The New Territorial politics

Abstract

In the years following the second world war, theories of modernization and political development predicted the increasing integration of the western nation-state and the disappearance of regional particularisms. Diffusionism predicted that common value systems, originating from the central core of states, would assimilate peripheries to produce territorial homogeneity. National political systems would thence be based on class or ideological divisions within a common identity. The mechanisms of assimilation would be economic, technological, political and cultural. Industrialization, capitalism and urbanization would break down ascriptive roles and traditional values, substituting the impersonal relations of the market. Technology, mechanization and specialization would break down peripheral self-sufficient economies and encourage the spread of the centre’s universalist values. Modern communications would erode regional languages. The modern state would extend the impartial, universal norms of bureaucratic administration.