Globalization, security, and the authoritarian state: Globalization and the security behavior of Saudi Arabia and Vietnam

The argument that globalization 'withers away' the state has become a commonly accepted thesis in the social sciences. Those advocating the 'globalization thesis' argue that globalization's impact on the scope and speed of interactions makes it impossible for the state to continue to provide even its most fundamental function, the provision of security. Skeptics argue that the globalization thesis both overstates the magnitude of the changes to the international system and misrepresents their origins and implications. This project attempts to resolve this debate by testing the globalization thesis as it applies to authoritarian regimes; a regime type the globalization thesis argues should be particularly vulnerable to the security implications of globalization due to its reliance on the direct control of information and resources to maintain power. Specifically, the effort here will examine the impact of globalization on the security environment, the security perceptions of state elites, the autonomy of those elites to determine security policy, and the capabilities of state institutions to execute security policy in the case of two authoritarian states, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam, from 1989--2002. This examination involves three security sectors, economic, political, and military, within and across both the domestic and international arenas. In the end, the effects of globalization on the states in question is increased capabilities that the ruling regimes are deploying to offset diminishing autonomy and changing but not transformed security environments. Both regimes have since 1989 launched a set of parallel domestic and international reforms, to include an effort to increase the regional significance of the country in question, that are best understood as 'state globalization.' In conclusion, globalization has complicated the rule of authoritarian regimes, but it has not made their efforts at rule ineffective.