Globalization, due to enhanced telecommunications and transportation technologies, has raised many serious questions regarding the validity of the Westphalian state system. Through this web presentation, I have explored one facet of the increasingly interconnected world system and shown how it poses a challenge to the sovereignty of the traditional state. I have demonstrated that the internationalization of local movements by Northern environmental NGOs threatens state sovereignty. Yet, how will such challenges affect the future of the nation-state system? Will the state cease to exist as a player within the international system? Although many new actors, including NGOs, treaty organizations and multinational corporations, are posing serious challenges to state sovereignty, I believe that the institution of the state still plays an important role in domestic as well as international affairs. The state is far from disappearing from the world system.
State sovereignty involves the maintenance of borders, both territorial and national. The sovereign state is the ultimate authority within its geographical territory. It has a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence and should be able to control all activities within its borders. The modern state is also considered a nation-state. That is, the people and the state have some abstract bond that is associated with state loyalty. The state needs such loyalty if it is to "conduct orderly exchanges of goods and services with one another and to protect themselves against disruptive foreign intruders." (Brown 1995: 10-11) Thus, national borders need to be maintained and as Doty explains have actually been cultivated by many nation states. The results of such sovereignty give rise to the realist conceptualization of nation-states as the basic units of the international system. (Waltz 1996) These units are independent, self-interested actors, which have no authority above them. The individual autonomy associated with these actors allows realists to claim that the international system is in a state of anarchy. (Waltz 1996, Bull 1977, Morganthau 1985; Carr 1964)
Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, however, characterize the world system as bound together by complex interdependence. Transnational alliances between both state and non-state actors has linked the world in a network of multiple channels and have complicated international relations. Within this framework, NGOs have emerged as important actors within the world system. Their activities have been linked to undermining of state sovereignty. Improved telecommunications have allowed for a wide variety of new interstate connections to be made. As a result, groups like the the International Rivers Network, the Environmental Defense Fund and Oxfam have international memberships which number in the millions. These connections have made both the territorial and the national boundaries more porous than before. Thus, they play an important role in challenging state governments.
Such challenges by international environmental NGOs have been posed through the internationalization of local movements. Two such movements include the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the Brazilian Rubber Tapper Movement. In both movements, geographical and national borders became porous. In these cases, new international actors have intervened in the domestic affairs of the state. The transnational alliances have allowed money and most importantly information to be transferred over state borders with ease. The state government has not been able to control such activities and their internal autonomy has been hindered. State identity has also been hindered as a result of both movements. The internationalization of these two movements have been instrumental in strengthening local opposition to the government as well as in constructing new international commonalties. The internationalization has built strong connections between people throughout the globe, in opposition to the state. These new identities undermine the state identity and thus the sovereignty of the state.
However, will such degradation of state sovereignty by NGOs, actually erode the state system itself? Some interdependence theorists claim that
the new complexity of world politics will eliminate the state system and bring
international peace. (Brown 1995) While the international system is changing, and no longer
consists solely of interaction between sovereign states, it still plays a major
part in international relations. States are the source of law and order. They still possess a
monopoly over the legitimate use of violence. (Morganthau 1985) This fact is key. NGOs,
MNCs and other transnational actors need law and order to function properly. They do not
want the dissolution of the state, which provides them with a means to conduct their
business in an orderly fashion. The stae was constructed as a means to organize domestic
interaction. It brought with it the essential predictability to efficiently coordinate intrastate
and interstate relations. In order for the total erosion of the state system to occur, a new
order would have to be established. It would need to maintain a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force. Looking at today's most prominent international organization, the
United Nations it is easy to see that such a world authority will not be developing any time
soon. Thus, the state itself, whose sovereignty, through the internationalization of local
movements by environmental NGOs, is being eroded, remains an important factor in
international relations.