This article brings the state back in as a strategic player of globalization. Whereas Marxists lament the withering of the state, neoliberals welcome the triumph of the market. Inspired by Habermas's proposal for a constitutionalization of international law, the author introduces social movements into his cosmopolitan vision of a multi-level system of governance. Through a cross-reading of Ulrich Beck and Antonio Gramsci, it proposes to update the historical sociology of the state and connects it to the sociology of social movements in order to explore how a cosmopolitan state can possibly act as a shifter in a counter-hegemonic project of globalization.
State; globalization; international law; cosmopolitanism