"Is globalization bringing about the irreversible demise of the state as the most important actor in international politics?"

"Is globalization bringing about the irreversible demise of the state as the most important actor in international politics?"

Introduction

In discussions of globalization at the political level, one question has predominated: that of the nation-state. Is it over and done with, or does it still have a vital role to play? If reports of its demise are naive, what then to make of globalization itself? Should it, perhaps, be understood as merely one pressure among many on national governments—and so on. For when we talk about the spreading power and influence of globalization, aren't we really referring to the spreading economic and military might of the US? (Baylis, J & Smith, 2008, 66-78)

And in speaking of the weakening of the nation-state, are we not actually describing the subordination of the other nation-states to American power, either through consent and collaboration, or by the use of brute force and economic threat? Looming behind the anxieties expressed here is a new version of what used to be called imperialism, which we can now trace through a whole dynasty of forms. An earlier version was that of the pre-First World War colonialist order, practised by a number of European countries, the US and Japan; this was replaced after the Second World War and the subsequent wave of decolonization by a Cold War form, less obvious but no less insidious in its use of economic pressure and blackmail ('advisers'; covert putsches such as those in Guatemala and Iran), now led predominantly by the US but still involving a few Western European powers. (Baylis, J & Smith, 2008, 66-78)

Now perhaps we have a third stage, in which the United States pursues what Samuel Huntington has defined as a three-pronged strategy: nuclear weapons for the US alone; human rights and American-style electoral democracy; and (less obviously) limits to immigration and the free flow of labour. One might add a fourth crucial policy here: the propagation of the free market across the globe. This latest form of imperialism will involve only the US (and such utterly subordinated satellites as the UK), who will adopt the role of the world's policemen, and enforce their rule through selected interventions (mostly bombings, from a great height) in various alleged danger zones. (Baylis, J & Smith, 2008, 66-78)

What kind of national autonomy do the other nations lose under this new world order? Is this really the same kind of domination as colonization, or forcible enlistment in the Cold War? There are some powerful answers to this question, which mostly seem to fall under our next two headings, the cultural and the economic. Yet the most frequent themes of collective dignity and self-respect lead in fact less often to social than to political considerations. So it is that, after the nation-state and imperialism, we arrive at a third ticklish subject—nationalism. (Baylis, J, Wirtz, J, Cohen, E Gray, 2007, 54-68)

Explanation

Globalization broadly refers to the expansion ...