Do you think that the modern nation-state has been declining in the wake of globalization? Justify your answer. (2010)
The modern nation-state fuses Max Weber‘s territorial monopoly of legitimate force with a community claiming the right to govern itself. My answer is a qualified no. It has lost autonomy in some domains — control of capital, monetary independence, exclusive jurisdiction — while its capacity and assertiveness have grown in others. Decline is real chiefly for weak states.
What Would Count as Decline
“Decline” can mean lost autonomy (freedom from outside constraint), lost capacity (ability to get things done) or a weakened nation (the bond of identity). Michael Mann (“Has Globalization Ended the Rise and Rise of the Nation-State?”, 1997) tested four threats — global capitalism, environmental danger, identity politics and post-militarism — and found no uniform decline: Western Europe’s states had pooled the most, while elsewhere the nation-state was still consolidating.
The Case for Decline
- Markets over states. Susan Strange (The Retreat of the State, 1996) argued that impersonal world-market forces had outgrown the states supposed to hold ultimate authority.
- Region-states. Kenichi Ohmae (The End of the Nation State, 1995) saw region-states such as the Singapore–Johor–Riau triangle as the real economic units.
- Democracy outgrown. Jürgen Habermas (The Postnational Constellation, 1998) held that national democracy can no longer steer the problems it answers for. Dani Rodrik‘s trilemma (2000) formalises the squeeze: deep integration, national sovereignty and democratic politics — only two at once.
- Supranationalism. EU law has primacy over national law, and the euro — twenty-one members since Bulgaria joined in January 2026 — removes monetary policy from national hands.
- Pressure from below. Scottish and Catalan nationalism contest the “nation” in nation-state.
The Case Against
- Author, not victim. Saskia Sassen (Territory, Authority, Rights, 2006) shows globalisation built inside states: executives, central banks and finance ministries denationalised their own rules for global capital. What states wrote, they can rewrite.
- Capacity. Linda Weiss (The Myth of the Powerless State, 1998) finds external pressure mediated by domestic institutions; East Asian states used governed interdependence to adapt.
- Crisis reassertion. In 2008 Britain took large stakes in RBS and Lloyds; in 2020 states closed borders and underwrote wages. Francis Fukuyama concluded that state capacity, not regime type, explained pandemic outcomes.
- Economic nationalism. In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (20 February 2026) the US Supreme Court held 6–3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorise tariffs; within the week a 10% global tariff followed under Section 122 of the Trade Act 1974, later replaced by Section 301 action. The check came from the state’s own court, not from markets.
- Strategic screening. The US Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (2018), the EU screening regulation (2019) and India’s Press Note 3 (2020) subordinate capital to security; strategic sectors reached 44% of greenfield project value in 2025 (UNCTAD).
- The nation revived. Brexit (“take back control”, January 2020) and “America First” show the backlash speaking the language of the nation.
India: The Assertive State-Nation
India banned 59 Chinese apps in 2020, and built digital public infrastructure — Aadhaar and UPI, which recorded 24.51 billion transactions in August 2026 — as state-built public rails rivalling private platforms. As a state-nation in Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan’s sense, it absorbs diversity without surrendering authority.
Weighing the Evidence
- Decline is real for weak states, which keep formal sovereignty without substantive control, and in regulating flows.
- What has declined for strong states is the liberal, open model of statehood; its successor is protectionist and securitised.
Conclusion
The nation-state is not declining so much as being transformed and selectively reasserted. It has lost autonomy over flows but gained assertiveness over security, borders, technology and strategic capital. State capacity, not globalisation, decides who weakens.