The Cosmopolitan State
Year: 2013
Type: book
Abstract: For more than two centuries the idea of the nation-state has been widespread. The ‘nation-state’ implies that the population of a state should be homogenous in terms of language, religion, and ethnicity. However history demonstrates that there never has been, and there never will be, a nation-state. This book argues that there should be no regret in the recognition of this empirical reality, since the notion of a nation-state has been the justification for some of the worst atrocities in human history. Since the nation-state is impossible, all states are cosmopolitan in character regardless of the language of their constitutions or official teaching, and of the extent to which they officially recognize their own diversity. The most successful states are those which are most successful in their own forms of cosmopolitanism. The cosmopolitan character of states is necessarily reflected in their law. The main instruments of legal cosmopolitanism have been those of common laws, constitutionalism, and ‘institutional cosmopolitanism’. The relative importance of these legal instruments has changed over time but all three have been constantly operative, even in times of attempted national and territorial closure. All three remain present in the contemporary cosmopolitan state, understood in terms of cosmopolitan citizens, cosmopolitan sources, and cosmopolitan thought. The cosmopolitan state is, moreover, the only appropriate conceptualization of the state in a time of globalization. This book outlines the subtlety of the law of cosmopolitan states, law which has survived through periods of nationalism and which provides the working methods for the reconciliation of diverse populations.
Source: Oxford University Press eBooks
Author: H Patrick Glenn
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W635805932