I think that we have
to distinguish four factors.
The first one would be
the ideological collapse,
that’s to say what we commonly call
“the end of ideologies”.
I’m not sure that ideologies are ending,
but my point is to say that
there are some situations
in which ideologies play a major role,
and it was the case during
the Cold War for instance, bipolarity
and there are some other situations
in which ideologies are declining.
When ideologies are declining,
and it was the case
just after the bipolarity collapsed,
the identity plays a role of substitute.
When ideologies are no more mobilizing,
for instance in Algeria after independence,
identity is much more able,
prompt to mobilize people than in a situation
in which competition is structured
by the duality or plurality
of competing ideologies.
The second point, the second factor
will be the institutional collapse.
When the state is no more working,
when the political institutions
are no more working,
that’s to say are less and less legitimate,
of course people are prompt to go
to a cultural ideology
for finding a substitute
to this absence of political institutions
and political organization.
That’s why when state is collapsing;
we can observe
this increasing influence of identities.
The third one will be empire collapse.
Our world is made of several empires,
which are generally coming from very far,
that’s to say are very old,
are very strongly rooted
in the history of the world,
I mean the Chinese empire,
Russian empire,
Ottoman Empire and so on.
When an empire is declining,
or even more, when it is collapsing,
this is liberating, emancipating identities
which are not able to fix themselves
through new nations,
and that is creating a very strong,
very harmful competition of identities.
As it was the case
in the former Yugoslavia for instance,
the case now in Caucasia,
or it’s the case also in Ukraine,
and so many other countries,
because we know
that the collapse of the Russian empire
is a very strong event,
which is really redefining the international
and especially the regional context.
The fourth factor
is to be found in the integration collapse.
Integration that’s to say
when international social integration is low,
when individuals, when peoples
are determined by a high level of poverty,
a low levels of human development,
the reaction is commonly
to go back to its own identity
and use it as an emblem for protesting
against this situation of low integration.
So ideological factors, institutional factors,
Empire collapse, integration collapse,
all these factors are very important
in our present world,
are playing a major role for giving,
for providing to identity
a very structuring role
in the present international system.
What are now the results?
The results now are considered as something,
which would be very close to anarchy.
We had with the nation order
a kind or harmonious coexistence among people;
of course sometimes this coexistence
was moving to war,
but however the national order
was ordering, was structuring
the international arena.
