What is a Network State and how does the concept matter in relation to the Trump administration’s attempts to take Greenland – and their ‘peace’ proposals in Gaza and Ukraine?

This is the question I asked the transnational legal expert Dr Andrea Leiter: Who is trying to set up legal structure that mandate for No Death, No Taxes and No Democracy? And why might the rest of us end up dead or enslaved (I’ll leave you to work out which you think is worse) – because as with any fascist enterprise, there will be the in-group that is protected but not constrained and the out-group that is constrained but not protected and if you’re listening to this podcast, the chances of your being in the in-group are vanishingly small.

So we ended up discussing Balaji Srinivasan’s concepts of the Network State – and no, I have not linked to the book or the website in the show notes: if you want them, you can search. I have, however, linkedto the ideas of the Co-ordiNations put forward by Primavera de Filippi and, of course, there’s the ongoing Bioregional work being conducted by Joe Brewer and others: the merging of these two feels to me a good way forward if we’re to get rid of the current Hobbesian concepts of a Nation State – which is, for sure, pretty outdated.

For those who want background, Andrea works at the intersection of law, digital transformation, and economic innovation. Director of Amsterdam Center for International Law, she’s deeply aware of, and involved in, Transnational Law, Digital Economies & Institutional Innovation, all things crypto – as well as being a Social Justice Entrepreneur. She currently leads a Dutch Research Council-funded VENI project on Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) and their potential to reshape economic governance from below.

So here we go: a radical ride through the forest of nationhood: what it is, why it matters and how we could craft something so much better than what we have now – without the nightmare of fascist police states.