Chapter 1: Development of the Modern State
(F) Day of the week: Thursday Class: IS307 Created Time: March 25, 2021 2:13 PM Database: Class Notes Database Date: March 25, 2021 2:13 PM Days Till Date: Passed Last Edited Time: January 30, 2022 11:38 AM Status: Done Type: Lecture, Reading Notes, Study Group
3 Core Features of States
Territory
- Any land territory that is persistent (not ice or erode)
People
- Any state require a population. A desert with no one isn’t a state
Sovereignty
States power are still under constitution & international laws (R2P)
- If they are violating or doing genocide, int’ community can vote to take over responsibility
Internal Sovereignty: can act as it wishes in it’s own territory
- ability to give legitimate power to legitimate groups in soceity.
External Sovereignty: recognition of sovereignty or legitimacy by other states
- some states have internal but not external recognition by powerful states.
Ex: Taiwan isn’t recognized by China as independent
Max Weber ’s Statehood
In his words:
Sovereignty must have both Legal and Legitimate sovereignty for use physical force or going to war:
- Get permission from legislative body
- Get decision from both upper and lower senate
- must be accepted as right and morally legitimate by citizens
4 Stages of Development of Modern State
Stein Rokkan mostly elites do these stages
1. State formation
Elites initiate for unification of a territory of rural areas
Institutions need to be built to
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Provide internal order and deal with disputes
- Secure compliance
- Control territories
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Provide external security
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Extract resources
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Improve communications for military reason
2. Nation Building
A never ending process tie people into a single ‘people’ and allegiance to the political system
- Shared sense of belonging: language, religion, education, historical heritage, and culture
An important process of a new nation
3. Mass Democracies
The mass have right to participate in governmental decision making
- Election for office
Political parties are peaceful & legitimate opposition to government
4. Welfare States
Strengthen economic solidarity between different parts of the population.
- Redistributing the wealth from rich to the disadvantaged groups (Seniors, homeless, poverty ridden, disabled…)
- Equality of opportunity: without biased or division (free education)
All welfare states must be democratic states
Few states go through all the four stages or in the right order
- War/revolution/foreign occupation could interrupt
- Last two stage is difficult due to commitment of elites or leaders
Growth in Number of the Modern State
Warfare
- Only states were able to organize and pay for a sufficient military might to go to war for internal or external enemies.
- Long term struggle in war need strong institution to keep up with
- State institutions was created because: Military was important in securing the compliance of territories with the wishes of centralizing elites.
Capitalism
Capitalist believe only state has the capacity to
- secure investments
- provide social and physical infrastructures
- control and regulate conflicts between capitalist and other classes
- protect the interest of capitalist and other classes against competition from abroad
state can achieve those goals with its
- territorial boundary
- the use of physical force
- its ability to tax and give collective facilities and services.
Capitalist willing to pay tax for states to secure interest of capitalist group
State Theories
Normative vs Empirical State Theories
1. Constitutional Approaches
The agreement or social contract made between citizens and ruler that defines (written in the constitution)
- Major functions & task of state
- Powers and limitation of the rulers
- Rights and duty of citizens
2. Ethical and Moral Approaches
State is a collective entity that serve the collective well being and ensure welfare of its citizens
Based on ethical and moral values of religious theories
- State = God: should respond to need to its creation
3. Conflict Approaches
Conflict theory: is a sociological theory associated with Karl Marx which seeks to explain why and how conflicts occur. It focuses on the competition of social groups competing for
-
wealth and influence
-
interests over scarce resources
-
natural disparity
-
gain more dominance
-
gain more rights
-
higher social status in the society
-
It creates inequality of different groups in society that can lead to a wide range of social destruction:
- poverty
- discrimination
- domestic violence
- revolutions
- wars.
The two main conflict theories:
-
Marxism Capitalist class (bourgeoisie) maintain their power over working class (proletariat) by using state as the instrument to control other classes in society to secure their own interest.
bourgeoisie will set up systems of laws, traditions, and other social structures in order to further support their own control.
-
Feminism men maintain their power by using state to control women. Feminist theorists also define a belief that women are entitled to enjoy the same rights and privileges as men.
4. Pluralist Approach
Pluralists see state as a kind of referee that uses its legitimate authority to make sure that the interests of all groups are treated reasonably and fairly.
