By Ramon Blecua

Responsible Statecraft

The current global health emergency provoked by COVID-19 is accelerating deep changes that will have far reaching implications not only for the way international relations are conducted but in every aspect of social life and economic activity.

The influence of powerful non-state actors in the international stage was already becoming more relevant than the classic power struggles among states at the height of globalization. States have been progressively losing their exclusive role in the construction of the multilateral international system.

Now, their diminished sovereignty has to do with the increased power and influence of transnational corporations — of which Big Tech is the ultimate example — the privatization of military force, and the international role of private armies and militias, transnational terrorist organizations, and drug cartels and other criminal groups.

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