ABSTRACT
Criminal groups can expose a low level of violence that concerns a large part of society, rebel groups can control parts of a country violently, or state and non-state actors can fight each other to a degree of violence comparable with Civil War. The rise of transnational criminal law also implied international influence on state and non-state actors. This chapter discusses challenges from criminal groups, violent actors, to businesses that might seem more powerful and resourceful than state institutions. It presents a process-oriented perspective on world politics, emphasizing that the Westphalian system itself might better be understood as a historical phase in inter-societal and inter-state relations than as the vanishing point and completion of these relations. Finally, the interaction of states and non-state actors needs more attention: the recent crisis in the Ukraine might at first sight resemble the Cold War confrontation, when only looking at the states involved.
