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).

Philpott: Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations

Philpott, D., 2001. Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations, Princeton University Press.

“My central claim: Revolutions in sovereignty result from prior revolutions in ideas about justice and political authority…My claim…is about what revolutions in sovereignty are not. That is, they are not merely the aftereffects of the rise and fall of great powers, or of slow shifts in class structure or political structure, in technology, commerce or industrial production, or in the division of labor, methods of warfare, or population size…It takes a revolution in ideas to bring a revolution in sovereignty” (4).

“A polity’s practice of its authority on the inside requires the recognition of this authority from the outside” (13).

“We need to see, I propose, that international authority appears in three faces. All constitutions contain all three faces; every constitution’s depiction of them is its unique signature. Each face answers a different question about authority. The first face answers, What are the polities in a given international society? The second face answers, Which polities may belong to the society? And who may become one of these legitimate polities? The third face answers, What are the essential prerogatives of these polities? Together these faces define constitutional authority for any international society. They allow us to distinguish constitutions, and provide a criterion for change. A revolution in the constitution of international relations, I will argue, involves a change in at least one of these three faces” (15).

Holsti: Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy

Holsti, K., 2000. Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 1(01), 157-172.

Krasner highlights four different kinds of sovereignty: domestic sovereignty, interdependence sovereignty, international legal sovereignty and Westphalian sovereignty (157).

Krasner has historically been a proponent of arguments that center around power and the interests of the powerful being those that driver international relations. In this book, he offers an account of norms, and tries to undermine the belief that sovereignty in a norm that stands above the workings of power. Krasner talks about durable norms, which are norms that have become deeply embedded within the action of state actors. “Organized hypocrisy, in contrast, is the situation where a norm is durable, but where behavior frequently violates it” (158).

Krasner makes his case through a rich documentation of historical case studies. Holsti argues that, “The frequent violations of sovereignty seriously challenge constructivist, liberal institutionalist, and English school positions about the importance of norms in international relations” (159). However, Holsti argues that there is a fundamental distinction that is lacking in this work: that between influence and authority. “Influence and power concern capabilities and outcomes…In contrast, authority concerns rights, obligations and status” (159). Additionally, Krasner does not allow for states to be constrained in any reasonable way.

“The theoretical contribution of this study is nevertheless prominent. Krasner offers a robust argument—one consistent throughout his career—that the ‘logic of consequences’ better explains outcomes in international relations than does a ‘logic of appropriateness’” (161). Holsti, however, argues that he goes too far in negating the influence of interest, norms or identities.