Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: varieties of regional integration
- 1 Monetary union as a metaphor
- 2 A political culture of total optimism: its rise and fall
- 3 Integration and its modes
- 4 Deepening integration: transaction costs and socio-political limits
- 5 European integration and the decoupling of politics and economics
- 6 From the democratic deficit to a democratic default? The normative dimension of the euro crisis
- 7 ‘More Europe’
- 8 The limits of leaderless Europe
- 9 Integration through cooperative competition
- 10 The nation state between globalization and regional integration
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - The nation state between globalization and regional integration
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: varieties of regional integration
- 1 Monetary union as a metaphor
- 2 A political culture of total optimism: its rise and fall
- 3 Integration and its modes
- 4 Deepening integration: transaction costs and socio-political limits
- 5 European integration and the decoupling of politics and economics
- 6 From the democratic deficit to a democratic default? The normative dimension of the euro crisis
- 7 ‘More Europe’
- 8 The limits of leaderless Europe
- 9 Integration through cooperative competition
- 10 The nation state between globalization and regional integration
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
As globalization of competition has intensified, some have begun to argue a diminished role for nations. Instead, internationalization and the removal of protection and other distortions to competition arguably make nations, if anything, more important. National differences in character and culture, far from being threatened by global competition, prove integral to success in it.
(Porter 1990: 30)Efforts at European unification are raising questions about whether the influence of nations on competition will diminish. Instead, freer trade will arguably make them more important While the effective locus of competitive advantage may sometimes encompass regions that cross national borders. . .Europe is unlikely to become a ‘nation’ from a competitive perspective. National differences in demand, factor creation, and other determinants will persist, and rivalry within nations will remain vital.
(Ibid.: 158–9)Nations can reconcile social purpose with individual aspirations and initiatives and enhance performance by their collective synergy. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. Citizens of a nation will respond better to state encouragement and initiatives; conversely, the state will know better what to do and how, in accord with active social forces. Nations can compete.
(Landes 1998: 219)Farewell to the nation state?
According to the federalists of the immediate post-WorldWar II period, it was impossible to rebuild a democratic, prosperous and powerful Europe starting with the nation states: only a strong federation could solve the great problems of the post-war period. The establishment of a federal super-state, the Italian federalist Altiero Spinelli argued, would have to precede the political and economic reconstruction of the national states, the former being the necessary foundation of the latter. The government of the future European federation was supposed to be responsible not to the national governments but directly to the peoples of the states of the federation. Indeed, since the construction of a European federal state was supposed to precede the reconstruction of the national governments, the federalist ideology would necessarily supersede the ideological divisions of the past.
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- Rethinking the Union of Europe Post-CrisisHas Integration Gone Too Far?, pp. 295 - 322Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014