Review: The Nation-State in Question, the Shifting Foundations of Modern Nation-States
| Date | 01 December 2005 |
| Published date | 01 December 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000423 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
| Reviews |
| 1168 | International Journal | Autumn 2005 |
encyclopaedia, it would be unfair to complain that many federations have
been neglected, although one would have welcomed a thorough look at how
Australia, Germany, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and even the
United States accommodate old and new regional cleavages within their
boundaries. Conversely, one might regret the absence of the so-called fiscal
federalism of China, the challenge of accommodating territorial cleavages in
Iraq, and the non-federal strategies to tackle regional diversity in non-
European centralized states such as Iran, New Zealand, and Tunisia.
This collection of essays only scratches the surface of the issues raised,
but will nevertheless be of interest to students of federalism and the man-
agement of cleavages. Hopefully, readers will want to know more.
François-Pierre Gingras/University of Ottawa
THE NATION-STATE IN QUESTION
Edited by T.V. Paul, G. John Ikenberry,and John A. Hall
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. xi, 384pp, US$60.00 cloth
(ISBN 0-691-11508-7), US$22.95 paper (ISBN 0-691-11509-5)
THE SHIFTING FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN NATION-STATES
Edited by Sima Godfrey and Frank Unger
Toronto:University of Toronto Press, 2004. vi, 164pp, $45.00 cloth (ISBN 0-
8020-3501-9), $21.95 paper (ISBN 0-8020-8394-3)
Political science has experienced several discernable shifts in the last centu-
ry or so. Early in the 20th century,the study of politics was fixated on law and
constitutions. After World War II, American political science turned to soci-
ety to address wartime atrocities. In the seventies, scholars like Theda
Skocpol “brought the state back in” and, in doing so, returned the discipline’s
gaze to institutions. Now,after a decade-long boom in scholarship on global-
ization, we are witnessing a return of the state, not only theoretically,but also
in response to the world changing events of 9/11. Indeed, as a recent edition
of the
New York Times Magazine
declared, the “era of small government is
over.” The renewed concern with security in western states and the obvious
fundamental need for security in states in transition (such as Afghanistan
and Iraq) have provided ammunition for those who have long harboured
doubts about the hyper-globalist thesis that states are in their death throes.
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