Because the nation-state originates as a means of overcoming the religious civil wars, its establishment coincides with the attempt to contain theological disputes within a private sphere that does not threaten the structure of the state. As a consequence, it has provided a model for global international relations in which theological questions can be set aside in favor of power-political ones in the nation-state system. The primary control on state power would not be another state but the consent of the people that is required in order for the sovereign to maintain power. Carl Schmitt has argued that the main threat to this system has been the rise of movements such as communism, but also liberalism itself, that reintroduce ideological appeals and thus theological questions into the establishment of political structures. To what extent does the nation-state embody a rational basis for politics that is able to eliminate theological questions as a reason for political conflict? Or does the nation-state contain within itself an implicit theological structure in the way that it defines religious conviction as a private rather than a public issue? That is, does the modern public sphere represent a rational achievement or the institutionalization of a particular theological conception against all others that would provide an alternative basis for the public sphere?