State

"Nations" or "states"

an attempt at definition

•These two terms are clearly related, yet they must with equal clarity be seen to be separate.

•To be sure, the two are often used interchangeably, in an indiscriminate fashion (such as the "United Nations", which is actually an association of states, not of nations). In laymen's minds, the difference between the two concepts is vague - to such an extent that the slightly old-fashioned term nation-state is sometimes used.

•Bismarck, and his exhortations (urge earnestly) to the German people to "think with their blood") led to a general feeling that states must of necessity be established on the basis of national identity.

•This despite the fact that there were plenty of successful examples to the contrary (Switzerland, for one).

•Defining the idea of nation

•Humans are tribal animals, with a tendency to arrange themselves in small groups around dominant males and females - much like a group of monkeys in the trees. The fundamental element of human organization is a local and tribal group, which, in more advanced societies, forms the basis for a more elaborate structure of civilized society on top of the tribal base.

•The idea of a nation (from the Latin word natio which derives from natus "(of) birth") implies a common blood relationship.

•In fact, this relationship is rarely actual - more often, it derives from a postulated common ancestor.

•This common ancestor may be an actual historical figure, but most of the time, he or she is a mythical being.

•Tribalism aside, the bonds that bind a group of people into a nation are more complex than mere blood relationships (real or imagined).

•This relationship really only holds true at the lowest levels of society (and even then, local hierarchies related by blood have become rare in the modern world).

•As civilized society grows ever more complex, it is often the case that nationality is a function of more complex factors - a shared heritage or blood relationship being only one of them.

•Language is a factor, definitely - yet there are nations that exist quite happily with multiple languages (of course, for every success story, there is a counterexample of national disintegration along linguistic lines).

•Nevertheless, nations with a single dominant language often use this language to define who they are.

•This is particularly the case in those situations where the language is very difficult for outsiders to learn (e.g. Danish, Finnish, Japanese).

•Culture, and the artifacts of culture, play a part in defining a nation - ask the Greeks about the importance of the Elgin marbles, or a Dane about the Golden Horns.

•Often, cultural artifacts that have changed hands between national groups become sources of deep-felt national outrage (such as the Elgin marbles, or the Isted Lion), icons of lasting disaffection between the nations involved.

•The proponents of nationalist ideology often lay forth the postulate that their nation is an immutable and "original" one - that the basic tenets and attributes of their nation are fixed, and have been a part of the national makeup since before recorded history.

•For instance, German nationalists hark back to the defeat of the Roman legions in Teutoburger Forest by the Germanic tribal leader Arminius ("Hermann").

•Yet, evidence is incontrovertible that no nations are immutable entities.

•Paradoxically, if there is a constant of human society, it is change, and this ensures that a nation of today is different from the nation of the same name that existed a generation ago.

•Nations are evolving and changing all the time.

•Summing up, some of the attributes of nationhood are:

•A common postulated interrelationship - a "blood" bond between members. This blood relationship may be actual, but more often, it derives from myth.

•A shared cultural heritage. This heritage, and particularly the cultural artifacts (and sometimes also, institutional structures) that it has created, represents the "patrimony" of the nation, and is often invested with considerable sentimental value, to the extent that attacks on it are responded to with violent emotion.

•Linguistic coherence, in the form of one or more languages identified with the national identity.

•The more unique or difficult these languages are, the stronger the emotional attachment to them, as something that must be defended.

•In the world of mass telecommunications and the omnipresence of English as a lingua franca, bitter struggles are taking place all over the world to protect the national languages (most notably, in Iceland and France). 

•A sense of identification by members with the nation. The idea of national affiliation is a deep-rooted one in the human psyche, and members of a nation suffer a very visceral response to any threat against it, real or perceived.

•The state - an institution without sentiment

•Originally, the word state derives from an Italian term, lo stato, coined by Machiavelli to describe the whole of the social hierarchy that governs and rules a country. Over the centuries, the term has come to take on a more sophisticated meaning - yet, in many ways, it is as vague a term as nation.

•A state, then, may be defined as an institutional structure charged with exercising authority within a definable jurisdictional purview (which is often territorial in nature).

•Often, political theorists have relied on the definition offered by Max Weber: ".... a relation of men dominating men, a relation supported by means of legitimate (i.e. considered to be legitimate) violence" - Max Weber: Politik als Beruf, 1919 .

•The state is thus the supreme legitimate authority (whatever "legitimate" may be taken to mean, in the particular context) entrusted with the exercise of violent force over a group of people.

