State (polity)

This article discusses states as sovereign political entities; for other meanings, see state (disambiguation).

A state is an organized political community, occupying a territory, and possessing internal and external sovereignty, which successfully claims the monopoly of the use of force.

It may or may not have an organized government to exist. Several states have had episodes were two or more groups dispute control of the government (i.e. China in 1912) but they never lost their state quality. Thus, a government is not necesary for a state to be a state as long as its existence is recognized by the international community. However, recognition of the state's claim to sovereignty by other states, enables it to enter into international agreements. Moreover, it needs a government to control its internal affairs.

For more information see government.

Introduction

'''''''''''The word "state" in contemporary parlance often means the "Westphalian state", in reference to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 and is used most often in [[political science'''''''''''

]].

Max Weber in "Politics as a vocation" (1918) gave an oft-cited definition of the State in contemporary political theories. According to Weber, "Every state is founded on force [...] If no social institutions existed which knew the use of violence, then the concept of 'state' would at be eliminated, and a condition would emerge that could be designated as 'anarchy,' in the specific sense of this word". Hence, Weber defines the state as "a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." In this definition he mirrors Hobbes's argument in that, once instituted, the Leviathan will prevent violent death. Ind that sense, Weber claims, ". The state is considered the sole source of the 'right' to use violence".[1].

Weber's definition is important as he puts forth the notion that the state is the ultimate depositary of power. In that sense, power, as opposed to, for example sovereignty, organization, allocation and other attributes, is the most important concept associated with the state in contemporary political science (see the seminal Peter Evans, Theda Skocpol, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds., Bringing the State Back in, Cambridge University Press, 1985)).

Of course, some have taken issue with the power of the state. Erico Malatesta a noted anarchist, wrote that "Anarchists generally make use if the word "State" to mean all the collection of institutions, political, legislative, judicial, military, financial, etc., by means of which management of their own affairs, the guidance of their personal conduct, and the care of ensuring their own safety are taken from the people and confided to certain individuals, and these, whether by usurpation or delegation, are invested with the right to make laws over and for all, and to constrain the public to respect them, making use of the collective force of the community to this end."

Others criticize other attributes of the modern state. For example, its [autonomy] or sovereignty. In theory a state is an entity that enjoys extensive autonomy in its domestic economic and social policy, largely free from interference from other states and powers . However, number of modern commentators have claimed that we are experiencing the decline of the Westphalian state as the principal actor of the international system, pointing to economic, cultural, political, and technological changes in the world, such as globalization and the emergence of regional and supernational groupings such as the European Union. (see Kenichi Omahe, The end of the nation state, 1996).

Synonyms

The term "state" is also used to describe subnational territorial divisions within a federal system, as in the case of the United States of America. See state (law) and state (non-sovereign), federalism.

In common speech, the terms country, nation and state are casually used as synonyms, but in a more strict usage they are distinguished:
country is the geographical area.
nation designates a people (however, national and international both confusingly refer as well to matters pertaining to what are strictly states, as in "national capital", "international law").
state refers to the government, and an entity in international law.

Currently, the entire land surface of the Earth is divided among the territories of the roughly two hundred states now existing, with the special case of Antarctica, a variety of disputed territories, and a number of areas where state power exists in theory, but not in practice (the most significant of these being Somalia) (see failed states).

In the English language, the terms nation (cultural), country (geographical) and state (political) do have precise meanings, but in daily speech and writing they are often used interchangeably, and are open to different interpretations. For example, File:Cornwallflag22.PNG Cornwall is considered by some to be a nation in File:England flag.svg England which is a constituent country, or home nation, of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is an internationally recognised sovereign state, which is also referred to as a country and whose inhabitants have British nationality. The terminology can be further complicated by the use of the word state to mean a non-sovereign sub-entity of as sovereign state, as is done in the United States and Template:AU. In most English-speaking counties when the terms state, nation and country are used internally, they are understood by the context in which they are used and are not controversial. However, when these terms are used to describe the statehood aspirations of a people who do not currently live in the internationally recognised independent state they would like to inhabit, these terms can be controversial and open to misunderstanding.

