Yunqi Lin Sovereignty Matters International institutions, globalization, and humanitarian interventions portray an illusion of a post-sovereignty era.

Some extremists even take this further to declare the nationstate dead. This is in fact false. Nation-state is not dead and the post-sovereignty era is at most a remote utopian dream of some. Sovereignty matters; the nature of sovereignty and nation-state has not changed and is still inscribed in each of the international actors. Transnational actors, trade interdependence, and humanitarian interventions only changed the ways and scale of how businesses are being conducted. I counter the post-sovereignty era argument with political, social, and economic approaches. To make clear the argument, we first need to define nation-state and sovereignty. The two characteristics of a state, as Nye and Welch write, are territoriality and sovereignty, where sovereignty is the absolute right to govern it (34). A nation state is a state whose citizens are overwhelmingly members of a single nation, namely people who have some combination of common language, culture, religion, history, mythology, identity, or sense of destiny (Nye and Welch 35). Based on these definitions, we can easily prove that nation states are not dead, but are instead thriving. Countries like China, Japan, and South Korea are thriving states that clearly possess the characteristics of nation states. Politically, each state has a government and that government imposes laws and justice in that state. Some argue that humanitarian interventions are changing the nature of sovereignty because they are able to alter the laws and regime of a state by assisting the oppressed groups in that state. Nevertheless, humanitarian interventions are paradoxically enhancing selfdetermination while intervening. States only intervene to protect civilians who are endangered

in another state (Kuperman 412). By protecting oppressed groups and granting the citizens equal rights, humanitarian interventions give everyone equal power to self-govern and thus enhance self-determination, which is the essence of sovereignty. Moreover, humanitarian intervention happened throughout history. During the nineteenth century, European countries intervened in other states to save Christians; one example was the Greek War for Independence, in which Russia and Britain joined force to protect Orthodox Christians in Greece in 1827; The Europeans then extended their scale of interventions to save and free slaves and later it led to decolonization; nowadays they extended the scale again to protect human rights in different countries (Finnemore). It is only the scale that has changed, not the nature of humanitarian interventions. Furthermore, in the old days, most humanitarian interventions were unilateral, one example was that in 1856 Russia was the only state to intervene in the wake of the Bulgarian massacres (Finnemore 166). Humanitarian interventions nowadays require multilateral consent and actions instead of unilateral intervention. This multilateralism helps to ensure the sovereignty of the state being intervened by protecting it from the sphere of influence and the possible colonization and annexation by the single unilaterally intervening state. In addition of differences in laws, states also differ in their political systems. The two seemingly opposing political systems today are democracy, such as that of the United States, and communism, such as that of North Korea. However, even within democracies, states differ in the spectrums of freedom and power they grant their citizens. In illiberal democracies, as Zakaria mentions, although leaders come into power by elections, citizens lack constitutional freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, freedom of press, and freedom of petition. The distinct laws and political features of states do not allow the existence of post-sovereignty era. Although in some states, with the existence of international

institutions such as the European Union, territorial borders seem less visible, within different borders, there are different jurisdictions and are abide to different sets of laws, albeit they might be similar. Sovereignty matters, even when borders become blurry and when humanitarian actions have taken place. Besides the differences in political systems, the social environment of individual states also differs considerably. Social environment is comprised of religion, culture, and social structure. The Thirty Years War was the last religious war in Europe, and the Treaty of Westphalia gave rise to the concept of states role as international actors. From then on, states were able to determine their own religion, and sovereignty came into play. Nowadays, some countries do not have established religion while others do, such as Islamic countries. Religion shapes part of the culture, and history shapes the other. Certain behaviors and values that have been preferred or endorsed throughout history are central to culture and norms. Culture shapes a states value. From a constructivist point of view, as Wendt mentions, states act towards objectson the basis of the meanings that the object have for them (70). Therefore, states with distinct cultures have different values and behave differently when cooperating or resolving conflicts with others. Culture also deeply influences the social structure, one example is that in some countries women are regarded as inferior and have substantially less freedom than men. With distinct social environments and political features, states are intrinsically different and this heightens the uniqueness among nation states. Since each nation state is unique, each needs to have its own sovereignty to govern it. Some also argue that the interdependence and converging effect of globalization contribute to the diminishment of nation-states. They argue that as globalization spreads around the world, economies will converge, namely that the economic gap between rich and poor

