Globalising national states
STEIN TNNESSON
International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO)
ABSTRACT. Globalisation has ambiguous effects on states. On the one hand, it
favours national states since citizens' identification with their state provides for political
and social stability. On the other hand, globalisation makes it difficult for states to be
national because the scope of sovereign decision-making is reduced, and many citizens
prioritise trans-national networks over national ones. Hence well-established national
states, which are sufficiently resilient to maintain a national culture while also engaging
with the wider world, enjoy a comparative advantage over such states who either fail to
maintain national cohesion or seek to protect it by rejecting foreign influence. The
present article revisits the most common typologies of nations and national states, and
discusses how four main types of nations (ethnic, civic, plural and class) cope with
globalisation. The article builds on the assumption that the `foreign policy' field,
notably the capacity of states to shape popular global policies, must be included in
discussions of the future of the national state.
The challenge of globalisation
Globalisation is understood here in a broad sense of rapidly expanding trade,
investments, financial flows, travel, information and other forms of worldwide
communication. These trends received a boost from the demise of real
socialism during the 1980s­90s, when formerly secluded continents were
opened up to penetration to global economic and cultural forces. Within the
globalised world, the role of the state is changing. The distinction between
internal and external policies is being increasingly blurred. It becomes more
and more important for states to influence not only the regional but the global
environment, and more and more impossible to determine developments inside
one's borders without engaging in supra-national decision making. Foreign
ministries and diplomatic services are being transformed. While they mainly
used to manage bilateral diplomatic relations with other states, they now seek
to promote and co-ordinate all kinds of trans-national interaction, and must
spend considerable time on preparing and advocating their own policies in
multilateral forums. Every government finds it increasingly problematic to
define the division of labour between its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the
other ministries. Politics is often hampered by the fact that its subject matter is
trans- or international whereas the electorate, its consciousness and concerns
remain focussed on so-called domestic affairs.
Nations and Nationalism 10 (1/2), 2004, 179­194. r ASEN 2004
The success of states in today's world is not so much measured in terms of
capacity for defending borders or creating uniquely national institutions, but in
terms of ability to adapt to regional and global trends, promote exports, attract
investments and skilled labour, provide a beneficial environment for trans-
national companies, build attractive institutions of research and higher
learning, wield political influence on the regional and global scene, and also
`brand the nation' culturally in the international market-place. A book
epitomising the market-oriented approach to national planning is The
Marketing of Nations, published by a Thai-American team in 1997. It applies
the concepts, theories, and tools of strategic market management to guide
nations in their pursuit of economic wealth building, and the main audiences
targeted are government and political leaders who are involved in `planning for
a nation's prosperity', and economic ministries and development officials
within governments (Kotler et al. 1997: x). States compete with each other for
various kinds of ratings. With exception for the biggest ones, states are no
longer primarily a regulatory body above the market, but an agent on the
trans-national market, operating on the same level as corporations (the
intimate cooperation between the Finnish state and the trans-national
company Nokia is an interesting case of mutually beneficial cooperation).
The main difference between states and companies is that the former have
territories and citizens whereas the latter have only assets, shareholders and
employees. Loyalty to companies is also normally less emotional, more
temporary, and more closely linked to a reward system than loyalty to a state.
States and companies need each other but do not control each other. No single
state or regional organisation can manage the market. They all depend on it.
Theories of nationalism have normally been about the reasons for its
strength, its relationship to modernisation, and about the state-nation nexus
(i.e., Smith 1983). Only more recently have scholars started to discuss what is
happening to national identity and national states under the pressure of
globalisation. There are three schools of thought (Guibernau 2001: 245­8). The
first argues that the national state is being undermined or superseded, and that
other institutions such as trans-national companies, supra-national and multi-
national government and non-government organisations (NGOs) are taking
over their role. The second rejects this thesis, arguing that globalisation does
not weaken the nation or the national state. On the contrary, the pressures of
globalisation provoke new waves of nationalism and cultural mobilisation.
States also retain or even expand their role in controlling populations, and
remain crucial as building blocks of international society. The third school, to
which the present author belongs, holds that globalisation transforms the state.
The priorities of state policies change, and it becomes at the same time more
important and more difficult for a state to be genuinely national, i.e., having a
citizenry who identifies emotionally with it. The point is not just that
government institutions have to shift attention from internal to regional and
global affairs. Citizens are also subjected to persistent trans-national
influences. It was far easier to foster cultural cohesion within one's national
180 Stein Tnnesson
borders at the time of national broadcasting monopolies and a strictly national
education system (such as in the 1950s­70s), than it is today when satellite
television, the internet and student migration provide pervasive trans-national
impulses.1
However, this does not mean that states and nationalists have
stopped trying, or that the general advantage of having emotional affinity
between population and state has diminished. With international mass
communication it is also now easier than before to link ethnic diasporas
together globally. It surely seems that a fundamental change is occurring to the
role of the state, which probably warrants the use of new terms to characterise
the national state of the twenty-first century. Guibernau (2001: 243) speaks
about `the post-traditional nation-state' when referring to the globalised
national state. As we shall soon see, another proposal is `market-state'.
