Abstract
State consolidation has commonly been understood as depending on the coercive power of governments. Nomads are less easily coerced than settled populations and are difficult to track or otherwise administratively document, tax, or conscript. Nomads, therefore, undermine or stand outside of the core features of the modern international order. However, they also present a challenge to the legitimacy of the state. Nomadic societies are not just non-state actors. They are non-state political communities, independent, or potentially so, in their modes of social ordering. Fixed and monopolistic territoriality is important not only to the efficiency of modern states but it is also a defining element of their identity. As such, nomads challenge the legitimacy of modern statehood. Furthermore, their lack of fixity stands at odds with the project of modern nationalism. The movement of a cohesive group across, and their presence within, national borders is contrary to the notion that a particular geographically bounded area (i.e., a state) is the exclusive home to one people who share a common language, culture, and history (i.e., a nation). Among premodern states, migratory peoples were commonly derided as uncivilized, barbarian, or archaic. These biases seem to have persisted even in the context of scant material threats.
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Notes
- 1.
For a comparison of all three historians, see Stuurman (2013).
- 2.
Examples proliferate (c.f., Keohane, 1995; Keohane & Nye, 2001; Kratochwil & Ruggie, 1986; Martin & Simmons, 1998; Milner, 1997; Simmons & Martin, 2001; Smith, 2000), or those groups that pose overt security threats to states, such as terrorists, guerrillas, drug cartels, and the like (c.f., Booth & Dunne, 2002; Duyvesteyn, 2004; Kolodziej, 1992; Laqueur, 1998; Singer, 2001; Tucker, 1998; Walt, 1991).
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- 8.
This is not to overlook historical instances of nomads settling voluntarily or previously nomadic peoples now settled in territorial states (e.g., Fulbe, Mongol). See Azarya (1996) who emphasizes increased wealth and political resources, along with related forces of political stratification as primary factors related to voluntary state formation among African nomadic groups. Interestingly, voluntary nomadic settlement in Africa appears to have been conditional on continued pastoral production. An exception might be relations between nomads and the Soviet Union, where a focus on economic development may have been more pressing than security concerns.
- 9.
Even such “illegal” or illegitimate non-state actors as these take advantage of, and depend on, the legitimate structures of states, even as they may be violently set against them. In some cases, these groups oppose existing states to carve out status of their own.
- 10.
Scott (2009) goes on to note that these characterizations were not terribly accurate. Often these nomadic identity groups were of quite recent vintage, emerging as populations fled the privations of premodern states.
- 11.
For example, in much of the world, for much of history, authority was based on kinship and not seated in any particular territorial domain. Such groups occupied territory, Ruggie (1993?) explains, “but it did not define them.” (p. 149) And, even where territorial claims were relatively fixed, rule need not be “mutually exclusive.” For example, medieval Europe and the European Union are characterized by overlapping rights and responsibilities.
- 12.
Nomads are thus somewhat different from ethno-national diasporas, which are detached from their traditional territory but are not defined by being traditionally migratory or pastoral.
- 13.
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Levin, J., MacKay, J. (2020). Introduction: Nomad-State Relationships in International Relations. In: Levin, J. (eds) Nomad-State Relationships in International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28053-6_1
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