Beyond sovereignty: territory and political economy in the twenty-first century PDF
Preview Beyond sovereignty: territory and political economy in the twenty-first century
Beyond Sovereignty Territory and Political Economy in the Twenty-First Century Beyond' Sovereignty reveals a vision of the future, now unfolding, in which technological developments, especially in areas of electronics and telecommunications, have shifted the balance away from purely territo rial political forms to a greater role for non-terri to rial organizations and identities. The result of this shift that David Elkins foresees is 'govern ment à la carte/ in which there will be greater diversity of governmental forms and a wider range of choice for groups and individuals. Elkins begins with a brief history of ways in which technological changes contributed to the creation of nation-states as we have known them since the seventeenth century. He also considers some of the ways in which political organization in the past has been non-territorial (for example, the Roman Catholic Church). Though nationalism has been part of non-territorial organization throughout most of human history, it has been embodied in territorial states only for three hundred years at most, and is now finding expression in political units which cannot be territorial in the way most existing states are, as may be inferred from observing most aboriginal nations and the diaspora of many ethnic groups. Elkins then examines trends which weaken the exclusive and all-pur pose nature of the territorial nation-state, such as the globalization of trade, finance, research and development, and marketing, which has cre ated transnational corporations. He then switches his focus to political institutions and instruments of governance, many of which have already been decoupled from their territorial roots. In exploring a non-territorial political future, however, the line between political and social or eco nomic realms has blurred, and thus an inquiry into the state system nec essarily leads to a consideration of democracy, community, identity, and postmodern conceptions of individuality, among many other topics. DAVID J. ELKINS is a professor in the Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia. D A V ID J. ELKINS Beyond Sovereignty: Territory and Political Economy in the Twenty-First Century UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1995 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-2940-x (cloth) ISBN 0-8020-7768-4 (paper) Printed on acid-free paper Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Elkins, David J. Beyond sovereignty : territory and political economy in the twenty-first century Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-2940-x (bound) isbn 0-8020-7768-4 (pbk.) 1. Twenty-first century - Forecasts. I. Title. CB161.E551995 303.49'09'05 C95-930027-9 University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council. Contents Preface vii Introduction 3 1. Is Territory Imperative? 13 2. Technology and Territory 40 3. Economics and Territory 79 4. Functions and Administration 122 3. Non-Territorial Federalism 147 6. A Community of Communities 167 7. Majority Rules 202 8. A Menu for the Twenty-First Century 235 Notes 271 Index 299 Preface I struggled to avoid writing this book, but it won. Once I became 'pos sessed/ the rest was fun because everything had some relevance. The daily news, novels, poetry, and scholarly writings seemed to have equal relevance (or irrelevance) to the future, especially when that future can only be understood in the context of medieval European history, envi ronmentalism, aboriginal concepts of property, military technology, bureaucratic reform, the evolution of transnational corporations, death- star satellites, the organization of restaurants, supercomputers, federal ism, economic externalities, cyberspace, mass media, financial markets, international migration, virtual communities, nationalism and the 'con struction' of nations, family structure, religious imperialism, and the shifting boundary between public and private domains. No one can master so many topics, and I admit to expertise in only a few of them. Thus, I have relied on friends and other scholars even more than usual. They made me do it! Along the way, I have had many opportunities to display my ideas, arguments, and ignorance to individuals and to groups who did not hesitate to question and criticize what I put forward. Especially helpful were seminars at the Centre for Management Development in Ottawa, the University of Ottawa, the University of Toronto, and the University of British Columbia. Even before I decided to write it, the book benefited by my discussions with Sandford Borins, Alan Cairns, Joe Carens, David Hawkes, Thomas Hueglin, Robert H. Jackson, Peter Russell, Sharon Sutherland, and David Welch. The book is now longer and better because of the people who read all or parts of the manuscript in draft: Ron Deibert, Avigail Eisenberg, Noemi Gal-Or, Michael Goldberg, John Helliwell, Robert H. Jackson, Willem Maas, Stephen Milne, Scott Pegg, viii Preface Douglas Ross, John Quigley, Mark Zacher, and two reviewers for Uni versity of Toronto Press, one of whom (Vincent Ostrom) was kind enough to identify himself. Some of my audiences or readers needed no convincing, some will never be convinced of the plausibility of my vision, and some claim to have learned a lot about topics of interest to them. Whatever their reac tion, these colleagues paid me the high compliment of taking my book seriously and offering honest opinions. Despite their honesty and exper tise, I have not had the wit or will to accept all their suggestions; and each reader will no doubt spot some of these lapses on my part. I accept full responsibility for errors and omissions just as I lay claim to any orig inality readers may find in my vision of the next century. One of the charming sidelights of eliciting comments from smart peo ple was the humour which often accompanied their insights. I will offer only one example of many. Thomas Hueglin's reaction to an early draft was that my approach amounted to 'anarchy from a rational choice per spective/ This epithet contains enough truth for me to offer it as a talis man for readers lost in the maze of this book, or perhaps for those lost in the future it describes. Vancouver, June 1994 Beyond Sovereignty Territory and Political Economy in the Twenty-First Century
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