Globalization has shrunk the distance between different communities and increased contact among people, making state boundaries more and more insufficient to govern claims of justice exclusively. Along these lines we are witnessing the rise of transnational and cosmopolitan political agencies and actors. In this course we will be examining the history of the nation-state and its development in order to see whether in confronting the pressures of globalization it can survive or will be replaced by “postnational” regimes. In doing so we will start with Kant’s Political Writing to situate the founding moment of the republican state and its association with other states at the international level toward the end of cosmopolitan order. We will follow this discussion with Habermas’ Inclusion of the Other to see if the nation-state has exhausted its potentials.

Course outline [1]