CITA ROBERT KEOHANE (2)

The modernists of past generations were partly right.

Angells understanding of the impact of war on
interdependence was insightful: World War I wrought
unprecedented destruction, not only on the
battlefield but by wrecking the sociopolitical systems
and networks of economic interdependence that had
thrived during the relatively peaceful years since
1815. As the modernists of the 1970s predicted,
multinational corporations, nongovernmental
organizations, and global financial markets have
indeed become immensely more significant during
the last quarter-century. But the state has been more
resilient than modernists have expected. Not only do
states continue to command the loyalties of a vast
majority of the worlds people; their control over
material resources in most wealthy countries of the
OECD, where markets are so important, has stayed at
a third to half of gross domestic product (GDP).