Abstract. By the end of the 20th century, the world had become increasingly interconnected. On one hand, the globalization level of the market economy had amplified, which called for understanding the interactions between the local and global action levels, as well as the effects of world interdependencies over the states’ force and capacity. On the other hand, we are facing an increased fragmentation of the world economy in effect to the development of regional economic blocks. In other words, the world economy is dominated by two contradicting tendencies: the accentuation of interdependencies and the acceleration of the fragmentation process, in result of the economic integration process.

The political and economic processes of globalization have called for the need of re-evaluating and re-defining the state’s role in the national and world economy, of the traditional vision over its capacity of acting as a general manager in the economy and as autonomous actor in the highly instable international system.

Keywords: globalization; nation-state; managerial state; post-suzerain state; legitimacy.