ABSTRACT
The privatization of the state has been a general global trend: in Britain it extends beyond utilities, such as water or electricity, and even the raising of money for public projects is being done through the National Lottery. The new forms of regulation are designed to enable such social activities and institutions to operate in an environment of global competition, while attempting to define conditions which might ensure both private profit and the fulfilment of public functions. Globalization entails a process of fragmentation. There has been increasing concern that global competitive forces tend to exacerbate existing social differences while creating new forms of exclusion. More broadly, if globalization entails a process of fragmentation of the public sphere, there must be concern about its effects on the institutions of liberal democracy. The key institution of the international system of liberal capitalism is the national state, yet its character is too often taken for granted.
