Issues of Transnational Sovereignty

The evolution of institutions through history has proceeded through fits and starts. In those times between the collapse of one set of institutions and the rise of a new set of institutions anarchy meant far more than the lack of an overlord, it often meant war, death, destruction, depopulation, and a loss of knowledge. Taking together the cases of the hierarchical sovereignty in the Roman Empire, the feudal system in medieval France and the transborder sovereignty in the Zhou Dynasty in China, this book compare ancient world systems in order to draw out the key points for a comprehensive theory of sovereignty and systems change. Each of these historical examples suggested that nothing is inevitable and yet the unintended consequences of numerous policy decisions mount to the point where change is fundamentally required. It is a revolution by a thousand cuts. In the modern era, it seems that finally the sovereign state is being reflected as a quite effective bureaucracy without any compelling ideological underpinnings.