Shifts in Power

摘要

In an influential article in the January/February 1997 issue of Foreign Affairs, Jessica Mathews chronicled some extraordinary power shifts now under way. Power has shifted laterally—from national states to large corporations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—as well as upward to the global level and downward to the local level. At the global level, new institutions of governance have emerged, while transnational corporate and financial institutions have grown and consolidated and networks of nongovernmental institutions have expanded. At the subnational level, government has been devolved, privatization is common, and civic society has often been strengthened. At all levels, coalitions, partnerships, and networks now share authority that once resided wholly with the national state.