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Governance in a Shrinking, Fragmenting World

The End of Sovereignty? The Politics of a Shrinking and Fragmenting World was co-authored by Joseph Camilleri and Jim Falk and published by Edward Elgar in 1992. This was a well received study which examined the need to reconceptualize the 'sovereign state' in a rapidly globalising world. More than ten years later, Camilleri and Falk are embarked on a new study which builds on that foundation. It examines both the challenge of globalisation for governance, and institutional and normative responses to that challenge. It aims to develop a clearer interpretation of the dynamics of global social change in relation to the national state, and a framework of analysis, which takes us beyond the sovereignty and globalisation discourses.

The attempt here will be to place both globalisation and governance within an evolutionary framework centred on notions of challenge, response and threshold.

The evolution of normative and institutional change in the era of globalization is examined with reference to four distinct but closely connected areas: economy, technology, environment, and security.

The thematic analysis of global social change focuses on:

• cultural interpretations of contemporary change
• the evolution of civil society, and its implications for governance at the national, regional and  global levels
• the changing character of global governance.

This study is supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.