Out of respect for Anthony D. Smith, the term `nation-state' is avoided in
this essay. Smith (1995: 86; 2001: 123) defines `nation-state' as requiring an
almost complete match between ethnicity and political borders, a condition
that barely exists anywhere, although Portugal, Norway, Japan and a few other
countries may be close. Instead, Smith speaks of `national states' when the
ethno-political match is somewhat looser, allowing for sizable minorities. To
Smith, however, the national state needs to be built around a majority ethnic
group (or `ethnie') in order to be national at all.2
If taken seriously, this means
that a great many states which are normally referred to as national or `nations',
can neither be considered `nation-states' nor `national states', but must be
identified as `plural', `hybrid' or `multi-cultural' (a few `monarchic states' also
remain, such as Bhutan, Brunei, Kuwait and Saudi-Arabia). Smith's
terminology will not be fully respected in this essay. To the extent that `plural
states' (such as the federations India and the USA) have managed to create a
strong national sentiment among their citizens, including an emotional
attachment to national symbols and institutions, they should also be
considered as national, albeit of a different type.3
On the basis of his own terminology, Smith has more recently discussed the
impact of globalisation on the national state, and declared his allegiance to the
school of the sceptics. He sees no supersession or fundamental change in the
strength and role of nationalism and national states. Smith concedes that
globalisation has in some ways transformed the state, but not that the state has
been weakened. States were never fully sovereign, and economic globalisation
has only brought `a shift of state functions and powers from the economic and
military to the social and cultural spheres, and from external sovereignty to
internal, domestic control' (2001: 124­5). It is hard to agree that this is but a
minor change, and that it does not weaken the state. What determines a state's
capacity for spending money on welfare and culture, is the gross national
product and the level of taxation that the government can impose on its
citizens. If there has been a shift in state functions from the economic to the
social and cultural spheres, then there are other institutions than the state itself
who decide how much each state can use on welfare and culture. Hence the
state's power in its own national domain has been weakened. In another area,
Globalising national states 181
though, the state is expanding its importance. This is the field of `foreign
policy', which is more and more becoming `global policy'. There has been a
significant shift in the function and power of the state from internal economic
management to external marketing and multilateral policy-making.
This is grasped by Philipp Bobbitt in his 922 page volume The Shield of
Achilles, where he offers a historical timetable for fundamental changes in state
strategy and constitutional orders. Based on his combination of insights into
security strategy and the history of international law (but scant knowledge of
nationalism and national identity) he defines a series of specific state forms, or
`constitutional orders', in European and global history (Bobbitt 2002: 346­7).
Whereas the renaissance was characterised by `the princely state', the sixteenth -
seventeenth century period was first dominated by the `kingly state' and then,
from 1648, by the `territorial state'. Most of the nineteenth century was
dominated by `imperial state-nations', but it also saw the emergence of the
`nation-state' which dominated the period from the late nineteenth century to
around 1990. Now we are in a period of transition to the `market-state'.
Since changes in the attribution and form of the dominant states have often
been cumulative, and have differed widely in the various parts of the world,
Bobbitt's scheme is much too rigid to accurately reflect historical change. Still,
it does show trends in a way that theories operating with simple dichotomies
between monarchic and national states, or empires and nation-states, do not.
Bobbitt holds that whereas the `nation-state' ­ be it parliamentary, communist
or fascist ­ was predominantly preoccupied with enhancing the material
welfare of its citizens, the market-state seeks to maximise the opportunity of its
people. The state is no longer the principal actor on behalf of the nation since
all kinds of corporations, organisations and other private institutions are
active internationally. Instead the state has become a facilitator of practical
affairs, an enabler and umpire more than a provider or judge (Bobbitt 2002:
xxvi; 229, 235). Bobbitt sees the emergence of a (US-led) society of market-
states, which will be `good at setting up markets' but not at assuring political
representation. Governments will assume more centralised authority. Citizens
will change from participants to spectators, and the state apparatus will have to
concentrate on infrastructure surveillance, epidemiological surveillance, and
environmental protection rather than provision of welfare (Bobbitt 2002: 234).
What he describes is a divorce between nation and state, with the state
becoming less dependent on the active participation of its citizens through
democratic institutions, but at the same time relying heavily on its performance
in the global market. In the process of transition from national states to
market-states there will inevitably be conflicts between the most powerful
market-states and various alienated and disenfranchised populations.
