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Guatemalan Police vs. Indigenous People Nations & States
For 300 years, nation-states grew and prospered. They waged wars on an increasingly destructive and global scale (the national security state) and they assumed broad tasks of social and economic management (the welfare state). Their ubiquity was taken for granted. But for the past 25 years or so, states have been in retreat -- weakening, shrinking, sinking as globalizing capital undermines their tax base, erodes their regulatory apparatus, stymies their policy machinery and questions their legitimacy. The future of humanity depends on what happens to states and where "sovereign" decisions will be taken instead. These materials look at these questions and track some of the main trends.
What Is a "State"?
This page analyzes the concept of the state as form of political organization, including experimental and microstates.What Is a "Nation"?
This page analyzes the concept of the nation as form of social organization.States and Their Future
The articles on this page provide an introduction to the forces and processes that could transform the nation-state, and hints at ways in which "sovereign" decisions are increasingly made by other actors.Statehood and Sovereignty
This section looks at different movements and forces, which undermine the authority of the state.Tables and Charts
This page provides tables and charts on offshore centers, export processing zones and other matters related to nations and states.Resources and Bibliography
This section links to resources and lists books on issues of nationalism and states.
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