Chapter 11 The Future of Nationhood

Abstract

From these findings, one speculation is that the emerging model of nationhood and citizenship described in this book and neo-institutional thinking (e.g., Meyer, 2009) is the one that is most likely to prevail. Alternative plausible models are hard to imagine. Democracy, equality, and human rights all currently have more plausibility than alternative institutions that are currently on the scene. Witness the current “revolutions” in the Middle East. This example also indicates that modern nations are not path dependent. In a globalized world, they are becoming more and more open as systems. Internal institutional constraints must now face global opportunities that are strongly backed by both their own citizens and other nations. This picture does not rule out conflict and competition between particular models and countries. Nor does it envisage placid transitions to democratic forms of governance and pluralistic societies. There are many contradictions within emerging global models of society and between them and the realities of many existing societies. But it does suggest that the reigning models empirically are those that neo-institutional theory has identified as forces constructing the modern world.

Citation

Kamens, D.H. (2012), "Chapter 11 The Future of Nationhood", Kamens, D.H. (Ed.) Beyond the Nation-State (Research in the Sociology of Education, Vol. 18), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 305-318. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3539(2012)0000018015