When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Eastern Bloc disappeared, there were hasty diagnoses of a “New World Order.” Analyses abounded that foreshadowed a unified and pacified world in which the market could rise as humanity's great regulator. The democratic “Third Wave,” moreover, coincided with the opening of the world's trade and finances, a process known as “globalization.” Amid this whirlwind, the state was pilloried by all sides, for some it was the embodiment of authoritarianism, coercive and repressive, and for others it was an obstacle, too large and too bloated, that had to be reduced to its bare minimum.