Abstract
Why is international law so undeveloped and ineffectual that some legal scholars doubt that it should even be described as “law”? To help to answer this question, two basic elements of nationalism—the tendency to view one's nation as an enlargement of one's self, and the tendency to distinguish sharply between the members of one's nation and other persons—are analyzed in light of psychoanalytic tools and insights. The analysis suggests that nationalism may well help many a person (at least on an unconscious level) to bolster a less-than-secure sense of self—and that to the extent that nationalism plays this role, it is likely to continue to inhibit the growth and development of international law (and with this, the growth and development of a peaceful world order).
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