- Promote policies for free and fair competition
Characteristics of Plurlist Approach:
- The government is not dominated by a single elite but by multiplicity of relatively small groups
- The groups are politically independent: they have right and freedom to do business in political marketplace.
- Competition of intergroup leads to counterbalancing influence: power of one group tend to offset another.
- Members can belong to more than one association, and this reduce the intensity of conflict
- The system is open: The organization can continuously recruit new members, so it is rare that the organization will shut off. Moreover, the unused resources encourage the formation of new organization.
- Consensus on the rules of game: People accept regular and open elections, the right to vote, freedom of speech etc.
Q&A
- What is a state? Why do we study states? Why has state system come to dominate the international system?
States are the independent political entities and each of them is recognized by the others as a state.
There are four criteria of a state such as having defined territory, permanent population, effective government and international recognition from other states.
The study of state politics allows us to address questions, that we would not be able to, in other context because of sample size problems.
In studying the federal government, we have an N of 1 whereas at the state level we have 50 state which allows us to address questions from a quantitative perspective that otherwise would not be possible.
The states provide a variety of different political structures and institutions therefore with the study of state politics you can address what would happen given a certain situation. However, we can list down as below:
- to know about the similarities and differences in their political institutions and forms of government
- to know what states are
- to know the state features
- to know the rise of the modern state
- to know the catalysts: warfare and capitalism
- to know the growth of state after 1945
- to know the state theories and its common approaches
The state system come to dominate the international system because
Answer: Warfare & Capitalism
one particular state is a powerful country which can use its state system to influence/lead/govern other states or to arrange/maintain the world order by using its own power to do it.
As Aristotle noted, in order to obtain and keep its place as the highest and most encompassing community, a state must be in charge that must be a state that is more powerful than any of the communities it incorporates.
💡 For example, the United States is by far the most powerful state in the international system and currently the “closest to a hegemonic power the modern state system has ever experienced”. US influence is being used to promote liberal principles throughout the international political and economic system. The US global strategy consists of:
- maintaining global military dominance
- securing economic prosperity through the promotion of free markets and democracy
- getting allies to share the burden of maintaining global stability
- What are three conventional features of states? What are differences between internal sovereignty, external sovereignty, legal sovereignty, and legitimate sovereignty?
Three conventional features of the state are territory, people and sovereignty.
- Territory refers to the fixed territory of each states regardless of the size.
- People, on the other hand, states need to have fixed population within their fixed territory regardless of races or cultures, and similar to territory, the amount of population is not mattered either.
- Sovereignty, lastly, is the highest power of states that act independently without under authority of other states or community.
Sovereignty, traditionally, is divided into two types
- Internal sovereignty is that within its own territory every state can act as it wishes and is independent of other powers.
- External sovereignty is that the state is recognized as a state by other states. It has the capacity to act independently and autonomously on the world stage and unlimited freedom from interference.
Another two are mentioned by Max Weber , which mainly focus on the use of physical force by the government of a state towards their own population.
- Legal sovereignty is sovereignty of the use of force that is instructed by the constitution. Whether the military is controlled by or is independent from the government.
- Legitimate sovereignty is the monopoly of the use of physical force towards its people from the government is based on the acceptance from the people which varies. In the US, the legitimacy of the government is decided upon the universal election; whereas, China, the government is accepted by the people through the full control by the Communist Party.
- What are the Four stages in the development of modern states?
- State formation: penetration. Elites took the initial step for the unification of a given territory to extend their power and to ensure their control over the peripheral in the rural area. Thus, in order to secure their compliance, various institutions were created to provide domestic order, external security, and as well as to extract the resources.
- Nation building: standardization. Elites aim to build nation states because they want to develop the feelings of common identity and the sense of faithfulness to the political system among the people of the new state. In such an approach, they feature the system symbols such as the national flag, national heroes, etc.
- Mass democracies: equalization. The masses conquered the right to participate in governmental decision making, and hence democratic states were created.
- The fully right of the opposition parties was legitimate
- peaceful change of groups or parties in government.
- The idea of the alternation of parties in government was associated with the belief in the principle of the legitimacy of popularly elected government.
- Welfare state: redistribution. Public welfare services were created to support the young and old, the sick and disabled, and the unemployed and poor. Progressive taxation and state contributions facilitate the transfer of resources from the wealthier to the less fortunate parts of the population.
