The book "The Active Democratic State - The Fate of the Nation State in the Age of Globalization" critically records the views and theoretical constructions about the fate of the state and statehood in the 21st century. The theories of autonomy, fragmentation, and transcendence; regionalization and supranationality; emerging new players and the fate of the old ones. It shows that the dominant arguments in the global debate, systematically encoded, seek to support either that the state is in decline or that it is "indifferent" to broader social changes. In fact, all approaches, despite their apparent contradictions, seek to analyze whether and to what extent the state has sufficient capacities to survive or will require spatial and temporal-functional restructuring.
The central position of the book is that the real issue should not be whether the [national] state survives or not, but what strategy should be followed in order to actively influence globalization. To transform it from its current neoliberal form into a democratic globalization, so as to exploit new technological, institutional, and broader social capabilities for the benefit of citizens and for solving global problems. It suggests that what is required today is a strategy of substantial internal restructuring of the state and democratization in order to evolve into an active and democratic state.