counties will be reduced and eventually disappear. However, this only happens in the ideal situation of where there is freedom in immigration and emigration and investment flows are not being disrupted. In the ideal situation, investors will invest in developing or less developed countries to open up the new market and take advantage of the cheap labor, and people in these countries will leave for better paying jobs abroad. As a result, less developed countries will start to develop quickly and wages in those countries will go up to attract labor. Clearly that is not the case; as Scott mentions, barriers against immigration and political instability of poor countries prevent full scale globalization from happening (292). Rich states tend to have higher immigration restrictions because from a realist point of view, they want to preserve the cheap labors in poor countries and thus benefit from it, even if that means people in poor states will suffer. Moreover, when rich states invest abroad, they tend to invest in politically stable developing/developed states because they fear that the political instability in poor states will damage their assets. This creates a vicious cycle in poor states. Since there are no investments coming in and wages remain low, political stability is being threatened as people rebel for the better, and this in turn attracts less investment. As a result, the economic growth of poor countries lags as the economic growth of rich countries soars. In addition, with the interplay of their social environments, some countries refuse to contribute to the globalization effort. As Nye and Welch note, in societies such as Iran, Afghanistan, and Sudan, conservative groups have resisted globalization strongly, even violently (244). Conservative groups fear that the new, inspiring ideas, concepts, and way of life brought by globalization will contradict their religions and create opposition to their social structures, which in turn will cause social instability and corruption in their values and norms. The unwillingness of these countries to join globalization effort makes them economically

independent and thus unable to enjoy the benefits of globalization. With the cultural barrier, immigration barrier, and social instabilities, globalization cannot be fully implemented and would only make the rich countries richer and the poor countries poorer. This neither closes the economic gap nor diminishes the feature of individual nation states, but rather, it demonstrates the liveliness of each nation states economy. With unique economies, states need to be governed by different laws, and thus sovereignty comes into play. States are intrinsically different politically, culturally, and economically. These differences mark the characteristics of each nation state and shape their behaviors. Although some people argue that humanitarian interventions, international institutions, and globalization will lead to the diminishment of nation states and the post-sovereignty era, these claims are invalid. The ultimate goal of humanitarian intervention is to impose stability and selfdetermination, which is the distinct characteristic of sovereignty. All that international organization could do is to better foster cooperation among nations, to mitigate conflicts, and to prolong peace. Globalization could only ideally close the economic gaps between rich and poor states; however, these ideal situations do not exist in the face of immigration/emigration restriction, political instability, and cultural unwillingness. The uniformity and interdependence humanitarian intervention, international institutions, and globalization seem to promise are illusions. Since countries are in fact different intrinsically, they need to have different laws and unique sovereignty that fit their identities. States could only cooperate, but never to lose their identities and sovereignty.

Works Cited Finnemore, Martha. "Chapter 5: Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention." The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. Ed. Peter J. Katzenstein. New York: Columbia UP, 1996. 153-85. Print. Kuperman, Alan J. "Civil Wars and Intervention." Ed. Robert J. Art and Robert Jervis. International Politics: Enduring Concepts and Contemporary Issues. Tenth ed. Pearson Educationn, 2011. 412-23. Print. Nye, Joseph S., and David Welch. "Chapter 2: Explaining Conflict and Cooperation: Tools and Techniques of the Trade." Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation: An Introduction to Theory and History. Eight ed. Pearson Longman, 2011. 33-35. Print. Nye, Joseph S., and David Welch. "Chapter 7: Globalization and Interdependence." Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation: An Introduction to Theory and History. Eighth ed. Pearson Longman, 2011. 239-45. Print. Scott, Bruce R. "The Great Divide in the Global Village." Ed. Robert J. Art and Robert Jervis. International Politics: Enduring Concepts and Contemporary Issues. Tenth ed. Pearson Education, 2011. 292-304. Print. Wendt, Alexander. "Anarchy Is What States Make of It." Ed. Robert J. Art and Robert Jervis. International Politics: Enduring Concepts and Contemporary Issues. Tenth ed. Pearson Education, 2011. 70-77. Print. Zakaria, Fareed. "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy." Foreign Affairs. Vol. 76. Council on Foreign Relations, 1997. 22-43. Print. Ser. 6.