ABSTRACT
Financial globalization is often said to be one of the most important developments challenging the sovereign state in the contemporary era. It is cited prominently by those who argue that we are witnessing a profound transformation of world order of a kind that has not been experienced since the birth of the sovereign state system in seventeenth-century Europe at the Peace of Westphalia (e.g., Rosenau 1989; Ruggie 1993; Cox 1992; Wriston 1992; Cerny 1995; Sassen 1996). The notion that we are witnessing such a momentous upheaval in world politics is an exciting one. This chapter, however, questions whether the implications of financial globalization for the sovereign state are quite so clear cut.
