ABSTRACT
For three centuries the world polity has been premised on a particular pattern of governance/society congruence: the expectation that the most intensive patterns of human interaction would take place within territorially defined jurisdictions, each having its own regime of governance whose supreme authority over what happened in its jurisdiction would be recognized and respected by the other states. Although the impact of new technologies, and scientific awareness of the ecological implications, has widened and heightened both the fact and perception of the incongruities among ecologies and existing national polities, it has not yet engendered sufficient collateral motivation to mobilize communities transnational to deal effectively with the implications. These incongruities, on the one hand, between the shape of countries that purport to be the dominant focus of national loyalties for their populations and, on the other hand, the living spaces occupied by peoples with alternative national loyalties, have played havoc with established political boundaries throughout modern history.
