Is This the End of the Nation-State?

Like the proverbial demise of Mark Twain, rumors of the death of the nation- state may be exaggerated, but in recent years they have become rife. The end of the great-power standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the ensuing surge in global economic relations, gave rise over the past decade to a flood of books and articles postulating a new age in international relations. A general theme has been that the era that began in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia is ending, that we are witnessing a no less dramatic transition in which both transnational and local forces will eclipse the importance of na- tional polities