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State (polity)
A state is a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain geographical territory. Some states are sovereign, while others are subject to external sovereignty or hegemony (where ultimate sovereignty lies in another state).[1] The denomination state is also employed to federated states that are members of a federal union, which is the sovereign state. Many human societies have been governed by states for millennia, however for most of pre-history people lived in stateless societies. The first states arose about 10,000 years ago at the same time as agriculture, patriarchy[citation needed], slavery, and organized religion. Over time, a variety of different forms developed, employing a variety of justifications for their existence (such as divine right, the theory of the social contract, etc.). Today, however, the modern nation-state is the predominant form of state which people are subject to. Anarchists oppose the existence of the state, based on the belief that the state is inherently an instrument of domination and repression, no matter who is in control of The frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan it, and that it is unnecessary for organizing human relations. They propose instead that humans organize themselves into stateless societies, based on free association and cooperation, instead of statist authoritarianism.
Definitional issues
There is no academic consensus on the most appropriate definition of the state.[2] The term "state" refers to a set of different, but interrelated and often overlapping, theories about a certain range of political phenomena.[3] The act of defining the term can be seen as part of an ideological conflict, because different definitions lead to different theories of state function, and as a result validate different political strategies.[4] The most commonly used definition is Max Weber's, which describes the state as a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain territory.[][] General categories of state institutions include administrative bureaucracies, legal systems, and military or religious organizations. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a state is "a an organized political community under one government; a commonwealth; a nation. b such a community forming part of a federal republic, esp the United States of America". Confounding the definitional problem is that "state" and "government" are often used as synonyms in common conversation and even some academic discourse. According to this definitional schema, the states are nonphysical persons of international law, governments are organizations of people.[5] The relationship between a government and its state is one of representation and authorized agency.[6]
State (polity)
Types of states
States may be classified as sovereign if they are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Other states are subject to external sovereignty or hegemony where ultimate sovereignty lies in another state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union. A federated state is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation. Such states differ from sovereign states, in that they have transferred a portion of their sovereign powers to a federal government.
State (polity) state in relation to society. Often the nature of quasi-autonomous organizations is unclear, generating debate among political scientists on whether they are part of the state or civil society. Some political scientists thus prefer to speak of policy networks and decentralized governance in modern societies rather than of state bureaucracies and direct state control over policy.[11]
Anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state immoral, unnecessary, and harmful and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Anarchists believe that the state is inherently an instrument of domination and repression, no matter who is in control of it. Anarchists note that the state possesses the monopoly on the legal use of force. Unlike Marxists, anarchists believe that revolutionary seizure of state power should not be a political goal. They believe instead that the state apparatus should be completely dismantled, and an alternative set of social relations created, which are not based on state power at all. Various Christian anarchists, such as Jacques Ellul, have identified the State and political power as the Beast in the Book of Revelation, while atheist anarchists, such as Mikhail Bakunin have more often pointed out the relationships of Church and State and analyzed it's legimimacy both appeals to and ultimately substitutes the God-idea in practice.[12]
IWW poster "Pyramid of the Capitalist System"(c. 1911), depicting an anti-capitalist perspective on statist/capitalist social structures
Marxist perspective
Marx and Engels were clear in that the communist goal was a classless society in which the state would have "withered away".[13] Their views are scattered throughout the Marx/Engels Collected Works and address past or the then extant state forms from an analytical or tactical viewpoint, not future social forms, speculation about which is generally anathema to groups considering themselves Marxist but who, not having conquered the existing state power(s) are not in the situation of supplying the institutional form of an actual society. To the extent that it makes sense, there is no single "Marxist theory of state", but rather many different "Marxist" theories that have been developed by adherents of Marxism.[14][15][16]
State (polity) Marx's early writings portrayed the state as "parasitic", built upon the superstructure of the economy, and working against the public interest. He also wrote that the state mirrors class relations in society in general, acts as a regulator and repressor of class struggle, and acts as a tool of political power and domination for the ruling class. The Communist Manifesto claimed that the state is nothing more than "a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie. For Marxist theorists, the role of the non-socialist state is determined by its function in the global capitalist order. 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 social, economic, and political ties. Gramsci's theories of state emphasized that the state is only one of the institutions in society that helps maintain the hegemony of the ruling class, and that state power is bolstered by the ideological domination of the institutions of civil society, such as churches, schools, and mass media.[17]
Pluralism
Pluralists view society as a collection of individuals and groups, who are competing for political power. They then view the state as a neutral body that simply enacts the will of whichever groups dominate the electoral process.[18] Within the pluralist tradition, Robert Dahl developed the theory of the state as 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 modern democratic state's actions are the result of pressures applied by a variety of organized interests. Dahl called this kind of state a polyarchy. Pluralism has been challenged on the ground that it is not supported by empirical evidence. Citing surveys showing that the large majority of people in high leadership positions are members of the wealthy upper class, critics of pluralism claim that the state serves the interests of the upper class rather than equitably serving the interests of all social groups.