Now, Bobbitt and Smith approach the challenge of globalisation from
different angles. While Bobbitt is primarily interested in the state as such,
Smith looks at the nation, or the historical ethnie that constitutes its core.
While Bobbitt expects the national state to be superseded by the market-state,
Smith does not expect any weakening of nationalism and national identity.
182 Stein Tnnesson
Bobbitt and Smith's ideas are not necessarily incompatible. If Bobbitt's cynical
description of the market-state as good at setting up markets, but bad at
organising political representation is accurate, then there is every reason to
expect groups getting in its way to mobilise against this type of state on ethno-
national and religious grounds.
Bobbitt claims that some states are pioneers in becoming `market-states'.
These succeed better than others in the global market place. They are active
globalisers while other states are stagnating or being marginalised. The
question to be discussed in the following is whether or not the historical
character of a state, the route it originally took to a status as national, and the
degree to which it achieved such status ­ `the uneven distribution of ethno-
history across the globe' as Smith (2001: 140) calls it ­ have a bearing on each
state's capacity for coping with globalisation. In order to discuss this we need
to revisit the basic typologies of nations and states.
Routes to the national state
As A.D. Smith has remarked (2001: 39), the most celebrated and influential
typology of nationalism is the distinction made by Hans Kohn in The Idea of
Nationalism from 1944 between a benign Western form and a more virulent
Eastern (in fact, East European) version. Despite its influence, Kohn's
typology is of little use today, so we will instead revisit the more sophisticated
typologies offered by the three most influential scholars of nationalism and
national identity in the last two decades: Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson
and Anthony D. Smith.
Gellner (1983) suggests a typology built on distribution of power, access to
education, and ethnic division. In agrarian societies only the powerful used to
have access to education, thus ethnic division did not present a problem. But
when the cultural homogenisation required by industry set in, Gellner argues,
uneven access to power and education between ethnic groups gave rise to
nationalism and determined its form. If a group had little access to both power
and education, it would form its own nationalism in opposition to the
nationalism of the rulers. This is Gellner's first type of nation or `route' to
nationhood. He called it `Habsburg' or `Balkan', and claimed it had been
emulated in twentieth-century sub-Saharan Africa. The second type had its
origin in a situation where the powerless were given access to education and
hence acquired an ability to coalesce into an ethnic majority within a culturally
divided society. This provided for the `classical liberal Western nationalism' of
the Italian or German kind. The third type arose when the powerless had better
education than the powerful, but represented a minority without a specific
homeland. This gave rise to `diaspora nationalism' of the Jewish kind.
Gellner's typology is attractive, but since it was presented in conjunction with a
controversial theory on the role of industry and modern education in the
Globalising national states 183
formation of nationalism as purely modern, his particular typology has not
been adopted by many others.
In his celebrated Imagined Communities (1991), Benedict Anderson also
operates with three types of nationalism, and his distinction between creole,
linguistic and official nationalism (exemplified in the Americas, Germany and
France) has been quite influential, not least because it converges with
distinctions made by other scholars. In Anderson's view, America played the
pioneering role in forging modern nationalism, and all three types of
nationalism were created in America and Europe, whereafter they became
available to people on other continents for `piracy' or emulation.
After having dedicated two chapters in his Theories of Nationalism to
various kinds of sophisticated typologies, Smith decided to just include two ­
or three ­ categories in his introductory texts of the 1990s (Smith 1983: 192­
229). His typology is similar to Anderson's, but starts in Europe, not America.
Smith derives his typology from the `route' that each nation followed to
statehood. There were basically two routes: one civic, from above, where agents
of the state incorporated the population, such as in France (Smith 1995: 41;
1991: 123); and one ethnic, from below, where an ethnie formed a new state
through separation, such as in Ireland, or through unification, such as in Italy.
Smith (1991) only reluctantly added a third plural type to cover the USA, India
and a number of other states. This third type (which corresponds to Anderson's
first pioneering one), did not quite satisfy Smith's basic criterion for being a
national state since it did not evidently have an ethnic core. To fit the third
route into his scheme, Smith argued that the USA had been built around an
ethnic core of English emigrants, that a `Hindu community' formed the core of
India, and that Islamic communities formed core ethnies in several Muslim
states (1991: 149­50; 1995: 41). He would later qualify his characterisation of
the USA by saying that it was originally built on a protestant, English core, but
had later become a `truly polyethnic and plural nation' (Smith 2001: 42). Smith
however tends to see `plural nations' as not quite nations at all. Thus he mainly
discusses the distinction between `ethnic' and `civil'. Smith has also become
quite critical of any typology. Since many states and ethnies have moved along
different routes at various times, the true picture is far too complex to be
grasped by a simple typology. This general point shall not affect the discussion
here. Smith's warnings against typologies, and his reluctance to recognise the
`plural nation' as a nation will be disregarded. Anderson's three types are thus
accepted, although with Smith's nametags on them, `ethnic', `civic' and `plural'
(Smith 1995: 108).
