarify things, I propose to organize Habermas’s argumentsaround three main strands. Each is, indeed, highly complex, andcalls upon sociology, normative philosophy, political scienceand, increasingly, political economy. But after all, that isprecisely what makes Habermas interesting.

First strand : the state is obsolete because its key attribute –sovereignty, interpreted as effective control within itsterritory – is rendered obsolete by globalization. Now, no onewould deny that contemporary states vary hugely in power, andare often weak in the face of environmental pressure, whetherfrom rival actors, such as powerful neighbouring states, orfrom impersonal processes such as market forces. Two questionsremain, however.

First, is the definition of sovereignty in terms of effectivecontrol historically and conceptually reasonable? Thedefinition I offered earlier in terms of exclusive law-makingcapacity is in many ways more useful. It certainly better fitsthe structures of an international system within which thelegal notion of sovereignty is explicitly contrasted with theempirical notion of power. We would not say, I think, that astate ceases to exist when its foreign policy is entirelydictated by fear of a powerful neighbour’s displeasure. It doescease to exist, on the other hand, or at best can maintain onlya shadow existence in exile, when it is annexed, when itsjuridical capacity is annihilated. This does not mean thateffective control is irrelevant. On the contrary, whilesovereignty is definitionally decisive as to the concept of thestate, it is by no means its only attribute, and undoubtedlynot, in terms of empirical political sociology, the mostinteresting. Furthermore, many things relevant to the analysisof the state are better understood as attributes of a system ofstates (including also a range of non-state actors) than of thestates severally. States exist by being recognized (the wordhas many shades of meaning that converge here) and their

7

actions in many areas are premised upon recognition. Twosuperficially counter-intuitive examples will illustrate this.(1) Money exists only in being recognized, and there is nothingmodern about issues of confidence. The limits of currencymanagement are as old as attempts to manage the currency, asmedieval debasers found out to their cost. Arguably, the veryidea of “monetary sovereignty” (at least as used by, say, op-ponents of European monetary union) is a category mistake. (2)Nationality in the broad sense – including related notions suchas citizenship and domicile – is, in legal terms, within theprovince of private international law. It derives fromsovereign enactments of individual states, but its conceptualstructure and practical application depend crucially on mutualrecognition. Historically, it has in fact involved as arelation between states as much as an attribute of individualstates, and is indeed often inscribed in international publiclaw as well (for example in treaties for the avoidance ofmultiple nationality).

Secondly, even granting the arguable equivalence betweensovereignty and autonomy or effective control, what are we tomake of the argument that sovereignty is eroded by economicglobalization? The idea is hardly absurd, but Habermas’sarguments in favour of it are both empirically thin andtheoretically unsophisticated.

Here, for instance, are the four facts Habermas produces insupport of the claim that contemporary forms of globalizationare radically different from the forms of economic interna-tionalization that are, to say the least, as old ascapitalism.4

“1. Extension and intensification of international trade inmanufactured goods are manifest, not only over the lastdecade, but even in comparison with the era of free tradebefore 1914;

2. there is, furthermore, no disagreement regarding the rapidgrowth and increasing influence of multinational enterpriseswith production facilities worldwide, nor

3. on the growth of foreign direct investment;4. finally, there can be no doubt as to the unprecedented

acceleration in capital movements on electronically linked

4 Après l’État-nation, p. 55.

8

financial markets, nor as to the tendency of financialcircuits to emancipate themselves and to develop their owndynamic, unrelated to the real economy.”