Divine right
The rise of the modern state system was closely related to changes in political thought, especially concerning the changing understanding of legitimate state power. Early modern defenders of absolutism such as Thomas Hobbes and Jean Bodin undermined the doctrine of the divine right of kings by arguing that the power of kings should be justified by reference to the people. Hobbes in particular went further and argued that political power should be justified with reference to the individual, not just to the people understood collectively. Both Hobbes and Bodin thought they were defending the power of kings, not advocating democracy, but their arguments about the nature of sovereignty were fiercely resisted by more traditional defenders of the power of kings, like Sir Robert Filmer in England, who thought that such defenses ultimately opened the way to more democratic claims.[citation needed]
Rational-legal authority
Max Weber identified three main sources of political legitimacy in his works. The first, legitimacy based on traditional grounds is derived from a belief that things should be as they have been in the past, and that those who defend these traditions have a legitimate claim to power. The second, legitimacy based on charismatic leadership is devotion to a leader or group that is viewed as exceptionally heroic or virtuous. The third is rational-legal authority, whereby legitimacy is derived from the belief that a certain group has been placed in power in a legal manner, and that their actions are justifiable according to a specific code of written laws. Weber believed that the modern state is characterized primarily by appeals to rational-legal authority.
State (polity)
Etymology
The word state and its cognates in other European languages (stato in Italian, Estado in Spanish, tat in French, Staat in German) ultimately derive from the Latin status, meaning "condition" or "status."[21] With the revival of the Roman law in the 14th century in Europe, this Latin term was used to refer to the legal standing of persons (such as the various "estates of the realm" - noble, common, and clerical), and in particular the special status of the king. The word was also associated with Roman ideas (dating back to Cicero) about the "status rei publicae", the "condition of public matters". In time, the word lost its reference to particular social groups and became associated with the legal order of the entire society and the apparatus of its enforcement.[22] In English, "state" is a contraction of the word "estate", which is similar to the old French estat and the modern French tat, both of which signify that a person has status and therefore estate. The highest estates, generally those with the most wealth and social rank, were those that held power.[] The early 16th century works of Machiavelli (especially The Prince) played a central role in popularizing the use of the word "state" in something similar to its modern sense.[23]
History
The earliest forms of the state emerged whenever it became possible to centralize power in a durable way. Agriculture and writing are almost everywhere associated with this process: agriculture because it allowed for the emergence of a class of people who did not have to spend most of their time providing for their own subsistence, and writing (or the equivalent of writing, like Inca quipus) because it made possible the centralization of vital information. The first known states were created in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, the Inca civilization), and others, but it is only in relatively modern times that states have almost completely displaced alternative "stateless" forms of political organization of societies all over the planet. Roving bands of hunter-gatherers and even fairly sizable and complex tribal societies based on herding or agriculture have existed without any full-time specialized state organization, and these "stateless" forms of political organization have in fact prevailed for all of the prehistory and much of the history of the human species and civilization. Initially states emerged over territories built by conquest in which one culture, one set of ideals and one set