•Conspicuously absent from this definition is the concept of territorial authority, yet the legitimacy and jurisdictional authority of states is tied so intimately to this attribute that it cannot be ignored.

•Summing up, the following attributes are then the characteristics of a state:

1.Monopoly on exercise of force.

2.Legitimacy, as perceived by the governed.

3.Institutional structures established to handle governmental tasks, including, but not limited to, the exercise of force.

4.Control over a territory - absolute or partial.

•Statehood

•Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States 1933 has identified following qualifications of statehood:

•1. a permanent population

•2. a definite territory

•3. a government, and

•4. a capacity to enter into relations with other states.

•Elements of State

•A state has space or territory that has internationally recognized boundaries (boundary disputes are OK).

•A state has people who live there on an ongoing basis.

•A state has economic activity and an organized economy.

•A state regulates foreign and domestic trade and issues money.  

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•A state has the power of social engineering, such as education.

•A state has a transportation system for moving goods and people.

•A state has a government that provides public services and police power.

•A state has sovereignty. No other State should have power over the country's territory.

•A state has external recognition. It has been "voted into the club" by other countries.    

•Contemporary theories of the state

•Marxism

•For Marxist theorists, the role of modern states is determined or related to their position in capitalist societies. Many contemporary Marxists offer a liberal interpretation of Marx's comment in The Communist Manifesto that the state is but the executive committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

•Ralph Miliband argued that the ruling class uses the state as its instrument to dominate society by virtue of the interpersonal ties between state officials and economic elites. For Miliband, the state is dominated by an elite that comes from the same background as the capitalist class.

•State officials therefore share the same interests as owners of capital and are linked to them through a wide array of interpersonal and political ties. 

•By contrast, other Marxist theorists argue that the question of who controls the state is irrelevant. Heavily influenced by Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas, a Greek neo-Marxist theorist argued that capitalist states do not always act on behalf of the ruling class, and when they do, it is not necessarily the case because state officials consciously strive to do so, but because the ‘structural’ position of the state is configured in such a way to ensure that the long-term interests of capital are always dominant.

•Poulantzas' main contribution to the Marxist literature on the state was the concept of 'relative autonomy' of the state. While Poulantzas' work on 'state autonomy' has served to sharpen and specify a great deal of Marxist literature on the state, his own framework came under criticism for its ’structural functionalism.’

•Pluralism

•While neo-Marxist theories of the state were relatively influential in continental Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, pluralism, a contending approach, gained greater adherence in the United States. Within the pluralist tradition, Robert Dahl sees the state as either a neutral arena for contending interests or its agencies as simply another set of interest groups.

•With power competitively arranged in society, state policy is a product of recurrent bargaining. Although pluralism recognizes the existence of inequality, it asserts that all groups have an opportunity to pressure the state. The pluralist approach suggests that the state's actions are the result of pressures applied for both polyarchy and organized interests.

•Institutionalism

•Both the Marxist and pluralist approaches view the state as reacting to the activities of groups within society, such as classes or interest groups. In this sense, they have both come under criticism for their 'society-centered' understanding of the state by scholars who emphasize the autonomy of the state with respect to social forces.

•In particular, the “new institutionalism,” an approach to politics that holds that behavior is fundamentally molded by the institutions in which it is embedded, asserts that the state is not an 'instrument' or an 'arena' and does not 'function' in the interests of a single class. Scholars working within this approach stress the importance of interposing civil society between the economy and the state to explain variation in state forms.

•"New institutionalist" writings on the state, such as the works of Theda Skocpol, suggest that state actors are to an important degree autonomous. In other words, state personnel have interests of their own, which they can and do pursue independently (at times in conflict with) actors in society. Since the state controls the means of coercion, and given the dependence of many groups in civil society on the state for achieving any goals they may espouse, state personnel can to some extent impose their own preferences on civil society.

•'New institutionalist' writers, claiming allegiance to Weber, often utilize the distinction between 'strong states' and 'weak states,' claiming that the degree of 'relative autonomy' of the state from pressures in society determines the power of the state—a position that has found favor in the field of international political economy.

•The Scope of State Functions

•Minimal Functions

1.Providing pure public goods

2.Defense, Law and order

3.Property rights

4.Macroeconomic management

5.Public health

6.Improving equity

7.Protecting the poor

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•Intermediate Functions

•Addressing externalities

•Education, environment

•Regulating Monopoly

•Overcoming imperfect education

•Insurance, financial regulation

•Social Insurance

•Activist Functions

•Industrial policy

•Wealth redistribution

•Origin of State

•Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.

