Abstract

One of the unexpected consequences of the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Empire was the reactivation of geopolitical crises which had been in remission since WWI. Unlike the various projections for “New World Orders” immediately deployed by conformist liberals in the effort to recycle and extend “new and improved” versions of that very imperialism allegedly rendered obsolete by the “Great War,” the new federalism debate, which began at the same time in Italy, Canada and various other countries, addresses those very same geopolitical problems by proposing a break both with the Enlightenment project of nation-building and that homogenizing modernity providing its ideological legitimation.