art-e-conomy _ reader - marko stamenkovic

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imposing obligations on themselves in order to strengthen their position against the
global economy, they qualify their own national sovereignty. The national narrowness
of the state thus becomes a hindrance to transnational inventiveness.
The elements that used to be combined in the national paradigm – independence,
self-determination, and the domestic resolution of central problems (welfare, justice,
security) – now become separated and opposed. Governments have to surrender
national independence, tie each others’ hands, in essence, in cooperative agreements,
in order to deal successfully with central national tasks.
5
In order to break free from the nationality trap both in thought and action, we will
have to distinguish between autonomy and sovereignty. Methodological nationalism
is based on the equation of these two, which means that economic dependence;
cultural diversification; and military, legal and technological cooperation among
states automatically lead to a loss of both. However, if sovereignty is equated with
the ability to solve political problems – that is, to create economic growth, prosperity,
jobs, social security, and so on - then increasing transnational state cooperation,
though it involves the loss of autonomy, constitutes a real gain in sovereignty. The
ability of governments to exercise control increases with interstate cooperation, with
the subsequent rise in living standards that then becomes possible, and with their
new global economic strength. Sharing sovereignty increases sovereignty rather than
reduces it. The benefits of sharing include security and stability, reduced military
spending, and economic and technological cooperation. There is a national interest
in denationalization, in sharing sovereignty in order to solve national problems.
This insight is central to a cosmopolitan social science: a reduction in national
autonomy and a growth in national sovereignty are by no means exclusive. The process
of globalization goes hand in hand with a shift from autonomy based on national
exclusion to sovereignty based on transnational inclusion. The logic of the zero-sum
game – as we know it from great power conflict, colonialism, economic and cultural
imperialism, and military alliances – loses its explanatory power. The new politics
begins with breaking the “national sound barrier”.
6
Given this new politics, how can the idea of the state be opened up to the challenges
of transnationalization, the challenges of the “world risk society”? the same question
can also be put another way: who is going to prevent the next holocaust?
My tentative answer is, possibly the cosmopolitan state, which would have to be
founded on the principle of national indifference. Just as the Peace of Westphalia
ended the religious civil wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by separating
state and religion, so the national world wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
could be answered by a separation of state and nation. Only the non-religious state
makes the practice of different religions possible, and only the cosmopolitan state
will be able to guarantee the co-existence of national identities. The curbing of
nationalist theology should lead to a redefinition of the scope and frame of politics just
as curbing Christian theology did at the beginning of modern times in Europe. In the