As John A. Hall notes in the introduction, many authors (including the present writer) writing in the 1990s questioned the future of the nation-state, which, to them, was coming under attack both from above—at the hand of global economic forces—and from below, at the hand of various national or ethnic revivals. As he also notes, the purpose of the volume under review is to question that question and see whether there is still some life left in the nation-state. To do so, he and his fellow editors have assembled an impressive battery of American, Canadian, and British scholars, each of whom has something interesting to say. Let us see, then, what they do say.

The book's first part, “National Identities,” looks at the link between states and nationalism. As Bernard Yack reminds us, originally nationalism, popular sovereignty, and the liberal democratic state went together; the real problem, present almost from the beginning but made especially acute (for Yack) by recent events in the former Yugoslavia, is whether the world can afford a form of nationalism that is neither liberal-democratic nor based on popular sovereignty. Turning this question on its head, Brendan O'Leary argues that every state needs a state people (he uses the original German Staatsvolk here) and that, consequently, the European Community will never become a state. Anatoly M. Khazanov applies this reasoning to the Russian federation, noting that it consists of numerous, often very different, ethnic groups and expressing doubt whether, under such conditions, it can really develop into a liberal-democratic state on the Western model or will revert to authoritarianism. Finally, Peter Baldwin discusses the attempts of many states to use biotechnical means in order to impose much greater control over their populations, say (to mention a case I came across while writing this review), by implanting chips in people so that any disease they may have can quickly be identified. This is indeed a terrifying perspective and one that is relentlessly growing on us. For good or ill, though, the biomedical device that can distinguish, say, an ethnic Serb from an ethic Albanian is not in sight. Hence, I could only wonder why this essay was included in this particular part of the book.

Part II deals with “state security” and itself consists of two essays. In the first, T. V. Paul argues that providing security against other states remains an important function of the post–Cold War state. In this he is right; however, he forgets to mention that since nuclear proliferation has created a situation where six decades have passed since any first- (or even second-) rate states have fought each other in earnest, the meaning of security itself is very different from what it used to be. Next, Jeffrey Herbst argues that the European experience whereby the need to prepare and wage war led to the consolidation of the state, whereas the state in turn used its strength to wage war on other states, will not be repeated in Africa. He, too, may well have right on his side, but he, too, overlooks a very important aspect of the problem by neglecting to say that many African states are so torn by civil war as to barely deserve that name.

Part III looks at “state autonomy” in the international context. In the first essay, Francesco Duina reminds us that “states can always refuse to implement common market law” and that they may “assert their viewpoints and independence in the international arena.” True enough, most of us would say, but does not North Korea provide a terrifying example of what going it alone may cost? In the second, Christopher Hood suggests that whereas in the recent past most states have been very good at taxing their citizens, “over time several factors could combine to erode the pillars on which the twentieth-century tax state was built.” In the third, John L. Campbell asks “how much truth there is to [the] economic globalization thesis” that seems to undermine state power, and he concludes, a little predictably in view of the editors' overall thesis, that there is less here than meets the eye. Finally, Rudra Sil argues that in spite of the return in many places of what Shimon Peres recently called “pigsty capitalism,” the state still has a say in industrial relations; to which one can only say, Amen.

This brings us to the fourth and last part, “state capacity.” In what is surely one of the most interesting essays, Grzegorz Ekiert, using Poland as his main example, argues that East European communist states were actually much weaker than their “totalitarian” character suggested; also, that in some ways, the trend since 1991 has been toward more state power, not less, as most of us thought. By calling his essay on China “Rotten from Within,” Minxin Pei tells us what he thinks of that country's development over the last 25 years or so. Finally, G. John Ikenberry in the concluding essay devotes some space to discussing the events of 9/11. To him, though, they do not prove that even the geographically most isolated, most powerful state on earth is no longer able to look after its citizens' security as it used to. Rather, he believes that “in the age of catastrophic terrorism, the world will never be completely safe until it is completely filled with sovereign states that have effectively established political control and the rule of law within their territory.” Amen, again.

As they say, the editors' purpose was to reexamine the idea that the state is in decline. In their favor it must be said that the volume they have produced provides a much more complex and nuanced perspective. This reviewer cannot agree with everything the authors say, but that does not change the fact that all their essays are thoughtful, most are well written, and some are surprising. Hence, I can only recommend The Nation-State in Question to anybody who is interested in the nature of the state, the ways it relates to society, the factors that are causing it to change, and the direction it may take in the future.