THE SURVIVAL OF THE NATIONAL STATE IN A GLOBALISED WORLD

Lecturer Mihaela Cărăuşan, PhD

National School of Political Studies and Public Administration
Faculty of Public Administration

Abstract: In the discussion of the future of national states there are two mistakes that
must be avoided: the first is to consider nation states as institutions that are in decline or
disappearing, or that they are losing all political or economic power as a consequence of the
process of capitalist globalisation; and the second is to believe that the defence of a nation and
of national sovereignty is the only, or the principle, line of defence against the catastrophes
brought on by the globalise market.
The national states continue to play a decisive role in political and economic fields and
it is obvious that the national state has a role to play in the resistance to globalisation.
However, the juridical literature constantly emphasized that the notion of the Rule of
law has its own universal dimension, as it was expressly attested in many international and
European documents. The existence of the rule of law essentially depends on the national
realities, those which contributed to the definition and establishment of the rule of law as a
basic concept of the existence of the modern state.
Key terms: democratization, governance, internationalisation, IMF, modernization

As Martin Wolf1 remark, in 2001, globalization is a journey. But it is a journey toward

an unreachable destination – “the globalised world”.
The state is the institutionalized form of political power. Starting with the 15th century,
it came to be considered by the society as an instrument of asserting its sovereignty both
internally and externally. An essential link between globalization and the national state is the
concept of sovereignty. Originally intended in reference to the establishment of order within a
state, sovereignty has since been interpreted by some as a legal quality that places the state
above the authority of all external laws. Yet whenever a state exercises its sovereign right to
sign a treaty, it is also wilfully limiting that right by the very act of undertaking an
international legal obligation. States are also bound by other rules, such as customary
international law. With these formal legal limitations, sovereignty stubbornly persists even in
an age of globalization – and is manifested in such functions as the coining of money, the
gathering of taxes, the promulgation of domestic law, the conduct of foreign policy, the
regulation of commerce, and the maintenance of domestic order. These are all functions that
are reserved exclusively to the state, a condition that the European Union is challenging today
in many dimensions of governance, but has by no means overcome.2
Indeed, globalization is one of the most hotly debated issues of the present era. For
some, it is a cover concept for global capitalism and imperialism and is accordingly
condemned as another form of the imposition of the logic of capital and the market on ever
more regions of the world and spheres of life. For others, it is the continuation of
modernization and a force of progress, increased wealth, freedom, democracy, and happiness.
Its defenders present globalization as beneficial, generating fresh economic opportunities,
political democratization, cultural diversity, and the opening to an exciting new world. Its
critics see globalization as harmful, bringing about increased domination and control by the
wealthier overdeveloped nations over the poor underdeveloped countries, thus increasing the

1
Martin Wolf, Will the Nation-State Survive Globalization?, Cato Journal, January/February 2001.
2
Jayantha Dhanapala, A Cartography of Governance: Exploring the Role of Environmental NGOs, Colorado Journal of
International Environmental Law and Policy, April 7, 2001, Globalization and the Nation State
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/172/29952.html

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hegemony of the ‘haves’ over the ‘have-nots’. In addition, supplementing the negative view,
globalization critics assert that globalization produces an undermining of democracy, a
cultural homogenization, and increased destruction of natural species and the environment.3
To be much more precise, globalization is seen as a complex phenomenon, which
encompasses a great variety of tendencies and trends in the economic, social and cultural
spheres. It has a multidimensional character and thus does not lend itself to a unique
definition. For purposes of simplicity, it may be described as increasing and intensified flows
between countries of goods, services, capital, ideas, information and people, which produce
crossborder integration of a number of economic, social and cultural activities.4
Greater economic integration is not the only relevant aspect of globalization.
Improvements in the technological sphere have enabled inexpensive, instantaneous
communication and massive diffusion of information affecting styles of politics, culture and
social organization.
The lifting of trade barriers, liberalization of world capital markets, and swift
technological progress, especially in the fields of information technology, transportation and
telecommunications, have vastly increased and accelerated the movement of people,
information, commodities and capital. Correspondingly, they have also broadened the range
of issues which spill over the borders of national states requiring international norm setting
and regulation and, therefore, consultation and formal negotiations on a global or regional
scale. Many of the problems afflicting the world today – such as poverty, environmental
pollution, economic crises, organized crime and terrorism – are increasingly transnational in
nature, and cannot be dealt with only at the national level, nor by State to State negotiations.
Despite the many concerns about the loss of sovereignty, the State remains the key
actor in the domestic as well as international arenas.
The many “challenges that we confront today are beyond the reach of any state to
meet on its own. At the national level we must govern better, and at the international level we
must learn to govern better together. Effective States are essential for both tasks, and their
capacity for both needs strengthening”5. We should not overlook the fact that the entire
edifice set up for global governance is currently designed by nation-States and driven by the
initiatives which they undertake.
Since its inception, the national state has guaranteed internal and external security;
underpinned the law; funded national welfare systems; provided the structures for popular
representation; instituted public accountability; and built the framework for economic and
social activities. During the last century, the responsibilities of the State have expanded in all
these areas. “The need to supply collective public goods, to manage externalities and to
provide for minority needs will persist even in a world of expanded globalization”6.
It is still states, collectively or singly, that set the rules of the game, that enter into
agreements with other states, and that make policies which shape national and global
activities, and the agenda of integration; though this is true in principle, in reality the problem
of capacity inadequacy of individual States has become clearly pronounced. This means that
some states have more political leverage in shaping the international agenda whereas others
have a less active role, as is the case for many developing countries.

