Saturday, April 10, 2004
Unread book du jour -- The Size of Nations
No, I have not read this book. However, the optimal size of nations is something I have wondered about for a while now. Frequent readers of this blog will know that I am not a fan of the concept of the nation-state or the rabid nationalism and flag-waving that the existence of the nation-state promotes, though I am certain human beings are creative enough to come up with something equally abhorrent, even if all nation-states were to somehow magically dissapear. One of the reasons why I support globalization and global capitalism is because I believe it will make the nation state much weaker as business (including labour, one hopes) and finance becomes stateless (like terrorism, I can almost hear the critics complain).
I first started to wonder about ideal size while I was consulting at the World Bank. I was working on the peculiar nature of some of countries in the sub-saharan African region. Let's take Uganda for example. Uganda is a landlocked country (Lake Victoria doesn't really count). Even assuming that the Musuveni government managed to get its act together and provided world class transportation infrastructure, there would continue to be problems since Uganda would have to depend on the transportation networks in Tanzania or Kenya to get to a port. So, the upgradation of infrastruture would have to necessarily happen at a regional level where southern African countries would have to make collective decisions(or form a loose federation of states) so everyone could benefit.
Large states (or loose federations) clearly are better positioned to reap economies of scale. Per-capita cost of provision of public goods would almost certainly come down. The flip side is obviously of increased cultural and political heterogeneity. Does globalisation reduce the advantages of size? Is it possible to selectively decentralize and centralize (depending on factors like economic integration, cultural heterogeneity etc) within large states/federations? The numbers of states have widly fluctuated over the years (Harold Innis has an interesting information storing/coding/transmitting theory on this). So, what will the world look like 100 years from now in terms of number of countries (I tend to favour large, loose federations)? These seem to be the sort of questions the authors address, if the reviews I have been reading are any indication. Definite must-read, once I get back stateside. In the meanwhile, if any of you have read this book/are planning to read it, let me know what you think.
As an aside, the European Union is always referred to as the first modern experiment at forming a union/federation of heterogeneous states. I personally think India did this 50 years earlier, when a large number of kingdoms and territories that had very little in common with each other decided to form the Indian Union. The unitary bias in the constitution tends to obscure this fact, acknowledgement of which would almost certainly lead to a greater decentralization of power (something I consider inevitable and hugely beneficial in the case of India).
I first started to wonder about ideal size while I was consulting at the World Bank. I was working on the peculiar nature of some of countries in the sub-saharan African region. Let's take Uganda for example. Uganda is a landlocked country (Lake Victoria doesn't really count). Even assuming that the Musuveni government managed to get its act together and provided world class transportation infrastructure, there would continue to be problems since Uganda would have to depend on the transportation networks in Tanzania or Kenya to get to a port. So, the upgradation of infrastruture would have to necessarily happen at a regional level where southern African countries would have to make collective decisions(or form a loose federation of states) so everyone could benefit.
Large states (or loose federations) clearly are better positioned to reap economies of scale. Per-capita cost of provision of public goods would almost certainly come down. The flip side is obviously of increased cultural and political heterogeneity. Does globalisation reduce the advantages of size? Is it possible to selectively decentralize and centralize (depending on factors like economic integration, cultural heterogeneity etc) within large states/federations? The numbers of states have widly fluctuated over the years (Harold Innis has an interesting information storing/coding/transmitting theory on this). So, what will the world look like 100 years from now in terms of number of countries (I tend to favour large, loose federations)? These seem to be the sort of questions the authors address, if the reviews I have been reading are any indication. Definite must-read, once I get back stateside. In the meanwhile, if any of you have read this book/are planning to read it, let me know what you think.
As an aside, the European Union is always referred to as the first modern experiment at forming a union/federation of heterogeneous states. I personally think India did this 50 years earlier, when a large number of kingdoms and territories that had very little in common with each other decided to form the Indian Union. The unitary bias in the constitution tends to obscure this fact, acknowledgement of which would almost certainly lead to a greater decentralization of power (something I consider inevitable and hugely beneficial in the case of India).
