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Is there any plausible way for separatism to overpower imperialism and universalism to such an extent that small states become the norm, and stay the norm even as the world industrializes? For this challenge, there should be no state with more than 1/500 of the world population. So Chad or Somalia would be the absolute most populous states, and a typical state would be more like Luxembourg or Belize. Another rule is that alliances of nations must not be any more integrated than the present day EU. If this is too extreme to be plausible, that's ok, just describe what you think the most decentralized world could look like. Perhaps a UN-like organization arises early on, and is effective at preventing wars of conquest? Or maybe a worldwide revolution appears during a time of crisis, and has the explicit goal of dividing the world into microstates?
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