A fourth route to nationhood is also added, in accordance with a suggestion
by two scholars specialising in Asian studies (Tnnesson and AntloĻ v 1996).
When looking into national forms in Asia, they found it difficult to fit the
communist national states into models derived from the American and
European experience. In China, an armed revolutionary movement led by a
party under Han (ethnic majority) Chinese leadership had been able to forge
alliances with several ethnic minorities, then waged a class war against a rival
184 Stein Tnnesson
Han Chinese nationalist movement, leading to the establishment of a radical
People's Republic within the former borders of the Qing dynastic realm. This
provoked the creation of a counter-republic in Taiwan, and a growing Han
Chinese diaspora who, for more than three decades, cut their ties with the
homeland. Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il Sung, Pol Pot, their parties and
their movements were all nationalist, but they were not primarily `ethnic' since
their main enemies ­ apart from the colonial powers ­ were members of the
same ethnic group as themselves. They were also not `civic' since they were
revolutionary and thus did not build on an existing state. Finally, they were not
`plural' since they built on a majority ethnie and made frequent use of
nationally distinctive historical myths linked to ancient heroes and battles.
Tnnesson and AntloĻ v suggested that these nations had followed a fourth
route to the national state, based on the idea of class. Because the communist
nationalists directed their struggle against the social elite of their own ethnie,
they could behave tolerantly towards those minority ethnic groups who sided
with them in the struggle, and award them a recognised minority status, while
they sought to eradicate or extinguish the propertied and educated classes of
their own ethnie, whom they accused of being traitors to the nation. The
victories of the Asian revolutions created briskly nationalist regimes
combining respect for ethnic minority cultures with a hostile relationship to
a diaspora of refugees belonging to their own ethnie. The communist states in
Asia, say Tnnesson and AntloĻ v, constitute a fourth national type. If not
entirely convincing, this is a tempting proposition, and we may ask if the `class
route to nationhood' has also played a role in shaping some national states
outside of Asia. The Russian example does not perhaps quite fit, since the result
of the Russian revolution was not primarily the Russian Federation, but a
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that allowed minority groups to manifest
themselves culturally if not politically, but downplayed Russia's own distinct
culture and ethnicity in favour of a cosmopolitan vision of a future Soviet man
(Rowley 2000). By contrast to their Asian comrades, the Russian communists
more or less abstained from developing their own national identity. This may
partly explain why Chinese and Vietnamese communism turned out to be more
resilient than the Russian. The successful Asian leaders combined communism
and nationalism.
The concept of the `class nation' could perhaps also provide a clue to
understanding the peculiar version of nationalism that exists in Sweden. After
the lower and middle classes seized peacefully control of the Swedish state in
the beginning of the twentieth century, they created a future-oriented
modernist national ideology rejecting the most auspicious periods of the
Swedish monarchy's past. The `golden ages' were denounced instead of
admired. The King remained on the throne, the nobility kept their titles and
properties, and the bourgeoisie was allowed to play a leading role in finance
and industry, but they were politically and culturally marginalised. Swedish
schoolchildren were systematically taught how badly Sweden had behaved in
the seventeenth century, and how military campaigns had represented an
Globalising national states 185
unbearable burden on the Swedish peasants. Under the aegis of its many
popular movements (folkroĻrelser), the nation had escaped from an oppressive
and violent past and created a People's Home (folkhemmet).
Now, which of these four types, the ethnic, civic, plural and class, are best
suited to survive and make the best out of the age of globalisation?
Routes to the globalised state
It may be generally assumed that states who are able to both actively engage
with the outside world and keep up a national community built on trust and
participation stand the greatest chance of coping successfully with the
ambiguous effects of globalisation. This means that they need well-informed
foreign policy debates, a widely connected multi-cultural diplomatic service,
corporations with at once a national base and global networks, openness to
immigration, a clear profile on the global cultural scene (including sports) as
well as in international affairs, and an ability to instil loyalty and active interest
in national decision-making among new generations as well as immigrants. For
some nations, the greatest challenge will be to open up, for others to retain or
shape a national community. Attempts to achieve both at the same time will
necessarily lead to tension, but if governments and political leaders ignore one
to the benefit of the other, there is likely to be a backlash.
