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This is quite obviously a case of either a model of the world that is strongly reduced to its innovative traits, or an extrapolation of current developments into the future. For so far, the national colors of the world map, even in a united Europe, are quite clearly separated from one another. Even though nation-states, primarily in Western Europe, have transferred competencies to international and supranational levels in recent decades, key areas, especially those such as internal and external security and/or integration policies are still firmly in national hands, even in the EU member states. In Central and Eastern Europe, on the other hand, just as in the states of the former Soviet Union, the idea of the nation-state was first fully developed after 1989 and is currently in full bloom. If there were ever any doubts about unbroken US patriotism, these have been thoroughly dispelled since September 11, 2001 at the latest. Even in the so-called "Third World", there is hardly any evidence of a hybridization of national political identities. And the relations between the "First" and the "Third World" can still be adequately described with differentiated center-periphery models in terms of both politics and economy. Thus there is little empirical evidence to be found that collective identities are no longer nationally defined or that they are generally becoming more fragile, more hybrid, than psychological constructions of this kind always are anyway. On the contrary, there is much that speaks for a comeback of national consciousness - such as the election successes of extreme right-wing parties in Austria, Italy, Denmark, France and the Netherlands, which are certainly partly to be understood as a rejection of European integration and globalization for nationalistic reasons. This is also evident in the Austrian reaction to the EU sanctions, the invention of homeland traditions through immigrant children in West Europe, the (re-) intensification of Muslim and Christian fundamentalisms, etc. Constructing models, such as Hardt and Negri have undertaken, is indispensable, in order to promote political, theoretical discussion, particularly through the contradictions that they provoke. These models are problematic, however, if they are taken as practical political guidelines for action or as true-to-scale representations. For the large and fuzzy concept of Empire and the even more unclear terms of economy or free market determining world events behind it, anonym
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