Now, there is no disagreement about the statistics, but thereare in fact sharp disagreements, even among economists, aboutwhat they mean. And such disagreements reflect genuine diffi-culties in deciding what counts as “globalization” (assumingthis to be new and at least potentially threatening) that areof concern to the social sciences generally. In the firstplace, globalization is demonstrably as much a deliberate statestrategy as an autonomous process, although it is an openquestion whether states are losing control of institutions andtechniques they originally created because free trade wasregarded as beneficial to the economy and because more flexibleand liquid financial markets were supposed to lower the cost ofbudget deficits, and therefore heighten the effectiveness ofKeynesian demand management. Much of the social impact ofglobalization in the advanced industrial countries is aconsequence, not of state powerlessness, but of the desire topromote economic modernization while reducing the constraint ofdemocratic accountability. European integration is in thisrespect a complementary rather than a competing mechanism.Secondly, phenomena such as the breakdown of the Seattle tradesummit show that states – and their political processes – arestill, in this area at least, the only show in town. The WorldTrade Organization was clearly shown in Seattle to have neitherpower nor authority of its own. This is of course a matter ofdegree: the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank,partly simply because they are older and more entrenched,clearly have greater significance. But, equally, it suitsstates to hide behind them. Thirdly, the phrase “real economy”shows Habermas trying to have his cake and eat it. If thefinancial markets were genuinely unrelated to the “realeconomy” – as some monetarists would claim – there would be noreason to worry about them. In fact, of course, as any readerof Marx should know, there is no such thing as a “real” economydistinct from the “money” economy. This is why the financialmarkets matter, but this is also why they cannot simply beregarded as a monstrous excrescence we could easily do without.If we want the economic benefits of globalization – as statesand public opinions in the richer countries do, on the whole –,

9

the financial implications come as part of the package.Finally, the status and significance of multinationalcorporations is not reducible to statistics. The turnover ofthe largest multinational corporations, says Habermas in anearlier essay, is greater than the GDP of most countries.5

Arithmetically, this is quite true. But it does not suffice toprove the overwhelming power of large corporations compared tosmall states. After all GDP is aggregate value added, and thevalue added of large corporations is a fraction, often quite asmall one, of their turnover. The comparison is therefore inpart an artefact of accounting systems. More importantly theratio of turnover to GDP says nothing about power, but simplyshort-circuits serious analysis of it. Once one takes accountof the extent to which multinational corporations depend onstates, and are indeed the deliberate tools of state policy(not least as to postcolonial dirty work), a much complicatedpicture emerges.

These comments do not of course show that Habermas is wrong toregard economic globalization as a fact and the erosion ofstate power as a direct consequence of it. Simply, his factsare in no way conclusive. Like most things that areunquestionably true, they are rather uninteresting, and thereal issues start where Habermas leaves off.

Second strand : the nation, as a sociological and politicalconstruction, is obsolete. In support of this conclusion,Habermas suggests that nationhood is superseded, empirically,by new forms of societal integration. What he has in mind arenew modes of selfhood, in the broad sense of Giddens’ “self-identity”, that are mediated by new media of communication, neweconomic relations, new ways of thinking about identity, thattend to erode specifically national forms of integration. It isimportant here that Habermas interprets integration primarilyin terms of the economic dynamics of industrial modernity. Itis no doubt mediated by a range of historically constitutedinstitutions which are the concrete form, the embodiment, ofthe nation-state, but it is not reducible to them. Unlike theschool system, the army, or nationalism as a “civil religion”,

5 Jürgen Habermas, L’intégration républicaine. Essais de théorie politique, Paris, Fayard,1998, p. 171. This book is largely, but not entirely, a translation of DieEinbeziehung des Anderen. Studien zur politischen Theorie, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1996.

10

law, which in Habermas’s recent work is the primary medium ofintegration in contemporary societies, is national onlycontingently. In Europe, indeed, its national character isalready being superseded. Empirically, this is plausibleenough, although the arguments remain sketchy. Thus, Habermastakes it more or less for granted that the social and politicalmeaning of globalization is determined by its economicdynamics. He does refer to research, conducted principally byanthropologists, that stresses the very complex, localized anddifferentiated ways in which “globalization” is incorporated orappropriated.6 Yet, despite the fact that these results appearto qualify or even to contradict his main point, he fails tointegrate them into his discussion. For the challenge to thestate also to destabilize the nation, Habermas needs anassumption of culturally homogenizing globalization. Be that asit may, however, the arguments are hardly decisive. Theobsolescence of nationhood is among other things a matter ofconsciousness: it presupposes not simply structural change inmodes of societal integration, but also acceptance of them andagreement on what they mean. This is why those who wish todefend the nation against obsolescence can accept the facts andgive them a very different spin. The Front National in France, forinstance, believes strongly in the reality of cultural-ethicalglobalization, for the same reasons as Habermas – but wishes ofcourse to place itself in the vanguard of resistance againstit. For his conclusions to be valid, Habermas must be able toshow that the xenophobes who both believe in globalization andreject it are wrong, in the dual sense that their struggle ispointless (for sociological reasons) and that it is unworthy(for normative reasons). This is why Habermas’s analytical andnormative positions on nationhood are so intricatelyintertwined.

Third strand : the sociologically defunct principle of nationhoodis also normatively obsolete: because of its internalambivalence, its supersession is a moral imperative. Habermasgives two main reasons for this. On the one hand, the principleof nationhood is based on a presumption of culturalhomogeneity, which it enacts symbolically and organizes insti-tutionally. However, homogeneity is by its very natureincomplete and imperfect. The search for it within a society

6 Après l’État-nation, pp. 68-70.

11

must eventually violate individual rights and is ultimatelypregnant with the threat of “ethnic cleansing”. Furthermore, inthinking of relations between societies in terms of contactbetween closed and mutually exclusive cultural systems, onemakes it impossible to articulate the ethics of diverse formsof life and the universalistic moral position. The principle ofnationhood is thus the carrier of the germ of negativenationalism, a form of collective selfishness that is alwayspotentially warlike.

On the other hand, according to Habermas, the conceptual, andto some extent historical, origin of the principle ofnationhood is the need to legitimize a new kind of politicalpower: the Enlightenment idea of power as issuing fromsovereignty thought of as will. The logic of this idea hasoften led to hostility to any check on sovereign power as anarbitrary external constraint. In the name of the nation andits permanent higher interests, it is an easy step, in partic-ular, to become suspicious about universalistic human rights.Conversely, classical liberalism, in explicit opposition tothis form of Jacobinism, subordinates sovereignty to humanrights, which are thereby depoliticized. Habermas declares aplague on both these houses, which are in his view equallymisguided. It is a central theme in his recent work that humanrights and democratic sovereignty are “co-originary”: they areborn together, conceptually, and necessarily define one anothermutually, not least in terms of juridical institutionalization.The principle of nationhood regrettably hides this internalconnection.

Thus, if we compress Habermas’s arguments to their core, heclaims that the state is superseded by globalization, whichalso makes the nation obsolete. The nation-state principlethereby becomes itself obsolete, but it was never defensibleanyway. We can therefore say “good riddance” to the nation-state and get on with the task of rethinking democracy “after”it.

There are two quite different ways of challenging thisargument. The most familiar is to stress the depth andpervasiveness of national identity, giving nationhood normativepriority over statehood, and contesting the idea of “nation-

12

building”: this may, of course, take a quasi-racist form. Theargument I propose to develop is precisely the opposite.Precisely because nations are historically constructed, andprecisely because the idea of nationhood is intimately entwinedwith the concrete institutions that both express and reproduceit, the nation-state offers far more flexibility than isgenerally recognized. Interestingly, Habermas’s own argumentsin their more developed form provide many of the elementsneeded to refute the obsolescence of the nation-state.

First of all, internal critique of the post-national theorypropounded by Habermas shows it to be incoherent. The core ofhis argument can be stated quite simply: he rejectsstrenuously, as both incoherent and dangerous, any idea thatcitizenship should be conditional on national identityinterpreted in an “ethnic”, “pre-political” sense. In detail,however, things become much more complicated. Habermas’scritique of national identity is only decisive if one acceptsthe ethnic version of it – which Habermas of course does not.Evidence for this vicious circle is scattered all through hisrecent work. At the risk of being repetitive, and in the hopeof ramming home the point, I shall deal here with threedistinct lines of argument.

