TI*IE STATH 63

GEORGIA
'-.. RUsstA Il

.,

/l -ti fl Kurdish area

0 100 km

i"'iap 4"4 The stateless Kurds

to establish control since 201'2 over Kurdish regions of Syria. Hon ever, the esrirlated 38 trrillion Kurds have
so far been
unable to cstablish an independent Kurdistan.
An archetypal natir:rt"state contains only the people belonging to its nation (see'Wimrner,2OI3).The French
Revolution of 1789 established the idea that the state should arriculare the interests and rights of citizens bound
together by a single national identity. In the nineteenth cenrurr.. rhe English political philosopher
John Stuart Mill
(1861) argued that'where the sentirnent of nationaliry exisrs in anl,force there is a
primafacie case for uniting all
rhe members of the nationaiiry under the same governrnent, and a government to themselves
apart'.This has rareiy
happened in practice, however, and we have to iook hard to find states that are nationally homogenous.
One of the
tbw exarnples is Iceland, where most of its 335,000 residents are Icelandic. They share such a
n'ell-docutrrented descent frorn within a compact island that the sratet birth records provide
l'!:'].:^:'l'r;l;1irl
perfect laboratory for ge,etic research.Japan is another example; while its gor".rrrrl..rt does ^
not ;"il;Tto,1
keep precise figures,it is esti,rated that 98.5 per cent of the population.isJapanese.
associationwhose
In a nrtrltinafioual state, by contrast, multiple national groups must live under a shared gov- citizens share a
ernment, a goal that is not always easy to achieve because of concerns by each group that it will common national
be dorninated by one of the others, or lose out on a fair share of national l.esources. International identity.
migration is moving many, perhaps rnost, states in this direction as they become more diverse, but
multinationalism is far from new. Britain, for exarnple, has long been divicled between English, ltii c I l{:i rr:i.{: It; rri r.I

$[:"1i.c
Welsh, Scottish, and Irish nationals; Canada between English- and French-speakers; and Beljium
A state consisting
between Dutch- and French-speakers. Multinationalism is a featureof moit Europ..r, states, all of multiple
of which have national minorities, and trlost of which have at the same time been engaged
- - different national
in the building of the European Union (see Spotlight),which is partly an effort to.rr.ouog" groups under a
Europeans to build a shared identiry in addition to their national and state identities. single government.

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hXt-: $"i-Ai'H
States are far from static, their borders often changing, and their authority challenged by
the difiiculties many have
uced in achieving internal unity and stability. As a result, questions are often asked about the current condition
a,d
luture prospects of the Westphalian system. One school of thought argues that states are as strong as evel.. They still
have a rnonopoly over the control and use of militaries, they are still the key actors in the economic production
and
international trade, their citizens still identify mainly with their home states and are subject to the authority and
iules of the state, and the ability ofstates to respond to new challenges has grown thanks to technological innovation.