The Modern "Nation-State"

Because of globalization, there have been many issues raised on how the relationship of the state and nation. Some say that globalization has lead people of different nations to be non-nationalistic, to an extent that people love nations other than their own. This says many things about the culture, history, and politics of a state.

As I stated in my previous blog, "Restricted Movement of People", you can think of a state as a family, and its inhabitants or citizens are its family members. If a family member knows "how great" another family's situation is, it will make that family member think that his or her own family doesn't do well and might even hate his or her own family. With this perspective, that family member will want to go to that "another" family but it has restrictions. Instead of loving his or her own family, he or she instead will want to go to that family that do better than his or her own. That is one of the reason. One of the reasons could be on the culture or even acceptance. Of course, everyone, even animals, insects and any other living thing, has preferences. Even in large scale, people will prefer one over another. Although it is natural for human beings to have preferences, there are problems associated in this. First, restrictions of other countries should always be respected. Just like in my analogy, you just can't barge in in someone else's family. There are borders and legal procedures that have to be honored by an individual. Going back to the Nation-State, cultural borders are not limited anymore because of globalization. With mix of different cultures, people tend to forget about their past and not understand their own identity which lies on where an individual came from and/or grew up. Apparently, it is important for a state to retain its own culture by doing all the preservation methods that it can use. Globalization has all its advantages, but also has disadvantages. A state took part in globalization at their own risk of mixing other cultures to their own and also sharing their own to the world. Now, in this situation, the prevailing cultures will be of the more prosperous economies because of their market share in the global trade, making other nations know about their culture. For example; the restaurant industry is one of the most saturated market in the world. With all the different kinds of restaurants, people have an idea about the culture of a particular country. In a Japanese restaurant, they serve tea and Japanese food of course. Some restaurants even have small readings about their home country and culture.

To summarize everything I want to say regarding the nation-state relationship; a state has to take care of its people and preserve its oneness in order to maintain order. If a state stopped being a nation, then it will have a problem on identifying its own identity. Unity has to be preserved by the state always, or else there will be chaos inside the state's territory. On the other hand, international organizations promote oneness or unity between states. With a somewhat "individual-ness" of each state, uniting all the states would be a difficult task. Because of clashing cultures and/or differences, wars are inevitable.