Re-Westphalianisation or (Dis)order in the Periphery? Regime Security vs. Societal Security under Global Capitalism

Since the early 2000’s, theoretical studies in international relations have focused on the effects of US led global capitalism on the modern system of states. While some of them discuss the current period as an epoch of transnational pluralism, others concentrate more on varying implications of capitalist globalization on the phenomenon of stateness/staehood and on state-society relations especially in the South. By taking the idea that capitalist globalization has different consequences on the states of the developed North and of the South as a point of departure, this paper aims to discuss the following proposition: Concerning developed North, a “post-Westphalian” order has been emerging, as shown by the example of European integration and the rising use of power by the non-state actors especially for the conduct of international economic interactions. In the Southern periphery however, globalization has seemed to create a tendency to reinforce political disintegration, regime problems and intense social tensions paving the way for revitalized searches for nation-state building. Reactionary micro and macro level nationalisms, religious and ethnic strifes seems to be complicated with demands for regime change as shown by the upheveals in the greater Middle East and North Africa. In this respect, the paper will discuss the idea that intensive social tensions in the South which are closely related to the way that these states are forced to integrate to global capitalism, has been perpetuating the tension between regime security and societal security. The paper will discuss whether these conditions reveal a tendency that can be described as “re-Westphalianization” in the South less in the sense of an anarchical system of equal sovereigns but more in the sense of the reification of exclusivist nation-states with authoritarian rule.