The Nation-State in a Global Age

Although the end of the Soviet system fractured one large regional economy, it gave a boost to European unification. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the European Economic Community (Common Market), which renamed itself the European Community in 1993, was healthy and economically robust compared with other regions of the world. The European Community’s economic success provoked the formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which established a free-trade zone of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The nationalist function of cities diminished as major urban areas like London and Paris became packed with people from other countries. Organizations for world governance grew in influence alongside large regional economic blocs. There was also resistance to these trends from those who wanted to preserve their own traditions and who felt the loss of a secure, face-to-face, local way of life.