Editing Superstate (section)

== History ==
In the early 20th century, "superstate" had a similar definition as today's [[supranational organisation]]s. In a 1927 article by Edward A. Harriman on the [[League of Nations]], a superstate was defined as merely "an organisation, of which a state is a member, which is superior to the member themselves", in that "[a] complete superstate has legislative, executive and judicial organs to make, to execute and to interpret its laws". According to this definition, Harriman saw the League of Nations as a "rudimentary superstate", and the [[United States of America]] as "an example of a complete and perfect superstate".<ref>Edward A. Harriman, [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8716222&fileId=S000305540002373X The League of Nations a Rudimentary Superstate], ''American Political Science Review'' / Volume 21 / Issue 01 / February 1927, pp 137-140</ref>

In ''[[World Order of Bahá'u'lláh]],'' first published in 1938, [[Shoghi Effendi]], the [[Guardian (Baháʼí Faith)|Guardian]] of the [[Baháʼí Faith]], described the anticipated world government of that religion as the "world’s future super-state" with the Baháʼí Faith as the "State Religion of an independent and Sovereign Power."<ref>{{cite book |first=Shoghi |last=Effendi |author-link= Shoghi Effendi |year=1938 |title=The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh |publisher=Baháʼí Publishing Trust |location=Wilmette, Illinois, USA | page=7| chapter= Local and National Houses of Justice| chapter-url=http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/WOB/wob-3.html#pg7| isbn=978-0-87743-231-9 |url=http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/WOB/index.html |via=Bahá’í Reference Library}}</ref>

In the 1970s, academic literature used the term "superstate" to indicate a particularly rich and powerful state, in a similar fashion to the term [[superpower]]. In this context, the term was applied to [[Japan]],<ref name="WICKRAMASINGHE-1973" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Oka |first=Takashi |date=1970-12-13 |title=The Emerging Japanese Superstate |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/12/13/archives/the-emerging-japanese-superstate.html |access-date=2024-07-10 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> as contemporary academics suggested that [[Japan as a potential superpower|Japan could displace the U.S. as the world's sole superpower]], becoming the world's foremost [[economic power]] in the (then) near future because of [[Japanese economic miracle|its economic growth in recent decades]].<ref name="WICKRAMASINGHE-1973">{{cite journal |first=V. K. |last=WICKRAMASINGHE |url=http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1746-1049.1973.tb00306.x/abstract |title=JAPAN — THE EMERGING SUPERSTATE ? Some Thoughts on Herman Kahn |journal=The Developing Economies |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=196–210 |date=June 1973|doi=10.1111/j.1746-1049.1973.tb00306.x }}</ref> The prediction [[Lost Decades|did not come true]].

In contemporary political debate, especially the one centred on the [[European Union]], the term "superstate" is used to indicate a development in which the Union develops from its current ''[[de facto]]'' status<ref>Kiljunen, Kimmo (2004). The European Constitution in the Making. Centre for European Policy Studies. pp. 21–26. {{ISBN|978-92-9079-493-6}}.</ref> as a [[confederation]] to become a fully-fledged [[federation]], known as the [[European Federation|United States of Europe]].
For instance, [[Glyn Morgan (academic)|Glyn Morgan]] contrasts the perspective of a "European superstate" to the ones of "a Europe of nation-states" and of "a post-sovereign European polity".<ref name=morgan>Glyn Morgan, [https://books.google.com/books?id=9WuDA3H3KMwC The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration] Princeton University Press, 2009, {{ISBN|9781400828050}}</ref>{{rp|202}} In her definition, a "European superstate is nothing more than a sovereign state - a tried and tested type of polity that predominates in the modern world - operating on a European wide scale",<ref name=morgan/>{{rp|204}} i.e., "a unitary European state".<ref name=morgan/>{{rp|ix}} Especially after the European debt crisis, economic literature started to discuss the role of European union as a European superstate. In particular,<ref name=erkut>{{cite journal|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299468883|title=A Super Indebted European Superstate|first=Burak|last=Erkut|date=24 December 2015|journal=Review of Applied Socio-Economic Research|volume=10|pages=4–10|via=ResearchGate}}</ref> they compared the emergence of a debt union to the federal structure of Germany. 

The term was famously used by [[Margaret Thatcher]] in her 1988 [[Bruges Group (United Kingdom)|Bruges speech]], when she decried the perspective of "a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels",<ref>Margaret Thatcher, [http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107332 Speech to the College of Europe ("The Bruges Speech")], 20 September 1988</ref> and has since entered the [[euroscepticism|eurosceptic]] lexicon.
[[Tony Blair]] argued in 2000 that he welcomed an EU as a "superpower, not a superstate".<ref>Stephen Haseler, [https://books.google.com/books?id=E8eOpF_qZzYC Super-State: The New Europe and Its Challenge to America], p. 85</ref>

In a 2022 study, [[Alasdair Roberts (academic)|Alasdair Roberts]] argues that superstates should be construed as hybrid forms of political organization: "Every superstate carries the burdens of statehood, that is, the duties of intensive governance and respect for human rights that are carried by all modern states. But superstates also carry the burdens of empire, principally the burden of holding together a large and diverse population spread across a vast territory. Superstates are distinguished from ordinary states by problems of governance that are intensified by scale, diversity, and complexity".<ref name="Roberts">{{cite book |last=Roberts |first=Alasdair |url=https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=superstates-empires-of-the-twenty-first-century--9781509544479 |title=Superstates: Empires of the Twenty-First Century |location=Cambridge, UK |publisher=[[Polity Press]] |date=2022 |isbn=9781509544479}}</ref>{{rp|18}} In this view, a superstate need not be highly centralized, just as some empires were not highly centralized. Thus is it possible to describe the European Union as a superstate without conceding that is a "centralized, unitary leviathan".<ref name="Roberts" /> {{rp|121}}
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Other examples of superstates include:
* The [[British Empire]] came close to becoming a superstate in the late 19th century when there was an attempt to re-organize both [[dominion]]s and colonies into a single body as an [[Imperial Federation]].
* The [[European Union]], as argued by many [[Euroscepticism|Eurosceptics]], is a current example of an emerging superstate.
* The [[Soviet Union]], though being constitutionally defined as [[Republics of the Soviet Union|a union of republics]], was ''de facto'' a superstate due to a major cultural and linguistic diversity between its inhabited ethnicities and they never really identified themselves as the single [[Soviet people|Soviet nation]] despite the official doctrine.
* [[Yugoslavia]] before [[Breakup of Yugoslavia|its breakup]] at the end of the [[Cold War]]
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