Political Science: Chapter 3

State is a

… political unit that has ultimate sovereignty—that is, a political unit that has ultimate responsibility for the conduct of its own affairs

… way to organize power over a large territory.

… legal structure, giving a government the right to monopolize and organize the use of power within its boundaries.

The state developed in

Europe between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries; its rise coincided with the development of modern commerce and industry.

Nation

a large group of people who are bound together and recognize a similarity among themselves because of a common culture; in particular, a common language seems important in creating nationhood. Where nations do not correspond to the boundaries of states, great tensions may arise.

Two rise of Modern State dates

1. 1648 and the Treaty or Peace of Westphalia (recognized geographic and territorial boundaries & laid framework for international law), which brought to an end both the Thirty and the Eighty Years War. These wars had engulfed the Holy Roman Empire and many other countries or empires across Europe AKA beginning of the state-centric view of international politics and law; sovereignty

2. 1815, with the Congress of Vienna. Historians mark the invention of modern states in Europe with Napoleon’s work from 1800 to 1815. he Congress in Vienna, convened after Napoleon’s defeat and presided over by Klemens von Metternich, created the nineteenth map of Europe that lasted at least until World War

What led to the invention of the state

the coming of industry and of complicated commercial arrangements

• merchants and industrialists could draw on a large, uniformly treated population as their pool of laborers, and they could sell their products across a large market subject to a single set of laws.

• States thus revolved around common nationalities, ethnicities, or languages as ways of grouping individuals.

• modern industry and commerce also made the state possible by providing the hardware, the technology, and above all the ease of communication by which an army could readily control a large, widespread population.

State: Choice vs Power

• commerce and industry needed something like the state, and so the state was invented. It emerged because it was an appropriate choice.

• On the other hand, modern commerce and industry made it easier to control people and seize taxes from them, and so the state was able to develop. Governments were able to spread their power more widely.

Max Weber

(1864–1920) was a famous German sociologist whose writings on the state, public administration, and bureaucracies have been tremendously influential. His theory or definition of the modern state is an entity that has a monopoly over violence or use of force within a specific geographic area.

Marxist socialist theory of state

modern society consists of one class (the capitalists) dominating another (the workers). The workers have to be controlled because of the tensions caused by this domination, and to do this the capitalists need to establish and maintain the state.

public good

something that benefits all members of the community but that no one can be prevented from using; every member of the community can enjoy the benefits of it whether that person has helped pay for it or not.

national defense, medical research, space program, public health programs

externality

an outcome of a transaction or process that affects third parties.

lessening crime or pollution, economic inequality, sexism, racism

free rider

one who can enjoy the benefits of the policy whether she has contributed or not

Nation vs State

A nation is a cultural and especially a linguistic grouping of people who feel that they belong together; a state is a political unit with sovereignty.

nationalism

passionate identification with a nation, or with a state riding on the coattails of nation

regime

a form of government that a state has. EX: A democracy or a military dictatorship

failed state

geographic entities with no effective central state apparatus.

government as exists is unable to project military force across the territory of the state to maintain security and safety for its people; its laws are not obeyed, and it is unable to provide public services

EX: Somalia from late 1980s until recently and Afghanistan in the 1990s

can’t do big three: protect, provide, control

civil society

the part of society that is organized and active but is neither controlled by the government nor focused on private concerns such as the family or economic activity.

EX: religious organizations, hobby groups, political movements, and professional societies

challenges to the state

world leaders are groping for structures that would replace many functions of states and operate over a wider geographic range than the state.

climate change

protecting human rights