Students of American government point world the concern has been not over the out that one of the advantages of a federal diminished internal powers of the state system is that the separate states can act as but over their increase.And although laboratories for socioeconomic experi- state control has lessened somewhat mentation.When some states succeed, recently,does anyone really believe that others imitate them.The same thought economically advanced states have applies to nations. returned to a 1930s level-let alone to a States adapt,but they also protect nineteenth-century level-of govern- themselves.Different nations,with dis- mental regulation? tinct institutions and traditions,protect States perform essential political, themselves in different ways.Japan fos- social and economic functions,and no ters industries,defends them,and man- other organization rivals them in these ages its trade.The United States uses its respects.They foster the institutions that political,economic and military leverage make internal peace and prosperity pos- to manipulate international events to pro- sible.In the state of nature,as Kant put mote its interests.Thus,as David E. it,there is“no mine and thine.”States Spiro elaborately shows,international turn possession into property and thus markets and institutions did not recycle make saving,production and prosperity petrodollars after 1974;the United States possible.The sovereign state with fixed did.Despite many statements to the con- borders has proved to be the best organi- trary,the United States worked effective- zation for keeping peace internally and ly through different administrations and fostering the conditions for economic under different cabinet secretaries to well-being. undermine markets and thwart interna- We do not have to wonder what hap- tional institutions.Its leverage enabled it pens to society and the economy when a to manipulate the oil crisis to serve its state begins to fade away,for we have all own interests.9 too many examples.A few obvious ones Many of the interdependence boost- are China in the 1920s and 1930s and ers of the 1970s expected the state to again during the Cultural Revolution, wither and fade away.Charles many African states since their indepen- Kindleberger,for example,wrote in 1969 dence,and currently post-Soviet Russia. that "the nation-state is just about The less competent a state,the more like- through as an economic unit." ly it is to dissolve into component parts or Globalizers of the 1990s believe that this be unable to adapt to transnational devel- time it really is happening.The state has opments.Challenges at home and abroad lost its "monopoly over internal sover- test the mettle of states.In modern times, eignty",Wolfgang H.Reinecke writes, enough states have always passed the test and as“an externally sovereign actor'”it to keep the international system function- "will become a thing of the past."10 But ing as a system of states.The challenges even as this is being asserted it is striking vary but states endure.They have proved that,internally,the range of governmen- to be hardy survivors. tal functions and the extent of state con- trol over societies and economies has sel- 9Spiro,The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: dom been fuller than it is now.After Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets World War IⅡ，West European govern- (Ithaca,NY:Cornell University Press,1999), ments spent about 25 percent of their especially chap.6. nations'products;now the figure is 10Reinecke,"Global Public Policy",Foreign Affairs about 50 percent.In many parts of the (November/December 1997),p.137. Globalization and American Power. Copyright 2000.All rights reserved.Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved