After the Nation State

This article argues that in an interconnected world constantly beset by global crises, the primacy of the nation-state has consistently been a hurdle to effective collective action. Fortunately, the same imaginative narrative processes that entrenched the nation-state in our consciousness could also sustain a more cosmopolitan identity. The theory of legal philosopher H L A Hart may provide critical clues with regard to the mechanics of cementing such a collective identity.