The Modern State and its Adversaries

Abstract

The modern state would be a crisis if consent to long-established sites of authoritative rule were breaking down, previously capable states were unable to command coercive power, and if the demands of international and supra-national institutions had enforceable claims against historically sovereign states. There is no general crisis of the modern state. The states of most developed countries are secure as sites of authoritative rule, and the military power commanded by the American state is unprecedented. However, the external sovereignty of many poor and small states is diminishing. The cause is not ‘globalization’ but the policies of the world's dominant state.