ABSTRACT
No contemporary analysis of the ACS can afford to ignore the stresses to which it is subject because of its strategic location at the intersection of international and domestic processes. As the earlier discussion has made clear, both the formation and the nature of the ACS can only be properly understood by reference to both endogenous and exogenous forces of social change. Moreover, as patterns of global interconnectedness appear to be intensifying, the distinctions between the internal and the external, the foreign and the domestic, seem increasingly anachronistic. A moment’s reflection on some of the critical social issues which confront the ACS, such as drug abuse or the environment, would confirm that each has a global or transnational dimension. Few issues can now be defined as purely ‘domestic’ or specifically ‘international’. On the contrary, it is more accurate to view states as confronted by ‘intermestic’ problems. However we choose to recognize the erosion of this traditional distinction, the central point is that all ACSs are increasingly subject to globalizing forces which impose powerful constraints on state sovereignty and press heavily upon the everyday lives of its citizens.
