‘Statism’ refers here to a condition where governance is more or less equivalent to the regulatory operations of territorial national governments. In statist circumstances, all formulation, implementation, monitoring and enforcement of societal rules occurs directly or indirectly through the state and inter-state relations. Under statist governance, regional and global regulatory mechanisms are small in scale, if present at all, and fall more or less completely under the thumb of national governments. Likewise, in a statist mode of governance local governments have no significant autonomy from central governments regarding national policy questions. Moreover, local authorities in a statist situation lack substantial possibilities to engage directly with the wider world outside of their state. In short, as the term suggests, statism entails governance that is for all intents and purposes reducible to the state.