ABSTRACT
With this chapter, we now reach the end of the reconstruction of a social theory of the nation-state being pursued in this book. In contradistinction to what occurred in Chapter 9, the works of Niklas Luhmann and Jürgen Habermas are important here not because of what they empirically tell us about current globalisation processes and the way in which these affect the nation-state but because they put forward two abstract theories of modernity. Despite their differences, both social theories equally aim at the constitution of general theoretical frameworks within which an understanding of modernity’s evolution and key features can be achieved. I would hold that, in so doing, neither Luhmann nor Habermas reified the nation-state and its position in modernity. Rather, even if their theorisation can be criticised for not having paid enough attention to the nation-state (Beck 2006; Wimmer and Schiller 2002), this does not provide sufficient ground to argue that they are guilty of methodological nationalism in absentia.
