“Will There Be a Role for Us Ordinary People to Play in the New World?’’

Abstract

The cartel of nation states and the symbolic dominance of this organizational form, boosted by interstate conflicts, will come under fire from different sides. Free traders, constructivist sociologists, transnational communities, and international organizations will reach a consensus that “a nation state is some kind of medieval relic.” The UN, which maintains this order at a symbolic and organizational level, will also be under attack. But states will not give up quickly and will try to delegitimize rebellion against them on all fronts: ethnicity studies will redeem and justify primordialism; unconventional armies will be declared terrorist in increasingly complicated military conflicts; pro-state ideologies and theories, both left and right, will find support in economics and political theory. The front line 2043 will separate nation states from all other forms of organization; the parties will dig trenches and begin to arm themselves with increasingly sophisticated discursive and real offensive and defensive instruments. But the results of this war cannot be seen through the smoke of battles.