Unbundling territoriality in the era of real time cyberspace

Résumé ou Introduction

1993 when Ruggie termed the ‘unbundling of territoriality’ was a year in which
knowledge and communication that is its accessibility and dissemination entered a
new realm of space and time. On the 30th of April 1993 the World Wide Web and its
underlying technology was made freely available to use by anyone. Today over one
billion people use the Internet, or every sixth person on the planet. A collective brain
one might say is forming in front of our eyes growing with every new person entering
three W’s into a web browser.
While Ruggie aimed to search for, and investigate into, a fundamental transformation
of the modern system of states, he emphasized that such an analysis would find a
fruitful starting point in the [re]conceptualisation of territoriality. This paper will
utilize Ruggie’s concept, by applying its analysis to the emerging and manifesting
space-time implosion driven by the Internet and other communication technologies.
Therefore, it is argued that Cyberspace provides a practical sphere to investigate into
the unbundling of territoriality in a postmodern world. In the first section the impact on territoriality resulting from the emergence of the
Cyberspace will be discussed. Ruggie’s model of differentiation between systems of
rule and territory is applied to explain the transformation of territory in the
postmodern era of Cyberspace. It is followed by an investigation into the
consequences of Cyberspace on sovereignty. Showing that Cyberspace does indeed
provide a new stage in Ruggie’s terms, facilitating an unbundling and relocation of
sovereignty away from state territory. The third section discusses the implication of
the virtual space on the rise and acceleration of globalisation. It is argued that
globalisation, could not be perceived as a postmodern phenomenon without the
Cyberspace revolution. The last part of the paper, proposes the need to rethink the
notion of movement in the age of virtual and real spaces. Cyberspace allows ‘tourists’
in line with Bauman’s description to choose between virtual and real movement. The
preceding discussion will finally lead to the conclusion that the conceptualisation of
Cyberspace as one aspect responsible for the unbundling of territory provides an
important explanatory insight into the transformation from modernity to
postmodernity.