Anarchy meets globalization: a new security dilemma for the modernizing state

Abstract

The mainstream of globalization and the state literature theorizes that state capacity is undergoing a transformation; however, it has been unable to operationalize the dynamics of the change. This chapter attempts to address that gap by exploring how states, which have been designed in reaction to the statecentric system and its primary demand of survival at home and abroad, respond to the pressures of globalization and localization.1 The conflictual core of the transformation, therefore, is understood as occurring between the forces of power maximization and centralization, and the accelerating forces for power diffusion. To understand the transformation, we must ask: how is national power/capacity reconfigured when faced with the power diffusion impact of globalization and the power maximization demands of internal and external security dilemmas?2 The primary determinants of the traditional state-centric international system have been security concerns, both external and internal. These concerns kept states largely occupied with geopolitics and anarchic conditions in their immediate environments, as well as in the global system. In order to curb security threats and maintain a constant position of readiness, the national forces of a state had to be kept centralized and concentrated-though, of course, the degree to which this was true varied according to the acuteness of the nation's conceptualization of security threats. To achieve centralized and thus maximized power, a ruling elite not only had to keep security issues and rhetoric prominent on the public agenda, but it also had to seek to enhance the existing institutionalization of the security establishment. This process, which could be labeled as securitization, is one through which everything becomes linked to the idea of national security. National security becomes the primary directive when assessing the feasibility of any major political project requiring power reallocation at the national level. Ultimately, this led to the creation of security-oriented nation-states and, in extreme examples, to garrison states. The power pattern, securitization process, and resulting state type are shown in the first row of Figure 6.1. The third row of Figure 6.1 outlines the new epoch of globalization. This new epoch has enabled a mobility of resources, ideas, and individuals, and thus empowered new actors above and below the state level. These new actors, with their varied agendas, produce demands for a sharing of national power and a consequent pressure for decentralization. The implication of this process in terms of security, can be labeled as desecuritization. This term should not imply an automatic minimizing of security issues, but rather a lowering of the 'prime directive' status of security over all other issues, and a reconsidering of security as one of several major needs to be satisfied by national governance. Achieving this involves increasing the transparency of and civilian control over the determining of threats and the implementing of national security policies. States that seem to be successfully managing this process can be identified as Western or globalized states, such as those of Western Europe and North America. Many modernizing states3 in particular, however, seem to fall somewhere in between these two worlds, as expressed by the middle row of the diagram. As such, these states are forced to try and balance contradicting patterns of power. The resulting conflictive process of power reconfiguration needs to be further explored theoretically in order to project its possible implications. © 2005 State University of New York. All rights reserved.