Nations as large groups of people sharing the culture, religion, history, and traditions choose to develop according to two different scenarios which are the formation of the nation-state with the focus on the political recognition of territorial boundaries, government, and homogenous culture and the formation of a unit within the multinational state where the nations’ sovereignty is surrendering to supranational and multiethnic organizations. Even though these two scenarios can work effectively depending on the state’s organization and the nations’ visions of their progress, it is possible to determine the dominant trend which can play the main role in forming the state of the future international politics (Van Ham par. 8).
Although modern tendencies support the idea that people can benefit more from orienting to globalization, breaking boundaries, and promoting migration, the focus on the nation-state should be discussed as the dominant trend to influence the future of international politics because the history provides lessons to state that nations are inclined to separate for building a strong political unit.
The nation-state can be discussed as the political unit formed by the homogenous cultural group which orients to promoting the idea of the national identity necessary to unite people who usually share one culture, language, and religion. Historically, people choose to separate from the other groups and to build states within one ethnic group because of the focus on cultural heritage and national interests. Any attempts to join these nations to other ones to form the empire or federation are traditionally discussed as oppression and opposed strictly. Thus, multinational states are often states formed as a result of the war and pressure, and during the decades and centuries, many nations forming the state try to separate in order to avoid oppression and build their state as, for instance, nations in former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union (Habisso par. 10-12). From this point, multinational states are at risk of war even today, and this fact makes them weak in away.
On the contrary, nation-states are strong enough to influence future international politics because much attention is paid to increasing the national identity and to forming the international image. Even though societies in many modern nation-states can be discussed as rather diverse because of the results of migration, these states are often democratic and avoid discrimination or oppression to develop conflicts within society. Consequently, the economy, social life, and international status of the nation-states are high and solid during the decades, as it is about such European countries as France, Italy, and Germany (Dhanapala par. 12-15).
However, the developed globalization is more correlated with the principles of the multinational state, and this fact can influence the development of future international politics. Nevertheless, the association between globalization and multinational states is not obvious because nation-states actively follow the globalization trends promoting diversity (Dhanapala par. 11-14). Moreover, the nations’ focus on separating from the multinational states to make their states is the more obvious tendency today as it is seen from the example of Kurds.
Although many multinational states are strong federations to participate successfully at the international political arena, nation-states more obviously influence the development of the world tendencies because people are historically inclined to form their states referring to the idea of the national identity.
Works Cited
Dhanapala, Jayantha. Globalization and the Nation State. 2001. Web.
Habisso, Tesfaye. Multiethnic (Multinational) Federalism in Plural Societies: Does It Make a Difference? 2010. Web.
Van Ham, Peter. Identity beyond the State. 2000. Web.