idealist, functionalist, organizational, international
The state has been understood in four quite different ways: what are these perspectives?
State
(Blank) is more extensive than government. It is a continuing permanent entity
Government
(blank) is simply a part of the state. It can come and go and its system can be reformed and remodeled.
authority
The state exercises an impersonal (blank).
Government
is the means through which the authority of the state is brought into operation
State
It is a political association that establishes sovereign jurisdiction within defined territorial borders, and exercises authority through permanent institutions.
G. W. F. Hegel
The idealist approach to the state is most clearly reflected in the writings of
the family, civil society , the state.
Hegel identified three ‘moments’ of social existence: what are these?
Family
Hegel argued that within this moment of social existence, a ‘particular altruism’ operates that encourages people to set aside their own interests for the good of their children or elderly relatives.
civil society
Hegel argued that this moment of social existence was seen as a sphere of “universal egoism” in which individuals place their own interests before those of others.
Hegel, universal altruism
He conceived that the state was an ethical community underpinned by mutual sympathy - aka as ?
Functionalist approach
This view approaches the state by focusing on the role or purpose of state institutions.
Functionalist approach
This view says that the central function of the state is invariably seen as the maintenance of social order, defines the state as that set of institutions that uphold order and deliver social stability.
Neo-marxists
They are the ones who adopted the Functionalist view of the state because they see it as a mechanism through which class conflict is ameliorated to ensure the long-term survival of the capitalist system.
Functionalist approach
The weakness of this view of the state, however, is that it tends to associate any institution that maintains order such as family, mass media, trade unions and the church with the state itself.
Idealist approach
The weakness of this view of the state is that it fosters an uncritical reverence for the state and, by defining the state in ethical terms, fails to distinguish clearly between institutions that are part of the state and those that are outside of the state.
Organizational approach
This view defines the state as the apparatus of government in its broadest sense, that is, as that set of institutions that are recognizably ‘public’, in that they are responsible for the collective organization of social existence and are funded at the public’s expense. The virtue of this definition is that it distinguishes clearly between the state and civil society.
Organizational approach
Using this view of the state allows us to talk about rolling forward or rolling back the state, in the sense of expanding or contracting the responsibilities of the state, and enlarging or diminishing its institutional machinery.
sovereign
In the organizational view, this is one of the five key features of the state:
The state is (blank). It exercises absolute and unrestricted power, in that it stands above all other associations and groups in society.
public
In the organizational view, this is one of the five key features of the state:
State institutions are recognizably (blank), in contrast to the ‘private’ institutions of civil society.
Public bodies
These are responsible for making and enforcing collective decisions.
Private bodies
These exist to satisfy individual interests.
legitimation
In the organizational view, this is one of the five key features of the state:
The state is an exercise in (blank). The decisions of state are usually (although not necessarily) accepted as binding on the members of society because, they are made in the public interest, or for common good; as the state reflects the permanent interests of society.
domination
In the organizational view, this is one of the five key features of the state:
The state is an instrument of (blank). State authority is backed up by coercion; the state must have the capacity to ensure that its laws are obeyed and that transgressors are punished. Max Weber defined the state by its monopoly of the means of ‘legitimate violence’.
territorial association
In the organizational view, this is one of the five key features of the state:
The state is a (blank) (blank). The jurisdiction of the state is geographically defined, and it encompasses all those who live within the state’s borders, whether they are citizens or non-citizens. One the international stage, the state is therefore regarded as an autonomous entity.
International view
This view of the state views it primarily as an actor on the world stage; indeed, as the basic unit of international politics. This highlights the dualistic structure of the state; the fact that it has two faces, one looking outwards and the other looking inwards.
International view
This view of the state deals with the state’s outward-looking face, its relation with other states and, therefore, its ability to provide protection against external law.
territory, population, government, relations
According to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, the state has four features:
a defined (blank)
a permanent (blank)
an effective (blank)
the capacity to enter into (blank) with other states.
Political philosophers, sociologists
treat civil society as separate from the state
IR scholars
treats civil society as part of the state, in that it encompasses not only an effective government but also a permanent population.
United Nations
Is a widely accepted as the body that, by granting full membership, determines when a new state has come into existence.
16th and 17th Century Europe
When and where did the state emerge?
State
It was a historical institution and is a system of centralized rule that succeeded in subordinating all other institutions(and especially) the Church, bringing an end to the competing and overlapping authority systems that had characterized Medieval Europe.
Charles Tilly
According to him, the central factor that explains the development of the modern state was its ability to fight wars. “War made the state, and the state made war”.
Marxists
According to them, the emergence of the state emerged from the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and was used as a tool by the emerging bourgeois class.
Michael Mann
He offered an account of the emergence of the state that stresses the state’s capacity to combine ideological, economic, military and political forms of power or the IEMP MODEL.
Nation-state
was developed in the 19th century through a process of gradual democratization.
Pluralist state
This theory of the state has a very clear liberal lineage. It stems from the belief that the state acts as an ‘umpire’ or ‘referee’ in society. This view has also dominated mainstream political analysis, accounting for a tendency, at least within Anglo-American thought, to discount the state and state organizations and focus instead on ‘government’. It is based on underlying, and often unacknowledged, assumptions about state neutrality.
