Stern draws immediate connections between the nationalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries combined with totalitarianism and the current disintegration movements of nations in Europe. He bases his argument in the historical precedent. The three parties that promised a better future to their members in the first half of the 20th century kept power through severely centralizing authority and further controlling societal influence by adjusting history to skew the perception of the public. Today the European Community aimed for gradual integration so that the traditional nationalistic rivalries could be overcome. The threat of war in Europe is extremely low. The concern now arises from ethnically assimilated groups. Disintegration of Yugoslavia occurred because of the several ethnic groups gathered under one state. The political boundaries of the Yugoslav government were drawn by the allies after World War II. Other such contrived nations and new political structures will suffer the same difficulty. The EC must be sure that all groups that suffered in the constantly shifting political representation of Europe’s bellicose history find nondiscriminatory governments under which to align before the EC can hope for an effective unified political system. In any other case, the EC would become another unnatural and necessarily belligerent form of centralized government.
According to Pfaff, the hegemonists argue that democracy is a peace-breeding regime that will also inevitably foster prosperity. History imparts the knowledge that nation-states seem to inherently struggle to find the appropriate balance within a region no matter the ideology. Europe, the birthplace of the nation-state, suffered centuries of the most grotesque war known to mankind. It also reveals its own inability to predict the future of third world nations. Those pursuing American hegemony cannot say that democracy leads to prosperity based on history. The current democratic powers entered into a much different economic system. A demand on America’s part that all nations become democratic in order to ensure economic success would be naïve. Up and coming nations must deal with pre-established economic giants who control the system. Examples in history are yet too young to prove the effect of new democracies on economics. Exploitation regardless of ideology has seemed most prevalent in the nature of states in general. Hegemony would be a unilateral push for American interests only.