Deconstructing the Nation-State Bureaucracies: Supranationalization and Regionalization as Polarizing Forces in the New Europe

Document Type

Book Contribution

Publication Date

1-1-2006

Description

By the end of the millennium, evidence abounded that the nation-state was in trouble. With the rise of a new Europe out of the ashes of the old in the phoenix-form, what we call the European Community1 or EU, it is becoming ever clearer that the nation-state, at least in Europe, is being deconstructed into a mere member in a federation and weakened by regionalist movements and units as in Belgium or Italy. It is ironic that the nation-state is in the process of deconstruction in the very world region that gave birth to it. But this is not entirely surprising, as the elements of supranationalism and regionalism have always been present in Europe (Newman, 1996, pp. 109-137). What, after all, was the Holy Roman Empire if not an early form of loose supranationalism? Or to go to the other extreme, what are the regional movements from Scotland to Belgium (Newman, 1996, pp. 112-113)? Evidence surely that there is nothing new under the European sun.

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