The article argues that globalisation is altering the nature and meaning of the state monopoly on legitimate violence. It is accentuating the tensions around the meaning of 'legitimacy'. The relativism implied in the idea that states can define which use of violence is 'legitimate'(and which is not) is increasingly contested both by the international society of states and in a world society of transnational actors. At the same time a profound redefinition of what it means to have a 'monopoly' of violence is going on. Increasing the private ownership and allocation of the means of coercion are blurring the responsibility of states beyond their own borders and, for some states, even within them. As a consequence the differentiation among states is growing, private actors are central to war and peace, and the system of national states might be undergoing a fundamental change.
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