According to both proponents and critics, the role of globalisation is no different to this. This then brings us to our second point: the blurring of national borders. Through globalisation there has been an increment in transnational social forms, increasing multi-layer global governance and conditions and interdependence have made the distinction between inside and outside of the state increasingly difficult. These levels of interconnection have clear parallels with empire, as Doyle states: ‘empires seem to combine aspects of both domestic and international politics, despite there being distinct political entities within an empire’. The US is all at the centre of this, bringing us to our third point. It cannot be denied that hierarchies of authority within the international system have appeared because of globalisation, and this in itself resonates with ‘empire’. Ikenberey describes the post-world war II international order as ‘an extended system that blurred domestic and international politics as it created an elaborate transnational and transgovernmental political system with the United States at its