Contractual Nationalism: Governing Through the Nation-state

Abstract

While neo-liberal governance and extended neo-liberalism address social dislocation indirectly, relying on deregulated markets to achieve desirable outcomes, other liberals have emphasised the importance of developing social cohesion in order to sustain both liberal values and global capitalism. Rather than break the state into region states or attempt to govern at a global level, the arguments analysed within this chapter attempt to recover the nation-state as a viable location for governance. This position, which I term here as contractual nationalism, asserts that the reason that the nation-state ought to be the locus of governance stems from the need for a legitimate site of stability within the turbulence of economic globalisation. Contractual nationalists argue that in order for social stability and belonging to be renewed, a national community needs to be remade so that mutual responsibility can be the foundation for prosperity and the perpetuation of economic globalisation.

The challenges of this age are also extraordinary and the cost of failing to meet them is high. The actions we take today will determine what kinds of jobs Americans will have tomorrow, how competitive our businesses will be in the global economy, how well prepared our children — especially the poorest among them — will be to succeed…and how secure we will be as a nation in an increasingly complicated world (Clinton 1996: 11–2).