Hybridization in the Era of Globalization

In the era of globalization, there is a hybridization of three levels of political organization of the world: the Westphalian system, system of interstate rela-tions and political systems of individual states. As never before are these lev-els becoming interpenetrating. On the one hand, these processes may be esti-mated positively as the manifestation of the trends towards the unity of the world, but on the other – it shows the fundamental changes in the approach to war and peace in the current situation. It is important for the world what is happening at the level of states while for states the situation in the world does matter. Meanwhile, levels are hybridized. The Westphalian system is affected by the non-state actors. Thus, the existing political structure of the world built in many respects according to the hierarchical principle (and partly the anarchic one) is eroded. The today's political world is subjected to hybridization on a number of parameters, which entails its dramatic changes and raises the question of possible forms of its further existence. One of the ‘by-products’ of globalization became a relative decline of nation-states and emergence of numerous groups with different religious, ethnic or cultural background, fighting against each other sometimes with support or without it from so-called ‘outer’ states.

These processes are underlay by profound changes in the enmity itself, so one of the most important aspects of globalization is the so-called ‘other side’ of the processes – hybridization of enmity and wars. They are the conse-quence of the rapprochement of peoples and cultures against the background of rapid technological progress. To understand the situation, it would be useful to return to the ideas of a German political philosopher Carl Schmitt, who in his latest works on partisan wars and terrorism predicted such a development on the basis of new understanding of enmity and the ‘political’.

Keywords: hybridization, globalization, Westphalian system, nation states, interstate relations, resources, global political organization, enmity, hybridization of wars, partisan wars, terrorism, ‘the political’.