A new pro Catalan independence mural on Belfast's Falls road. Niall Carson/Press Association. All rights reserved.The Catalan crisis has had the undeniable merit of confirming that the traditional European nation state is no longer an adequate political form for our time.
The nation state is a relatively recent and contingent historical invention. It emerges sometime between the peace of Westphalia of 1648 and the French revolution of 1789, and it becomes the principal model of political organisation internationally only during the course of the twentieth century. With the turn of the millennium, it has entered an existential crisis: one that advances at once from above and from below.
On the one hand, European nations are increasingly unable to address the global challenges brought about by technological innovation, migration, climate change, or financial flows. Even more, the perseverance of national divisions and reciprocal vetoes leads to a worsening of policy choices and a narrowing of democratic spaces for all. This is dramatically evident in the European Union: where the inability to construct a transnational democracy leads to dysfunctional economic policies, lack of any credible policy on migration, tax competition between states and a race to the bottom on workers’ rights.
