ABSTRACT
Traditionally, in International Relations (IR), power and authority were considered to rest with states. This has recently come under scrutiny empirically and theoretically due to the changes associated with ‘globalisation’. Globalisation is a complex concept. Two extreme versions oppose each other. Globalists, especially prior to the economic meltdown of 1997-8, regard globalisation as moving inevitably to a borderless world and economic ‘level playing field’, on which truly global companies are the primary actors. There is little or no role left to states beyond the provision of infrastructure and public goods required by business (Ohmae 1990 and 1995). In more nuanced fashion, Strange talks about an increasing hollowness of state authority or a ‘retreat of the state’ (Strange 1996). Conversely, internationalists consider states to be still the main actors in international economics and politics. Hirst and Thompson argue that the economy is predominantly international, not global, and that therefore states, although in a slightly different way, still play a central role in its governance (Hirst and Thompson 1996:178-89). The changes are called internationalisation, not globalisation, and are defined as a drastic increase in cross-border flows of goods, services and capital (Keohane and Milner 1996).
