Review: Nation against State
| Author | Onnig Beylerian |
| Published date | 01 March 1996 |
| Date | 01 March 1996 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070209605100114 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS/NATION
&
STATE
163
attachment of
people
to
states
(Branthwaite)
precede
them;
essays
on
economic
interdependence
and
sovereignty
(Krasner)
and
on
ethnicity
and
nationalism
(Parkinson)
follow.
Krasner's
answer
to
the question
of
whether
or
not
interdependen-
cies
are
turning
sovereign
states
into
juridically
independent
but
empty
shells
is
that
'de
facto
sovereignty has
been
strengthened
rather
than
weakened'
(p
318).
However,
he continues,
that
strength
depends
upon
the
involvement
in
the
international
economy
and
the
political
capacity
to
adjust
to
trying circumstances.
The
necessary political
infra-
structure
is
not
found
in
poor
and
ethnically
diverse
states.
As
Parkin-
son
warns,
'world
ethnic
forces
...
prove
as
inherently
potent
and
politically
explosive
as
forces
of
nationalism
...
during
the
nineteenth
and
twentieth
centuries'
(p
340). In
the
final
chapter,
Jackson
discusses
the
continuities
of
the
state
system
and
the
changes
to
that
'old
sov-
ereignty
game'
after
1945.
A
basic
change
is
that
state
'survival
nowa-
days
is
seen
as
a
matter
of
right
rather
than
power' against
other
states
(p
358).
The
security
of
what are
called
international
boundaries
from
without
and
the
insecurity
and
mobilization
of
would-be
nations
within
is
a
recipe for
bloody
political
disasters.
Those
disasters
and
the
affluent
liberal
democracies
'are
proof
of
what
can be
achieved
within
the
framework
of
independent
statehood'
(p
367).
This
is
an
excellent collection
with
which
to
anchor
a
basic
intro-
ductory
world
politics
course.
William
Brian
Moul/University
of
Waterloo
NATION
AGAINST
STATE
A
new
approach
to
ethnic
conflicts
and
the
decline
of
sovereignty
Gidon
Gottlieb
New
York:
Council
on Foreign
Relations
Press,
1993,
xiii,
i48pp,
US$1
4.9 5
This
book
is
the
product
of
a
discussion
Gottlieb
directed
at
the
Coun-
cil
on
Foreign
Relations in
1991-2.
Since
the
participants
included
many
of
the American
foreign
policy
6lite,
the
discussion
must
reflect
to
some
extent
the
views
of
American
policy-makers.
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