Page 253 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

Glossary 239

towards action in regions larger than that of the territory of a single state.
See also Non - Governmental Organization .

internationalizing state: the form of the state currently developing as an
aspect of global governance which involves its restructuring within and

across borders. See also nation - state .

imperialism: political control by a state over external territories or
nationalities. Imperialism can be formal, when imperial powers govern
territories or subjugated peoples directly — as in the British Empire of the
nineteenth century. Or it can be informal, when a state ’ s military, eco-
nomic, and political power is used to control other territories and peoples
without formally creating colonies.

nation - state: a historically specifi c form of the state, developed initially in
Europe and the US from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries and
spread to the rest of the world with decolonization in the twentieth
century, which attempts to integrate people according to shared cultural
norms. It is also a political ideal: the modern state should be sovereign
over a nation, the members of which are supposed to form a political
community through their belonging to a state and common cultural
norms. See also internationalized state ; state .

neo - liberalism: David Harvey describes it as a set of economic ideas and
practices, the core of which is that “ human well - being can best be advanced
by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an
institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights,
free markets, and free trade ” (Harvey, 2005 : 2). It also involves the
political ideal that “ [t]he role of the state is to create and preserve
an institutional framework appropriate to such practices ” (Harvey,
2005 : 2).

Non - Governmental Organization (NGO): legally constituted organiza-

tion that is independent from government. See also International Non -
Governmental Organization , with which it is often used interchangeably,
though strictly speaking, NGOs only act within states.

state: Hall and Ikenberry (1989: 1 – 2) give the following defi nition:

1 It is a set of institutions, the most important of which are those of
violence and coercion.

2 It is at the center of a geographically bounded territory, a society.