Nations played an important role in the globalization process since the late 1990s?
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Sovereignty, Globalization, and Interdependence
An essential link between globalization and the nation state is the concept of sovereignty, a term dating back several centuries, well before the nation-state system was established in 1648. 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.
States have, over the years, discovered that their interests are better advanced within a broader system of binding rules than without such a system. Rules help to define rights, including property rights, as well as duties, including duties to do and not to do certain things. What precisely these rights and obligations are depends on a whole complex of circumstances: political, economic, cultural, and technological. In our current age, globalization is having a profound effect upon national and international rules -- it is, for example, influencing the norms that govern world commerce, transportation, environmental protection, to name only a few.
There is, however, no universally-agreed definition of this term. It made its debut in western public policy circles in the mid-1980s -- replacing "interdependence" -- and was at the time generally viewed in an economic context. Globalization simply referred to a largely commercial process involving rapid increases in the exchange of goods, capital, and services across national frontiers. It figured particularly in writings about the role of multinational corporations, with their global networks of vertically-integrated subsidiaries and affiliates.
Expanded flows of commerce across borders had, to be sure, many benefits. They provided profits, jobs, efficiencies of scale, lowered unit costs, and increased the variety of goods available for everyone to buy. This commerce was facilitated by important technological trends, like the increased speed and declining cost of long-distance transportation (both of passengers and of cargo) and similar developments in the field of telecommunications. Simply put, it was not just getting easier to do business across national borders, but highly desirable to the growing numbers of potential beneficiaries of this commerce.
Some commentators over the ages have even written that unfettered trade would be the key to world peace, since states -- and the large economic interests within them -- would be most reluctant to let wars interfere with the cool logic of mutual economic gain. Journalists, social scientists, and political leaders joined their economist friends in heralding a new age of interdependence, one that promised a more rational way of going about the world's business, one less influenced by unilateral actions by nation states, including the use of force.
Yet any fair assessment of interdependence must go back somewhat farther in history than the last few decades or so, for the concept is actually much older. Several historians, economists, and political scientists throughout the 20th century used the term extensively in their writings. They understood that the world's economy was highly interdependent even well before World War I. A recent study by the International Monetary Fund, for example, stated that "By some measures, international economic integration increased just as much in the 50 years before World War I as in recent decades, and reached comparable levels."
An essential link between globalization and the nation state is the concept of sovereignty, a term dating back several centuries, well before the nation-state system was established in 1648. 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.
States have, over the years, discovered that their interests are better advanced within a broader system of binding rules than without such a system. Rules help to define rights, including property rights, as well as duties, including duties to do and not to do certain things. What precisely these rights and obligations are depends on a whole complex of circumstances: political, economic, cultural, and technological. In our current age, globalization is having a profound effect upon national and international rules -- it is, for example, influencing the norms that govern world commerce, transportation, environmental protection, to name only a few.
There is, however, no universally-agreed definition of this term. It made its debut in western public policy circles in the mid-1980s -- replacing "interdependence" -- and was at the time generally viewed in an economic context. Globalization simply referred to a largely commercial process involving rapid increases in the exchange of goods, capital, and services across national frontiers. It figured particularly in writings about the role of multinational corporations, with their global networks of vertically-integrated subsidiaries and affiliates.
Expanded flows of commerce across borders had, to be sure, many benefits. They provided profits, jobs, efficiencies of scale, lowered unit costs, and increased the variety of goods available for everyone to buy. This commerce was facilitated by important technological trends, like the increased speed and declining cost of long-distance transportation (both of passengers and of cargo) and similar developments in the field of telecommunications. Simply put, it was not just getting easier to do business across national borders, but highly desirable to the growing numbers of potential beneficiaries of this commerce.
Some commentators over the ages have even written that unfettered trade would be the key to world peace, since states -- and the large economic interests within them -- would be most reluctant to let wars interfere with the cool logic of mutual economic gain. Journalists, social scientists, and political leaders joined their economist friends in heralding a new age of interdependence, one that promised a more rational way of going about the world's business, one less influenced by unilateral actions by nation states, including the use of force.
Yet any fair assessment of interdependence must go back somewhat farther in history than the last few decades or so, for the concept is actually much older. Several historians, economists, and political scientists throughout the 20th century used the term extensively in their writings. They understood that the world's economy was highly interdependent even well before World War I. A recent study by the International Monetary Fund, for example, stated that "By some measures, international economic integration increased just as much in the 50 years before World War I as in recent decades, and reached comparable levels."
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