The historical baggage of each nation, its myths and memories will
doubtlessly influence the way it copes with globalisation, but this does not
mean that any of the four main types of nations has an impossible task. It
should also be emphasised, as Smith does, that the various routes to
nationhood have often overlapped within the same nation, and that some
have followed one route in one period, and another in the next. Thus there is a
complex roadmap behind each nation, and today's leaders may choose which
of the available historical narratives they want to promote and build upon.
Generally three kinds of states are probably at a disadvantage. The first are
those with a well-established, but self-sufficient, inflexible and unaccommodat-
ing national system. Some of those states that displayed the most impressive
economic performance in the 1950s­70s (Japan, Korea) have difficulties today.
The second are those who never managed to build a national community
during the period of the national state, but have populations identifying more
with clans and sub-national ethnic groups than with the nation (Nigeria, Iraq,
the states of Central Asia). To these weak states, the post-modernist ideology
of superseding nationalism is thoroughly unhelpful, since the age of
globalisation requires a certain degree of national cohesion within a state in
order for it to be able to make the best out of its opportunities. Although
intellectually discredited, nation-building actually remains essential in many
parts of the world. The third kind of disadvantaged states are those who have
failed to resolve basic national questions concerning borders, constitutions and
symbols, and who have recently or are still engaged in violent internal conflicts
186 Stein Tnnesson
(D. R. Congo, Sudan, Colombia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, the Balkan states,
Indonesia).
When nationhood is primarily based on a strictly defined ethnicity, be it
linguistic, religious of custom-based a significant part of the citizenry is
excluded. It is commonplace that this will hamper the capacity of the state to
cope with globalisation. The establishment in 1979 of an orthodox Shiite
Islamic state in Iran, for instance, severely damaged Iran's ability to realise
national interests in a globalising world. If, however, a state resolved its ethnic
question long ago, and perhaps did it peacefully, and the majority ethnie has
grown able to accommodate minority groups either by negotiating arrange-
ments to ensure their cultural survival and political representation, or through
individual integration in a de-ethnicised but still national political system, then
ethnic nations may well be capable of adapting to a globalised world.
As Smith has emphasised, there is not necessarily a great difference between
the ability of a typical civic national state, such as the French unitary Republic,
and a typical ethnic national state, such as the German Federal Republic, to
accommodate immigrants (Smith 2001: 41). For European states the national
question is today further complicated by the fact that they have to define both
their own internal policies, and common regional policies within the European
Union. In Europe there are now multiple tensions between nationalism and
local minorities, nationalism and immigrant groups, nationalism and
regionalisation, nationalism and globalisation, and regionalism and globalisa-
tion. From an anti-globalist viewpoint integration and globalisation may look
like two sides of the same coin, since both threaten the national community.
However, the European integrative project has become so ambitious that it not
always enhances globalisation, but also in some ways could hamper European
engagement with the wider world, partly because of tension with the USA,
Turkey, and Russia, and partly because government bureaucracies are forced
to spend most of their energy on regional decision-making instead of
promoting national interests globally.
Some of the major European nations (Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the
Netherlands) and also Japan, have an imperial past established during
Bobbitt's `state-nation' period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century. In the years 1945­75 these civic nations were all forced to accept the
dissolution of their empires. Some tried to resist, but the retention of formal
empires proved to have little political support domestically, and all these
nations were able to strongly improve their economic performance once they
had been deprived of their empires. To some extent their imperial past remain a
barrier to these countries' international diplomacy. This is notably the case for
Japan's diplomacy towards Korea and China. On the other hand, the networks
and knowledge established in the imperial period continue to play a role in
generating investments as well as cultural and political interaction.
The question now is if the plural and the class-based national states stand a
better or worse chance than the ethnic and civil ones in coping with
globalisation.
Globalising national states 187
Philip Bobbitt (2002: 283­91) distinguishes between three kinds of `market-
states', the mercantile (Japan, China), the entrepreneurial (USA, Singapore),
and the managerial (Germany, France). The mercantile state seeks market
shares above all, in order to gain relative dominance in the international
market. The entrepreneurial state seeks leadership through innovation,
technological leadership and production of goods and services for global
consumption. The managerial state seeks power through hegemony within a
regional economic zone. This is Bobbitt's way of understanding the European
Union. Germany and France seek to manage globalisation through the Union.
European countries are also, however, advocating management through global
institutions, but find it increasingly difficult to enlist US support for this
endeavour. Future co-ordination of the European Union's global policies may
make this even more difficult, and also prevent the European nation-states
from developing independent national profiles on the global political scene.
This will deprive these nations of a chance to engage themselves independently
in the world's most fundamental affairs, and therefore possibly leave the stage
to the plural and class-based states.
