Editor’s note: Read part three here.As described in Part 3, the concentration of political power in the hands of the state is an evolved accouterment of modernity, but it is not part of modernity’s essential definition. The modern state system, however, which goes back to Westphalia, really is quintessentially modern precisely because it embraced all three parts of the Enlightenment formula. The system reflects individual agency in the symbolic “keyed” form of the juridical equality of all sovereigns in the system. It embraced secularism among states if not necessarily within them from the very beginning: Westphalia itself was based, remember, …read more
Source: The American Interest
