Politics still matters: Globalization and the continued importance of the nation-state in the revival of regional minorities

For the better part of three and one half centuries, the nation-state has been valued as the logical instrument of governance and citizen protection. The years following the end of the Cold War have convinced certain academics that the process known as globalization is undermining the supposed 'unbridled' power of the nation-state. Scholars like Barber and Rosenau have suggested that the sovereignty of the nation-state is in jeopardy and that the world has become influenced by non-traditional sources of authority. They have argued that new, re-imagined, or reconfigured identities have emerged as an effect of globalization and therefore demonstrated the hypothesis that the nation-state is losing its sovereignty.; The purpose of this dissertation was to rethink and challenge this hypothesis. I have argued that globalization is not solely responsible for minority language revival, but that the governments of the European Union, the nation-states, and the minority communities are also responsible. Through a survey of the literature concerning nationalism and the conformity or elimination of the minority, the reasons for English language dominance, and the expansion of the European Union, I established an argument demonstrating that (1) the notion that globalization alone leads to language revival is false, (2) the view that states are (or increasingly) irrelevant is also false and (3) language revival is the product of globalization and politics. Thus, state and non-state political actors interact on the basis of globalization and language revival is the result.; The case studies I have chosen to test the hypothesis are the Friulian and Slovene language communities in Northern Italy, and the Rusyn (Ruthenian) language communities in Eastern Europe, groups that have traditionally faced discrimination from the nation-state.