Bobbitt thinks that the USA could well become a successful mercantile state
if it wanted to, and it might also become managerial if it established a virtual
region that included countries such as the United Kingdom, Singapore, India,
the Philippines, and Canada. Managing Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC), or the whole world through the United Nations, Group of Eight, the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank might also be possible, but
this is not what the US wants to do at the moment. Bobbitt sees the USA as
already well advanced on its way to becoming an entrepreneurial market-state.
He holds that `the USA is remarkably well situated to become a market-state'
(Bobbitt 2000: 242) because it is multiculturalist, has a free market, and is
religiously diverse. Its habit of tolerance for diversity gives it an advantage over
other countries in adapting to the new constitutional order. President William
J. Clinton moved the USA far in the direction of a market-state, and President
George W. Bush appears equally committed to this new constitutional order,
says Bobbitt. The fact that American society has invested so little in its `identity
as an ethnic group' makes it `well placed to make the transition from nation-
state to market-state' (Bobbitt 2000: 290). Bobbitt also personally recommends
that the USA follow this route, although he recognises the market-state's
inherent weaknesses: `its lack of community, its extreme meritocracy, its
essential materialism and indifference to heroism, spirituality, and tradition',
and also a lack of ability to show `responsibility toward the unborn' (Bobbitt
2000: 285). Thus he sees a risk that the aggressive entrepreneurial market-state
will disintegrate into `regional, quasi-racial, and religious enclaves, devoid of
any sense of overarching identity' (Bobbitt 2000: 290).
Against the background of this warning, it is striking to note that in parallel
with the appearance of Bobbitt's massive treatise, another groundbreaking
book was published by the American political scientist Walter Russell Mead
entitled Special Providence, with the explicit purpose of establishing a distinctly
188 Stein Tnnesson
American national foreign policy tradition. This would be in opposition to the
hegemony of the `European balance-of-power' school (represented in the USA,
i.e., by Henry Kissinger), and its misleading distinction between `realism' and
`idealism'. Thus, precisely at the time when the USA was stepping into its
entrepreneurial market-state shoes, and just as the terrorist attacks against
New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 provoked an upsurge of
patriotism and intense preoccupation with national security and international
politics among the American population, a leading scholar made an attempt to
provide a genuinely national American vocabulary of foreign relations. Mead
(2002) singles out four main foreign policy `schools' in the USA, all with deep
resonance in its national history, and named after a leading American
statesman. It is Mead's thesis that the USA owes its many foreign policy
successes not to luck or to God's mercy (as Bismarck would have it) or to its
protected status behind the world's two major oceans, but to a counter-
balancing interplay between four schools of thought within the American
Republic's political institutions.
Mead's first school played a dominant role in the Clinton presidency. This is
the market-oriented Hamiltonian school that always seeks to promote free
markets, and US business interests abroad. The second school was last in
power during the time of President Jimmy Carter. This is the Wilsonian school,
with its basis in the US missionary movements, and with the ambition of
exporting American-style freedom to the rest of the world. The third, the
Jeffersonian school, is directly opposed to the previous one although it also
celebrates America's unique brand of freedom. It wants to protect the
American society's singular qualities by constraining the federal state and
refraining from adventurous foreign policies. There is a strong element of this
school in the warnings issued by Samuel Huntington (1996: 310, 316) against
interfering in the affairs of other civilisations, and in 2003, Jeffersonians were
virtually alone in warning against the US war against Iraq. Mead (2002: 333­4)
claims that the `strategic elegance' of the Jeffersonian tradition is the `single-
most-needed quality now in American foreign policy'. The Republic needs
`Jeffersonian caution, Jeffersonian conservation of such precious resources as
liberty and lives, and the Jeffersonian passion for limits'. Mead's fourth school
is the one that President George W. Bush thrives on, and which took centre
stage after 11 September 2001: Jacksonianism. Jacksonians are preoccupied
with honour and valour, favour the swift use of overwhelming military power,
but are prepared to show magnanimity towards a repentant defeated enemy. It
is not perhaps unthinkable that foreign policy debates between proponents of
these four schools may lead to new changes in US global policies, and that
pluralist American public opinion will become more than mere spectators, and
assume a more active and responsive role in determining the global policies of
the Republic.