3
Douglas Kellner, Theorizing Globalization, Sociological Theory, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Nov., 2002), p. 286, Published by:
American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3108613, Accessed: 12/09/2009.
4
Guido Bertucci and Adriana Alberti, Globalization and the Role of the State: Challenges and Perspectives, paper draws
upon the United Nations World Public Sector Report 2001 on “Globalization and the State”.
5
United Nations (2000). Millennium Report of the Secretary-General, “We, the Peoples: The Role of the
United Nations in the 21st Century", A/54/2000.
6
Barry R.J. Jones, The World Turned Upside Down?: Globalization and The Future of the State, St. Martin’s Press, New
York, 2000, p. 268.

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 The functions and role of the State have been transformed substantially. The general
configuration of its responsibilities has changed and this has introduced important
modifications both in the policy arena and in the State’s requirements for high-level skills,
qualitatively and quantitatively. Even so, decentralization, de-bureaucratization and
deregulation are adding to the importance not only of local government, but also of non-state
actors on whom significant functions are devolved or outsourced.7
Nita Rudra8 summarize, four basic propositions comprise the core of this argument
about the interrelationship between globalization, political liberalization, and welfare
spending:
1. Globalization tends to create greater economic risks and uncertainty, diminishing
elite control over the economy and affecting both private sector loyalty and large sectors of
society. The result is social instability alongside waning elite legitimacy.
2. If the state is imperfectly democratic, governing elites will fear that the "losers"
would use greater democracy to take away their privileges. These elites oppose in-creasing
democratic quality (hard-liners), putting them at loggerheads with elites that prefer
democratization (the soft-liners).
3. However, if the state provides social spending to compensate (buy off) the injured
majority, the masses will be less likely to attack the elite via politics.
4. Therefore, in such states, (hard-liner) elites will be more likely to agree to increase
democracy.
The analogy between nation and globalization is not unproblematic. It needs to be
nuanced in at least two respects. To begin with, it should be noted that while globalization and
nation both close the gap in the concept of democracy, this closure serves different purposes.
Unlike the nation, however, globalization is not a vision of the people. It is not
imagined as a pre-political community, a constituent power that is sup-posed to bestow
legitimacy upon the state. Globalization is rather imagined as that which questions
community. This shift in theoretical focus points to an important difference between nation
and globalization
Furthermore, we should note that the appeal to nation and globalization emerges under
different historical conditions. The concept of the nation was launched in the historical
transformation from monarchy to democracy. It initiated the era of modern and national
democracy.9
The national state system, or interstate system, is an historical outcome, the particular
form in which capitalism came into being based on a complex relation between production,
classes, political power, and territoriality. This relation is now being superseded by
globalization. Mann10 shows how the system of territorial states emerged as part and parcel of
the emergence of capitalism in its European core, and this system has dominated interna-
tional relations ever since. However, there is “nothing in the capitalist mode of production”
that itself leads to the emergence of “many networks of production, divided and at war, and of
an overall class structure that is nationally segmental”11(.). Mann identifies four basic net-
works of social interaction constitutive of social power: economic, political, ideological, and
coercive. He challenges the concept of ‘society’ and argues that every historical period should
be analyzed in terms of these networks of interaction. Although the lack of determinacy in his