Etymology

The word "state" originates from the medieval state or throne upon which the head of state (usually a monarch) would sit. By process of metonymy, the word state became used to refer to both the head of state and the power entity he represented (though the former meaning has fallen out of use). A similar association of terms can today be seen in the practice of referring to government buildings as having authority, for example "The White House today released a press statement..."

Formation of the state

The birth of the state, in the broadest sense of the word, coincides with the rise of civilization. For most of the existence of the human species, people lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. That lifestyle began to change with the invention of agriculture around the 9th millennium BC. The practice of agriculture made it necessary for human beings to build permanent settlements and spend most of their lives in close proximity to the land they cultivated. Thus, control over land became an issue for the first time. To express that control, various forms of property rights developed, with people claiming different kinds of rights over various areas of land. Disagreements over the nature and extent of such claims of ownership degenerated into violence and the first "wars".

In some parts of the world, notably Mesopotamia and the Nile valley, natural conditions favoured the concentration of land ownership in few hands. Eventually, a small group of people found themselves owning the land on which many other people worked for a living. This control over the land meant control over the people whose livelihoods depended on the land; thus, the first primitive states arose. These states were usually despotic and unstable, with the ruler(s) holding absolute power over their subjects until some other ruler(s) displaced them. Since there were no laws and no infrastructure, and since power was exercised arbitrarily, some political theorists and historians do not consider such early forms of despotic rule to have been states in the proper sense of the word; they are sometimes called proto-states.

One of the earliest known sets of laws, the Code of Hammurabi, has been dated to ca. 1700 BC. It was around this time that the concept of law - one of the foundations of the modern state - began to appear. But the rulers of the Ancient Near East had a long tradition of holding absolute power and claiming the status of god-kings (see hydraulic despotism). Thus, laws limiting the power of monarchs did not develop very far in that region.

The city-states of Ancient Greece were the first to establish states whose powers were clearly defined in laws (even if the laws themselves could usually be changed quite easily). Also, notably, the idea of democracy was born in ancient Athens (see Athenian democracy).

Many institutions of the modern state (especially in Western Europe and areas once dominated by Western-European empires) can trace their origins back to Ancient Rome, which inherited the political traditions of the Greeks and developed them further (particularly the rule of law, albeit in incomplete form). However, the Roman Republic gave way to the Roman Empire - which, in turn, created the concept of universal empire: the idea that the entire world was (or should be) under the authority of one single legitimate state.

The fall of the Roman Empire in the west and the Great Migrations changed the character of European politics. The "barbarian" (i.e., non-Roman) kingdoms and chieftains that followed the Roman Empire were ephemeral and transitory and bore little resemblance to the modern state. Even the kingdom of Charlemagne was fleeting; without the tradition of primogeniture, it dissolved into three smaller kingdoms with the Treaty of Verdun in 843. These kingdoms were treated more as land holdings by the royalty that ruled them. Once again, the state became little more than an expression of the ruler's private ownership of a certain area of land.

The lack of a real successor to the Roman Empire in Western Europe created a power vacuum. The kingdoms of Western Europe were besieged by invaders on the frontiers - first, the Muslim invasions from the south, then a series of new migrations from the east and finally the Viking invasions from the north. At the same time, the various kingdoms (and smaller political units) were often involved in wars with each other over territory and succession.

The solution that evolved out of these affairs was decidedly opposed to the system of independent states and temporary alliances that dominate the modern international system. Religion, which had rarely been a factor in the power calculations of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, became the cornerstone of an extremely loose pan-European defensive bloc under the aegis of the Catholic Church. This system produced an extensive framework of institutions - sometimes called "feudalism" - that regulated internal conflict and enabled Western Europe to confront exterior threats, even while no individual secular entity was truly independent in the sense of the modern state.

This system asserted itself abroad in the form of the Crusades as the Middle Ages progressed. In 1302, Pope Boniface VIII stated that the political powers of Christendom exercised their prerogatives "at the command and sufferance of the priest." This limited the power of kings, who were obliged to pledge their ultimate allegiance to the Pope.

