Globalization and the State System of Government

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When answering the question “Who am I?” or “Who are we?,” more thought needs to be put into the response then ever before. The past 350 years have been characterized by the state system, which has provided the only answer one could possibly need to respond to the ‘identity question’. Everyone has identified themselves as a member of a state; a state being defined as a stable population with a government, a monopoly over the legitimate use of force, definite borders, and sovereignty that is recognized by other members of the inter-state system (Dunne 158). This model of international affairs, known as ‘political realism’, has been the defining characteristic since roughly the time of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

This seems to be a simple and valid enough explanation for the way the world works, but will this be changing in the upcoming generations, or is it possibly an invalid explanation as of right now? Many would argue that there is a global force tearing away at the fabric of the inter-state system - globalization. A product of increased communications and awareness, globalization is described by James Rosenau in “The Complexities and Contradictions of Globalization”, as he says, “the term globalization seems appropriate to denote the ‘something’ that is changing humankind’s preoccupation with territoriality and the traditional arrangements of the state system” (361). With a knowledge of what exactly globalization is, one cannot now speculate as to whether today’s occurrences are just ‘modernization’, where society evolves and changes, but people are still able to identify themselves as members of the state system; or if it is globalization, a ‘global version’ of modernization, in which case it is cha...

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Rosenau, James N. “The Complexities and Contradictions of Globalizaton” Current History 96.613 (1997): 360-364.

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