•Some people think that the qualifications of a statesman, king, householder, and master are the same, and that they differ, not in kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For example, the ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still larger number, a statesman or king, as if there were no difference between a great household and a small state. The distinction which is made between the king and the statesman is as follows: When the government is personal, the ruler is a king; when, according to the rules of the political science, the citizens rule and are ruled in turn, then he is called a statesman.

•But all this is a mistake; for governments differ in kind, - As in other departments of science, so in politics, the compound should always be resolved into the simple elements or least parts of the whole. We must therefore look at the elements of which the state is composed, in order that we may see in what the different kinds of rule differ from one another, and whether any scientific result can be attained about each one of them.

•In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue (and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves), and of natural ruler and subject, that both may be preserved. For that which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature intended to be lord and master, and that which can with its body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave; hence master and slave have the same interest.

•Out of these two relationships between man and woman, master and slave, the first thing to arise is the family, and Hesiod is right when he says, First house and wife and an ox for the plough, for the ox is the poor man's slave. The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas companions of the cupboard, and by Epimenides the Cretan, companions of the manger.

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•But when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, the first society to be formed is the village. And the most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be suckled with the same milk. And this is the reason why Hellenic states were originally governed by kings; because the Hellenes were under royal rule before they came together, as the barbarians still are. Every family is ruled by the eldest, and therefore in the colonies of the family the kingly form of government prevailed because they were of the same blood.

•As Homer says:

"Each one gives law to his children and to his wives." For they lived dispersedly, as was the manner in ancient times. Wherefore men say that the Gods have a king, because they themselves either are or were in ancient times under the rule of a king. For they imagine, not only the forms of the Gods, but their ways of life to be like their own.

•When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.

•Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is like the Tribe less, lawless, heartless one, whom Homer denounces - the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts.

•Theories of Origin of State

•Theory of Divine Origin

•Force Theory

•Social Contract Theory

•Evolutionary Theory/Historical Theory

•Theory of Divine Origin

•This is the oldest theory concerned in the origin of state.

•According to this theory, state is established and governed by God himself by agent or vicegerent or vicar of God.

•The chief exponent of this theory in early times were the Jews and supporters were the early church father.

•This theory was used especially in medieval period to establish the supremacy of the church over the state.

•The divine origin theory took the form of the theory of the divine right of the king.

•James I, the first stuart King who said that “Kings are he breathing images of God upon the earth,” and Sir Robert Filmer good examples.

•Bousset in France elaborated this theory supporting the despotism of Luis XIV, who proudly declared, “I am the state having full authority directly given by God.”

•People has no right to rebel against the King, if so it is against the God himself. 

•Some of the basic tenets of this theory are: 

1.Monarchy is divinely ordained.

2.Hereditary right is indefeasible that means cannot be taken away.

3.Kings are accountable to God alone

4.Resistance to a lawful king is sin. 

•According to this doctrine, king began to become despot and tyrant. With the growing political consciousness and rise of democratic ideas, this theory was rejected as unsound in theory and dangerous in practice. It got death blow at the hands of Grotius, Hobbes and Locke. Some moral values can be extracted from this theory.

Force Theory

•According to this theory, state is the result of the superior physical force and subjugation of the weaker section by the stronger.

•Physical strength was able to overcome fellowmen and to exercise authority over them.

•Some superior tribes and clans also did so.

•Then state came into being through physical coercion and compulsion, according to this theory.

•As per this theory, war begets the state and Oppenheim, Jenks and many other supports this view.

•This theory only emphasizes force and accepts that state is the product of coercion and force only. But force must have been an important factor in the evolution of state but to think it as an only one factor is a mistake.

•Several other factors, such as, voluntary amalgamation as by force and conquest, as a result of conciliation and agreement, by one another’s cooperation and other peaceful agencies and efforts, etc.

•Force is an important element for both internal and external security of the state but it is not only the cause for the origination of the state.

•Might only cannot go ahead permanently. It should follow its path with a positive weapon of right.

•Force is a physical power while right is a mental power, both should go together in the origination of the state, of course there was strong arms but only with the support of other elements according t MacIver.

•In the words of MacIver, “Force along never holds a group together.”

•So force is one of the component for the state origination but not whole sole cause.

•Social Contract Theory

•According to this theory, state is the result of a deliberate and voluntary contract of primitive man emerging from a state of nature.

•Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau are the main supporters of this theory.

•State of nature was even pre-social. According to Hobbes, it was solitary, nasty and brutish. State came into being by the social contract with the surrender of power to absolute monarchy.  

•According to Locke, “State of nature was pre-political and everything was regulated by natural law, but to execute that law state was originated from the social contract and people chose the constitutional government and limited monarchy.

•According to Rousseau, “State of nature was peaceful, carefree life, happiness, but after the advent of economic need, social strife began and society became pre-social.

•The state was originated through social contract with the agreement to govern the state under “general will” on the basis of popular sovereignty.

•Thus contract was both social contract and governmental or political contract. The objectives of the contract were to secure the life and property of the people.

•Contract was with one another and with all. 

•All contractualists justify the conceptions that governmental authority if it is to be legitimate must rest ultimately on the consent of the government.

•This theory emphasizes upon the fact that state is man-made by the contract especially to provide protection to the people, it is an artificial creation not natural. And government authority is restrained upon by man’s natural freedom.

•This theory has been criticized on three bases: 

a.Historical: It seems only historical fiction not historical truth. There is no trace in any history about such contract.

b.Legal: Contract has no legal binding force. State of nature cannot create legal bindingness of contract.

c.Philosophical: Voluntary relations of individual and state seems unreasonable.

•Membership in the state could not be voluntary, if so state becomes like a company. Man is a part of nature and the state is the highest expression of nature.

•State is a natural growth and not a manufacture. According to T.H. Green, “the real flaw in this theory of social contract is that it implies the possibilities of rights and obligation independently of society, the basis of rights is social recognition not agreement.”

•Some truths could be drawn from this theory is that contract is based on consent of the governed, sovereignty has no right to act arbitrarily which is the basis for modern democracy, the importance of the individual and political authority lies in people.

•Evolutionary Theory/Historical Theory

•According to this theory, the state is a historical growth and result of a gradual evolution.

•It is a continuous development, cannot be referred to any single moment of time, circumstance 

and any event, etc.

•According to Burgess, “It is a gradual realization of the universal principles of human nature. 

There is no single case, place and any trace of deliberate creation of men in the origination of 

the state, but political consciousness has played its role from early period to modernity in the 

origination of state.”

•State was originated on the basis of various causes and varying condition. They are:

a.Kinship

b.Religion

c.Political Consciousness

Kinship:

•Kinship is fact knit together different clans and tribes and gives them unity and cohesion since the early period.

•Kin-relationship is one of the factor to develop common consciousness, common interest, and common purpose which ultimately helped to establish intensive social relationship.

•According to MacIver, “Kinship creates society and society at length creates the states.”

•In the process of development of kinship patriarchal and matriarchal both societies were experienced and such societies contributed in the origin of the state theory through their authority, military and political and religious privileges and powers, legality and sense of morality, tendency to leadership and subordination and custom which translated into law later.  

•MacIver says that “custom is at work turning example into precedents and precedents into institutions.

•Patriarchal society was followed by feudalism in later period, the idea of this society remained for long period and even after the development of complete society. 

•Religion

•Religion played an important role in creation of social consciousness and social solidarity in the emergence of state.

•Sense of common worship and cult of deceased ancestral worship and other kinds of religious ceremony of different tribes developed as sense of social unity and cohesion in the process of origin of the state.

•Kinship and religion were so closely intertwined that the patriarch who later became the tribal chief was also the high priest, the guardian of religion, interpretator of customs and often the magic man and even medical man.

•He was naturally looked upon with reverence in the society.

•He ruled over vast mass with the powerful weapon that is religion.

•Political Consciousness

•Men in a vast mass of society felt need of the state for the protection of themselves. After their wandering habits and hunting nature, men entered into the pastoral and agricultural life and faced several changes as increase in population, vast religious groups, tribal development, contacts with neighboring people, a sense of harmony, accumulation of wealth in individual and group capacity and advance of economic life, etc.

•With those development some sort of organization were formed and they ensured internal order and protection of life and property of the people … it is thus beginning of the origin of the state.

•Gradually organizations received mass support and came into intensive form and became an authoritative body to maintain social relationship and defense of private property and private life.

•Different forms of authoritative body appeared in different times under the leadership of tribal chief, nobles, religious chief, leaders and kings etc. Thus, such authority helped ultimately to form the state institutions.

•State emerged with the emergence of law and government, in the process of kinship, religion and political consciousness and state developed as nation state in the process of political evolution.