CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Gribble, Nicholas Michael Francis |
|---|---|
| Title | Statehood As A Global Religion |
| Summary | How did states, as an arbitrary form of governance deriving from a particular historical circumstance, become the natural form and type of governance across the world? Why did it oust other forms of order, and why have they not reemerged in a meaningful fashion? Drawing on sociological literature, this thesis argues that the evolution and spread of states across the globe was a function of imperial interests that established a hierarchy that extends between and within states. This hierarchy was consecrated and ‘naturalized’ through developing moral, legal and normative frameworks and interrelated forms of practice. This naturalization, however, does not remove the imperial hierarchy, but makes it fundamentally misrecognizable within its paradigmatic structure. The habitus of ‘statehood’ in which states evolve and act thus takes on a religious quality through defining the boundaries of possible forms of order. Recognizing statehood as a system which is both structuring and structured, and with inherent contradictions which sustain the global hierarchy, is an important step in understanding the hegemony of Europe and the corresponding reproduction of other states as flawed and ineffective modes of governance, both in theory and practice . |
| Supervisor | Tokic, Mate Nikola |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/gribble_nicholas.pdf |
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