SOCI 255 Chapter Notes - Chapter reading: Neoliberalism, Public Culture
Document Summary
During the 1980s and mid-1990s studies of globalization seemed to point to the radical weakening and transformation, if not disappearance, of the modern states. States" borders and economies were being challenged or erased by neoliberal transnational corporations, by higher- order political processes of unification such as the formation of the european union. War and war economies in africa, latin america and asia made a joke of the monopoly of state violence by showing the crucial role of other actors in inflicting violence, displacing populations and organizing economic and political networks. Refugees and migrants were crossing state borders and challenging both territorial sovereignty and homogeneous definitions of the nation state. The desire for statehood continues to be intense in many parts of the world. In studies of nationalism, states often figure as being actively involved in creating imagined national communities, cultural intimacies through narrative, media, ritual, pageantry and public works that link the public sphere to the domestic and local scenes.
