State, Capital, Crisis

Abstract

The article argues that any state theory has to take into consideration the fundamental changes of the logic of power that was brought about by the advent of capitalism. While a territorial logic of power was a central characteristic of European states before capitalism, the power of states has been detached from national territories through the mobility of capital. Technological developments have not only enhanced this mobility but also possibilities of production that are no longer determined by physical nature of a certain kind. The present international order of sovereign nation states was inherited from the pre-capitalist epoch. But the plurality of nation states has not only been reproduced in the processes of decolonization but has become a functional element of globalized capitalism.