Reluctant States, Missing Nations and Shared Sovereignty: Nation-states in the Developing World

The growth and rise of the nation-state is neither uniform nor universal. As the nation-state was finding its feet in Europe, most parts of Asia and Africa were under some form of colonial rule. Historically speaking, the colonial power structure has played a dual role. On the one hand, it demarcated geographical boundaries of States irrespective of their national traditions and on the other (though for its own administrative purpose) it created conditions for the rise of national consciousness amongst the colonized people. The conditions emerging from the artificial demarcation of boundaries started posing problems when the process of de-colonization started. Furthermore, the retreat of the colonial power gave rise to a combination of what is referred to ‘post-colonial states, which generally came to be regarded as belonging to the ‘Third World. If one looks at the nature of the State and the growth of nation-states in these countries, the following features emerge:

• The State has been captive to a process of prolonged post-colonial state. This means that neither has the legitimacy of the State been comprehensively accepted by the people (recall sub-national, secessionist and autonomy-seeking movements), nor has national consciousness fully emerged transcending aboriginal/primordial loyalties (recall chauvinist, linguistic and regional assertions).
• While many of these ‘post-colonial’ States have been struggling to get their legitimacy accepted by the people inhabiting their boundaries, many of these nationalities have been fighting to get a state of their own. While the nations are seeking to form their States, the State is struggling to create a nation.
• There has now emerged a new type of situation in many post-colonial societies, where neither the State nor the nation exists (e.g. Somalia, Rwanda).
• The case of what has come to be identified as ‘failed states’ is in point. Consider the societies and states in Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq (after Saddam Hussein’s fall), etc. In most of these cases, conflict and civil war situations exist as to not only undermine the legitimacy of the central authority but also the population and its territory. There is neither a State nor a nation and both are playing hide-and-seek.
• There are some people who, though organized as a ‘nation’, have no State of their own. The example of the people of Palestine is one. We may describe this as a ‘state-in-waiting’ as their right to have a State of their own has already been recognized by the international community.
• In many cases, the process of de-colonization has been punctuated by prolonged ‘shared sovereignty. There have been many countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, etc. who became independent without being administered by a third power. However, many ‘territories’ have been subject to the United Nations Trusteeship Agreement or have been listed as ‘Non-Self Governing’ before the ‘territories’ acquired statehood or nation-statehood. For example, Rwanda-Burundi was under Belgian control as a Trust Territory till they got statehood as Burundi and Rwanda in 1962. Unfortunately for these two, it has been a transition from ‘shared sovereignty’ and ‘state-in-waiting’ to ‘failed state. Timor-Leste, which got independence in 2002, was initially administered by Portugal and then remained under Indonesian control between 1975 and 1999.
• It can be seen that the concept of ‘multilateral forces’—either under the UNO or under major powers—has been propounded where they cooperate with the local authorities for what is called, ‘preventive peace’, peace-building, peace-making and peace-keeping (or creating conditions for the transfer of power). Situations in Timor-Leste and post-Second Gulf War Iraq afford such examples.
• Some of the post-colonial, post-Second World War States have their nations based on religious identity. The concept of ‘theocratic states’ refers to nation-states where the nation is organized on religious identity. ‘Theocracy’ comes from the Greek word theokratia literally meaning, ‘rule of God’. As such, the State is organized on religious principles and doctrinaire injunctions. However, what is most interesting is that religious affiliations are considered as the basis of not only the nation but also the political interest represented by the State. Some countries like Pakistan, Iran, Malaysia, Libya and most Arab kingdoms, at one time or the other, have declared Islam to be the basis of their State. What has proved to be unacceptable to the international community is the messianic and dogmatic nature of their doctrines, which differentiate between a morally ‘superior’ theocratic State and other ‘infidel’ non-theocratic States. This has its own discontents and as a result, the phenomenon of fundamentalism has acquired currency. Fuelled by the perceived iniquitous world order and high-handedness of some of the major powers, ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ has acquired international proportions. A divergence between the interests of some of the major powers and these nation-states has provoked many other nation-states (especially USA) to term them ‘rogue states’.
• The group of ‘rogue states’ include a number of nation-states—not only the theocratic-fundamentalist states, but also those states which are hard-line communist States like Cuba and North Korea. In fact, three factors are considered to have combined to pose a threat to the interests of the major powers and the coalition led by USA: (i) the messianic and fundamentalist nature of some of these states; (ii) opposition by some of them to capitalist economic intervention; and (iii) an effort by some of them to acquire or develop nuclear capability on their own. However, not all the states which are theocratic or opposed to capitalist intervention or have nuclear capability are treated as rogue states. This particular characteristic, it seems, is a matter of foreign policy, and is applied selectively by the major powers.