From the time of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes, political theorists have depicted the state as "sovereign" because it holds preeminent authority over all the denizens belonging to its geographically defined territory. From the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 until the beginning of World War I in 1914, the essential responsibities ascribed to the sovereign state were maintaining internal and external security and promoting domestic prosperity. This idea of "the state" in political theory is clearly inadequate to the realities of national governments and international relations at the beginning of...