Ulus-devletin dönüşümü ve meşruluk sorunu
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Date
2007
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Publisher
Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü
Abstract
The nation-state is a modern form of state which has its existence on a territory, having the right of using legal power, and aiming to homogenize the people under its administration through gathering and integrating them around common culture and values. This model having gained the status of regulating international affairs within a short time after stepping into the stage of history, has always been the most focal point. To be sovereign nation-state provided the states absolute independence at home and to be an equal, respectful member of the world community outside. Therefore, the nation-state, especially in the 20th century, became the most widespread political organization form. Just as other power organizations, the nation-state, as well, needs the ground of legitimacy. With a view to legitimizing and protecting their existence, the nation-state has to be recognized as legitimate among people under its administration. In this study, three major frames of reference the nation-state applies to in order to legitimize themselves have been analyzed. Firstly, it has to provide physical security (Hobbes); secondly, it has to transform humans, who compromise the nation that symbolizes the source of sovereignty (Rousseau), into citizens who have a distinctive cultural identity, and hence to have them have rights and liabilities (Locke); thirdly, to improve the welfare of its citizens in general, yet to develop political and economic programmes to improve the conditions of the disadvantaged in society in particular. The three references of legitimacy of the nation-state have begun to deteriorate along with the globalization process. Globalization, which is not a new fact yet has gained a great pace and various new dimensions recently, has engendered the economic and political borders between countries to be indistinct, the emergence of both affinities and differences in cultural, political and social spheres, the advent of liberal tendency and the more interdependence of the nation- states. All these changes and transformations have had deep impact on the nationstate. The concept of the nation-state has had to share some of its means and power with some other political and economic agents.Such power loss of the nation-state brought about the erosion and crisis of legitimacy on the one hand, and mooted the question of which political principles is the future to be formed by on the other hand. It is to be specified urgently that a certain and absolute answer to satisfy almost everybody has not been found in arguments carried out in this sense. The aim of this study is to comprehend and make contributions to discussions ongoing and expected to endure longer. The study consists of four chapters: In the first chapter, the concept of legitimacy has been clarified and the changes of the references of legitimacy in the course of history have been examined. In the second chapter, the comprehensive sources of the form of state and of the modern-state have been examined firstly, and an analysis on the model of the nation-state as a modern fact secondly. In this chapter, the truth of the concept of nation that is the reference of sovereignty and legitimacy in the nation-state has been expounded and then a discussion of whether this corresponded to a natural data or something built . The third chapter consists of two sections. In the first section, the references of legitimacy (security, citizenship, and social state) of the nation-state have been examined in detail. In the second section, the subject of globalization, which undermines the references cited above and symbolizes a social change, has been dealt with. The fourth, the last, chapter consists of two sections as well. The first section argues how the nation-state has lost its ground of legitimacy in terms of economic and political deterioration in the wake of globalization. The second section argues the possible new criteria of legitimacy and the pursuance of the formation of the future society and the major parameters of this endeavor.
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Keywords
Hukuk, Law, Ulus-devlet