'Globalization - Effects and Pressures on National States and Societies: The Case of Republic of Croatia' Ardian Kastrati, MA, PhD Cand. Department of Political Sciences, University of Prishtina

There is no doubt that globalization is one of the most challenging developments in the world history. Globalization refers to the process of the intensification of economic, political, social and cultural relations across international boundaries. Globalization has been dominating the political as well as the academic agenda for a couple of decades. There has been much debate among scholars about whether globalization is undermining state sovereignty. Although globalization is widely assumed to be crucially important, we generally have scant idea what, more precisely, it entails. There is a considerable degree of disagreement about what globalization is. Regardless of disagreements globalization fostered by free flow of information and rapid progress in technology is such a driving force that no country can turn back from. Hyper-globalists believe that globalization has made the state superfluous, while others believe it is ?globaloney? and has had no effect on the state?s role. One thing is for sure that globalization has changed state?s role because most states now have high dependence on others. This article intends to examine the effect of globalization on the sovereignty of states and how nation states have adapted to the new challenges of globalization. While identifying globalization as one of the most important processes in global politics, the article examines the concept of globalization, its history, instruments and problems for the states sovereignty by focusing on challenges, consequences and implications for the Republic of Croatia in particular.