According to the United States and the European Union referendum to decide the annexation of Crimea to Russia was illegal and therefore the separation of the region from Ukraine. Do not mean to get into the reasons (I think they are too complex and outside the interests of this post), but it certainly sounds strange that a referendum, where the entire population of a country participating, can be defined as illegal, does not meet the expectations of those who define themselves as fully democratic institutions.
According to theory, the referendum is in fact the most democratic (= Démos people and CRATOS = power) can be imagined. Again, I don't want write about the political and economic reasons of the denunce of the Western world to the Russian action in Crimea, but this event is useful to reflect about the concepts of nation-state and Democratic Participation. To be able to take it starts early on the science of social phenomena: Sociology. In 1824, the opera "Plan of Scientific Studies Necessary for the reorganization of society" the French philosopher Auguste Comte theorized the birth of a new science, later called sociology, as the last result of the development of sciences, such as biology, chemistry, physics. He considered possible to define rules and laws to explain and predict social phenomena, as well as one could explain and predict physical phenomena or chemical. We know that by mixing two simple chemical compounds we obtain a third with well-defined and predictable characteristics. Similarly, if we have a body with known mass moving with a certain speed, we are able to predict how much space will travel. If we know from where and know the characteristics of the course and its trajectory, we can predict where this object will be. These are physical and chemical laws known since the studies of the ancient Greeks more than 2,000 years ago and completed during the course of history by illustrious names, such as Galileo or Newton, to name just a few. Comte believed something like this was possible to explain and predict human behavior too, both individual and collective. Today we know the social system is too complex to have effective and precise laws as of physics or chemistry.
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The dream to predict the development of society, and consequently of the story, and then be able to influence history and society for the collective good, hopefully, we can find in many science fiction stories (eg, Asimov's Psychohistory in the cycle of novels Foundation and Empire, which continue the more famous Robot cycle). What does that have to do sociology with the nation-state and democratic participation? The birth of the social sciences is a direct consequence of two changes in the social panorama of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution and the progressive development of democratic participation of the people to the government and thus the birth of the nation-states. The American and French revolutions at the end of 1700 give a decisive push to the end of the monarchical form of government, a legacy of the medieval world. These phenomena are completed in the West with the two great world wars. The First World War, with the defeat of the European Central Empires (German-Prussian and Austro-Hungarian Habsburg) and Ottoman Empire, marked the final birth of the nation-states. The Second World War, with the fall of totalitarian regimes in Germany and Italy gave a crucial boost to the democratic participation of the people in the government of nations. The industrial revolution instead finished its cycle of development in the 70s of the twentieth century and many scientists define our era as post-industrial or post-modern Age. In today's society, in economy, political and social, increasingly have great influence supra-national organizations, often not democratically elected.
In Wikipedia the term nation state is defined as "a state entity consisting of a common cultural and / or ethnic homogeneous." The English version of the network encyclopedia adds to the commonality of cultural entity and / or ethnic origin, the carachteristic of political and geopolitical entity. Today, it makes sense in a world ever more connected, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic do we refer to the institution of nation-state? What impact have these considerations locally and on the lives of individuals and communities? What are the consequences of the crisis of the concept of the nation-state on the democratic participation of citizens in public life? They are all difficult questions to solve. In fact, these are some of the objects of study of sociology and, as mentioned previously, sociology cannot give definitive and reliable answers. Max Weber, one of the greatest sociologists of the story, said when asked about forecasts about the change of the society to appeal to magicians and not to him because he was a scientist (although Weber, died in 1920, was able to foresee the coming fascist and Nazi totalitarian regimes that would come a few years later). It is important to understand that the concept of the nation-state is not something pre-existent and absolute. It's a very recent invention, related to the historical events of the last two centuries, but that does not find correspondence in the previous hystory. Probably if we asked the fathers of our grandparents if they felt Italian, or German, or French, we would find rather half-hearted reactions (in general, of course, then there are the obvious exceptions that relate to those people most affected by particular ideologies and ideals). Going to war to defend national borders represented to them a real obligation and not a moral obligation.
In this regard, I propose an example of how history itself has been cleverly changed (or adapted) to inculcate a concept that in real life did not exist. An event in the history medieval Italian: Ettore Fieramosca and the Challenge of Barletta. We can find characters like Fieramosca in the history of all the major countries of the world. Ettore Fieramosca was primarily a mercenary who fought for money and for the maintenance and achievement of its aristocratic estates. Nothing wrong of course for the times, and probably also had to fight for noble ideals. Only during the period of the Italian Risorgimento his figure was transformed into what we know today as a hero and defender of the nation and of the "Italianity". I remember his story in short: during the disputes between the French Anjou and the Spaniards Aragonese for the possession of the domain on the south of Italy, Ettore Fieramosca fought for the Spanish (and for Italians according to the tradition of the Risorgimento too). During these contentions a French knight, Charles de Torgues, said La Motte, accused of cowardice Italian knights who fought on behalf of the Spanish enemy. Ettore Fieramosca drew himself up as a champion of his country and February 13, 1503 thirteen Italian knights, led by Fieramosca, and 13 French knights, led by La Motte, fought a duel in the famous Challenge of Barletta. The Italian Knights won the challenge returning the lost honor toItaly, divided and dominated by several dynasties, mostly foreign. In reality this story was cleverly reconstructed from the 1833 novel "Ettore Fieramosca" by Massimo D'Azeglio in the middle of the Italian Risorgimento. To this novel followed some reworkings movies. The first in 1915, during the First World War, with the young Kingdom of Italy was building a national identity, and had to convince his soldiers to fight for the king. The second in 1938 during the Fascist regime, starring Gino Cervi (I remember a third version of the 70s starring the "big" Bud Spencer). Probably Fieramosca was mainly driven by personal pride ... "Nobody calls me chicken!", said Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future :-)
To end: The Nation-State is as mentioned above a pure invention of the nineteenth century. This does not mean that it is good or bad. It 'was certainly an important institution throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It brought democracy and freedom to many people. It has been the cause of wars for abstruse claims of government of "pieces" of territory, yoo (see the dispute between Ukraine and Russia in the Crimea). What is instead an inalienable conquest is the DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION of people in public life and politics. Human aspiration from time immemorial. Even in the hierarchies of the Paleolithic or Neolithic villages. It was the dream of the poleis of ancient Greece, the cradle of Western civilization.
The democartic participation, however, is now challenged when technology offers us the most powerful tools have ever existed to link people and connect them into a single infinite and indefinite collective intelligence.
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