Globalism vs Sovereignty: does the nation state still matter?

This session is part of Battle of Ideas Berlin 2026.

After 1945, the Federal Republic embraced an anti-nationalist and anti-sovereignty outlook, rebuilding its political legitimacy by embracing multinational institutions. In particular, Germany pursued European integration, as a response to the conflicts of the past, and the transatlantic alliance, as a guarantee of security. Since then, German sovereignty has been exercised within wider structures. For many decades, this model was considered successful.

The modern nation state depends on creating a sense of loyalty between individuals and a territory, based on the principle that government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. But what does sovereignty mean when fundamental decisions about security, the economy and social order increasingly depend on military alliances, international institutions and global systems that citizens cannot directly control?

For example, for years, successive US administrations criticised Germany and other European allies for relying heavily on American military protection while investing relatively little in their own defence capabilities. After 2022, this trans-Atlantic dispute became a central German debate about autonomy: how much room for independent action does a state have when its security ultimately depends on decisions taken by another power?

China’s rapidly expanding global influence and strategic positioning in the Indo-Pacific alongside Russia’s reassertion of its military sphere of influence also pose tricky questions. War in Ukraine has exacerbated existing tensions, not least dependence on Russian energy, and propelled discussion of Germany’s strategic vulnerability to the centre of public debate.  Others say that trade, dialogue and economic interdependence remain important tools for reducing conflict and preserving national stability.

Germany’s economy faces similar dilemmas – built on exports and global production chains, but now heavily dependent on Chinese consumers, critical raw materials, semiconductors and industrial competitiveness. Can a democracy remain politically independent when it is dependent on states that do not share its political principles?

The European Union perhaps represents the most complex example of this tension. Recurring debates over common debt, migration, energy, industrial policy, European defence and the role of EU institutions return to the same question: does sharing sovereignty allow European states to regain influence in relation to major powers, or does it move important decisions further away from national democratic control?

Is Germany’s decades-long suspicion of exerting its national interest now holding it back? Where is Germany’s power exercised, who exercises it and in whose interests? Does the nation state remain the primary instrument of democratic self-determination, or has sovereignty become something that can no longer be exercised within national borders alone?