of laws have been imposed by force or threat over diverse nations by a civilian and military bureaucracy. Currently, that is not always the case and there are multinational states, federated states and autonomous areas within states. Since the late 19th century, virtually the entirety of the world's inhabitable land has been parcelled up into areas with more or less definite borders claimed by various states. Earlier, quite large land areas had been either unclaimed or uninhabited, or inhabited by nomadic peoples who were not organised as states. However, even within present-day states there are vast areas of wilderness, like the Amazon Rainforest, which are uninhabited or inhabited solely or mostly by indigenous people (and some of them remain uncontacted). Also, there are states which do not hold de facto control over all of their claimed territory or where this control is challenged. Currently the international community comprises around 200 sovereign states, the vast majority of which are represented in the United Nations.[citation needed]
State (polity)
State (polity)
State (polity)
References
Notes
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] For example the Vichy France (1940-1944) officially referred to itself as l'tat franais. Cudworth et al, 2007: p. 1 Barrow, 1993: pp. 9-10 Barrow, 1993: pp. 10-11 Robinson, E. H. 2013. The Distinction Between State and Government (http:/ / www. edwardheath. net/ wp-content/ uploads/ 2013/ 08/ State_and_Government. pdf). The Geography Compass 7(8): pp. 556-566. [6] Crawford, J. (2007) The Creation of States in International Law. Oxford University Press. [7] Sartwell, 2008: p. 25 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=bk-aaMVGKO0C& pg=PA25) [8] Flint & Taylor, 2007: p. 137 [9] Sartwell, 2008: p. 24 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=bk-aaMVGKO0C& pg=PA24) [10] Maleevi, 2002: p. 16 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=Lc_nMFoGcYkC& pg=PA16) [11] -[12] http:/ / dwardmac. pitzer. edu/ Anarchist_Archives/ bakunin/ godandstate/ godandstate_ch1. html [13] Frederick Engels - Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. 1880 (http:/ / www. marxists. org/ archive/ marx/ works/ 1880/ soc-utop/ index. htm) Full Text. From Historical Materialism: "State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not "abolished". It dies out...Socialized production upon a predetermined plan becomes henceforth possible. The development of production makes the existence of different classes of society thenceforth an anachronism. In proportion as anarchy in social production vanishes, the political authority of the State dies out. Man, at last the master of his own form of social organization, becomes at the same time the lord over Nature, his own master free." [14] Flint & Taylor, 2007: p. 139 [15] Joseph, 2004: p. 15 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=ic5UOphbKHsC& pg=PA15) [16] Barrow, 1993: p. 4 [17] Joseph, 2004: p. 44 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=ic5UOphbKHsC& pg=PA44:) [18] Vincent, 1992: pp. 47-48 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=_MdR_fvPxZoC& pg=PA47) [19] Maleevi, 2002: p. 85 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=Lc_nMFoGcYkC& pg=PA85) [20] Dogan, 1992: pp. 119-120 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=_MdR_fvPxZoC& pg=PA119) [21] Hay, 2001: p. 1469 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=lSmU3aXWIAYC& pg=PA1469) [22] Skinner, 1989: [23] Bobbio, 1989: pp.57-58 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=4AE8ur83g8AC& pg=PA57) [24] Robert L. Carneiro, "Political expansion as an expression of the principle of competitive exclusion", p. 219 in: Ronald Cohen and Elman R. Service (eds.), Origins of the State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978. [25] Scott, 2009: p. 29 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=oiLYu2-uc8IC& pg=PT29) [26] Nelson, 2006: p. 17 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=cvtYZmiOjT8C& pg=PA17) [27] ... see also pp. 54-... (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=7OgODkcZgIIC& pg=PA54) where Jones discusses problems with common conceptions of feudalism.