7
Guido Bertucci and Adriana Alberti, op.cit.
8
Nita Rudra, Globalization and the Strengthening of Democracy in the Developing World, American Journal of Political
Science, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Oct., 2005), p. 707-708, Published by: Midwest Political Science Association Stable, URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3647692 Accessed: 12/09/2009.
9
Sofia Näsström, What Globalization Overshadows, Political Theory, Vol. 31, No. 6 (Dec., 2003), p. 827, Published by:
Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3595713, Accessed: 12/09/2009.
10
Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 515.
11
Idem

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construct raises is-sues of causality in historic change, the point I wish to raise there is that
these interactive networks, under globalization, operate both ‘over’ and ‘under’ the national
state system and undermine its institutional logic and any rationality in conceiving of social
structure in national terms.12
Although the terms of the debate in the 1970s differed from those that are prevalent
today, Poulantzas made important points about the future of the national state in an era of
increasing internationalization of capital. Above all, he insisted on the continued importance
of the national state in spite (and, indeed, exactly because) of this increasing
internationalization.13
The current internationalization of capital neither suppresses nor by-passes the
national states, either in the direction of a peaceful integration of capitals ‘above’ the state
level (since every process of internationalization is effected under the dominance of the
capital of a definite country), or in the direction of their extinction by the American super-
state. This internationalization, on the other hand, deeply affects the politics and institutional
forms of these states by including them in a system of interconnections which is in no way
confined to the play of external and mutual pressures between juxtaposed states and capitals14.
As Jessop15 identify in his study, Poulantzas appears to reject the thesis of a supra-
national state on six grounds:
1) Internationalization is no longer limited primarily to purely external relations
between autocentric national economies and states -- relations which could perhaps have been
coordinated from outside and above individual states in the manner of a nightwatchman
state.16
2) National states play a major role in the competitive positioning of their respective
economic spaces vis-à-vis foreign capitals (including attracting FDI and securing other
advantages of foreign penetration) and they also promote the concentration and international
expansion of their own indigenous capital in its competition with such capitals. This task
could not be delegated to a supra-national state since it pits different national power blocs and
states against each other17.
3) National states will still support their own nationally based (interior, national,
comprador) bourgeoisies18 and, indeed, the ‘modern nation remains for the bourgeoisie the
focal point of its own reproduction’19. Together with the two preceding points this seems to
imply that supra-national regimes or institutions will only be supported by national states to
the extent that they are consistent with national interests (as modified by the process of
internationalization).
4) The (national) state is never a simple instrument of the dominant classes (in which
case, suggests Poulantzas, certain functions might, indeed, be passed up to a supranational
apparatus step by step with each successive stage of internationalization) but is shot through
with many class antagonisms and struggles. Thus the national state remains responsible for

12
William I. Robinson, Beyond Nation-State Paradigms: Globalization, Sociology, and the Challenge of Transnational
Studies, Sociological Forum, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Dec., 1998), p. 567, Published by: Springer Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/684864 Accessed: 12/09/2009.
13
Bob Jessop, ‘Globalization and the National State’, published by the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University,
Lancaster LA1 4YN, 2000, p. 5-6 at http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/Jessop-Globalization-and-the-National-
State.pdf
14
Nicos Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, London: New Left Books, 1975, p. 73.
15
Bob Jessop, op.cit.
16
Ibid, p. 73, 75, 81-2.
17
Idem
18
Idem, p. 74
19
Nicos Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism, London, Verso, 1978, p. 117.

