Nation states, ideological power and globalisation: can geographers catch the boat?

After a period of considerable and sustained hegemony, many commentators have argued that contemporary processes of globalisation are acting as a challenge to nation state sovereignty. The paper argues that geographers need to focus on the ways in which the nation state continues to act, albeit in a modified manner, within the era of globalisation. This might help to position geography within globalisation debates, which––according to Dicken [Geographers and `globalization': (yet) another missed boat? forthcoming, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2004]––we have not been centrally involved in. Drawing on the work of Michael Mann, we focus on a neglected dimension of state power––namely, its ideological form––as a means of exploring how the nation state is being differentially re-engineered under globalisation. Using Mann's classification of forms of ideological organisation, we deploy three vignettes in order to demonstrate the evolving nature of ideological power within the contemporary UK State.