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According to many analysts, the Nation-State is undergoing a deep crisis, because the effectiveness of its power is being broken up in three directions: upward, as a consequence of globalization and supranationalization; horizontally due to the dismantling of the Welfare State, privatization and deregulation; and downward, because of decentralization and the empowerment of the regional and local entities. According to these interpretations, the joint action of such trends would be eroding the traditional competences of the Nation State and determining the irrelevance of this political entity in the global dynamics of power and the economy. This paper analyses the impact of the above mentioned trends in the Andean countries. It concludes by stating that in this context the processes aimed at reducing the role of the State, have paradoxically turned into the widening of its sphere of action in other fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]