ABSTRACT
Europe—the birthplace of the Westphalian state—has experienced recent challenges to this state form at both the supra- and sub-state level. These challenges are both directly and indirectly linked to the deviant forces of globalization (Gilman et al., 2011), which are putting pressure on the modern state from both the bottom up—with the advent of increasing criminality and growth of the illicit economy; and from the top down—with the concentration of wealth in a globalized plutocratic elite and the rise of what is being termed a sovereign free economy that is beyond the ability of the state to effectively tax, creating rising inequality between the social classes. Europe is not alone. Western states around the world are feeling the pressures of this deviant globalization, although their actual form and the responses have varied.