Let us start with the argument about the origin of the idea ofnational sovereignty in the essay on “The European nation-state. Past and future of sovereignty and citizenship”.7 Haber-mas considers first the conceptual basis of the emancipation ofsovereignty from God, custom, and nature, and its relocation inthe strictly human domain of will. This is a puzzle: “Thejuridical basis of the constitutional is flawed (…) It isimpossible to explain in purely normative terms how thefundamental totality of [citizens] should be constituted.”.8 Inother words, there is no democratic basis for the borders ofdemocracy. “It is tempting to try to correct this flaw by anaturalistic concept of the people”,9 in other words by anation in the ethnic sense of the word. On Habermas’s ownargument, however, such a “naturalized” entity is necessarilypolitical and artificial. “It is through nationhood that the

7 L’intégration républicaine, pp. 95-119.8 Ibid., p. 106.9 Ibid.

13

inhabitants of a state territory attain consciousness of thenew form of solidarity based on politics and law. Nationalconsciousness crystallized around recognition of a commonorigin, language and history, and thus consciousness ofbelonging to the ‘same’ people, transforms subjects intocitizens of a single political community – in other words, intomembers able to feel responsible for one another. Nationhood ornational consciousness (Volksgeist) – the first modern kind ofcollective identity in general – provides a cultural basis forthe legally constituted state form.”10 So, is nationhood“natural” or “artificial”? Habermas gets trapped in this falsedichotomy because his summary of the historical process ofnation-building is sociologically impoverished, and arguablyhistorically back-to-front. The idea that nationhood shaped ademocratic state that had already been constituted by law seemsabsurd. For example, to speak of people “attainingconsciousness” of common history and language with reference tothe institutions – the school system but also the whole rangeof commemorative and representative national institutions – isanti-sociological precisely because it implicitly naturalizes.Habermas is thus trapped, in spite of his explicitconsiderations on mechanisms of societal integration, betweenthe “civic” nationhood he aspires to (but which he can conceiveonly in opposition to history and to culture) and ethnic“nationhood”, which he deplores, but which nonetheless ends upin his theory as a kind of “strange attractor”. He thusunderstates, in these normative reflections on the borders ofdemocracy, the co-originarity of nationhood and democraticstatehood (which, however, he explicitly develops elsewhere),even as he (correctly) stresses in sociological terms theartificial, constructed character of the nation. The artifice,however, is so to speak fictional without being fictitious,since it is embedded in the longue durée of institutions (such ascivil, political and social rights) that structure the everydaylives of members of society and constitute the dominant matrixof societal integration.

Habermas’s difficulty in reconciling the well-establishedhistorical sociology of nationhood and his normativeperspective is also illustrated in the essay on “Citizenship

10 L’intégration républicaine, p. 103.

14

and national identity”.11 His starting point is that “thenation-state and democracy are twins born of the FrenchRevolution. Culturally, they are still linked tonationalism.”.12 This is true, but fairly vague. Drawing onwell-known themes in historical sociology, Habermas gives somesupport to the cultural link. “Its literary form and itsdiffusion through journalism give nationalism an artificialcharacter; because it is in some measure constructed, it haslent itself, from the outset, to abusive manipulation bycultural elites.”.13 This, again, is true enough, but puts theemphasis in an odd place. “Artificial” makes sense only bycontrast with “natural”, and this is a contrast Habermas cannotcogently use. The historical sociology of nationhood provesthat strictly ethnic conceptions of nationhood are analyticallyfalse (although they may be politically powerful) – but thislogically leaves open the normative status of nationhood. Whatis at issue is not so much its artificiality (since nopolitical categories are “natural” in any case) as itsarbitrariness. Habermasian republicanism is supposedly non-arbitrary because it is embedded in real communicativeprocesses. The question would thus become: how can nationhoodbe embedded, and which forms of embedding are defensible in thelight of democratic principles? Oddly, and I thinkinconsistently, it is a question that Habermas evades.

As a result, he goes on to misinterpret Renan as “alreadywithin a context of opposition to nationalism”.14 In fact,Renan, in order to dismiss certain German attempts to justify,on objectivistic “ethno-cultural” grounds, the annexation ofAlsace and part of Lorraine in 1871, formulates a competingsubjectivistic conception of supposedly progressive nationhood.(Whether this entails nationalism, and in what sense, I shallnot discuss here.) The famous phrase that nationhood is a“daily plebiscite” (un plébiscite de tous les jours) is an affirmationof the national principle in terms of its embeddedness in

11 Ibid., pp. 67-94. Confusingly this is a translation of the chapter entitled“Bürgerschaft und nationale Identität” in Faktizität und Geltung. Beiträge zurDiskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats (Frankfurt, Suhrkamp,1992), pp. 632-660, which was omitted from the earlier French translationof that book.12 L’intégration républicaine, p. 69.13 Ibid., p. 70.14 Ibid., p. 71.

