Rejecting the view that states may be studied in isolation from one another, and proceeding from the assumption that political theory and international theory are part of a single continuum, this collection of essays employs both comparative method and an international perspective to assess what is happening to the chief political form of our time. In doing so, it questions recent major approaches of European and American scholarship which have tended to view the state as a formation serving capital, interests or classes. The approach of these essays is legal and constitutional, highlighting the changing nature of political communities and changing patterns of government. .