Why and how nation-states break up: background and consequences

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

With any form of organization, the state practically cannot be insured against the fact that at one fine moment it will not cease to exist. There can be quite a few reasons for this. And history at all times knew many examples when entire empires disappeared. Let's try to consider the main reasons and questions related to why and how nation-states collapse.

Plurinational States

Today, many experts in this field call multinationality one of the key reasons for this state of affairs. Surprising as it may sound, this fact plays a key role in the question of why and how nation-states collapse.

To put it simply, when a society of several national groups begins to take shape in a state, expect trouble. This is explained very simply. When a state is dominated by one nationality, this contributes to the strengthening of unity. Such a nation has a common culture, commonspiritual values, etc. But when several national groups arise (even if they are small), so to speak, the commonality of values begins to collapse, since each nationality has its own cultural traditions, its own priorities, its own religion, and so on. It is on this basis that interethnic conflicts often begin to arise, which the state is no longer able to control even with the use of force. Take the former Yugoslavia, for example. Probably no need to explain what this led to.

The United States also had a hand in the destabilization there, trying to increase its influence in Europe and spreading its “democracy” all over the world. However, in this case, the United States acted rather as a catalyst, which only accelerated the process of the country's disintegration that had already begun.

Ancient world

History has provided us with vivid examples of why and how nation-states fall apart, ever since the ancient world. The Roman Empire, Babylon or Egypt experienced a period of collapse according to a single scenario. But not only the multinationality of empires played a role here.

The decline began with the loss of spiritual and cultural values. In the same Rome, depravity was elevated almost to the highest rank. Legionnaires on campaigns (and not only them) engaged in same-sex love, mass sexual orgies were constantly held in Rome itself. But this is the loss of morality. The commonality of the people with the state has disappeared.

How can you not remember the school course of civics with signsa shift in the structure of the state: “The lower classes do not want, the upper classes cannot…”.

Signs of an impending breakup

If we talk about why and how nation-states break up from a modern point of view, there are several characteristic features. First of all, they manifest themselves in the fact that corruption reigns supreme, military service ceases to be an honorable duty of every citizen, social groups that have at least something in common with the state disappear in the country, and comprehensive globalization and coups complete the job.

Islamic world

Surprisingly, the Islamic world is not immune from such phenomena. After all, this is where the danger of international terrorism comes from. The basis of these states is religion, and certainly not a national idea. According to statistics, about a third of the authorities are not able to control their own countries. So it turns out that it is in these countries that political crises constantly arise.

Current situation

The collapse of nation-states at the present stage of development of society can be explained by several examples. Not to mention Yugoslavia, the collapse of the Russian Empire looks very bright when the people lost faith in God. No less striking can be called the disappearance of the USSR from the world map, when the communist idea ceased to dominate in the minds of people.

Without common cultural and spiritual values, no state can survive, no matter how much one wants toits rulers. But after a destructive process, the collapsed states, at the suggestion of the new authorities, as a rule, fall into economic dependence and bondage, and there is no way out of which without a change of power and the people gaining spiritual unity.