Karen_A._Mingst,_Ivan_M._Arregu_n-Toft]_Essentia

The Impact of Transnational Issues 435

Part of the prob lem is that in many areas of the world, particularly since the end
of the Cold War, states themselves have become fragile or have failed. These so- called
states then become sites for transnational crime, terrorist organ izations, and disease,
all of which may be exported at relatively low cost to neighboring states and even
around the world. Consider the fate of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe’s heavy
hand. In 2008, Zimbabwe’s collapsed health- care infrastructure was unable to pre-
vent or control the outbreak of a cholera epidemic. The disease soon spread to affect
(and infect) the citizens of neighboring states, just as Ebola spread beyond its epi-
center. Yet traditions of sovereignty mitigate against interventions aimed at restoring
a state to full functionality. Who is to judge whether an intervention will simply
restore a state or become a kind of twenty- first- century neo co lo nial ism, as debated in
Chapter 8?
How then should we reconceptualize sovereignty? How has sovereignty been trans-
formed? Mainstream theories in the realist and liberal traditions tend to talk of an
erosion of sovereignty. Constructivists go further, probing how sovereignty is and always
has been a contested concept. There have always been some issues where state control
and authority are secure and others where authority is shared or even undermined. After
all, sovereignty is a socially constructed institution that varies across time and place.
Transnational issues such as health, the environment, and human rights permit us to
examine in depth long- standing but varying practices of sovereignty. These issues give
rise to new forms of authority and new forms of governance, stimulating us to re orient
our views of sovereignty.^22
Fourth, transnational issues pose critical prob lems for international relations schol-
ars and for the theoretical frameworks introduced at the beginning of this book.
Adherents of each framework have been forced to rethink key assumptions and values,
as well as the discourse of their theoretical perspective, to accommodate transnational
issues.

EffEcTs of TransnaTIonal IssuEs

■ On international bargaining: More

policy trade- offs; greater complexity

■ On international conflict: May

increase at international and

substate levels

■ On state sovereignty: Traditional

notion challenged; need for

reconceptualization

■ On study of international relations:

Core assumptions of theories

jeopardized; theories modified and

broadened

In focus