As a result, states are shrinking in proportion to global banks, trading companies and manufacturing corporations. For many years, these corporations had enormous leverage over small states. But increasingly, private capital looms over middle-sized and larger states, too. In 1995, General Motors had corporate sales greater than the GNP of Denmark, and Toyota had a turnover greater than Norway's. National history insists that the nation is eternal, but every sober person knows otherwise.
Nations are recent inventions, and they sometimes last just a few short generations.
Still, even as nations weaken, nothing commands such fierce loyalties, such willingness for self-sacrifice, such a sense of belongingness. But however disturbing, revived forms of nationalism may possibly be the last gasp of a long historical era. No simple and glib answers are possible. If states continue to weaken, citizens may have to search for new forms of social protection, new sources of identity, new forums for public debate and democracy.