Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
or group to purchase the power with which to threaten
the world.
Although states provide the territorial foundation
from which producers and consumers still operate and
they continue to exert considerable regulatory powers,
economic globalization makes it ever more diffi cult for
states to control economic relations, which is an example of
deterritorialization. States are responding to this situation
in a variety of ways, with some giving up traditional regula-
tory powers and others seeking to insulate themselves from
the international economy. Still others are working to build
supranational economic blocs that they hope will help them
cope with an increasingly globalized world. The impacts of
many of these developments are as yet uncertain, but it is
increasingly clear that states now compete with a variety of
other forces in the international arena.
The state's traditional position is being further eroded
by the globalization of social and cultural relations. Net-
works of interaction are being constructed in ways that do
not correspond to the map of states. In 2011, when unrest
broke out in Egypt, for example, activists used
Facebook
to garner support. Scholars and researchers in different
countries work together in teams. Increased mobility has
brought individuals from far-fl ung places into much closer
contact than before. Paralleling all this change is the spread
of popular culture in ways that make national borders vir-
tually meaningless. Katy Perry is listened to from Iceland
to Australia; fas
hions developed in northern Italy are hot
items among Japanese tourists visiting South Korea; Thai
restaurants are found in towns and cities across the United
States; Russians hurry home to watch the next episode of
soap operas made in Mexico; and movies produced in Hol-
lywood are seen on screens from Mumbai to Santiago.
The rise of fundamentalist religious movements
with geopolitical goals represents another global phe-
nomenon with potentially signifi cant implications for a
future world order. In Chapter 6, we noted that funda-
mental religious movements sometimes become extrem-
ist by inciting violent acts in the name of their faith.
Violence by extremists challenges the state—whether
undertaken by individuals at the local scale or by widely
diffused groups spread across major world realms. The
state's mission to combat religious violence can produce
support for the state government in the short term,
but the state's inability to defeat extremist attacks may
weaken the state in the long term. Terrorist attacks have
been threatened or carried out by religious extremists
from a variety of different faiths, but the wave of inter-
national terrorism that began in the 1980s in the name
of Islam has dominated the international scene over the
past two decades. The attacks on the World Trade Cen-
ter and the Pentagon and the downing of Flight 93 in
Pennsylvania, and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan
that followed, moved terrorism to the geopolitical cen-
ter stage. More recent terrorist attacks in Madrid, Mos-
cow, and Mumbai have helped to keep it there.
Figure 8.25
Cortina, Italy.
A market in northern Italy advertises the price
of fruit in euros.
© Alexander B. Murphy.
even necessary. Among these challenges are the demand
of nations within states for independence, economic glo-
balization, increasing connectedness among people and
cultures, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons give even small states the ability
to infl ict massive damage on larger and distant adversar-
ies. Combined with missile technology, this may be the
most serious danger the world faces, which is why the
United Nations insisted on dismantling Iraq's nuclear
capacity after the 1991 Gulf War and why concerns over
Iran's nuclear program are so great. Some states pub-
licize their nuclear weapons programs, whereas other
nuclear states have never formally acknowledged that
they possess nuclear weapons. Reports of nuclear pro-
liferation have led to military actions in the last 30 years.
In 1981, when reports of Iraq's nuclear program reached
Israel, the Israelis attacked Iraq. As nuclear weapons
have become smaller and “tactical” nuclear arms have
been developed, the threat of nuclear weapons sales is
of growing concern. It is now possible for a hostile state
