1st Edition

The Territorial Dimension Of Politics Within, Among, And Across Nations

By Ivo D. Duchacek, Helena Duchacek Copyright 1987
    328 Pages
    by Routledge

    328 Pages
    by Routledge

    This comparative study examines the dialectical tensions between global and regional interdependence and the fragmentation of humankind into territorial entities. Political authority may remain territory-bound, but borders increasingly are penetrated by pollutants, individuals, noncentral governments in search of foreign trade and investment, and transnational corporations, as well as the traditional exchanges of trade, media, and culture. The result of these transborder flows, accelerated by new technologies, is a new variety of international relations among “perforated sovereignties.†Dr. Duchacek analyzes the territorial organization of political authority in both democratic and authoritarian frameworks as well as in unitary and federal systems. Case studies focus on new forms of transborder interactions between neighboring countries, especially in North America and in Western Europe. The book is of major interest to scholars in the fields of political science and political economy. Quotations from a variety of political theorists and practitioners, illustrative diagrams, and maps make the book suitable for students of comparative politics, international relations, comparative federalism, and public policy.

    Preface -- Territorial Politics -- Components of International and National Systems -- Universalist Creeds and the Territorial Gravitational Pull -- Territorial Power Maps: Decentralization -- Federal Systems -- Democracy’s Territorial Twin: Federalism -- Ten Yardsticks of Federalism -- Confederal Associations -- The American Confederal Experience and the World Today -- Consociations of Sovereignties: Myth and Reality of International Organizations -- Permeable Sovereignties -- Percolation of Sovereign Boundaries -- Encounters of a New Kind: International Competence of Noncentral Governments -- Front Belize to the Beaufort Sea -- Conclusion

    Biography

    Ivo D. Duchacek, professor emeritus of political science of the City College of the City University of New York and visiting scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, is the author of several books on comparative politics, federalism, and international relations.