Susan Strange is another author who believes that globalization has weakened the autonomy and authority of both well established, and burgeoning states and governments. However, in an excerpt from her book The Retreat From the State, her argument adds another, and far more abstract idea to the mix. That the rapid improvements in technology, the increased mobility of capitol and business, the expanding authority of market: all the things that characterize globalization, have also led to a change, albeit an overlooked change, in modern day sociology and international relations.

Though her argument is similar to that of Kenichi Ohamae, she makes several distinct and specific points. First, that technology has played a key role in the eroding public confidence in the state. In her example (the creation of the nuclear bomb) the idea of mutually assured destruction meant that in a nuclear war, no nation was safe from annihilation, even those as seemingly powerful as the United States. Such an idea led many people to question the effectiveness of government when they could not even uphold one of their most basic purposes. Secondly, she comments on how “scholars in international relations for the past half-century have grossly neglected the political aspects of credit-creation, and changes in the global financial structure.” Meaning that it is often the market-to-market relations that affect politics rather than state-to-state relations. Because many governments control credit and interest rates, transnational corporations that require credit to keep up with technological innovations will gravitate towards more economically liberal states.

Finally, Strange states, “At the heart of the political economy there is a vacuum, a vacuum not adequately filled by inter-governmental institutions or by hegemonic power exercising leadership in the common interest.” This to me was the most interesting and relative part of the piece. Considering that many of the articles thus analyzed have been written in the 1990’s, they have obviously been unable to consider recent history. With the near crash of the market and the fall of such economic giants as Lehman Brothers and, and near falls of Bear Stearns, AIG, and others, the unregulated free market system has fallen on hard times. With the recession in full swing now, the public has begun to question the almighty free market in a way that would have seemed blasphemous less than a decade ago. At the same time, people are looking to the state to pick up the slack left behind by those on “Wall Street”. The newly elected administration has already promised tighter over watch of the economy and business, directly contradicting the rhetoric of recent elected officials. As people begin to redefine the role of Government in the free market, it is obvious that they may tend to lean in favor of increasing the states authority. Perhaps this is the climax of globalization, where the seemingly exponential growth of unregulated power is finally curbed as people come to realize that CEO’s and corporations aught not be the sole proprietors of policy; that perhaps it is time once again for the rise of an evolved nation-state. One in which a balance must be struck. Globalization. This tragedy might in fact be the beginning of a reformed globalized community.