Within the same league of `entrepreneurial market-states', Bobbitt has a
mini-state at the other side of the globe: Singapore. He has little to say about it,
except that Singapore is `more authoritarian' than the USA. Singapore holds
Globalising national states 189
that sovereignty lies in the State who grants rights to the people, whereas
Americans derive government power directly from a portion of the sovereignty
of the people (Bobbitt 2002: 799). The comparison between the superpower
USA and the mini-power Singapore is alluring. Both are multi-cultural
immigrant states with communities representing at least three of the world's
major civilisations. Hence, their foreign policies are reflected in contradictions
between the various immigrant groups (Caucasian, Black and Asian in the
USA; Chinese, Malay and Indian in Singapore). The USA is dominated by
Caucasians and Singapore by Chinese, and these majority groups take care to
accommodate the minorities so as to keep them loyal. The Caucasian president
of the USA has a black national security advisor and secretary of state. The
Chinese Prime Minister of Singapore has an Indian national security advisor
and president.4
Both the USA and Singapore are obsessed with vulnerability
and national security and spend a very high proportion of their government
budgets on the military. The USA spends billions on a National Missile
Defence while Singapore diverts enormous resources to constructing water
reservoirs to secure national survival in case Malaysia should stop the flow of
water. Both Singapore and the USA are proponents of free market policies
(although Singapore depends much more on them than the USA), and both are
opposed to excessive treaty-based multilateralism. Both are extremely
meritocratic. The main difference, apart from the size, is that Singapore does
not share the American preoccupation with individual freedom. Singapore also
lacks the Wilsonian foreign policy tradition. It is dominated by hard core
Hamiltonian Social Darwinist Confucians. Only an elitist, disciplined, hard-
working state can survive when placed in such a vulnerable situation, claims
Singapore's strong-willed Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Singaporean
spokesmen have often compared their city-state to Israel (Barr 2000).
The most captivating aspect of `the Singapore story' (Lee 1998, 2000) is the
country's tremendous success. Since Singapore was forced to leave the
Federation of Malaysia in 1965, and become an independent state, it has
enjoyed stupendous economic growth, and has acquired an influential position
not only in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), but also in
East Asia more generally, and in the world. Singapore sides with the USA in all
major international disputes that are not motivated in Wilsonianism, and
Singapore has done its best to retain a US military presence in East Asia so as
to retain a balance of power preventing the regional powers from becoming
hegemonic, either separately or in condominium.
During the heyday of the national state in the 1950s­60s, Singapore was an
anomaly. Lee Kuan Yew, its pre-eminent political leader already then, was a
captive of the period's general wisdom. He held in 1957 that a city-state like
Singapore had no chance to survive without a hinterland: `Island-nations are
political jokes', he said (Leifer 2000: 27­28). His plan was to secure a position
for Singapore within the Malaysian Federation, and it was despite himself that
he declared Singapore's independence in August 1965, when he had fallen out
with Malaysia's leader, Tunku Abdul Rahman. From then on, Lee made a
190 Stein Tnnesson
virtue out of necessity and sought to construct Singapore as a trade and
financial centre and industrial powerhouse, linking the world's three economic
growth engines of Asia, Europe and the Americas together (Lee 2000: 49­69).
Singapore's foreign minister Sinnathamby Rajaratnam held a famous `Global
City' speech in February 1972, depicting Singapore as the child of a modern
technology which had allowed it to overcome the lack of a natural hinterland.
Its hinterland would be the international economic system as such `to which we
as a Global City belong and which will be the final arbiter of whether we
prosper or decline' (Leifer 2000: 36). Efforts were also made to construct
Singapore as a civic nation with all the necessary paraphernalia, including
(from 1978) a `Singaporean Asian culture' (Barr 2000: 157­9), and also a
narrative of national emancipation (just go through Singapore's historical
museum and the dioramas at Sentosa Island). However, the problem of
defining an `Asian' culture, without making it too Chinese, would prove almost
insurmountable. Singaporean nation-building met the same problems as
Canada, the USA and Australia did when they organised national festivals to
celebrate their centenaries and bicentenaries in 1967, 1976 and 1988. There was
an in-built contradiction between the desire of official elites to impose a
national definition and the needs of the state to legitimate itself to its citizenry
and to the international order by claiming to represent all ethnic groups
(Hutchinson 1994: 193). In their historical narratives, all four states
emphasised their liberation from British colonial status. For Australia the
defining moment was Gallipoli 1916, when Britain proved unworthy of
Australian trust. For Singapore it was 1942, when Britain failed to protect its
colony. These two British military catastrophes provided exemplary myths for
an inclusive national narrative, but it was extremely difficult for such multi-
cultural nations to construct more elaborate national mythologies. These
would always one way or another favour some ethnic groups over others. By
1999 Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong admitted that Singapore
`was still a fragile society and not yet a nation' (Leifer 2000: 2). Singapore has
compensated for its small size and fragile society by realising, at a very early
stage, the global ambitions of today's market-states. Thus in Bobbitt's
conceptualisation of the market-state, Singapore serves as a model along with
the USA.
What then about the Asian class-states, notably China and Vietnam?
