ABSTRACT
The past two decades have witnessed significant changes in the political economy of international relations. The end of the Cold War, the increased globalization of trade and production, and new ideological currents have all generated new pressures and challenges for development theory and practice. One important concern among contemporary thinkers is the role of the nation-state. Indeed, many observers have grown pessimistic about the ability of nation-states to manage their traditional functions effectively in these times of great change. Ohmae (1995, p39), for example, argues that ‘Power over economic activities will inevitably migrate from the central governments of nation states to the borderless network of countless individual market based decisions.’ However, it is premature to relegate nation states to ‘the dustbins of history’ (Glassman and Samatar, 1997, p165), as their role is becoming increasingly complicated in an era of globalization.
