The Postnational Constellation (review)

According to Habermas, the main challenge of globalization is its disregard of principles of distributive justice: globalization means "the end of politics" and of our hopes to achieve a better world by means of politics. In order to counteract these undesirable effects, Habermas considers, first, whether the European Union presents us with a model of transnational checks on the destructive powers of globalization and, second, whether anything can be expected from the notion of "cosmopolitian democracy." But Habermas is well aware of the shortcomings of both these alternatives. The reader will therefore question whether Habermas has formulated the problem in a fruitful way. Perhaps we should not frame it, as he does, in terms of an opposition between the traditional nation-state and globalization. That this opposition is an illusion is suggested by the fact that globalization has always been a political instrument in the hands of strong nation-states. The genuine contemporary issue is not globalization, but rather the political and economic hegemony of the United States. The former is merely a consequence of the latter.