Rethinking the Notion of the State: Something New or Something Very Old?

Flags blowing outside of United Nations Headquarters in Geneva. Photo by John Samuel.

Since 2019, the total market capitalization, or market cap, of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google combined has been worth more than the total world economy of all but four countries: the U.S., China, Japan, and Germany. Apropos of this, the Atlantic Council decreed that “transnational corporations now wield as much, if not more, power than nation-states.” It is becoming clear that the tradition of viewing states as the most geopolitically powerful entity in the world is changing. Advances in technology, changes in global ideology, and what some call the failure of the current nation-state system are at least calling out the flaws in the system and encouraging a reevaluation of our concept of the state—and at most leading to the total abandonment of the state altogether. 

The development of the modern-day state is assumed to have started with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The Treaty ended the Thirty Years War, brought peace to the Holy Roman Empire, and provided the basis for the modern nation-state system, known as the Westphalian sovereignty. This system, which has been in place since the 17th century, includes most notably the “inviolability of borders and non-interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states.” In other words, it established the idea of strong borders. When the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, “strong borders” would have loosely meant “my state is from this river to that mountain range.” However, this has since changed. With the creation of technology, we now define our borders with accurate measurements extended in all cardinal directions and even 100 air miles into the sky. We now have what could be called the “strongest borders.” 

The way that we think about the world around us and the people who inhabit it has been boxed into these borders, encouraging the growth of nationalism and extremism. It is time to rethink what we call a state. In order to do that, citizens and politicians alike need to evaluate what it means to have the “strongest borders” in the 21st century and ask ourselves: do we actually need them? 

Surprisingly, this question is much closer to being answered today because of technology. Take, for instance, Estonia. As part of its nation rebranding, known as e-Estonia, Estonia became the world’s first nation to run an online election in 2005. Not only does Estonia utilize e-voting, but it also runs almost 99% of its citizen services, including healthcare, taxes, and other financial services, via an app. With this, Estonian citizens hardly ever have to actually be inside Estonia, making their borders somewhat irrelevant to conducting their state affairs. 

Similarly, the Nevada State Legislature just passed a law allowing tech companies to effectively create their own governments and citizenship. These tech-governments would be allowed to generate taxes, form school districts, and create their own courts of law. If they were to create their own states, per Nevada law, they would not need borders. In fact, borders would actually infringe on their governance, as tech companies, like Google or Microsoft, have headquarters and people working for them across the world. 

So, no, states do not need borders. But this reality begs the question of whether or not what Estonia and Nevada are leaning toward is, in fact, a good thing for their citizens. To evaluate the strengths of a borderless state, one must actually look back in time. 

Prior to the Treaty of Westphalia and the modern concept of the state and strong borders, there were empires. Pre-state-like empires included the Ancient Roman, Achaemenid, and early Ottoman Empires. These empires, with weak borders at best, are what many scholars call the “multicultural empires.” Multicultural empires were not states, especially when it came to religion, race, and ethnicity. If someone were to say they were from the Ottoman Empire, it did not necessarily dignify them as “Ottoman,” unlike how one might think today that you are Turkish simply if you are from Turkey. Pre-state empires distinguished themselves from the later British Empire, American imperialism, and 15th-century colonialism insofar as they lacked nationalism, a need to constantly defend their identity, and or a desire to consume all other identities that did not align with theirs. 

No borders meant that there was no way for individuals to identify or create an identity based on boxed-in knowledge of what people in those empires looked or acted like. A borderless state also generates multiculturalism, unveiling an ironic parallel that exists between the ancient concept of a multicultural empire and a modern electronic, borderless state. What we are approaching in our understanding of states is not a foreign and novel concept, but actually something very old. Without exploring the potential serious consequences of companies creating their own countries, there is still an argument to be made that it is well past time to start thinking about what it would mean to create a world without borders. No borders would mean your neighbors could be next door or in the next continent over. No borders would mean that identities could flow naturally between each other, creating the kind of multiculturalism that the current political systems across the world desperately need. 

Advocating for the reevaluation of the modern-day state is not necessarily a call to create completely virtual states ruled by Google or Apple but instead a call to think beyond the mental and physical borders surrounding our concept of a state. There are consequences to having “strongest border” states—namely nationalism and identity-based thinking. We have been living with those consequences since the 1600s. It is high time to reevaluate our thinking when it comes to the state, and ask ourselves: what can a state be in the 21st century? 

Though originally from Southern California, Sophia Lander (CC ‘25) has lived across the world–most notably in Taiwan and the United Kingdom. While Sophia has yet to arrive on Columbia’s campus, she is beyond excited to begin her college experience in the fall. She plans to study Philosophy and Political Science.