Sovereignty, National Self-Determination and Economic Nationalism
In the first part of this survey, which can be found at the following link:
I pointed out that, during the 20th century, both the liberal ideological-political "camp" and the Marxist-socialist made various concessions to the ideology of nationalism. The reason for these concessions was that both liberal nationalists and Marxist / socialist nationalists were claiming power, and when they did indeed take over the government of a state they were reluctant to sacrifice or compromise their sovereignty, just as the pre-national monarchies of them. Sovereignty is a claim to which, for the most part, state powers rely, regardless of individual ideological campaigns. Sovereignty is not a ready-made objective fact unless it is claimed by a government. In my book entitled Catching the Bull by the Horns: Causes, Consequences and Prospects in Political Science and Political Economy (Athens: KPSM Publications, 2022, Chapter 1), I have explained that a historical structure, ie the framework of human action, consists of a system of three interacting forces, which are the following: material possibilities, ideas and institutions. And it is precisely these three forces that determine the political behavior of states. In Chapter 3 of the above-mentioned book, I analyze the way in which international political actors of different ideologies have reconciled, during the 20th century, with the established transnational system.
As I pointed out in the first part of this research, the concept of sovereignty in the case of a dynastic government, in particular in the case of a modern monarchy, is based on the principle "cuius regio eius religio" (whoever the kingdom is, so is the religion), ie in the sovereign management of religious communities, while the concept of sovereignty in the case of a popular government is based on the popular equivalent of the aforementioned principle, ie the sovereign management of peoples. Georg Jellinek, one of the most important representatives of political and constitutional positivism, says that the state is a unit of people living in a certain country which is endowed with primary power. In the transition from one concept of sovereignty to another and in the establishment of the principle of national self-determination, the development of the bourgeoisie and European decolonization played a decisive role.
The primary promotion and assertion of the right to national self-determination was manifested in an effort to develop democratic institutions. John Stuart Mill, one of the most important proponents of 19th-century British bourgeois politics and economic thought, argues in his book on representative governance that democracy presupposes a nation-state. This view, according to which democracy in a multinational society is subordinated to a dominant leadership group and therefore presupposes the principle of national sovereignty, has been revived and strengthened in the context of critical views of globalization in the post-Cold War era (cf. x. G. Nodia, “Nationalism and Democracy,” Journal of Democracy, vol. 3, 1992, pp. 3–22). In short, according to this reasoning, which goes back to the liberal nationalism of John Stuart Mill and critics of post-Cold War globalization (which expresses the thinking of liberal internationalists), democracy is not viable in the case of empires (old or new). and globalization. On the other hand, there are inherently global problems that require global solutions (eg, environmental and economic issues, nuclear weapons, pandemic management and global financial crises, etc.), and building a world of exclusively unilateral decisions; and bilateral agreements may increase the risk of war. Thus, a first fundamental, systemic contradiction arises: the dilemma between democracy, which liberal nationalists say presupposes national sovereignty, and the management of global problems and the prevention of war, proposed by internationalists (liberal liberals, non-liberal internationalists, the Marxists).
Another fundamental, systemic contradiction is this: the dilemma between national self-determination and the international order. This contradiction is exacerbated by the fact that many of the existing states are not only socially heterogeneous, but are also plagued by deep internal divisions based on ethnic and religious criteria. Hence there is an underlying conflict between the concept and value of justice, represented by the right to self-determination, and the concept and value of order, represented by the principle of state sovereignty proposed by the UN Charter. Ε. Various attempts have been made to resolve this conflict. For example, in the 1960s, national self-determination, which gave rise to various states, was equated with the concept of European decolonization. Similarly, today, the Russian Federation rightly seeks to justify its military intervention in Ukraine on the basis of the prevalence of national self-determination in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in eastern Ukraine, especially after the violation of the , in conjunction with preventing NATO expansion in the name of national security and sovereignty of the Russian Federation.
After 1945, the international community and the principle of internationalism expanded further through the creation of an institutional structure consisting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Tariff and Trade Agreement (GATT) and the World Bank for Reconstruction and Development ( IBRD). With these institutions, the liberal internationalists, in particular, tried on the one hand to impose themselves on the liberal nationalists and to fight nationalism by characterizing it as economic irrationality, on the other hand to dominate the international space and direct internationalism and opposition to it. socialist internationalism in general (for a systematic study of these issues and economic theories, I refer to my book entitled Catching the Bull by the Horns: Causes, Consequences and Prospects in Political Science and Political Economy, Athens: KPSM Publications, 2022).
In the second half of the 20th century, the aforementioned policy of the liberal internationalists was strongly challenged not only by the Marxist-Socialist camp, but also by many liberal nationalist governments in the West as well as by many governments of third world states. In particular, in the second half of the 20th century, many liberal nationalist governments in the West, as well as many third world governments, defended the right of national governments to formulate their own economic and social development policies and to protect start-ups and strategic enterprises of a national transnational character. economic competition. These issues continue to occupy scientific research and intellect, both in the context of political science and international relations and in the context of political economy and development economics.
In the third part of this research, we will address the following issues: separatist movements and redemptionism.
To be continued . . .
Dr. Nikolaos Laos
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