VLADIMIR IVKOVIC REPLIES TO TEA NOVAK ON DISCUSSION OF THE NATION STATE.

Vladimir Ivkovic
July 2001

Well I guess it's just about the right time I hopped into this discussion... Regarding the notion of the nation state - it is a very positivist notion - where there are peoples of given culture, there lay their state.

Questions:

1. Where do you draw a line between "sameness" and "difference" within or between cultures, i.e. how different must a culture be for it to be regarded foreign?
2. Where do you draw a line between different peoples, and according to what?

On the other hand, with the diminishing power of nation states due to economic, cultural etc. globalization, wouldn't it be a much more feasible and logical step to promote nation states into mere territories with specific local laws, while the entire world would be abiding to same global laws?! Remember, the EU's primary motto is Europe of Regions. And not of nation states if I may add.

I am quite aware of the inherent human need for formation and adherence to a social group divided from other groups on lines of nationality, religion, ideology, etc... I urge you however to shun our all-too-natural ethnocentric drives and take a look at a possibly greater picture.

VLADIMIR IVKOVIC
Mladi Asistent - Junior Research Fellow

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