Sovereignty , nationalism , and regional order in the Arab states system

In the first address to the French Parliament by a U.S. President since Woodrow Wilson, in June 1994 President Bill Clinton spoke of the growing challenge posed by nationalism to international order. In decided contrast to Wilson, who came to Paris after World War I to champion the idea of national self-determination, Clinton arrived after the cold war to warn how nationalism undermines international stability. At present, nationalism is less identified with cultural autonomy, democracy, and sovereignty than with chauvinism, expansionism, and assaults on the Westphalian order. If during the cold war few practitioners or students of security politics fully considered the importance of nationalism, current circumstances have forced them to do so: some of the most important sources of regional and international instability clearly are rooted in contending national and ethnic claims and the failure of the state to capture the loyalties of its citizens.1 Today scholars and policymakers are less likely to write of nation-states than they are of nations against states.