The Holy Roman Empire, one of the strongest medieval authorities, emerged as a competitor to Papal power under Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who invaded Italy to press his claims to secular authority in the mid-12th century. The weakening of the papacy was a major theme of the Middle Ages; the Western Schism in the later 14th century, a dispute over papal succession, was exploited by secular authorities and contributed to their growing power. The emergence of large, stable land holdings by single dynasties - for instance, France and Castile - enabled them to take a more active and independent role than their traditionally subsidiary role in the earlier middle ages.

This shift to more independent, more secular actors would become a major point of controversy in Early Modern Europe. The great dynasties of Europe dramatically consolidated power by the beginning of the 16th century; additionally, the external threats to Europe had considerably lessened. The Reformation was to have a powerful impact on the structure of European politics; the dispute was not only theological, but also threatened the very fabric of the ancient political institutions of feudalism. The bloody conflicts that followed, blending the religious and political, pitted those who asserted the authority of the Pope (and in Germany, the Holy Roman Emperor) against those who asserted the authority of secular authorities and their sovereign ability to make internal policy, particularly when that policy reflected religious affiliation, Roman Catholic or Protestant.

These conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War of the 17th century. In 1648, the powers of Europe signed the Treaty of Westphalia which ended the religious violence for purely political motives and the Church was stripped of temporal power - even though religion continued to play a political role as the foundation of the divine right of kings. The principle of "cuius regio, eius religio" established at Westphalia and previously in the Peace of Augsburg set a precedent of noninterference in other states' internal affairs that was key in the evolution of the modern state. In Germany, the office of the Holy Roman Emperor, the most prominent symbol of lingering institutions of feudalism, was emasculated as a secular authority in favor of the constituent elements of the Holy Roman Empire. The modern state was born.

The state continued to develop as monarchs brought nobles and free towns into line and amassed spectacular resources and prestige. The growing numbers of civil servants eventually became known as the bureaucracy after the elevation of the Republican ideal.

Nearly a century and a half after the Peace of Westphalia, the state became fully modern through the French Revolution. Claiming 'national will' as its justification, Napoleon and the Grande Armee of France swept over Europe. In response, conquered and neighboring principalities discarded their old systems and adopted the new model of the nation state. The nation state has remained the dominant political entity all over the world ever since, even though the many ideologies of the 19th and 20th century have created numerous different ways of running the affairs of nation states, as well as numerous different forms of internal and external organization (see political system and economic system).

International level

(see also international relations

The legal criteria for statehood are not obvious. Often, the laws are surpased by political circumstances. However, one of the documents often quoted on the matter is the Montevideo Convention from 1933, the first article of which states:

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Also, in article 3 it very clearly states that statehood is independent of recognition by other states. This is the declarative theory of statehood. While the Montevideo is a regional American convention and has no legal effect outside the Americas, some have nonetheless seen it as an accurate statement of customary international law.

On the other hand, article 3 of the convention is attacked by the advocates of the constitutive theory of statehood, where a state exists only insofar as it is recognized by other states. Which theory is correct is a controversial issue in international law. An example in practice was the collapse of central government in Somalia in the early 1990s: the Montevideo convention would imply that the state of Somalia no longer existed, and the subsequently declared republic of Somaliland (comprising part of the so-called "former" Somalia) may meet the criteria for statehood. However the self-declared republic has not achieved recognition by other states. One explanation for this might be the very high value placed on territorial integrity within international law.(((((---- a recognition of government government is not the same as recognition of the State. The international community never ceased to recognize Somalia. Intead, the international community chose to recognized two separate states (Somalia and Eritrea).

Article 1 of the convention is also attacked by those who claim that it fails to take into account the complicated situations of military occupation, territorial cession, and governments in exile. Richard W. Hartzell is a leading proponent of this view, and stresses that the four criteria of article 1 need to be expanded to nine. See The Montevideo Convention and Military Occupation.

The domestic level

Looked at from the point of view of an individual or unitary state, it can be seen as a centralized organization. Those studying this level, emphasize the relationship between the state and its people. The English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued that in order to avoid a multi-sided civil war, we needed a "Leviathan", a unified and centralized state. However, many institutions that have been called "states" do not live up to this definition. For example, in countries such as Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the central state has so far not succeeded in monopolizing the legitimate use of force, and must compete with various local warlords. These cases are sometimes called "failed states".