15

concrete social institutions and practices. Habermas can onlymaintain his reading by smuggling in the straw man of “pre-political naturalness”: “The republican component ofcitizenship here parts company entirely from belonging to apre-political community integrated by descent, sharedtraditions and a common language.”.15 True, but this isprecisely why, in Renan’s terms, citizenship is internally andintimately related to nationhood. Only by arbitrarily definingnational identity in exclusively ethnic terms, which are thendismissed as meaningless, can Habermas make sense of his strictseparation between citizenship and national identity.

The most striking, and bizarre, aspect of Habermas’s conceptualstructure are the argumentative contradictions he finds himselfin when confronting ethnic nationalism in its most virulentform. The best example is his discussion of Carl Schmitt in theessay on “Inclusion: association or enclosure? On the relationbetween nation, Rechtsstaat and democracy”.16 The core ofSchmitt’s theory of the constitution, for Habermas’s purposes,is the interpretation of national sovereignty as necessarilyethno-nationally grounded. “The essential notion of democracyis the people, not humanity. If democracy is to remain apolitical form, there can only be democracies of peoples and nodemocracy of humanity.”17 Quite apart from the distastefulpolitical implications, this is simply conceptually wrong. Butwhile the whole thrust of Habermas’s moral theory should leadhim to reject the dichotomy of people and humanity, heeffectively turns it on its head. His postnationalism therebyremains trapped within it.

Yet Habermas’s own arguments show why it is far from proventhat “the symbiosis of nationalism and republicanism is (…) atransitory constellation.”.18 Habermas summarizes the“republican legal-rational” tradition, to which he subscribesand to which Schmitt is implacably opposed, in a way that seemsto point in a very different direction. “According to thistradition, ‘people’ and ‘nation’ are interchangeable terms fora citizenship that is co-originary with the democratic15 Ibid.16 Ibid., pp. 121-150.17 Carl Schmitt, Theory of the constitution (p. 371 of the French edition); quotedby Habermas, L’intégration républicaine, p. 129.18 L’intégration républicaine, p. 125.

16

community.”19 But there is then at least the possibility of arepublican theory of nationhood – similar indeed to that drawnfrom Renan by contemporary French republicanism. Nothing in theidea of nationhood necessarily entails an ethnic reading of it,and there is therefore no real basis other than wishfulthinking for stipulating a “transitory” connection betweennationalism and republicanism.

The points made in previous paragraphs are sketchy but theysuffice, I think, to show that Habermas’s conceptual-sociological case against nationhood, or national identity, isunproven. As a result, the normative case remains also to bemade. What deserves further discussion is the presence in hisown writings of precisely the republican model of nationhoodthat he claims to be unavailable. Why he is blind to it, Ishall not speculate. But the existence of the argument suggeststhat the currently unconvincing normative case againstnationhood and for postnationalism is one that does not needurgently to be made.

What is it to be a citizen, and how does one become one? Withina republican perspective such as Habermas’s, where citizenscannot be such by birth and where citizenship is of crucialpractical and normative significance, these questions aresurely the key to understanding what citizenship means ascollective identity. Habermas’s official answer relies entirelyon the mutually supporting mediations of law and of reasonedpublic debate. But this, as he is well aware, leaves hangingthe question of how people come to be capable of, and motivatedto take part in, the performances relevant to deliberation.Ostensibly, he relies here on dubious theories of moraldevelopment, which enable him to separate citizenship from anyform of substantive collective identity. In fact, it is muchmore plausible to envisage democracy as, among other things, akind of social order composed of institutions participation inwhich is in practice – although not in principle – “pre-political” and even coercive for most people most of the time.Citizens, to put in more simply, are socialized into citizenship:a political community is always also a society.

