Abstract
Given the relentless advance of globalizing dynamics, few would dissent from viewing the future of the state, its sovereignty and diplomacy, as problematic. The underlying nature of world affairs can no longer be taken for granted, as indicated by the deep division over where the course of events is taking humankind as one millennium ends and another begins. Once understood and shared, such fundamental concepts as the state, sovereignty, and the nature of diplomacy are now blurred and divisive, posing questions as to whether the dynamics of globalization are to be welcomed or feared and whether they can be rendered more transparent. The purpose of the ensuing analysis is to explore these concepts in the context of the profound transformations at work in the world. Before they can be explored, however, note needs to be taken of the transformations and their potential consequences for the conduct of diplomacy under the new conditions that have rendered the state and its sovereignty problematic.
This is a revision of a paper presented at the Panel on Virtual Diplomacy: A Revolution in Diplomatic Affairs Theory, Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 18, 1998. Some sections of the paper were previously published under the title, “States and Sovereignty in a Globalized World,” in J. Eatwell, E. Jelin, A. McGrew, and J. Rosenau, Understanding Globalization: The Nation-State, Democracy and Economic Policies in the New Epoch (Stockholm: Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 1998), 31–55. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission. For information address the authors or the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, IC, S-103 39 Stockholm Sweden. I am grateful to David Johnson and Hongying Wang for their reactions to the earliest draft.
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Notes
For an extended inquiry into the dynamics that have obscured the boundaries between national and international affairs, see James N. Rosenau, Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier: Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
This concept was first developed in James N. Rosenau, “‘Fragmegrative’ Challenges to National Security,” in Understanding U.S. Strategy: A Reader, ed. Terry Heyns (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1983), 65–82. For a more recent and elaborate formulation, see James N. Rosenau, “New Dimensions of Security: The Interaction of Globalizing and Localizing Dynamics,” Security Dialogue 25 (September 1994), 255–82.
Other terms suggestive of the contradictory tensions that pull systems toward coherence and collapse are “chaord,” a label that juxtaposes the dynamics of chaos and order, and “glocalization,” which points to the simultaneity of globalizing and localizing dynamics. The former designation is proposed in Dee W. Hock, “Institutions in the Age of Mindcrafting” (paper presented at the Bionomics Annual conference, San Francisco, CA, October 22, 1994), 1–2, while the latter term is elaborately developed in Roland Robertson, “Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity,” in Global Modernities, eds. Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1995), 25–44. Here the term “fragmegration” is preferred because it does not imply a territorial scale and broadens the focus to include tensions at work in organizations as well as those that pervade communities.
One observer has suggested that the world has entered “the age of deregulation,” but this label lacks any hint of the integrative dynamics at work on the world scene, and it too fails to specify a historic landmark, which may be why one reviewer “suspects … [the label] will not catch on as the paradigm of the year.” The deregulation label is offered in Richard Haas, The Reluctant Sheriff: The United States after the Cold War (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1997)
and the suspicion it will not take hold is expressed in David C. Hendrickson, “Review of The Reluctant Sheriff,” Foreign Affairs 76 (July/August 1997): 155.
The transformation of the three parameters is assessed at length in James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), especially chaps. 8–15.
G. John Ikenberry, “The Myth of Post—Cold War Chaos,” Foreign Affairs 75 (May/June 1996): 79.
Paul Lewis, “2 Global Lenders Use Leverage to Combat Corruption,” New York Times, 11 August 1997, A4.
Paul Lewis, “I.M.F. Seeks Argentine Deal Linking Credit to Governing,” New York Times, 15 July 1997, D1.
Thomas L. Friedman, “Don’t Mess With Moody’s,” New York Times, 22 February 1995, A19.
David E. Sanger, “29 Nations Agree to a Bribery Ban,” New York Times, 24 May 1997, 1.
The custodial metaphor is noted in Dennis Farney, “Even U.S. Politics Are Being Reshaped in a Global Economy,” Wall Street Journal, 28 October 1992, 1.
Zygmunt Bauman, “A Sociological Theory of Postmodernity,” in Between Totalitarianism and Postmodernity: A Thesis Eleven Reader, eds. Peter Beilharz, Gillian Robinson, and John Rundell (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 1992), 160.
Ken Booth, “Security in Anarchy,” International Affairs 57: 3 (1991): 542.
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 7. Italics added to last sentence.
Kenichi Ohmae, “Putting Global Logic First,” Harvard Business Review (January-February 1995): 119.
Ronald Deibert, Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communication in World Order Transformation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 206–07.
For incisive analyses of these shifts, see the essays in James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel, eds., Governance Without Government: Order and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Although the conception of new social contracts developed here is not to be found elsewhere, pieces of it can be found in the following formulations: Greg Hill, “Reason and Will in Contemporary Social Contract Theory,” Political Research Quarterly 48 (March 1995): 101–16; Thomas Fleiner, “Nation State and Autonomy for Ethnic Communities,” Peace and the Sciences (December 1994): 1–10;
G.M. Tamas, “A Disquisition on Civil Society,” Social Research 61 (Summer 1994): 205–22
Bryan S. Turner, “Outline of a Theory of Human Rights,” Sociology 27 (August 1993): 489–512
Philip J. Frankenfeld, “Technological Citizenship: A Normative Framework for Risk Studies,” Science, Technology and Human Values 17 (Autumn 1992): 459–84
Manfred Henningsen, “Democracy: The Future of a Western Political Formation,” Alternatives 14 (July 1989): 327–42.
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© 2000 Bernard I. Finel and Kristin M. Lord
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Rosenau, J.N. (2000). Diplomacy, Proof, and Authority in the Information Age. In: Finel, B.I., Lord, K.M. (eds) Power and Conflict in the Age of Transparency. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230107397_12
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