The Declining Authority of States

The Declining Authority of States
by Susan Strange

Strange discusses the decline of the power of the state. She notes that in current times, with the power changing location, many of our previously accepted academic theories do not apply any more. She proposes that we re-evaluate many of the assumptions of conventional social science. Strange argues that the "impresonal forces of world markets" are now more powerful than the states in which power belongs. This may not, however, be very evident because the power of the state in people's everyday lives has been stronger than in years past, for example the provision of employment services. She proposes that the state is less effective in matters that the markets have never been able to provide; security against violence, stable money for trade investment, a clear system of law and the means to enforce it, and a sufficiency of public goods. It is interesting to find that the governments of established states are suffering, however more societies than ever are in line to have their own state. The desire to reach ethnic or cultural autonomy is present, however there have not been political means to satisfy this desire within an integrated world market economy. This appears to only be a western phenomenon, and it is noticed that the Asian state has been able to achieve economic growth, industrialisation, an modernised infrastructure and raised living standards. Much growth on a global scale, and a lot of the cause of the shift in the state-market balance of power, is accredited to swift technological changes. This is key in understanding the troubles that the modern state faces. States face the need to pour massive amounts of money into technological research in order to compete with other countries on the basic wealth level as well as the nuclear level. The repercussions of credit-creation have up until now been vastly neglected from a political standpoint. At this point, the institutions that create and market credit in the world economy are only regarded in terms of their impact on the ability of government to "borrow abroad to finance development or the shortfall between revenue and spending, or between export earnings and import bills." All is accredited to the fact that governments are victims to the market economy. Power has been lost from the sum of power available between capable and incapable states, leaving a "gapling hole of non-authority, ungovernance."

I believe what Strange argues is true, that states have lost much power and states are unable to control as much because the market has taken much of the power. This leads me to reflect on the emergence of transnational corporations and their new-found power on a global level. It is important to recognize these changes as we look ahead to our future, one which will include both these declining states and what I think of as emerging corporate powers. My hope is that some day we will be able to create a "political" entity or institution that can monitor the power of non-state powers and maintain the ability of states to control their own situations. In doing so, these states may keep social programs and work for the hopeful goal of improving the human condition on a global scale. We do not want the conscienceless entities of the market to control the well-being of human beings and I am hopeful that we will recognize the importance of change on a global scale so that individuals and people as a collective again have power over such influential changes.