But none of this has meant the end of the state. Although a number of commentators have linked contemporary globalization to a retreat or even demise of the state, these death notices have been recklessly premature. Yes, recent decades have witnessed several striking implosions of government, for example, in Lebanon and Somalia. In addition, several states like ex-Czechoslovakia, Eritrea/Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia have fragmented. Yet states threatened with collapse have almost invariably survived, and recompositions of states have been the stuff of world politics for centuries. None of these developments point to the death of the state as such