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maintaining social cohesion in a class-divided national formation which is now increasingly
subject to uneven development due to its insertion into the imperialist chain20.
5) Indeed, each national state has its own distinctive, path-dependent, national balance
of class forces, its own institutional and organizational specifics, its own strategically
selective impact on the ‘national forms’ of class struggle. This suggests in turn that, in so far
as supra-national politics is always already inter-governmental politics, it would reflect
national specificities.
6) Finally, in each national state there are ‘social categories’ (i.e., personnel divided
perhaps by their place in class relations but unified by their common function) employed in
the state apparatuses (e.g., civil servants, the police and military personnel, professionals, or
intellectuals) that therefore have vested interests in the survival of the national state -- which
implies that they would resist the loss of the various capacities, prerogatives, and powers off
which they live21.
Even the national state remarks made by Poulantzas in 1970 are legitimate today we
have to recognise that the national state cannot combat the empire of multi-national capital
and this for several reasons22:
1) Victories obtained on a national level are limited, precarious and constantly
menaced by the powers of the world capital market and its institutions.
2) A narrow national perspective does not allow for the formation of alliances or for
the constitution of an alternative world focus of attention. Only a coalition of international
forces is capable of affronting and forcing a retreat upon global capital and its instruments
such as the IMF and the WTO.
3) The nation state is not a homogenous social space. Class contradictions, social
conflicts and the fracture between an oligarchy and the working masses, between the
privileged élite and the multitude of the poor and excluded, cut across national barriers.
4) The legitimacy of progressive and emancipating national movements such as those
of the Kurds, the Palestinians and the inhabitants of East Timor cannot be denied, neither can
it be denied that nationalism, in today’s world, tends to take on essentially supremacist forms.
Inter-community massacres, national or religious wars, ‘ethnic purification’ and even
genocides, have become characteristic of the last decade of the 20th century.
5) The most urgent problems of our era are international. The third world debt, the
imminent threat of ecological disaster, the necessity of controling financial speculation and
suppressing tax havens, are all global problems that demand global solutions.
In reaction to the ravages of globalisation, we observe here and there the appearance
of the first seeds of a new internationalism, independent of states and of particularized groups
of interest. These are the bases of what will one day become the ‘Resistance Internationale’
against the neoliberal capitalist offensive.
When Jessop23 analysed the Poulantzas opera in 2000 have discovered three trends of
internationalization of the national state. There is a general trend towards the de-
nationalization of the state (or, better, statehood). This structural trend is reflected empirically
in the 'hollowing out' of the national state apparatus with old and new state capacities being
reorganized territorially and functionally on subnational, national, supra-national, and trans-
local levels. There is a continuing movement of state power upwards, downwards, and
sideways as attempts are made by state managers on different territorial scales to enhance
their respective operational autonomies and strategic capacities. One aspect of this is the loss

20
Nicos Poulantzas, 1975, p. 78.
21
Ibid, p. 78-9.
22
Michael Lowy , Nation state, nationalism, globalization, internationalism, 1 January 2001, Text presented at
the World Social Forum, January 2001. Jane Holister & Anne Shalit. André Intartaglia [email protected].
23
Bob Jessop, op.cit.

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of the de jure sovereignty of national states in certain respects as rule- and/or decision-making
powers are transferred upwards to supranational bodies and the resulting rules and decisions
bind national states.
Also, there is a trend towards the de-statization of the political system. This is
reflected in a shift from government to governance on various territorial scales and across
various functional domains. There is a movement from the central role of the official state
apparatus in securing state-sponsored economic and social projects and political hegemony
towards an emphasis on partnerships between governmental, para-governmental, and non-
governmental organizations in which the state apparatus is often only first among equals. This
involves the complex art of steering multiple agencies, institutions, and systems that are both
operationally autonomous from one another and structurally coupled through various forms of
reciprocal interdependence.
Governments have always relied on other agencies to aid them in realizing state
objectives or projecting state power beyond the formal state apparatus. And, as Poulantzas24
notes, there is nothing new about parallel power networks which cross-cut and unify the state
apparatus and connect it to other social forces. But this reliance has been re-ordered and
increased. The relative weight of governance has increased on all levels – including not only
at the supra-national and local or regional levels but also in the trans-territorial and inter-local
fields. This increase in governance need not entail a loss in the power of government,
however, as if power was a zero-sum resource rather than a social relation. Thus resort to
governance could enhance the state's capacity to project its influence and secure its objectives
by mobilizing knowledge and power resources from influential non-governmental partners or
stakeholders. Moreover, in the light of shifts in the balance of class forces, the turn to
governance could also be part of a more complex power struggle to protect key decisions
from popular-democratic control25. The international context of domestic state action has
extended to include a widening range of extra-territorial or transnational factors and
processes; and it has also become more significant strategically for domestic policy. The key
players in policy regimes have also expanded to include foreign agents and institutions as
sources of policy ideas, policy design, and implementation26.
Many political theorists27 today emphasize that modem democracy and the national
state both spring from the French Revolution, an origin that has informed our contemporary
understanding of democracy. Modem political thought has come to take the territorial national
state for granted. One has assumed a “national community of fate”, that democracy can be
understood by reference to forces and actors within a delimited territory. With the pressures of
globalization, however, this tacit link between democratic theory and the national state is
contested. It is argued that with intensified economic, political, and social relations across
borders, political decisions and their consequences spill over the boundaries of political
communities. National communities by no means exclusively shape and influence the
decisions of their governments, and governments do not determine the fate for their own
citizens alone.28 What we have is the ambivalent situation in which “the ideals of citizenship
clash with the sovereign nation-state in which they were first developed.”29

