Globalization and the Future of the Nation State

Economy and Society

Volumn 24, Issue 3, 1995, Pages 408-442

  Thompson, Grahame ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

^b OPEN UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Globalization; governance; international order; nation state; sovereignty

Indexed keywords

FUTURE PROSPECT; GEOPOLITICAL STUDIES; GLOBALISATION; GOVERNANCE; NATION STATE; SOVEREIGNTY; STATE FUNCTION; STATE ROLE;

EID: 0029509410     PISSN: 03085147     EISSN: 14695766     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03085149500000017     Document Type: Article

References (115)

1. See Weber (1969) especially p. 56. On the pluralism of political authority in the Middle Ages, see Gierke (1900) and especially the introduction by F.W. Maitland. Recent discussions of the formation of sovereign states and the modern system of states by international relations theorists have gone some way to take the discussion beyond Weber. For example, Ruggie (1986), Downing (1992) and Spruyt (1994) all emphasize that both the units of politics and the relationships between them changed their nature in early-modern Europe.
2. For the relevant provisions of the Treaty of Westphalia article 5 Paragraphs 1 and 30, see Limm (1984).
3. On the rise of ‘sovereignty as an exclusive attribute of the ruler/state’, see Hinsley (1986).
4. These ‘billiard ball’ interactions are stressed in Marge (1971). The notion of modern international relations as those of an anarchical society of states is taken from Bull (1977).
5. This discussion of nationalism draws on two quite contrary approaches, that of Benedict Anderson (1991), which stresses the character of cultural homogeneity as a political project, and that of Eric Hobsbawm (1992) whose scepticism about nationalist politics and whose practice of confronting the rhetoric of nationalists with the political and cultural complexities they seek to homogenize is a healthy corrective.
6. See Hindess (1992).
7. See T. Tom Nairn’s trenchant essay ‘All Bosnians now’ (1993).
8. See Hindess (1991) for a critique of the concept of the self-governing political community.
9. On the concepts of community sovereignty and ruler sovereignty, see Hinsley (1986).
10. See Kant ‘On Perpetual Peace’ (1991), and also, for the question of whether liberal states refrain from fighting each other, see Doyle (1983).
11. On the changing role of national politics, see Mulgan (1994), and on the declining role of the nation state, Horsman and Marshall (1994).
12. See Brodie The Absolute Weapon (1946) and Brodie (1965).
13. This is in many ways the entry of states into a ‘civil order’ and no longer an anarchy; it moves international relations on beyond the ‘deterred state’ and closer to the solution to the nuclear stand-off advocated by Schell (1984).
14. This argument draws extensively on Van Creveld V.(1991).
15. Kant advances this argument (1991: n.16).
16. See Anderson (1991) and, for an elegant example of these processes in France, E. Weber (1979).
17. See Casdes and Miller (1993).
18. It has become fashionable to erect political Islam, and other anti-Western movements, into a major threat, see for example Huntingdo (1993). He argues that, after the ending of the conflict of ideologies, we are moving into a new era of the ‘clash of civilizations ’.
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20. For an interesting series of discussions of the difference between governance and government and of the possible forms of non-state regulation in international arenas, see Rosenau and Czempiel (1992); see also the World Bank's attempt to define the roles of states in respect to good governance in its 1994 report Governance.
21. In this respect Durkheim’s Division of Labour in Society remains unsurpassed, despite being published over a century ago; see also Hutton (1995).
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27. It is probably the case that Keynes’ main legacy to the modem world is not his account of the management of national economies in The General Theory but his Globalization and the future of the nation state 439 long-term emphasis on the corrosive effects of uncertainty on investment, output and trade and the value of a calculable international monetary framework in stabilizing expectations. Skidelsky’s biography (Vol. 2, 1992) is exceptionally valuable and suggestive in demonstrating the value of Keynes' ideas today for it shows him (especially in the 1920s) wrestling with the problem of national policy in a highly internationalized and volatile world economy.
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