1.2.2, 1.3 - Globalisation and the state system

Widening, deepening and interdependence

Cross-border connections can spread to more places and become more important within the places already connected.

Widening is the extension of connections to more actors or territories. Deepening is the growing intensity or significance of those connections. A business buying once from a new overseas supplier illustrates widening. Making that supplier essential to its daily production illustrates deepening. These processes can occur together, but do not have to.

Dependence can be unequal. If one country can replace an imported product easily but its supplier has no alternative export market, the supplier is more vulnerable. Sensitivity concerns the immediate effects of a change; vulnerability concerns the costs that remain after available adjustments. These distinctions help explain why a mutually beneficial relationship can also become a source of leverage.

Interdependence offers advantages: specialisation, access to resources and incentives to maintain reliable relations. It creates risks too. A disruption can travel through supply chains, financial links or energy markets. A state may retain the legal power to change its policy while finding the economic cost prohibitive. This is a constraint on autonomy, the freedom to act independently, rather than automatic proof that its legal sovereignty has disappeared.

Nor does interdependence always prevent conflict. Actors may value cooperation, yet fear that dependence exposes them to coercion. They can respond by diversifying suppliers or restricting sensitive activities. The political effect depends on the benefits of the connection, unequal vulnerability and the importance attached to security.

International law and domestic control

International law can constrain a state's choices even though most everyday law is still made and enforced through domestic institutions.

International law comprises legal rules governing international relations, including treaties and customary international law. A treaty is an international agreement governed by international law. Customary law develops from general state practice accepted as legally obligatory. These are legal claims, distinct from a desirable moral principle or an unenforceable political promise.

More cross-border activity creates demands for predictable rules: businesses need to know how they will be treated, and governments need arrangements for matters that cross jurisdictions. International law predates contemporary globalisation; increased connections help explain pressures for its development and use, rather than inventing law from nothing.

The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which entered into force in 1980, states that treaties in force bind their parties and must be performed in good faith. It also establishes that a party cannot generally use its internal law to excuse non-performance. A government therefore cannot assume that passing a domestic act erases an international obligation. Vienna Convention, Articles 26–27.

Human-rights obligations challenge an unrestricted claim to control citizens: a state party to the ICCPR has duties towards individuals, rather than complete discretion over their treatment. Meanwhile, cross-border data and transactions can complicate practical enforcement because people, businesses and evidence may be in different jurisdictions. An international obligation and a difficulty enforcing domestic law are different mechanisms, even if both limit what a government can achieve.

Legal rules also protect states by defining reciprocal obligations. A weaker state may benefit from limits on a stronger state's conduct. But implementation can depend on courts, cooperation, diplomatic pressure and domestic authorities. Distinguish the rule's validity from evidence of compliance: breaking a rule does not show that no rule exists, while adopting a rule does not show that it works effectively.

Governance without world government

States and other actors can coordinate international affairs without establishing a single sovereign authority over the whole world.

World government would involve an overarching governing authority with final power across the international system. Global governance instead includes a mixture of international organisations, treaties, national regulators, firms and civil society. Its arrangements differ by issue: trade negotiations are not the same process as delivering humanitarian aid.

Coordination can strengthen a state's effective capacity. Sharing information makes a risk easier to identify; common standards reduce uncertainty; pooling resources may achieve more than separate action. A government can gain influence over problems outside its territory while surrendering some freedom to act alone.

There are costs. Negotiations can be slow, powerful actors can shape rules, and citizens may find it harder to identify who is responsible. An agreement may also require changes to domestic policy that some voters oppose. The relevant comparison is between practical capacities with and without the arrangement, alongside its accountability and distribution of benefits.

The UN Charter illustrates coexistence between sovereignty and collective authority. Article 2(7) protects matters essentially within domestic jurisdiction while preserving Chapter VII enforcement powers. Membership consequently combines an independence principle with agreed procedures for international action. It does not give the UN an unrestricted right to govern every domestic matter. UN Charter, Article 2(7).

Global governance therefore neither proves the end of the state nor leaves state authority wholly unchanged. States can remain the principal rule-makers while their decisions operate inside networks of shared obligations.

Humanitarian and forcible intervention

Intervention raises a conflict between protecting state independence and protecting people when domestic authorities fail or cause harm.

Humanitarian intervention is intervention intended to protect people from grave suffering or abuses. Forcible intervention uses military coercion. The categories overlap: a military operation can have a humanitarian purpose. Conversely, humanitarian relief provided with consent is not the same as military action imposed on a state, and forcible intervention can pursue strategic purposes unrelated to protecting people.