Other states may have excessive control over their subjects totalitatianism, even killing them (i.e Pol-Pot), exceding its excercise of the use of force. These states are called "predatory states". (Benjamin Polak and Boaz Moselle (2001). A Model of a Predatory State, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization. pp. 1-33)

From an economic point of view, one of the most basic characteristics of a modern state is regulation of property rights, investment, trade and the commodity markets (in food, fuel, etc.) typically using its own currency. Although many states (by their own decision) increasingly cede these powers to trade bloc entities, e.g. North American Free Trade Agreement, European Union, it is always controversial to do so, and opens the question of whether these blocs are in fact simply larger states. The study of political economy, which evolved into the modern study of economics, deals with these specific questions in more detail.

However, although states are often influenced in their decisions and no longer hold an absolute jurisdiction over their internal affairs, they are nonetheless much stronger in relation to international organizations or to other states than lower (substate) political subdivisions normally are. But the trend at the moment is for the power of superstate levels of governance to increase, and there is no sign of this increase abating. Many (especially those who favour constitutional theories of international law) therefore reject as outdated the idea of sovereignty, and view the state as just the chief political subdivision of the planet.

Philosophies of the state

Different political philosophies have distinct opinions concerning the state as a domestic organization. In the modern era, these philosophies emerged with the rise of capitalism, which coincided with the (re)emergence of the state as a separate and centralized sector of society. Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau pondered issues concerning the ideal and actual roles of the state. Recent philosophers like John Rawls and Robert Nozick were more concerned with distributive justice and the morality of exercising political power.

There are four theories about the origin (and indirectly the justification) of the state. They are:

Supernatural or natural authority - In this view, the state is either ordained by a higher power (such as God for the "Divine right of kings") or arises naturally out of a presumed human need for order and authority.

Natural rights - According to this theory, human beings have certain rights that are "natural" (the implications of this word may vary), and establish states for the protection of those rights.

Social contract - This idea holds that the state is established by the people (i.e. through the consent of the governed) in order to provide for various collective needs that cannot be satisfied through individual efforts, such as national defense, public roads, education, "the general welfare", etc.

Conflict - Perhaps the simplest of the theories, it holds that the state did not arise out of any conscious decision, but merely as the result of violent conflict. Various groups of people fought each other for control over land or other resources, and the winning side imposed its domination on the losing side.

These four theories can accommodate the full spectrum of political views. In practice, most people (and most political philosophies) subscribe to a combination of two or more of the above theories - arguing, for example, that different states have different origins. The conflict theory, in particular, is often combined with one of the other three in order to separate the illegitimate states (those created through conflict and subjugation) from the legitimate ones.

Some of the major major philosophies of the state are: contractarianism, liberalism, Marxism, conservatism, and anarchism.

Contractarianism, as the name implies, is based on the social contract theory. It is also the only major philosophy of the state that does not fall within any single political ideology - perhaps because several different ideologies have adopted it as their own. Contractarianism is the foundation of modern democracy, as well as most forms of socialism and some types of liberalism. In contractarian thinking, the state should express the public interest, the interests of the whole society, and reconcile it with the separate interests of individuals. The state provides public goods and other kinds of collective consumption, while preventing individuals from free-riding (taking advantage of collective consumption without paying) by forcing them to pay taxes.

Liberalism, in the classical sense, is based mainly on the natural rights theory. In this view, some or even all "rights" exist naturally and are not created by the state. For example, John Locke believed that individual property rights existed prior to the creation of the state, while the state's main job should be to preserve those rights. Historically, liberals have been less concerned with determining what the state should do and far more interested in stipulating what the state shouldn't do. The liberal philosophy of the state holds that the powers of any state are restricted by natural rights that exist independently of the human mind and overrule any social contract. However, there has been considerable debate among liberals as to what these natural rights actually are. Critics argue that they do not exist at all, since they are not evident from any observations of nature.

On the other hand, there are also liberals who subscribe to the contractarian theory. In most cases, they fall on the left wing of liberalism, being social liberals ("New Deal" liberals; see American liberalism) and arguing for a welfare state. They stand in opposition to adherents of the natural rights theory, who tend to be libertarians, falling on the right wing of liberalism and arguing for a "minimal" state.

