G 9-12 Speech and Debate: National Sovereignty

The internationalists may be naive enthusiasts, while the nationalists may often be bigoted and reactionary. But somewhere in this debate lie the core issues of governance in a globalizing and integrating planet.

A nation-state is an aggregation of citizens who share some important phenomena in common, including several or all of the following: language, history, culture, a sense of destiny, a shared religion and ethnicity, and, most importantly, a definable geographic area. Such a nation-state is considered sovereign in that its government has complete authority within its borders under international law and is not subject to any higher or external law or governance structure.