During the 1990s, both Beijing and Hanoi sought the advice of Lee Kuan Yew,
as an elderly Asian statesman (Lee 2000: 645­60). After the fall of communism
in Eastern Europe, the communist parties retained power in these two
countries, and also in Laos and North Korea, but they gradually abandoned
their class-based philosophy. Hence they could re-establish ties with their
capitalist diasporas, adopt meritocratic Confucian values of the Singaporean
kind, and define as their overriding national goal to achieve rapid economic
growth. Just like Singapore had done, they applied highly pragmatic foreign
policies with emphasis on friendly relations with as many other countries as
possible, and they focussed on the one overriding goal of obtaining economic
Globalising national states 191
growth through foreign direct investments and access to the world's richest
markets. They did not democratise, but then Singapore also has maintained
something close to a one-party system. What happened was that China and
Vietnam actively sought to emulate Singapore. This ongoing process of
emulationFwhich one could almost call `Singaporisation'Fhas a potential
for securing China and Vietnam a place among the most successful developing
national market-states.
Conclusion
States need to strike a balance between excessive nationalism and social
fragmentation. On the one hand they cannot have an exclusive national culture
preventing engagement with the wider world. On the other hand they need
active support from their population of a kind that only people identifying with
their state can provide. It is no less important than before for a state to be
national, but it is much more difficult than just a few decades ago. In today's
world, with highly uneven economic and social developments both within and
between nations, reactions against the effects of globalisation may reinforce
national and religious sentiments. If governments and business leaders are too
eager to embrace globalisation they may provoke serious tension with groups
within their own populations.
Philip Bobbitt's model of the market-state is excessively non-national. If
states engage only with the market, and fail to uphold the kind of national we-
feeling that allow populations to identify with their national political institu-
tions, then these states will get into trouble. They will find it difficult to main-
tain the kind of trust-based civic culture that makes people support each other
and abide by the law. While an aging Japan may see as its main problem to
overcome national parochialism, the main problem for a Singaporised China is
rather to create a national culture and institutions with which its population
can identify.
Guibernau (2001: 266) claims that European states need to construct a
`pluralist' national identity by which he means `a type of identity grounded
upon a renewed concept of the state as a democratic institution, efficient in
solving its citizens' daily troubles, capable of opening new spaces for dialogue,
and ready to accommodate national and ethnic diversity within its boundaries.'
This resembles Bobbitt's `market-state'. Hutchinson (1994: 135­63, 164) has
argued that, for the foreseeable future, Europe is altogether a lost cause for
those who wish to replace the traditional ethnie-based national identities with
pluralist ones. The problem with a purely pluralist efficiency- and dialogue-
based identity is that it easily becomes a non-identity, or at least a non-national
identity. Political leaders worldwide are likely to continue to sense that social
cohesion is more easily accomplished when citizens are not forced to globalise
continuously, but also treated once in a while to Smith's favourite menu:
community, territory, history and destiny, moderately spiced with special
missions, `golden ages', and `glorious dead' (Smith 2001: 143­4).
192 Stein Tnnesson
A great challenge for national leaders is to rally their populations behind
global political causes. Nations need national global policies. Ultimately the
most successful national states may be those whose populations engage
themselves not just individually, but nationally, in global issues. Nations need
broadly based foreign policy debates, with a basis in shared national ideals.
Such ideals may help create a national profile in the global `market-place', and
allow nations to become collective constituents of an emerging global society.
Notes
1 Smith (1995: 92­95; 2001: 139) argues that access to the most recent technology of mass
communication makes it easier for national states to inculcate a national culture through the state-
run national education system. This seems more true for the situation in the 1950s­70s than it is
today. State-run national education systems have not been pioneers in the use of the newest
electronic facilities. National education systems are increasingly being standardised to allow grades
to be comparable internationally, and the English language is gaining ground as a global language
of education and research. Students increasingly study abroad, and poorly funded universities find
it impossible to attract the most talented students even from their own national pool. There is also
now strong pressure to prevent government-funded schools from inculcating ethnic- or religiously
based national cultures in order not to alienate minority groups.
2 Smith makes a subtle distinction between a modern nation and the pre-modern ethnie, which is
more than just an ethnic group, but less than a nation. Ethnies are `named units of population with
common ancestry myths and historical memories, elements of shared culture, some link with a
historic territory and some measure of solidarity, at least among their elites'. A nation, by contrast,
is `a named human population which shares myths and memories, a mass public culture, a
designated homeland, economic unity and equal rights and duties for all members' (Smith 1995:
56­57; 1991: 14; 1986: 97).
3 A national state may be broadly defined as a state which the great majority of the citizens
identify with to the extent of seeing it as their own. Nationalism is an ideological movement for
attaining or maintaining a national state.
4 In order to make sure that the designated Indian candidate was elected, none of the ethnic
Chinese candidates were allowed to participate in Singapore's presidential elections in 1998.
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