The Marxist philosophy of the state is based on the conflict theory - specifically, on the idea of class conflict. In this view, the primary role of the state in practice is to enforce the existing system of unequal property and personal rights, class domination, and exploitation. The state also mediates in all types of social conflicts, and supplies necessary social-infrastructural conditions for society as a whole. Under such systems as feudalism, the lords used their own military force to exploit their vassals. Under capitalism, on the other hand, the use of force is centralized in a specialized organization which protects the capitalists' class monopoly of ownership of the means of production, allowing the exploitation of those without such ownership. In modern Marxian theory, such class domination can coincide with other forms of domination (such as patriarchy and ethnic hierarchies).

Further, in Marxist theory, classes and other forms of exploitation should be abolished by establishing a socialist system, to be followed later by a communist one. Communism, the final goal, is a classless, propertyless and stateless society; however, socialism still preserves personal property and a (democratic) state. Thus, Marxism is opposed to the state (which it views as illegitimate, in accordance with the conflict theory), but does not wish to abolish the state immediately. As such, there is some overlap between Marxism and contractarianism: the socialist state that Marxists wish to establish as their short-term goal is to be based on a form of social contract. This state ought subsequently to slowly "wither away" as the representative democracy of socialism gradually transforms into the direct democracy of communism. Once the process is complete, the communist social order has been achieved and the state no longer exists as an entity separate from the people.

In conservative thinking, which is based on the theory of (super)natural authority, the existing structure of traditions and hierarchies (of class, patriarchy, ethnic dominance, etc.) is seen as benefiting society overall. Thus, in a way, conservatives accept some ideas from both the Marxist and the liberal schools of thought, but view them in a different light: the state forces people to accept class and other kinds of domination, but this is seen as being for their own good. This perspective posits that, in general, current traditions only exist because they have been demonstrably successful in the past. Further, as with the liberals, the state is seen as always existing and/or "natural". Many conservatives, especially in recent decades, have come out in favor of the liberal theory of natural rights.

Finally, in anarchist thinking, the state is nothing but an unnecessary and exploitative segment of society. Totally rejecting the Hobbesian notion that only a state can prevent chaos, anarchists argue that the state's monopoly on violence creates chaos. They believe that if the state and its restrictions on individual freedom were abolished, people could figure out how to work together peacefully and individual creativity would be unleashed. Contrary to the Marxist perspective, the anarchists see the state as an unnecessary evil, rather than a tool to be used in the class struggle.

Contemporary Theories of the State

A useful way to understand the current debates in political science is following Stephen Krasner (1984) explanation. According to him, political scientists go around four different conceptions of the state:

1. The state is government or as an actor on its own right . In some of these approaches the state is a self contained unitary actor in which the state interacts with others to maximize their interests. (i.e. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 1979)

2.The state is a public bureaucracy and institutionalized legal order. The pluralist theories of the state assumed that the state was composed of different political actors and that the well-being of the state depended on allocating power to the most representative groups or individuals. (i.e. Robert Dahl, Who Governs?, 1961)

3. The state is ruling class (Marxist theories of the state). In this view the state is a distortion of social life as it serves the interest of the ruling class, perpetuating the exploitation of humans against humans. (i.e. Lenin, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State)

4. The state is normative order (symbolic and cultural theories of the state). In general, these views spouse the idea that the state is the resultant symbolic, normative, cultural and moral expression of social life. (i.e. Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theater State in Nineteenth Century Bali, 1980)

Each of these aproaches concentrate on different functions and attributtes of the state and, hence, give way to different explanations for political outcomes. However, in general, contemporary political science studies the state as a problem of rule power and not as a problem of allocation (pluralism). Ultimately, the best way to study the state is thorough it institutions as most political scientist do institutionalism, historical institutionalism, new institutionalism. ((Peter Evans, Theda Skocpol, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds., Bringing the State Back in, Cambridge University Press, 1985)).

References

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Stepen Krasner, in "Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics," Comparative Politics , (January l984).

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