I blogged about Scotland previously here and here. Thus, I couldn’t help but notice this BBC article:
An opinion poll commissioned by BBC Scotland has shown a clear majority (58%) of Scots want a referendum on independence next year. The poll also suggests support for the Union outstrips that for independence from the UK. However, the poll found the percentage of people saying they support independence varies widely depending on how the question is phrased. The Scottish Government wants to hold a referendum on the issue in 2010.
The nation-state has been the dominant form of organization for several centuries now, most able to provide public goods and above all security for the people. However, the hierarchical organizational structure coupled with the devolution of power – primarily through technology – is seeing states combine into larger entities (think EU) and regions move towards more autonomy and even independence. The trend is clear, ‘stock’ in the nation state is down and the people are moving away from it in both directions, up and down.
Sidenote: Good related article on Catalonia here. Hat tip to Chief Wiggum.
I’m not quite sure how the desire for independence among Scots is a sign of the decline of the nation-state.
Wouldn’t a Scottish republic be a triumph for the nation-state, ensuring statehood for yet another nation that had long been “imprisoned” in a multinational state?
Great Britain is example of the nation – state, Scottish Republic would be ethno – state in statu na
scendi. Big difference.
According to author of this small article, the UK with English, Scots, Walons, Irish and helluva of different immigrants is “nation state” and Scotland, inhabbited mostly by nation of Scots, is “region”? I really don’t know what to think of this.
Walons is another word for Welsh, by any chance?
However, I agree with Chirol’s point of view. Apart from a socio-political, or historic-anthropological, analysis of a Scottish referendum or independence, I think it’s a clear sign of the times the need for more tied continental relations between nation states (EU but also Nafta, or OUA and the Comesa, the Sadc, etc.) which is balanced by the need of people to have close relations with their delegates and institutions, to the welfare state where present, who become more regional and localistic.
Also, in a world where languages die every day and traditional ways of life blend with a more cosmopolitan approach to culture (be it food or cinema), more and more people are rediscovering their roots, when not inventing them basing upon some Golden Age myths.
But I would not say it’s a crisis of the nation state in itself. I can’t see it disappear – as much as I’d like to – in a foreseeable future. It’s an evolution, an interesting one, to which is wise to keep an eye upon.
Chirol is right. The Nation State was always to some degree an “imperial” entity, where a core progenitor kingdom established political control then cultural and linguistic hegemony over adjacent regions. France is the nation state par excellence. Yet it has entho-culturally and linguistically distinct regions where Breton and Occitan are spoken.
So, we are seeing in Europe particularly the disintegration of the early modern nation states, into increasingly vocal regional identities from below (e.g. Scotland), and supranational organizations from above (e.g. the EU).
Britain however was always something a little off-angle. The United Kingdom of Great Britain came into existence with the act of Union of 1707. It was always a political deal that did not aspire to a “blood and soil” unity of the peoples, with both keeping separate churches, for example. So a devolution of Scotland would be another political deal, and its significance would be worked out over time. After all, Britain has centuries of practice operating a complicated and ad hoc constitutional framework, both within archipelagic Britain/Ireland and with its dominions and its former empire.
A significant assertion of regional autonomy in Brittany, Bavaria, Catalonia or “Padania” would be much more disruptive. France, Germany, Spain and Italy aspired to national unity from the top down and from the center to the regions, and they do not have the practice with flexible and intentionally vague arrangements that are part of the British genius.
If you have a city or a small region and you can freely trade with the rest of the world, like Singapore, why do you need to be part of a bigger entity, politically speaking? Especially if being tied politically to other people subjects you to taxes and regulations that are not beneficial to your self-interest. Of course the more productive peoples of the world will want to secede from the less productive. There is no reason to associate with the less productive if they have less value to offer than the value they consume.
I’m not sure the Scots may be the best example of this dynamic. If their desire for independence from the U.K. is driven by their belief that they get more benefits from the common market of the E.U. more than the benefits they get from being a part of the U.K. , then this is a good example. If not, they might just be looking to mooch off of the E.U. rather than the U.K.
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