It is common today to talk about the weakening of the state: to view it as an entity caught between the international system and domestic forces, between emerging transnational and supranational forces, and between national institutions and social groups that limit its internal autonomy and its international flexibility.¹ This is a phenomenon that has previously been labelled ʹinterdependence.ʹ The apparent triumph of an anti-statist neoliberal ideology, the desire for regional economic consolidation,² the globalization of the economy,³ communications⁴ and environmental issues,⁵ cultural standardization,⁶ the emergence of global civil society⁷ and identity groups,⁸ and the desire for social or religious independence⁹...

At the policy research conference ʹCreating Linkages,ʹ held in Ottawa in October 1998, the clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet, Jocelyn Bourgon, spoke of the challenges that the public serviceʹs policy research community currently faces. Issues have become more complex in that they are both more global, requiring co-ordinated and simultaneous action on international, national, and local levels, and more horizontal, requiring what she called a ʹwhole of government approach.ʹ¹ The policy process has also become more complicated, necessitating ʹan integrated approach among governments at all levels,ʹ as well as ʹa longer lead time, a multidisciplinary...

Globalization has contributed to an ever-more-apparent paradox in the politics of developed liberal democracies. While there is agreement on the principles and structures of liberal democracy, there is a growing malaise over its central institutions and processes and distrust of its principal participants. This dissatisfaction manifests itself in a number of ways. There are doubts about the capacity of the national state and its actors to manage economic and social relations in an emerging global society and great suspicion concerning agreements reached by political, economic, or social elites, especially over institutional and constitutional matters. This has occurred even though there...

Keynes is dead! Fordism is finished! Income disparities are increasing!¹ Society is polarized! Corporate capitalism has carried off a silent coup!² The nation-state has been dismantled!³ and shrunk!⁴

In the light of these dire diagnoses, citizens everywhere are experiencing high levels of anxiety concerning the social cohesion, economic performance, and political viability of their state structures. In Asia, the devastating combination of currency crises and government austerity imposed by the International Monetary Fund has shaken these newly industrializing statesʹ capacity to promote their interests. In the far more stable context created by the European Union, its fifteen member states share...

Democratization and transnationalization are two fundamental trends in the evolution of international affairs today. They come together in the neglected phenomenon of international parliaments and inter-parliamentary associations, which, for the sake of brevity, I group together as international parliamentary institutions (IPIs). The academic literature pays almost no attention to IPIs. Some recent research confirms that the European Parliament (EP) is significant not only for the political and economic life of citizens of its member states, but also for the conduct of international affairs in Europe at large.¹ To demonstrate this point, one need only mention the EPʹs forcing of the...

With the advent of interdependence, global interconnectedness, and the signing of global environmental conventions, the past decade has seen the emergence of several international environmental organizations. Each major international environmental agreement today provides for the establishment of a secretariat to oversee treaty implementation. The role and significance of convention secretariats are neither well defined nor well understood.

Although convention secretariats are not new, their recent proliferation raises questions regarding modes of global governance and the factors that determine the effectiveness of international environmental regimes. Are these secretariats different both from their older prototypes and from traditional larger intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)?...

To think ofmultiple centres of poweris a paradox, for how can power be divided, or centres be multiple? How can any person be subject to more than one sovereign at the same time? This paradox is not new. When asked in the original trick question whether it was lawful to pay taxes, Jesus said ʹRender to Caesar what is Caesarʹs, and to God the things that are Godʹs.ʹ¹ The Pharisees marvelled at this answer, for it seems to recognize Caesarʹs authority, and they had no conception of God. We see the same paradox in the current system of...