Bibliography
Barrow, Clyde W. (1993). Critical Theories of State: Marxist, Neo-Marxist, Post-Marxist (http://books.google. com/books?id=t3zo8mCl580C). University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN0-299-13714-7. Bobbio, Norberto (1989). Democracy and Dictatorship: The Nature and Limits of State Power (http://books. google.com/books?id=4AE8ur83g8AC). University of Minnesota Press. ISBN0-8166-1813-5. Cudworth, Erika (2007). The Modern State: Theories and Ideologies (http://books.google.com/ books?id=Pr8tAAAAYAAJ). Edinburgh University Press. ISBN978-0-7486-2176-7. Dogan, Mattei (1992). "Conceptions of Legitimacy" (http://books.google.com/books?id=_MdR_fvPxZoC& pg=PA116). In Paynter, John et al. Encyclopedia of government and politics. Psychology Press. ISBN978-0-415-07224-3. Flint, Colin & Taylor, Peter (2007). Political Geography: World Economy, Nation-State, and Locality (http:// books.google.com/books?id=GXz9xHdHeZcC) (5th ed.). Pearson/Prentice Hall. ISBN978-0-13-196012-1. Hay, Colin (2001). "State theory" (http://books.google.com/books?id=lSmU3aXWIAYC&pg=PA1469). In Jones, R.J. Barry. Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy: Entries P-Z. Taylor & Francis.
State (polity) pp.14691475. ISBN978-0-415-24352-0. Joseph, Jonathan (2004). Social theory: an introduction (http://books.google.com/books?id=ic5UOphbKHsC). NYU Press. ISBN978-0-8147-4277-8. Maleevi, Sinia (2002). Ideology, legitimacy and the new state: Yugoslavia, Serbia and Croatia (http://books. google.com/books?id=Lc_nMFoGcYkC). Routledge. ISBN978-0-7146-5215-3. Nelson, Brian T. (2006). The making of the modern state: a theoretical evolution (http://books.google.com/ books?id=cvtYZmiOjT8C). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN978-1-4039-7189-0. Rueschemeyer, Dietrich; Skocpol, Theda; Evans, Peter B. (1985). Bringing the State Back In (http://books. google.com/books?id=sYgTwHQbNAAC). Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-31313-9. Salmon, Trevor C. (2008). Issues in international relations (http://books.google.com/ books?id=ayz0kWKhKacC). Taylor & Francis US. ISBN978-0-415-43126-2. Sartwell, Crispin (2008). Against the state: an introduction to anarchist political theory (http://books.google. com/books?id=bk-aaMVGKO0C). SUNY Press. ISBN978-0-7914-7447-1. Scott, James C. (2009). The art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia (http:// books.google.com/books?id=oiLYu2-uc8IC). Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-15228-9.
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Skinner, Quentin (1989). "The state" (http://books.google.com/books?id=1QrSKH_Q5M8C&pg=PA90). In Ball, T; Farr, J.; and Hanson, R.L. Political Innovation and Conceptual Change. Cambridge University Press. pp.90131. ISBN0-521-35978-3. Vincent, Andrew (1992). "Conceptions of the State" (http://books.google.com/books?id=_MdR_fvPxZoC& pg=PA48). In Paynter, John et al. Encyclopedia of government and politics. Psychology Press. ISBN978-0-415-07224-3.
