Abiding sovereignty

Over the several hundred years during which the rules of sovereignty includ ing non-intervention and the exclusion of external authority have been wide ly understood, state control could never be taken for granted. States could never isolate themselves from the external environment. Globalization and intrusive international norms are old, not now, phenomena. Some aspects of the contemporary environment are unique-the number of transnational nongove rnmental organizations has grown dramatically, international organizations are more prominent; cyber crime could not exist without cyber space. These developments challenge state control. A loss of control can precipitate a c risis of authority, but even a crisis of authority is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for developing new authority structures. New rul es could emerge in an evolutionary way as a result of trial and error by ra tional but myopic actors. But these arrangements, for instance internationa l policing, are likely to coexist with rather than to supplant conventional sovereign structures. Sovereignty's resilience is, if nothing else, a refl ection of its tolerance for alternatives.