ABSTRACT

The following chapter focuses on the consequences of globalization for the development of statehood and the preconditions for governance. Despite differences concerning the details, the findings of political science research on the implications of (particularly economic) globalization on national politics (Weiss 1998, 2003; Held et al. 1999; Bernauer 2000; Scharpf 2000; Scharpf and Schmidt 2000; Lütz 2002; Busch 2003; Prange-Gstöhl 2004; Ganghof 2005; Wagschal 2005; Zohlnhöfer 2005) have clearly shown that the initially dominant hypotheses on the “retreat of the nation-state” and the “end of politics” (Guéhenno 1994; Ohmae 1990, 1995; Strange 1996) are empirically invalid. There is neither convincing evidence for a financial or regulatory “race to the bottom” in which wealthy multi-national corporations eventually prevail, nor are there any indications of extensive societal self-regulation beyond the nationstate, that is of “governance without government” (Rosenau and Czempiel 1992), completely replacing state interventions. Yet, the opposite thesis, according to which states single-handedly, or through intergovernmental cooperation, are capable of defending their capacity to act, of keeping societal lobbies at bay, and thus eventually maintaining or even strengthening their own position, cannot be convincingly substantiated either (see McGrew 2002; Schimmelfenning 2004).