Sovereignty, globalization and transnational social movements

Traditionally, sovereign states have been defined, in termsof their external and internal dimensions, as mutually exclusiveterritorial jurisdictions. Economic globalization is associatedwith the liberalization of the world economy, decreases in transactioncosts, the development of communication technologies, and theemergence of transnational social and cultural spaces. Thesehave eroded the divide between national and international systemsand fostered the dispersal of power in social networks. As aresult, it is unrealistic to define state sovereignty as a counterposeto the global system, as these phenomena have become mutuallyembedded. States and their sovereignty are not disappearing– on the contrary, they may be gaining new tasks and resources– but they cannot exercise their agentive power as effectivelyas before. This means that the internal dimension of state sovereigntyhas been transformed more thoroughly than the external one.This is in part due to the growth and proliferation of transnationalsocial movements, which have also gained agentive power in nationalsocieties. Therefore, the anti-globalization movement, althoughit is unable to halt the process of economic integration, hasbeen able to redefine the terms of the globalization debateand influence responses by national governments and internationalfinancial institutions.