19 Ibid., p. 130.

17

Habermas, of course, is fully aware of this, and says soexplicitly on many occasions. The passages quoted earlier onwhat, pace the author, is best called republican nationalismare a good example. Even more strikingly, he says, a few pagesafter the discussion of Renan referred to earlier, “In order tobe embodied in social practices and to become the drivingforces of the dynamic project to create an association of freeand equal citizens, the principles of the constitution must beset within the historical context of a nation of citizens inorder to be integrated with citizens’ motivations.”20 But ifthe idea of a “nation of citizens” is taken seriously, itnegates much that is said elsewhere. A similar point arises ina discussion of Kant, whom Habermas criticizes for neglecting“the link established by liberal political culture betweenenlightened self-interest, moral awareness and habit (…)between tradition and critique”21. But if tradition andcritique can be internally and dynamically linked, who needs“post-conventional” morality? Habermas himself drives home thepoint in the very next sentence: “The practices of such aculture ensure mediation between morality, law and politics,and simultaneously provide the appropriate context for a publicsphere within which political learning can develop.”.Citizenship is neither “inherited” nor quasi-transcendentallyself-created, nor chosen by an arbitrary act of will: it islearned. And learning, in turn, involves institutions,Selbstbildung and the acquisition through participation inpractices of implicit knowledgeability, of Bourdieusian habitus:it is one description of the social construction of acollective societal identity that we may reasonably callnational when the processes involved are fairly uniform. InHabermas’s own words, “A nation of citizens is made up ofpeople who, as a result of their socialization, collectivelyembody the forms of life in which their identity developed evenwhen, as adults, they have freed themselves from their originaltraditions.”22.

Now, the processes and practices relevant to the learning ofcitizenship are not unaffected by globalization andmulticulturalism, which are undoubtedly reshaping societies,

20 Ibid., p. 77.21 Ibid., p. 176.22 Ibid., p. 139.

18

and perhaps even ideas of what “society” means. The schoolsystem, the mass media, the welfare state, the institutions oflaw and order, the symbolic representations of political unityand nationhood: all can be shown to have frayed over the pasttwo decades. But this is a possibly reversible tendency, partlybecause economic pressures play only indirectly, and moreimportantly because the scale and scope of the relevantinstitutions are not fixed. There is nothing incoherent, oncewe follow Habermas’s own hints, in regarding the limits ofcurrently existing nation-states are remediable within theterms of the nation-state model. Anthony Giddens addresses thefuture of the nation-state in sociological terms very similarto Habermas’s own, but instead of arguing for postnationalism,defends the idea of “cosmopolitan nationhood”, whichpresupposes a series of reconfigurations of where the bordersof state and nation lie and what they mean politically.Habermas, although he may believe otherwise, has little seriousreason to disagree with him.

Is, then, the nation-state obsolete? This paper provides nofirm answer. I have shown only that one of the leadingproponents of the obsolescence of the nation-state – JürgenHabermas – not only fails to prove his case, but even advancessome very good arguments in favour of the continuing relevanceof the nation-state. This is in no way decisive. What it leavesus with, however, is a hypothesis that Habermas has notrefuted, namely (to quote my earlier definition) that anyroughly democratic state is necessarily “national” in the sensethat it must equip itself with institutions of the kind that,historically, constituted the nation-state, viz. institutionsproviding forms of concrete societal integration which, inpresupposing the nation, tend to create it. Once one takesaccount of the institutional “thickness” of the contemporarystate – short of truly libertarian dismantling of all socialand political institutions –, this hypothesis is, I think,valid. Much more work would, however, be required to proveit.23 And even if it were proved in general terms, majordifficulties would clearly remain: how the content of thenation-state might adapt to globalisation in both moral andtechnical-economic terms, and how the scope of democracy might

23 The best recent statement of a position along these lines is DavidMiller, Citizenship and national identity, Cambridge, Polity, 2000.

19

change as the borders of existing nation-states are rearranged.But these are questions about the future of the nation-state,not its posterity.

20