Further reading
Barrow, Clyde W. (2002). "The Miliband-Poulantzas Debate: An Intellectual History" (http://books.google. com/books?id=occGXv3T0ycC&pg=PA3). In Aronowitz, Stanley & Bratsis, Peter. Paradigm lost: state theory reconsidered. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN978-0-8166-3293-0. Bottomore, T. B., ed. (1991). "The State" (http://books.google.com/books?id=q4QwNP_K1pYC& pg=PA520). A Dictionary of Marxist thought (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN978-0-631-18082-1. Bratsis, Peter (2006). Everyday Life and the State (http://books.google.com/books?id=mh_zAAAAMAAJ). Paradigm. ISBN978-1-59451-219-3. Faulks, Keith (2000). "Classical Theories of the State and Civil Society" (http://books.google.com/ books?id=_fjCczhvWj0C&pg=PA32). Political sociology: a critical introduction. NYU Press. ISBN978-0-8147-2709-6. Feldbrugge, Ferdinand J. M., ed. (2003). The law's beginning (http://books.google.com/ books?id=DG_HMgPYMlMC). Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN978-90-04-13705-9. Fisk, Milton (1989). The state and justice: an essay in political theory (http://books.google.com/ books?id=UVv1oS3afmIC). Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-38966-2. Friedeburg, Robert von (2011). State Forms and State Systems in Modern Europe (http://nbn-resolving.de/ urn:nbn:de:0159-2010102576). Institute of European History,. Green, Penny & Ward, Tony (2009). "Violence and the State" (http://books.google.com/ books?id=ZhxIDseBcpcC&pg=PA116). In Coleman, Roy et al. State, Power, Crime. SAGE. ISBN978-1-4129-4805-0. Hall, John A., ed. (1994). The state: critical concepts (Vol. 1 & 2) (http://books.google.com/ books?id=EFmfJlNFEKgC). Taylor & Francis. ISBN978-0-415-08683-7. Hansen, Thomas Blom & Stepputat, Finn, ed. (2001). States of imagination: ethnographic explorations of the postcolonial state (http://books.google.com/books?id=pk9W2W6LCpIC). Duke University Press. ISBN978-0-8223-2798-1.
State (polity) Hoffman, John (1995). Beyond the state: an introductory critique (http://books.google.com/ books?id=TG6OQgAACAAJ). Polity Press. ISBN978-0-7456-1181-5. Hoffman, John (2004). Citizenship beyond the state (http://books.google.com/books?id=nHu8uwrBO6gC). SAGE. ISBN978-0-7619-4942-8. Jessop, Bob (1990). State theory: putting the Capitalist state in its place (http://books.google.com/ books?id=HcxBBhXjAUcC). Penn State Press. ISBN978-0-271-00735-9. Jessop, Bob (2009). "Redesigning the State, Reorienting State Power, and Rethinking the State" (http://books. google.com/books?id=U5_HatyUydwC&pg=PA41). In Leicht, Kevin T. & Jenkins, J. Craig. Handbook of Politics: State and Society in Global Perspective. Springer. ISBN978-0-387-68929-6. Lefebvre, Henri (2009). Brenner, Neil & Elden, Stuart, ed. State, space, world: selected essays (http://books. google.com/books?id=5cYnB3KsqdkC). University of Minnesota Press. ISBN978-0-8166-5317-1. Long, Roderick T. & Machan, Tibor R. (2008). Anarchism/minarchism: is a government part of a free country? (http://books.google.com/books?id=PUev30VZ04kC). Ashgate Publishing. ISBN978-0-7546-6066-8. Mann, Michael (1994). "The Autonomous Power of the State: It's Origins, Mechanisms, and Results" (http:// books.google.com/books?id=EFmfJlNFEKgC&pg=PA331). In Hall, John A. The State: critical concepts, Volume 1. Taylor & Francis. ISBN978-0-415-08680-6. Oppenheimer, Franz (1975). The state (http://books.google.com/books?id=_dJXaqobz4AC). Black Rose Books. ISBN978-0-919618-59-6. Poulantzas, Nicos & Camiller, Patrick (2000). State, power, socialism (http://books.google.com/ books?id=ejTYwLoZtY4C). Verso. ISBN978-1-85984-274-4. Sanders, John T. & Narveson, Jan (1996). For and against the state: new philosophical readings (http://books. google.com/books?id=7k_gBlYQwOcC). Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN978-0-8476-8165-5. Scott, James C. (1998). Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed (http://books.google.com/books?id=PqcPCgsr2u0C). Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-07815-2. Taylor, Michael (1982). Community, anarchy, and liberty (http://books.google.com/ books?id=eI9xYg7CwiwC). Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-27014-4. Zippelius, Reinhold (2010). Allgemeine Staatslehre, Politikwissenschaft (16th ed.). C.H. Beck, Munich. ISBN978-3-406-60342-6. Uzgalis, William (May 5, 2007). "John Locke" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/index.html). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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