4.4 Centripetal, Centrifugal, and Supranational Forces

Centripetal Forces - Characteristics that unify a country and provide stability

  • Examples: Common language, ethnicity, religion, flags, holidays

Centrifugal Forces - Characteristics that divide a country and create instability, conflict, and violence.

  • Examples: Multiple competing ethnicities, languages, or religions

Centripetal Force

  • Bind together the people of a state, giving it strength

  • One of the most powerful centripetal forces is nationalism or identities based on nationhood

    • Could be promoted through the use of symbols (flags, holidays), institutions (schools), and communications systems (national broadcasting system)

Political Dimension: Nationalism

  • 1995 Rugby World Cup

  • Apartheid had just ended in South Africa, after more than 400 years of racial inequality

  • Nelson Mandela, then President, used the Springboks national rugby team to help unite the divided nation

Economic Dimension: Public Infrastructure

  • Ensuring a population has enough resources to support long-term stability.

  • A good transportation system accessible to all citizens, all the resources of a country are accessible => making life easier for everyone.

  • Example: Railway system in India

Cultural Dimension: Unified Language & Religion

  • Religion and language are tied closely with culture and evoke strong, sometimes overpowering forces of Unity.

  • Examples: Hinduism in Nepal or the advancement of modern Hebrew to unite immigrants looking for a new life in the Jewish homeland

Centrifugal Force

  • Oppose centripetal forces

  • If they outnumber centripetal forces, they destabilize the government and encourage the country to fall apart

Political Dimension: Conflict

  • Citizens do not trust the central government

  • Disagree with political ideology

  • Minority groups are mistreated or underrepresented

    • Can lead to armed conflict or civil war

Cultural Dimension: Religious Difference

  • Religious differences that lead to separatist movements

    • Sikhs in India or the Kurds in Turkey

  • Language differences

    • India has more than a dozen official languages, and poor communication can lead to misunderstanding and conflict.

Economic Dimension: Class Difference

  • Can create feelings of inequality

  • Poorer regions can feel exploited by wealthier ones

  • Rich areas can feel put upon by having to provide aid to poor areas

    • In Italy, the richer north pushed for autonomy from the poorer south

    • In Brazil, wealthier provinces of the South argue that the tax money is being misspent by the government for aid to the Amazon Forest region.

Supranationalism:

Three or more individual states coming together to work toward common goals

Benefits of Supranational Organizations

  • Decrease conflict and promote cooperation between members

  • Improve environmental sustainability

  • Create economies of scale

  • Provide collective defense

Harms of Supranational Organizations

  • Can challenge state sovereignty by limiting the economic or political actions of member states

  • Can stall action

  • Can create discord between members, especially when cost/resource burdens are not equally distributed among members

  • It can become controlled by stronger states