Holistic
Approach to the Study of International Relations
Of the many
concepts in the social sciences that are used rather interchangeably and at
times synonymously, even by experts, that of ‘nation’ and ‘nation state’
appears prominent. Thus, in international relations discourse, it may not be
out of place for one to hear of references to the American nation, the Nigerian
nation or the German nation for instance. In the same vein references could
also be made to the American nation-state, the Nigerian nation-state or the
German nation –state,
etc.
Such
interchangeable usages tend to suggest that both concepts mean the same
thing. This could be misleading. For a
proper understanding of the concept of nation-state which is the basic unit of
international relations, it will be worthwhile to attain a precise appreciation
of what we exactly mean by the
‘nation’. Though not amenable to a concise definition due to the different
senses in which the word has been used in modern times on the basis of
different theories and interpretations, 1 but in its relationship
with the nation-state, one of the most satisfactory definitions of the concept
of nation remains that offered by Ernest Barker some six decades ago.
According to him:
A nation is a
body of men inhabiting a definite
territory….(and
possessing ) a common stock
of thoughts and
feelings acquired and transmitted
during the
course of a common history …2
Continuing,
Ernest Barker further submits that the common stock of thoughts and feelings
include, though more in the past than in the present, a common religious
belief, a common language, and also what he refers to as “a common will”. The
common will, according to him, propels
the nation to form a separate state for the expression and realization of that
will. There are, however, other
commentators who are of the opinion
that a nation is not formed merely by “speaking the same tongue, or belonging to the same cultural groups, but having accomplished great things in
common in the past and retaining
the wishes to do same in the
future.3
While not
discountenancing the latter intervention, we are persuaded that Ernest Barker appears
to have captured the major
ingredients of the concept of
nation, at least with regard
to its relationship with both the nation –state and international relations. But the concept of “common will” as employed by
Barker tends to suggest that a nation is permanently
and inexorably led to a secessionist predilections, since it is only by so doing that it
can form a state, and so give
vent to the so-called common will.
But this may not be entirely borne out by the facts of contemporary
international life; the US remains a classic example of subsuming of different
cultural groups’ “common wills” under
what can be referred to as a general will.
The
concept of common will also introduces us to the fact
that a nation is always
found within a nation-state, even though
a nation may transform
into a nation-state through
various processes ranging
from secession to implosion of empires
or other hegemonic political entities
such as the communist
system. Besides, a multi-national state
will also be vulnerable to disintegration given the concept of common will. In
other words, the “common will” may well be considered a euphemism for ethnic
nationalism or other forms of micro-nationalistic revisionism and / or
irredentism.
In
apparent support of Ernest Barker’s concept of “common will” as an essential
attribute of the nation. Hans Morgenthau
suggests that “the nation needs a state,” as “one nation- one state,” according
to him, remains the political postulate of nationalism,4 while the
nation-state is its ideal. It is
probably in furtherance of this that recent commentators have continued to maintain
that the idea that every nation should have its own state, accompanied by the
corollary that one ethnic or cultural group should not collectively rule over
another, has remained one of the most powerful political forces of the past two hundred years.5
in the same vein, John Casper Bluntshli,
a Swiss international lawyer, writing in the
1870s insists that “the world
should be split into as many states
as humanity is divided into nations, each nation, a
state, and each state, a national being”6
We
have tried to present these various views not as an advocacy but just to be
able to attain a proper appreciation of the differences between a nation and
the nation-state. It is thus obvious that a nation in this context, and within
the realm of international relations, refers to an ethnic or cultural group. It
is different from the nation-state in
the critical sense that until it attains
the ultimate objective of the
so-called common will, that is
transformation into a nation-state, it cannot participate in
international relations. In other words,
only the nation-state or the state can participate in international relations
as a political unit. What then is the state or the nation-state? It must be pointed out immediately that the
state and nation-state mean exactly the same thing and so they can, and are
most often, used interchangeably
without any adverse effect whatsoever. In a strict technical sense
however, the state is preferred to nation-state in usage.