Fate of the State Revisited

• NCJ Number: 217504
• Journal: Global Crime Volume: 7 Issue: 3-4 Dated: August-November 2006 Pages: 329-350
• Author(s): Martin van Creveld
• Date Published: August 2006
• Length: 22 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Historical Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article discusses the state of the state (a form of government, in which the state is the most powerful and most important organization in which people live) which appears to be declining after being the most characteristic of all modern institutions beginning in the 1700s.

Abstract

Whatever presidents, prime ministers, ministers of defense, chiefs of staff, and other strategists may say, in practice the ability of states to wage war on other states has been steadily declining over the last 60 years. Almost every state around the world has been cutting its welfare services and privatizing its assets. In practice, the advancing technology, particularly transportation and communication, has created a situation where hardly any state can survive without becoming involved with international organizations of every sort. The state will gradually find itself replaced, in part by other organizations, such as the European Union and the United Nations. In summation, the 300 something year period that opened at Westphalia in 1648, during which time the state was the most powerful and important organization in which people lived, first in Europe and then in other places, is coming to an end. The full significance of this transition cannot be foreseen. The last full-scale conflict between the world’s most powerful states, World War II left some 60 million people dead. The state, which during the three and a half centuries since the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) has been the most important and the most characteristic of all modern institutions, appears to be declining. In this article, the state of state will be discussed under five headings: (1) a look at the state’s declining ability to fight other states; (2) an examination of the effects of modern technology, economics, and the media, as well as the process of globalization; (3) an outline of the rise and fall of the welfare state; (4) the state’s ability to maintain public order among disruptive forces seeking to overthrow it; and (5) an attempt to tie all the threads together and see where things are heading. 46 footnotes