Is the concept of the nation state dead in geography and history

Political Science

The concept of nation-state is rapidly becoming twentieth century phenomenon that no longer appears to have any real significance. Everywhere we see nation-state is dying and this retreat is caused by several things among which the most prominent being the differences in civilizations. In his invaluable piece on the subject entitled 'The Clash of Civilizations', Samuel P. Huntington, hypothesized that "the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural." (Huntington, 1993). According to Huntington's theory, religion or cultural identity would be far more important in the new world and importance of nation-states would rapidly diminish. This was definitely not a far-fetched concept because the current reality attests to the fact that people are no longer divided on geographic lines rather the conflict is grounded in cultural/religious differences.

This is evident from some recent events that suddenly divided the entire world into various religious identities with all Muslim countries united on religious grounds. With September 2001 attacks, religious identity became far more important than national identity. Muslims around the world began defending their religion while western agencies grouped every single terrorist under the umbrella term 'Muslim'. The national identities of terrorists were rarely brought into the equation and it was always their religious identity that received attention. Similarly in far more recent event, we saw Muslims again raising voice against the cartoons of Prophet Mohammad published in Dutch newspapers. Once again, Muslims were not concerned about their nationalities. Their religious affiliation was evidently more important. These events make it absolutely clear that in the coming years, religion will be the great deciding factor. It will be the dividing and uniting force. On the one hand, it will create divisions so followers of one religion are differentiated from followers of another faith. And on the other, it will unite all followers of the same religion from each corner of the world on one single platform.

Answer 2:

Is Geography History?

When we discuss the death of nation-states, we are actually referring to blurring of geographical boundaries. There was once a time when Greeks, for example, prided themselves over their national identity which was obviously based on the piece of land that Greeks occupied. However with the passage of time, this piece of land is losing its significance. Land is still important for other reasons but it is no longer the factor that sets one group of people apart from another. This is an interesting development and one that explains why geography is gradually becoming history.

Everywhere nation-states are dying and this death has contributed to rapid decline in the significance of geographical demarcations. We can blame the information age as well as globalization for this change. But according to civilization theories postulated by Huntington, this change is grounded in religious and cultural differences/similarities. West is now better known for its identity as westerns rather than as North Americans or Europeans. This is due to the fact that they share similar cultures, traditions, values and religion. Similarly Arabs are not interested in being called Jordanians, or Libyans or Syrians for that matter. For them being an Arab is what defines their identity. This is again due to the similarity of their cultures.