- What are the main catalysts of the modern state formation?
There are two main catalysts of the modern state formation including:
-
Warfare: refers to the engagement in or the activities involved in war or conflict. It is focused on securing the compliance of territories with the wishes of centralizing elites. Only states were able to organize and pay for a sufficient military might to go to war.
💡 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, war was a normal state of affairs for the emerging states during that time. In European history, countries were really persistent involvement in wars and the long-term struggle for domination of territories over centuries with all its powers and capacities. We could see great powers such as Spain, France, England, and The Netherlands were very frequently at war during this period of time.
By this, it shows that warfare can thus be seen as the primary factor behind the emergence of the modern state.
-
Capitalism: In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, there was a rise of capitalism that facilitated the emergence of the modern state.
Capitalist believe only state has the capacity to
- secure investments
- provide social and physical infrastructures
- control and regulate conflicts between capitalist and other classes
- protect the interest of capitalist and other classes against competition from abroad
state can achieve those goals with its
- territorial boundary
- the use of physical force
- its ability to tax and give collective facilities and services.
Although, warfare and capitalism are not likely to be direct causes of state formation, the demands of war and profits certainly strengthen the formation of territorial defined political units that became known as state.
- Explain state theories: constitutional approaches.
Constitutional approaches is about how legitimacy of the state is established through constitution. It is an effort to justified how controversial constitutional issues should be decided and justification address the people within a particular legal state.
State is established by some agreement or social contract between citizens and rulers that
- defines the major functions and tasks of the state and the powers of its rulers.
- It’s create the legal framework in which regulatory decision affecting the citizen life.
However, it is not really a contract between citizens an rulers, it is about to understand what sorts of agreement or legitimacy of state should be established in order to maintain order and stable state.
Explain state theories: conflict approaches.
Conflict theory: is a sociological theory associated with Karl Marx which seeks to explain why and how conflicts occur.
It focuses on the competition of interests over scarce resources, natural disparity, and creates inequality of different groups in society that can lead to a wide range of social phenomena such as poverty, discrimination, domestic violence, revolutions and even wars.
Conflict theorists believe that conflict result of social groups competing for wealth and influence.
They compete to gain more dominance, gain more rights and higher social status in the society and so on.
In the current studies of international relations, there are seven major theories that explain why and how conflicts occur. They include (1) Classical/Neo-realism; (2) Liberalism/Neo-liberalism; (3) Marxism/ Neo-Marxism; (4) Feminism; (5) Constructivism; (6) Post-colonialism; and (7) Green Theory.
The two main conflict theories that we study in sociology are Marxism and Feminism which see society divided by social class and gender respectively.
- Marxist conflict theory see society divided into two primary social classes due to the outcome of unequal wealth distribution (social inequality). Capitalist class (bourgeoisie) maintain their power over working class (proletariat) by using state as the means to control other classes in society to secure their own interest. Conflict theory assumes the bourgeoisie will set up systems of laws, traditions, and other social structures in order to further support their own control.
- Similarly, Feminism also reflects the conflict between groups in society, but instead of seeing society in terms of class conflict, they see conflicting interests between females and males (gender inequality). They believe that man maintain their power by using state to control women. Feminist theorists also define a belief that women are entitled to enjoy the same rights and privileges as men. Thus, ‘the feminist movement aims to bring changes that will end discriminatory practices and realize equal rights for women in all spheres of life’ {#3e007f}
Explain state theories: pluralist approaches.
- Pluralist approaches see the state as the main instrument for the regulation of conflict and the reconciliation of competing interest. Pluralists see state as a kind of referee that uses its legitimate authority to make sure that the interests of all groups are treated reasonably fairly rather than seeing it as an instrument of class control and oppression
- An example of pluralist state is the United States of America and down below are the characteristics of pluralist
- The government is not dominated by a single elite but by multiplicity of relatively small groups
- The groups are politically independent: they have right and freedom to do business in political marketplace.
- Competition of intergroup leads to countervailing influence: power of one group tend to offset another. Members can belong to more than one association, and this reduce the intensity of conflict
- The system is open: The organization can continuously recruit new members, so it is rare that the organization will shut off. Moreover, the unused resources encourage the formation of new organization.
- Consensus on the rules of game: People accept regular and open elections, the right to vote, freedom of speech etc.