Representing the Unrepresented : the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation; a new form of post-national governance?
Keywords
Loading...
Authors
Issue Date
2010-02
Language
en
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The importance of the nation-state is profoundly contested since we live in times of intensified
globalisation. At the same time, many people still feel attached to, and identify with, their nation-state.
The nation-state, with its triple alliance of citizenship rights, national identity and territorial
sovereignty (Papadopoulos, Stephenson & Tsianos, 2008), still decides who belongs and who does not
belong to it and is still the main form of political representation. This thesis, however, focuses on the
situation of people falling outside the framework of the nation-state; people who are not represented
by the nation-state while they live in the state’s territory; and/or people who do not identify
themselves with the same nation-state. Hence, this thesis can be seen as an in-depth analysis of
unrepresentedness.
It discusses theoretically the problem of unrepresentedness and links this to the problems,
claims and strategies of unrepresented nations and peoples in practice. In this context this thesis deals
with the strategies of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) as well as with
the problems and claims of its members. The UNPO was founded to create access to ways of
representation transcending the nation-state for groups that are unrepresented on a national level.
Since these groups lack a voice within the nation-state, they are almost automatically excluded from
the international fora since the nation-state is still the sovereign representing body in these
international fora, of which the United Nations (UN) is the best example. The UNPO, as a network
organisation, brings together 56 members.
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen