GLOBAL STATES SYSTEM AND THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
This paper examines the nature of the global state system and its relevance to the role of international organizations. The current global state system refers to the complex set of interactions and relationships among sovereign nation-states which govern international relations, as that system has evolved historically. Until the post-World War II period, international organizations, the roots of which stretch back to the 19th century, played little role in international relations which were governed almost exclusively by the state system. A number of political, economic and technological factors led to the partial breakdown of the geopolitical underpinnings of the state system and a proliferation of international organizations of various kinds which today play an important if still subsidiary role in international relations, especially within and vis-a-vis the less developed or Third World.
The present state system corresponded with the rise of the nation state as the primary form of political organization in Europe. Beginning in the 14th and 15th century in Italy, "the complex horizontal structure of feudal society crystallized into a vertical pattern of territorial states, each with increasing authority inside geographic borders" (Watson, 1984, p. 14). Jacobson (1978) says that the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 "marked the beginning of the modern state system" (p. 13). Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, balance of power rivalry characterized the relationships between the major European states. Wars frequently occurred in Europe. After the great maritime expansion of Western Europe, intense competitive colonial rivalries among the European powers was intense. Within Europe after the defeat of Napoleon, the great powers organized themselves at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to prevent any one power from achieving hegemony on the Continent, "the experiment in ma...