Through anthropological fieldwork in non-western and western contexts, this colloborative institutional project (by eleven senior researchers at the University of Bergen) takes a comparative approach to the problems of state control and legitimacy under c ontemporary global conditions. However similar modern states may appear in the governmental structures, the project assumes that "states" and "state processes" can be satisfactorily comprehended only by investigating how they are embedded, historically, c ulturally, politically, in their respective societal contexts. Instituted state orders and structures are currently challenged. Relinquishing its once supreme regulatory hold over economy and citizenry, the modern state sees its dominant form being questi oned. Former state monopolies over power appear weakened, and the territorially bounded hierarchical state order, epitomized in "the nation state", is being crosscut andsubverted by lateral networks. In order to comprehend comparati
