Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on Habermas on Nations, States and a European Constitution
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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper summarizes some of the points in Jurgen Habermas’s considerations of the difference between nations and states, the way in which democracies are formed, and whether or not Europe needs a constitution.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVHabErp.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
to distinguish from one another. He notes that the "classical nation-states in Northern and Western Europe" developed within the territorial boundaries of states that already existed (105). They were part
of a system that developed after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. However, "belated nations" like Italy and Germany developed differently. The first group, which Habermas calls nations, were built
by diplomats, military officers, lawyers and others who were part of the kings "administrative staff" (Habermas 105). Together they constructed a "rational state bureaucracy" (Habermas 105). The states were the
product of writers, scholars, historians and "intellectuals in general" who worked with the idea of "cultural nations" (Habermas 105). After WWII a new and different type of nation-state arose, primarily
in Asia and Africa, as a result of decolonization (Habermas). With this basic introduction, Habermas goes on to explain the difference between "nation" and "state" in greater detail; the
tensions that arise in nation building, specifically republicanism and nationalism; and the way in which globalization is undermining both the "internal ... and the external ... sovereignty of the existing
nation-states" (Habermas 107). The difference between a "state" and a "nation" is subtle, and has to do with legality. Habermas says that the "state on the modern conception is
a legally defined term which refers ... to a state power that possesses both internal and external sovereignty, at the spatial level over a clearly delimited terrain ... and at
the social level over the totality of members" (Habermas 107). The "members" referred to here are the citizens or the people who live in the territory controlled by the state
entity. The power of the state rests in the "forms of positive laws, and the people is the bearer of the legal order whose jurisdiction is restricted to the state
...