Rana Dasgupta - The demise of the nation state
What is happening to
national politics? Every day in the US, events further exceed the imaginations
of absurdist novelists and comedians; politics in the UK still shows few signs
of recovery after the “national
nervous breakdown” of Brexit. France “narrowly
escaped a heart attack” in last year’s elections, but the country’s leading
daily feels this has done little to alter the “accelerated
decomposition” of the political system. In neighbouring Spain, El País goes
so far as to say that “the rule of law, the democratic system and even the
market economy are in doubt”; in Italy, “the collapse of the establishment” in
the March elections has even brought talk of a “barbarian arrival”, as if Rome
were falling once again. In Germany, meanwhile, neo-fascists are preparing to
take up their role as official
opposition, introducing anxious volatility into the bastion of European
stability.
But the convulsions in
national politics are not confined to the west. Exhaustion, hopelessness, the
dwindling effectiveness of old ways: these are the themes of politics all
across the world. This is why energetic authoritarian “solutions” are currently
so popular: distraction by war (Russia, Turkey); ethno-religious “purification”
(India, Hungary, Myanmar); the magnification of presidential powers and the
corresponding abandonment of civil rights and the rule of law (China, Rwanda,
Venezuela, Thailand, the Philippines and many more).
What is the
relationship between these various upheavals? We tend to regard them as
entirely separate – for, in political life, national solipsism is the rule. In
each country, the tendency is to blame “our” history, “our” populists, “our”
media, “our” institutions, “our” lousy politicians. And this is understandable,
since the organs of modern political consciousness – public education and mass
media – emerged in the 19th century from a globe-conquering ideology of unique
national destinies. When we discuss “politics”, we refer to what goes on inside
sovereign states; everything else is “foreign affairs” or “international
relations” – even in this era of global financial and technological
integration. We may buy the same products in every country of the world, we may
all use Google and Facebook, but political life, curiously, is made of separate
stuff and keeps the antique faith of borders.
Yes, there is
awareness that similar varieties of populism are erupting in many countries.
Several have noted the parallels in style and substance between leaders such as
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Viktor Orbán and Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan. There is a sense that something is in the air – some coincidence of
feeling between places. But this does not get close enough. For there is no
coincidence. All countries are today embedded in the same system, which
subjects them all to the same pressures: and it is these that are squeezing and
warping national political life everywhere. And their effect is quite the
opposite – despite the desperate flag-waving – of the oft-remarked “resurgence
of the nation state”.
The most momentous
development of our era, precisely, is the waning of the nation state: its
inability to withstand countervailing 21st-century forces, and its calamitous
loss of influence over human circumstance. National political authority is in
decline, and, since we do not know any other sort, it feels like the end of the
world. This is why a strange brand of apocalyptic nationalism is so widely in vogue.. read more
