Cooper, the world of postmodern states was in no small measure ‘invented’ by
America.^42 It is certainly true that the United States took the lead in setting up the
institutional framework of a liberal world order after the Second World War.^43 In
Europe, the US pushed for cooperation between her West European allies. This in
turn set a framework for dense economic interdependence in Western Europe and
across the Atlantic. Stronger economic networks have then created an increased
demand for more intense political cooperation.^44 These processes paved the way for
the advanced states’ transformation from modern to postmodern statehood. Again,
all three elements of international structure played a part in these developments: they
were pushed by American power, but economic forces in context of globalization
played a part too, and the normative frameworks of cooperation supported by
international institutions have become increasingly important.
Table 7.1 portrays three ideal types of state plus a fourth (modernizing state),
which is a combination of the three. Four major aspects of statehood are in focus:
the political level (government); the level of national community (nationhood); the
economic basis (economy) and the institution of sovereignty. The modern state ideal
type is the conceptual basis for structural realist theory. Modern states are entities
with clear boundaries in every respect: a national polity within a defined territory,
a national economy unwilling to become dependent on others (‘nations pull apart
as each of them tries to take care of itself and to avoid becoming dependent on
others’).^45 In context of modern states, sovereign autonomy and self-determination
is a core value: ‘Specifically, states seek to maintain their territorial integrity and the
autonomy of their domestic political order’.^46 It is certainly true that effective states
pursue a number of basic social values, including security, freedom, order, justice,
and welfare.^47 But in the pursuit of these values they have often chosen to cooperate
to an extent that has created a very high level of integration among them: economic
integration, political integration and social integration. Postmodern liberal states have
become so densely integrated that both territorial integrity and the autonomy of
their domestic political orders are no longer upheld. In that specific sense, state
survival is not the primary goal.
Intense cooperation has gone farthest among EU members, but the trans-
formation towards postmodern statehood is relevant for other consolidated liberal
democracies as well, even for the United States. At the political level, the US surely
participates in the development of governance networks across borders. A recent
analysis argues that the US ‘government networks’ are proliferating transnationally,
‘addressing the issues and resolving the problems that result from citizens going
global’; this amounts to ‘a system of global governance that institutionalizes
cooperation’.^48 Multilateral institution building is strong across the Atlantic; this can
be seen as a case of liberal co-binding ‘locking each other into institutions that
mutually constrain one another’.^49
As regards the economy, the United States is intensely involved in the process of
economic globalization. A substantial amount of trans-Atlantic trade is intra-firm,
testifying to the integration of transnational production chains instead of traditional
‘shallow integration’ of arms-length trade between independent entities. The US
114 Structural realism and changes in statehood