Introduction

Abstract

At the outset of the 21^st century, world politics is undergoing profound change. Concepts such as ‘turbulence’ (Rosenau 1990), ‘transformations of the state’ (Leibfried and Zürn 2005; Hurrelmann et al. 2008) or ‘global change’ (Lüdeke et al. 2004) are invoked to describe the dynamic nature of our times. In what is still the most ambitious account, Martin Albrow (1996) even identifies the dawn of a new age. Modernity, he asserts, is being replaced by the Global Age. As geography no longer matters in the organisation of social relations and as the globe becomes the most relevant point of reference for justifying socio-political demands, programmes and activities, conventional accounts of state-society relations and our basic understanding of world politics are fundamentally challenged.