Pluralist state
It dismisses the state as an abstraction and sees its institutions as independent actors in their own right rather than as elements of a broader state machine.
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke
The pluralist view of the state can be traced back to (blank) and (blank).
Political obligation
This is the grounds on which the individual is obliged to obey and respect the state.
Thomas Hobbes
In his view, stability and order could be secured only through the establishment of and absolute and unlimited state, with power that could be neither challenged, nor questioned. (Pluralist state)
John Locke
In his view, the purpose of the state is very specific: it is restricted to the defence of a set of ‘natural’ or God-given individual rights; namely, ‘life, liberty and property’. This establishes a clear distinction between the responsibilities of the state (essentially, the maintenance of domestic order and the protection of property) and the responsibilities of individual citizens (usually seen as the realm of civil society). (Pluralist state)
Schwarzmantel
According to him, the state is the servant of society and not its master. (1994)
Theory of society
As a (blank), pluralism asserts that: within liberal democracies, power is widely and evenly dispersed.
Theory of the state
As a (blank), pluralism holds that the state is neutral, insofar as it is susceptible to the influence of various groups and interests, and all social classes.
Modern Pluralists
They believed that modern industrialized states are both more complex and less responsive to popular pressures than classical pluralism suggested.
Capitalist state
In this theory of the state, Karl Marx defined it as ‘The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie’. From this perspective, the state is clearly dependent on society and entirely dependent on its economically dominant class, which in capitalism is the bourgeoisie.
Capitalist state
Views the state as nothing but an instrument of class oppression: the state emerged out of and in a sense reflects the class system.
Lenin
He described the state starkly as ‘an instrument for the oppression of the exploited class’.
Capitalist state
Karl Marx theorized that the state could enjoy what has come to be seen as ‘relative autonomy’ from the class system, the Napoleonic state being capable of imposing its will upon society, acting as an ‘appalling parasitic body’. The autonomy of the state is only relative, in that the state appears to mediate between conflicting classes, and so maintains the class system itself in existence.
Instrumentalist view
portrays the state as an agent or instrument of the ruling class, highlights the overlap between state elites and the privileged.
Structuralist view
A critique of the instrumentalist approach, argues that economic and social power structures limit state autonomy. State actions perpetuate the existing social system, serving capitalism’s long term interests, despite internal resistance.
Neo-Marxist Perspective
This view protrays the state as a battleground for interests, groups, and classes. Sees the state as a dynamic entity reflecting the balance of power and ongoing struggle for hegemony
Leviathan state
This theory of the state sees it as a leviathan( a self serving monster intent on expansion and aggrandizement). Views the state as an overbearing ‘nanny’, desperate to interfere or meddle in every aspect of human existence. The central feature of this view is that the state pursues interests that are separate from those of society (setting it apart from Marxism), and that those interests demand an unrelenting growth in the role or responsibilities of the state itself.
Leviathan state
The New Right is distinguished by a strong antipathy towards state intervention in economic and social life. Views the state as a parasitic growth that threatens both individual liberty and economic security.
Patriarchal state
In this theory of the state, Liberal feminists views the state in positive terms, essentially in pluralist view of the state, seeing state intervention as a means of redressing gender inequality and enhancing the role of women. This can be seen in campaigns for equal-pay legislation, the legalization of abortion, the provision of child-care facilities, the extension of welfare benefits, and so on.
Minimalist states
Roles of the state:
From this perspective, the value of the state is that it has the capacity to constrain human behaviour and thus to prevent individuals encroaching on the rights and liberties of others. The state is merely a protective body, its core function being to provide a framework of peace and social order within which citizens can conduct their lives as they think best.
Statism
The belief that state intervention is the most appropriate means of resolving political problems or bringing about social and economic development.
Minimal state
is the ideal of classical liberals, advocating for the widest possible realm of the individual freedom while limiting state intervention. It is also described as a “night watchman”.
Developmental states
Roles of the state:
From this perspective, the state is one that intervenes in economic life with the specific purpose of promoting industrial growth and economic development. This does not amount to an attempt to replace the market with a ‘socialist’ system of planning and control but, rather, to an attempt to construct a partnership between the state and major economic interests, often underpinned by conservative and nationalist priorities.
Competition states
Emerging from economic globalization, these states are distinguished by their recognition of the need to strengthen education and training as the principal guaranteeing economic success in a context of intensifying transnational competition.
Developmental states
Roles of the state:
These play a crucial role in shaping economic landscaped by actively promoting growth and fostering through partnerships between the state and key economic players.
Social-democratic states
These states intervene with a view to bringing about broader social restructuring, usually in accordance with principles such as fairness, equality and social justice. These states feature Keynesianism and social welfare and helping to rectify the imbalances and injustices of a market economy. It therefore tends to focus less upon the generation of wealth and more upon what is seen as the equitable or just distribution of wealth. In practice, this boils down to an attempt to eradicate poverty and reduce social inequality.
