SCLG2616 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Nationstates, Geopolitics, Bertelsmann

• School: University of Sydney
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SCLG2616
• Professor: all

Document Summary

States integrate the demands of domestic groups and the realities of geo-politics into coherent national interests. In state-centred views, nation-states are relatively autonomous" from firms and classes. States, for example, must not protect national labour, but rather must adopt policies that take best advantage of global labour markets. For example, a nation-state or a bureau- cracy is often thought of as a structure, but in the main it is the sum of the processes (com- munication, decision-making, etc. ) that take place within it. Nation refers to a social group that is linked th[r]ough common descent, culture, language, or ter- ritorial contiguity . The state emerged as a new institutional form in the wake of the demise of the feudal system. The state offered a more centralized form of control. The nation-state is especially threatened by the global economy and global economic flows.