9.3.1 State vs Nation

 Independent states are the primary building blocks of the world political map. A state (also called a country) is a territory with defined boundaries organized into a political unit and ruled by an established government that has control over its internal and foreign affairs. When a state has total control over its internal and foreign affairs, it is called a sovereign state. A location claimed by a sovereign state is called a territory.

The idea or concept of a state originated in the Fertile Crescent between the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea. The first ancient states that formed during this time were called city-states. A city-state is a sovereign state that encompasses a town and the surrounding landscape. Often, city-states secured the town by surrounding it with walls and farmlands were located outside of the city walls. Later, empires formed when several city-states were militarily controlled by a single city-state.

The Agrarian Revolution and the Industrial Revolution were powerful movements that altered human activity in many ways. Innovations in food production and the manufacturing of products transformed Europe, and in turn political currents were undermining the established empire mentality fueled by warfare and territorial disputes. The political revolution that transformed Europe was a result of diverse actions that focused on ending continual warfare for the control of territory and introducing peaceful agreements that recognized the sovereignty of territory ruled by representative government structures. Various treaties and revolutions continued to shift the power from dictators and monarchs to the general populace. The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 and those that followed helped establish a sense of peace and stability in Central Europe, which had been dominated by the Holy Roman Empire and competing powers. The Holy Roman Empire, which was centered on the German states of Central Europe from 962–1806, should not be confused with the Roman Empire, which was based in Rome and ended centuries earlier. The French Revolution (1789–95) was an example of the political transformation taking place across Europe to establish democratic processes for governance.

The term nation refers to a homogeneous group of people with a common heritage, language, religion, or political ambition. The term state refers to the government; for example, the United States has a State Department with a Secretary of State. According to the United Nations, in 2023 the world had 193 member states; however, many of those states dispute their boundaries.

Some nations are stateless. This means that there are groups of people who share a common identity and history, but who have no parcel of land that they fully control. The Palestinians are perhaps the world’s best-known stateless nation, owed to their long struggle with Israeli Jews – who, until 1948, belonged to the previously best-known nation without a state.

Another stateless nation are the Romani, a people that left India over 1,000 years ago and first spread all over Europe and Northern Africa, later also to the New World-often as forced migrants. Romani people were enslaved in Romania for 500 years which explains their high population in Eastern Europe to this day. In general, Europeans were intolerant of Romani and excluded them from many aspects of their societies as Romani integration into resident populations was often problematic.

Another major stateless nations are the Kurds, an ethnic group with a distinct language and culture, that constitute one of the largest stateless nations in the world. According to the Washington Kurdish Institute, estimates as to their global population run between 30 to 35 million. Primarily residing in the mountainous regions spanning southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, northern Iraq, and western Iran, the Kurds have long sought recognition and autonomy. Despite their significant population and historical claims to their homeland, Kurdistan, the Kurds have faced political marginalization and repression. Efforts to establish an independent Kurdish state have been thwarted by regional geopolitics and opposition from the countries they inhabit, leaving the Kurdish nation without a formal state of their own.

Federal vs Unitary States

A federal state refers to  a system of government with one, strong, central governing authority as well as smaller units, such as provinces in Canada or states in the USA. If the central government grows too strong, then federalism comes closer to a unitary state, where the governing body has supreme authority and dictates how much power the units are allowed to have. In those places like Egypt, France, and Japan, where nationalist feelings are strong, and there are many centripetal forces like language, religion and economic prosperity uniting people, a unitary state makes a lot of sense. Unitary systems work best where there is no strong opposition to central control. Therefore, the political elite in a capital city (like Paris or Tokyo) frequently have outsized power over the rest of the country. Fights over local control are minimal, and the power of local (provincial) governments is relatively weak (see Figure 9.3.1.4)

Many countries have an underdeveloped sense of nationhood and therefore are better suited to use a federalist style of government where power is geographically distributed among several subnational units (i.e. among states in the US, among provinces and territories in Canada). This style of governance makes sense when a country is “young” – and is still in the process of nation-building or developing a common identity necessary to the establishment of a unified nationality. Federations may also work best when you have multi-ethnic or multi-national countries. Rather than break into multiple smaller states, a country can choose to give each of its ethnicities or nationalities some measure of political autonomy. If they want to speak their own language or teach their specific religion in the local schools, then the central government can allow local people to make those decisions. The central government in a federal system focuses on things like national defense, managing interstate transportation and regulating a common currency. The US began as a federalist system.

Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces

The solidarity and unity of a state is influenced by both centripetal and centrifugal forces. Centripetal forces tend to bind a state together, and centrifugal forces act to break up a state. Examples of centripetal forces include nationalism, economic prosperity, and strong, ethical security forces. Centrifugal forces include wars, ineffective or corrupt governments, and market failure. Other factors that can influence the solidarity of a state include types of boundaries, ethnic differences (which may result in unity or discord), and the compactness of a state. The compactness of a state is related to the shape of a state, and a compact state is one that is ideally circular in shape, where the distance from the center to any border is roughly equal. In contrast, a fragmented state is one that is discontinuous in nature and may consist of a number of islands. A few examples of fragmented states include Indonesia and the Philippines. Indonesia consists of over 17,000+ islands, and in order to increase the solidarity of the state, the government actively encouraged migration to less populated islands in order to assimilate indigenous populations. In the Philippines, control of its southern islands such as Mindanao is problematic because of terrorist groups that are active in those areas.

Occasionally, a particularly troublesome provincial region or ethnicity will result in a sort of compromise situation, or devolution, in which a unitary system, like China, will grant a special exemption to one region or group to allow that location semi-autonomy or greater local control. Puerto Rico (United States) and Hong Kong (China) are excellent examples, though there are many dozens of other similarly self-governing regions around the globe – most with special names designating their status.

This process is often beneficial to the unitary nations to prevent political instability and conflict; however, it can be withdrawn by the central government at any time.

The United States has had an exceptionally difficult time resolving whether it wants to pursue a unitary or federal style government. This question has been one of the central politics issues in the US, since even before the War for Independence. Originally, the United States were organized as a confederation – a loosely allied group of independent states united in a common goal to defeat the British. Operating under the Articles of Confederation from roughly 1776-1789, the new and decentralized country found itself challenged to do simple things like raise taxes, sign treaties with foreign countries, or print a common currency because the central government (Congress) was so very weak. The Constitution that the US Government, operates under today was adopted to help create a balance of powers between the central government headquartered in Washington DC, and the multiple state governments. Initially, states continued to operate essentially as separate countries. This is why, in the United States, the word state is used to designate major subnational government units, rather than the word province as is common in much of the world. In our early history, Americans thought essentially they were living in “The United Countries of America.”

Balkanization

The hostile fragmentation of a region into smaller, political units is called Balkanization. This is often the result of unresolved centrifugal forces pulling the nation apart from within, such as economic disparity and ethnic or religious conflicts. Often, these three causes converge and exert their influence simultaneously. The term Balkanization itself refers to the Balkans, Europe’s easternmost southern peninsula (see Figure 9.3.1.5); specifically to the break-up of Yugoslavia into various countries (see Figure 9.3.1.6).

Nowadays,  this term is used to refer to any country that breaks apart to form several countries or states, usually the consequence of civil war or ethnic cleansing as was seen in Armenia and Azerbaijan or  Bosnia and Herzegovina.

9.3.3 The Shape of States

While not the only factor in determining the political landscape, the shape of a state is important because it helps determine potential communication internally, military protection, access to resources, and more.