Welfare states
These are states whose responsibilities have extended to the promotion of social well-being amongst their citizens.
Collectivized states
Roles of the state:
These are states characterized by the abolition of private property in favor of a system of common or public ownership, where the state exerts control over the entirety of economic life
Collectivized states
This role of the state brings the entirety of economic life under state control. These sought to abolish private enterprise altogether, and set up centrally planned economies administered by a network of economic ministries and planning committees. So-called ‘command economies’ were therefore established that were organized through a system of ‘directive’ planning that was ultimately controlled by the highest organs of the communist party.
Totalitarian states
This role of the state is the most extreme and extensive form of interventionism. Its essence is the construction of an all-embracing state, the influence of which penetrates every aspect of human existence. The state brings not only the economy, but also education, culture, religion, family life and so on under direct state control.
Religious states
This role of the state, driven by the tendency within religious fundamentalism to reject the public/private divide and to view religion as the basis of politics. They are founded on the basis of religious principles, and, in the Iranian model, contain explicitly theocratic features, in other cases religiously-orientated governments operate in a context of constitutional secularism.
Laicite
This is the principle of the absence of religious involvement in government affairs, and of government involvement in religious affairs.
supraterritoriality, Ohmae
the process through which economic activity increasingly takes place within a ‘borderless world’ according to (blank, 1989).
Post-sovereign governance, Scholte
This position suggests that the rise of globalization is inevitably marked by the decline of the state as a meaningful actor. (Blank, 2005)
Market state
This is a state whose feature is a shift away from ‘top-down’ economic management, based on the existence of discrete national economies, to an acceptance of the market as the only reliable principle of economic organization. A state that aims to enlarge citizens’ rights and opportunities, rather than assume control over economic and social life.
Privatization
It is the transfer of state assets from the public to the private sector, reflecting a contraction of state’s responsibilities.
Multi-level governance
It is a complex policy process involving subnational, national and supranational levels and government and non government actors.
Decentralization
It is the transferring of responsibilities from national or central bodies to a local or community level.
Political globalization
The growing importance of international bodies and organizations, and of transnation political forces generally.
Cooper, 2004
He portrayed what he called the ‘pre-modern’ world as a world of postcolonial chaos in which such state structures as exist are unable to establish a legitimate monopoly of the use of force, thus leading to endemic warlordism, widespread criminality and social dislocation.
Failed states
These are societies that fail the most basic test of state power: they are unable to maintain domestic order and personal security. These lacked an appropriate level of political, economic, social and educational development to function effectively as separate entities.
State building
The construction of a functioning state through the establishment of legitimate institutions for the formulation and implementation of policy across key areas of government.
Government
refers to the institutional processes through which collective and usually binding decisions are made
Regime
Is a broader term that encompasses not only the mechanisms of government and the institutions of the state, but also the structures and processes through which these interact with the larger society.
Political system
It is a ‘system’, in that there are interrelationships within a complex whole; and ‘political’, in that these interrelationships relate to the distribution of power, wealth and resources in society.
Regime
This is therefore a ‘system of rule’ that endures despite the fact that governments come and go.
methodical, systematic
The first purpose to classify systems of rule is, therefore, merely a device for making the process of comparison more (blank) and (blank).
evaluation
The second purpose of classification is to facilitate (blank), rather than analysis.
Sovereignty
This is the most high and perpetual power, a power that alone could gurantee orderly rule
Tyranny, Oligarchy, Democracy
What were the three forms of government that Aristotle considered debased?
Three worlds typology
This is the belief that the political world could be divided into three distinct blocs.
capitalist first world, communist second world, developing third world
These are the three distinct blocs of the three worlds approach.
Capitalist first world
This world is wedded to ‘capitalist’ principles, such as the desirability of private enterprise, material incentives and the free market. These practiced liberal-democratic politics based on a competitive struggle for power at election time.
Communist second world
This world is committed to ‘communist’ values such as social equality, collective endeavour,and the need for centralized planning. These were one-party states, dominated by ‘ruling’ communist parties.
Developing third world
These worlds were typically authoritarian, and governed by traditional monarchs, dictators or, simply, the army.
constitutional-institutional approach
This was an approach to classification that was influenced by classical typologies and adopted in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This approach highlighted, for instance, differences between codified and uncodified constitutions, parliamentary and presidential systems, and federal and unitary systems.
Constitutional-institutional approach
This approach highlighted, for instance, differences between codified and uncodified constitutions, parliamentary and presidential systems, and federal and unitary systems.
Structural-functional approach
This approach was concerned less with institutional arrangements than with how political systems work in practice, and especially with how they translate inputs into outputs.
Economic-ideological approach
This approach paid special attention to a systems level of material development and its broader ideological orientation.
western polyarchies, new democracies, East Asian regimes, Islamic regimes, military regimes
There are five regime types that can be identified in the modern world:
Western polyarchies
This regime type is also categorized as liberal democracies, or even simply democracies. They are marked not only by representative democracy and a capitalist economic organization, but also by a cultural and ideological orientation that is largely derived from western liberalism.
Polyarchy
This term was first used to describe a system of rule by Dahl and Lindblom