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The authors analyze the nation‐state as a worldwide institution constructed by worldwide cultural and associational processes, developing four main topics: (1) properties of nation‐states that result from their exogenously driven construction, including isomorphism, decoupling, and expansive structuration; (2) processes by which rationalistic world culture affects national states; (3) characteristics of world society that enhance the impact of world culture on national states and societies, including conditions favoring the diffusion of world models, expansion of world‐level associations, and rationalized scientific and professional authority; (4) dynamic features of world culture and society that generate expansion, conflict, and change, especially the statelessness of world society, legitimation of multiple levels of rationalized actors, and internal inconsistencies and contradictions.

States use formal international organizations (IOs) to manage both their everyday interactions and more dramatic episodes, including international conflicts. Yet, contemporary international theory does not explain the existence or form of IOs. This article addresses the question of why states use formal organizations by investigating the functions IOs perform and the properties that enable them to perform those functions. Starting with a rational-institutionalist perspective that sees IOs as enabling states to achieve their ends, the authors examine power and distributive questions and the role of IOs in creating norms and understanding. Centralization and independence are identified as the key properties of formal organizations, and their importance is illustrated with a wide array of examples. IOs as community representatives further allow states to create and implement community values and enforce international commitments.

The economic logic of the current international economy does not predict the “eclipse of the state”. Economic globalization does restrict state power, but transnational capital needs capable states as much or more than does domestically oriented business. National success in the current global political economy has been associated not with minimal states but with states that are capable, active, and engaged. Pressure for eclipse flows from the conjunction between transnational economic forces and the political hegemony of an Anglo-American ideology that, in J. P. Nettl's words, “simply leaves no room for any valid notion of the state”. Even this combination of economic and political pressure is unlikely to eclipse the state, but it is likely to put public institutions on the defensive, eclipsing any possibility of the “embedded liberalism” described by John Ruggie. A “leaner, meaner” state is the likely outcome. The possibility of a more progressive alternative outcome would depend in part on whether current zero-sum visions of the relation between the state and civil society can be replaced by a more synergistic view.

The concept of territoriality has been studied surprisingly little by students of international politics. Yet, territoriality most distinctively defines modernity in international politics, and changes in few other factors can so powerfully transform the modern world polity. This article seeks to frame the study of the possible transformation of modern territoriality by examining how that system of relations was instituted in the first place. The historical analysis suggests that “unbundled” territoriality is a useful terrain for exploring the condition of postmodernity in international politics and suggests some ways in which that exploration might proceed. The emergence of multiperspectival institutional forms is identified as a key dimension of the condition of postmodernity in international politics.

Globalization transforms collective action in domestic and international politics. As the scale of markets widens and as economic organization becomes more complex, the institutional scale of political structures can become insufficient for the provision of an appropriate range of public goods. A process of this sort occurred prior to the emergence of the modern nation-state, which itself constituted a paradigmatic response to this predicament. Today, however, a complex process of globalization of goods and assets is undermining the effectiveness of state-based collective action. Overlapping “playing fields” are developing, made up of increasingly heterogeneous—transnational, local, and intermediate—arenas. The residual state retains great cultural force, and innovative projects for reinventing government are being tried. Nevertheless, the state's effectiveness as a civil association has eroded significantly, and this may lead to a crisis of legitimacy.

'Globalization' is a term that has come to be used in recent years increasingly frequently and, arguably, increasingly loosely. In a close analysis of the term, the author focuses on the concept of globalization as the transcendence (rather than the mere crossing or opening) of borders arguing that this interpretation offers the most distinctive and helpful insight into contemporary world affairs. The article goes on to explore one of the key questions raised by this trend, namely, how the growth of supraterritorial space has altered capitalism in general, and the role of the state within capitalism in particular. The author concludes by suggesting that if globalization poses a threat, it is not (as is often argued) to the state itself, but rather to democracy.

This paper explores the relationship between statehood and the international system, with particular reference to the states of sub-Saharan Africa. It suggests, as the title implies, that statehood should be regarded as a relative concept; and that rather than distinguish sharply between entities that are, and are not, states, we should regard different entities as meeting the criteria for international statehood to a greater or lesser degree. Entities which we have been accustomed to regard as states, at least for the purposes of studying them in international relations, sometimes fail to exercise even the minimal responsibilities associated with state power, while those who control them do not behave in the way that is normally ascribed to the ‘rulers’ of states. Entities that are not accorded the status of states, such as guerrilla insurgencies or even voluntary organizations, may take on attributes that have customarily been associated with sovereign statehood. This conclusion carries at least a salutary warning against too readily ascribing the supposedly universal characteristics of states to peripheral areas of the modern global system, in which the categories in which we are accustomed to regard international politics have become blurred. More broadly, given the peculiar and privileged position of states in the conventional analysis of international relations, it may carry significant implications for the idea of international relations itself.

From modest beginnings in the wholesale financial market specializing in government debt, offshore has expanded rapidly, penetrating and then dominating an ever growing portion of international economic life. This article reflects on the relationship between offshore and the concept of state sovereignty. My argument is that far from escaping the state, offshore is intimately connected with the state system. The concepts of sovereignty and national self-determination played simultaneously an enabling and constraining role in the development of offshore. Furthermore, having \"created\" offshore, sovereignty and self-determination are themselves constrained and (re-)enabled in turn. Offshore therefore is not a diminution of state sovereignty but a legally defined realm marking differential levels of intensity by which states propose to apply their regulation. Such a bifurcation of juridical space represents a process by which the state is reimagining its relationship to its territory.

It has of ten been claimed that the current allocation of votes among EU states is not fair. In this paper we verify this assertion by carrying out an evaluation of the distribution of power among the member states. The results show that the current distribution of votes for the qualified majority does not lead to a fair distribution of power whatever definition of the EU is considered. It can not be claimed however that the current voting process has a systematic bias in favor of certain states. We also present a simple method to derive voting weights which lead to a fair allocation of power.