Hirst and Thompson: Globalization in Question: Globalization, Governance and the Nation-State

PQ Hirst and G Thompson, Globalization in question (Polity Press).

Ch. 9: Globalization, Governance and the Nation-State:

"So far we have been mainly concerned with the economic aspects of globalization, and have considered governance primarily in terms of its economic necessities and possibilities. In this chapter we consider the wider political issues raised by globalization theorists, and consider in particular whether the nation-state has a future as a major locus of governance" (256).

This chapter provides a general overview of the genealogy of the concept of sovereignty, focusing on the fact that its current nature is a relatively recent phenomena. This is obviously quite important to discuss in any analysis of the relationship between the power of the state versus the power of international capital.

The following three points are made:

1. Assuming that earlier arguments about the nature of the international economy are sound, ie., that globalization has not created a golem that cannot be controlled, than the state has a decisive role to play in coordinating global economic activity

2. However, this does not mean that the state will remain similarly sovereign as it was post WWII. The state will now work through international mechanisms to reign in the potentially corrosive influence of global corporations, etc.

3. While the state may not be similarly sovereign as it was in the years after WWII, it still will retain a certain kind of control over its territory, and that will involve the control of populations "(256-7).

An overview of the concept of sovereignty takes up a sizable chunk of this chapter. It focuses on territorial sovereignty, as stemming from Weber's classical definition. The story culminates with the state's supreme control of domestic territory and population in the 1960s. I would argue that their exploration of sovereignty misses out on much literature that understands sovereignty to be an ever-changing bundle of rights, etc.

Globalization has problematized sovereignty, it is argued, and this has been to the advantage of a wide variety of political groups. Politics on the left and right now have scapegoats. There is a discussion of a decline of conflict, either inter-state or class based, between advanced countries.

Globalization has reduced the amount of control that states have over ideas, but it has done nothing to reduce the way that it controls populations.

"There can be no doubt that the era when politics could be conceived almost exclusively in terms of processes within nation-states and their external billiard-ball interactions is passing" (268).

"We are not returning to a world like the Middle Ages and before the development of national 'sovereignty'. This is not just because national states and the 'sovereign' control the peoples persists. The scope and role of forms of governance is radically different today, and this has distinct implications for the architecture of government" (269).

"States remain 'sovereign', not in the sense that they are all-powerful or omnicompetent within their territories, but because they police the borders of a territory and, to the degree that they are credibly democratic, they are representative of the citizens within those borders" (275).

"...nation-states as sources of the rule of law are essential prerequisites for regulation through international law, and as overarching public powers they are essential to the survival of pluralistic 'national' societies with diversified forms of administration and community standards" (277).