ABSTRACT
This series of essays seeks to interpret the immediate consequences of 11 September in terms of longer-range developments in the world system. Three such developments may be identified without much difficulty or controversy. First, it has been evident for some time that serious questions have to be asked about the continuing capacity of sovereign states, not only to provide order and security for their inhabitants, but also to manage an increasingly interconnected global economic system. Much attention has focused on the growth and role of NGOs and what some have chosen to call ‘global civil society’. At the other end of the scale the inadequacy of individual national markets has been reflected in the creation of large scale trading blocs, notably the EU and NAFTA but also Mercosur and ASEAN. To declare the demise of the nation state as the preeminent form of political organization would be premature, but over the last 30 years there is clear evidence of an exponential increase in the number of nonstate actors. They may not yet be alternatives to the state but they cannot be discounted in any serious study of contemporary world politics.
