Western state

quasi-imperial states

military internationalization

relatively cohesive and enduring bloc of military power, centred on NATO and other alliances (notably US-Japan); has survived the end of the Cold War and is held together by the challenges to its common interests in the new world situation; has clearly gone beyond simple alliances

survival, or even development, of the historic national monopoly of violence, and the pursuit of state interests including to the point of inter- and intra-state war

economic internationalization

an increasingly complex institutionalized framework of pan-Western political-economic organizations through which the West manages its common interests in the world economy

weak integration into Western-led world political-economic organizations

internationalization of law

a framework of internationalized law and regulation through which national jurisdictions are harmonized and transnational mobility by corporations and individuals is made possible

weak involvement in the internationalization of law and regulation

regional internationalization

highly developed formal internationalization of pivotal European region; formal and substantive democratization increasingly reinforced; significant elements of internationalized citizenship are developing

weak, superficial internationalization at best; persistence of major regional rivalries, including in military and even nuclear forms

relation to global institutions

ambivalent (especially US), but increasingly utilising UN system to legitimise worldwide hegemony, and supporting extensions of international law, economic management, political and military intervention

ambivalent, but tending to be suspicious of Western-led international innovations; utilising UN system negatively, to restrain West and inhibit international authority impinging on nation-state prerogatives

democratization and civil society

formal democracy normalized within West, and increasingly deeply rooted, reinforced by internationalization; relatively strong civil society; democracy and human rights promoted outside West by both civil society and states

authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes and weak democratization, in which formal electoral democracy (if it exists) often crudely manipulated by elites; political and social freedoms are weakly recognized and enforced; civil society weak but emerging

social inequality and welfare

despite large socio-economic inequalities, some combination of state and private welfare systems which supports the majority of the population

large socio-economic inequalities, with very inadequate or no social welfare systems, and coercion of both urban and rural society

national and ethnic conflict

increasingly multi-ethnic societies with relatively sophisticated management of national and ethnic conflicts; so that these are contained without the enormous disruptive potential which they have had in the past and continue to have outside the West

multi-national societies in which the relations between states and peripheral, minority and indigenous groups are quasi-imperial – these groups have little protection; national or ethnic conflicts are often violent, ‘managed’ with fairly crude coercion

media and propensity to war

expanded media spheres which sensitise publics to military violence and make the management of conflict problematic for state power; hence preference for limited air war

only partially open media, in which the abilities of state elites to manage news and opinion and fight wars is greater than in the West, but not unlimited