24
Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship, London, New Left Books, 1974; Nicos Poulantzas, Crisis of the Dictatorships,
London: New Left Books, 1976 and Nicos Poulantzas, 1975 and 1978 op.cit.
25
Nicos Poulantzas, L'Internationalisation des rapports capitalistes et l'Etat-nation, Les Temps Modernes, 1973, p. 319, 1456-
1500.
26
Peter Gourevitch, The Second Image Reversed: the International Sources of Domestic Politics, International Organisation,
1978, p. 32 (4), 881-912.; G.B. Doern, L.A. Pal and B.W. Tomlin, eds. 1996. Border Crossings: the Internationalization of
Canadian Public Policy, Don Mills: Oxford University Press.
27
Sofia Näsström, op.cit., p. 808 – 834.
28
Held, The transformation of Political Community, 1 03. Held refers to C. Offe, Disorganized Capitalism (Cambridge, UK:
Polity, 1985), p. 286ff.
29
Linklater,The Transformation of Political Community,1 82.

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 For while it may be conceded that contemporary forces of globalization have made the
system of separate and territorial national states obsolete and ineffective, they have not
affected let alone altered the normative categories of consent and legitimacy. From a
normative point of view, modern political thought is simply untouched by the forces of
globalization.
In more explicit manner, Andrew Linklater opens his book The Transformation of
Political Community with a brief exposition of the historical connection between the national
state and democratic citizenship. He then states that “globalization and fragmentation erode
traditional conceptions of community and reduce the moral significance of national
boundaries”, paving the way for the argument that the present situation “requires normative
and sociological accounts of more inclusive communication communities.”30
Globalization has shed new light on the topic of political community. It has called
attention to the tendency of modem democratic theory to take the nation-state for granted. But
insofar as globalization has drawn our attention back to the status of the nation-state, it has
brought to light what some theorists refer to as "the permanent crisis" of modern democratic
thought. 31
As Istvan Hont argues, it is important to see that the national state “is not the source of
the crisis, but its most plausible resolution.”32

References
Guido Bertucci and Adriana Alberti, Globalization and the Role of the State: Challenges and
Perspectives, paper draws upon the United Nations World Public Sector Report 2001 on
“Globalization and the State”.
Jayantha Dhanapala, A Cartography of Governance: Exploring the Role of Environmental
NGOs, Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy, April 7, 2001.
Bob Jessop, Globalization and the National State, published by the Department of Sociology,
Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YN, 2000.
Barry R.J. Jones, The World Turned Upside Down?: Globalization and The Future of the
State, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2000.
Douglas Kellner, Theorizing Globalization, Sociological Theory, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Nov.,
2002), Published by: American Sociological Association Stable
Andrew Linklater,The Transformation of Political Community, Oxford, UK: Polity, 1998.
Michael Lowy, Nation state, nationalism, globalization, internationalism, 1 January 2001,
Text presented at the World Social Forum, January 2001.
Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press,
1986.
Sofia Näsström, What Globalization Overshadows, Political Theory, Vol. 31, No. 6 (Dec.,
2003), Published by: Sage Publications.
Nicos Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, London: New Left Books, 1975.
Nicos Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism, London, Verso, 1978.

30
A. Linklater,The Transformation of Political Community, Oxford, UK: Polity, 1998, p. 5 . See also J. Habermas,The
Postnational Constellation (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2001), chap. 4.
31
I. Hont, "The Permanent Crisis of a Divided Mankind: The Contemporary Crisis of the Nation-State in Historical
Perspective," Political Studies (1994).
32
Ibid, p. 177.

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Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship, London, New Left Books, 1974.
Nicos Poulantzas, Crisis of the Dictatorships, London: New Left Books, 1976
Nicos Poulantzas, L'Internationalisation des rapports capitalistes et l'Etat-nation, Les Temps
Modernes, 1973.
William I. Robinson, Beyond Nation-State Paradigms: Globalization, Sociology, and the
Challenge of Transnational Studies, Sociological Forum, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Dec., 1998),
Published by: Springer Stable.
Nita Rudra, Globalization and the Strengthening of Democracy in the Developing World,
American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Oct., 2005), Published by: Midwest
Political Science Association Stable.
Martin Wolf, Will the Nation-State Survive Globalization?, Cato Journal, January/February
2001.
*** United Nations (2000). Millennium Report of the Secretary-General, “We, the Peoples:
The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century”, A/54/2000.

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