16.2. State as Basic Political Institution

A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign in that they enjoy a monopoly of the use of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union. Some states are subject to external sovereignty or hegemony where ultimate sovereignty lies in another state.

The state in classical antiquity

The history of the state in the West usually begins with classical antiquity. During that period, the state took a variety of forms, none of them very much like the modern state. There were monarchies whose power (like that of the Egyptian Pharaoh) was based on the religious function of the king and his control of a centralized army. There were also large, quasi-bureaucratized empires, like the Roman empire, which depended less on the religious function of the ruler and more on effective military and legal organizations and the cohesiveness of an aristocracy.

Perhaps the most important political innovations of classical antiquity came from the Greek city-states and the Roman Republic. The Greek city-states before the 4th century granted citizenship rights to their free population, and in Athens these rights were combined with a directly democratic form of government that was to have a long afterlife in political thought and history.

In contrast, Rome developed from a monarchy into a republic, governed by a senate dominated by the Roman aristocracy. The Roman political system contributed to the development of law, constitutionalism and to the distinction between the private and the public spheres.

From the feudal state to the modern state in the West

The story of the development of the specifically modern state in the West typically begins with the dissolution of the western Roman empire. This led to the fragmentation of the imperial state into the hands of private lords whose political, judicial, and military roles corresponded to the organization of economic production. In these conditions, according to Marxists, the economic unit of society was the state.

The state-system of feudal Europe was an unstable configuration of suzerains and anointed kings. A monarch, formally at the head of a hierarchy of sovereigns, was not an absolute power who could rule at will; instead, relations between lords and monarchs were mediated by varying degrees of mutual dependence, which was ensured by the absence of a centralized system of taxation. This reality ensured that each ruler needed to obtain the 'consent' of each estate in the realm. This was not quite a 'state' in the Weberian sense of the term, since the king did not monopolize either the power of lawmaking (which was shared with the church) or the means of violence (which were shared with the nobles).

The formalization of the struggles over taxation between the monarch and other elements of society (especially the nobility and the cities) gave rise to what is now called the Standestaat, or the state of Estates, characterized by parliaments in which key social groups negotiated with the king about legal and economic matters. These estates of the realm sometimes evolved in the direction of fully-fledged parliaments, but sometimes lost out in their struggles with the monarch, leading to greater centralization of lawmaking and coercive (chiefly military) power in his hands. Beginning in the 15th century, this centralizing process gives rise to the absolutist state.

Cultural and national homogenization figured prominently in the rise of the modern state system. Since the absolutist period, states have largely been organized on a national basis. The concept of a national state, however, is not synonymous with nation state. Even in the most ethnically homogeneous societies there is not always a complete correspondence between state and nation, hence the active role often taken by the state to promote nationalism through emphasis on shared symbols and national identity.

It is in this period that the term "state" is first introduced into political discourse in more or less its current meaning. Although Niccolò Machiavelli is often credited with first using the term to refer to a territorial sovereign government in the modern sense in The Prince, published in 1532, it is not until the time of the British thinkers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and the French thinker Jean Bodin that the concept in its current meaning is fully developed.

Today, most Western states more or less fit the influential definition of the state in Max Weber's Politics as a Vocation. According to Weber, the modern state monopolizes the means of legitimate physical violence over a well-defined territory. Moreover, the legitimacy of this monopoly itself is of a very special kind, "rational-legal" legitimacy, based on impersonal rules that constrain the power of state elites.

There are different theories of origin of the state:

• in theological theory the state origin is explained by God`s Will (Christianity, Islam);

• according to patriarchal theory, where state originates from family and the absolute power of monarch is the continuation of the power of father in family (Aristotle);

• contract theory claims that state appeared as the result of contract between people (Th. Hobbes);

• psychological theory explains the genesis of state by the inner psychological need for subjection, submission (J. Freizer);

• Marxist theory holds that the origin of state is the result of society’s division into classes and social groups.

The state as a political organization is a social organism aimed to protect interests of people of a defined territory and to regulate their relations with the help of law norms and institutions.

The attributes of the state:

1) public power separated from the majority of people;

2) tax system (taxation)

3) fixed territory

The attributes of the state are also: officials, army, police, supreme court, public prosecutor’s office, secret service, prison etc;

The state has a lot of functions. There are internal and external functions of the state.

The internal functions are:

• economical;

• humanitarian;

• social;

• national and integrative;

• law enforcement (i.e. disobedience to law is persecuted);

• cultural and educational;

• scientific.

The external functions are:

• diplomatic;

• military;

• protective.

The form of government refers to the set of political institutions by which a government of a state is organized in order to exert its powers over a house in the congress body politic. Synonyms include "regime type" and "system of government". The main forms are monarchy and republic.

A republic is a form of government in which the people retain supreme control over the government, and in which the head of the government is not a monarch. The word "republic" is derived from the Latin phrase "res publica", which can be translated as "a public affair". In the early XXI century, most states that are not monarchies label themselves as republics either in their official names or their constitutions. Here is a list of variations on the term "republic":

• parliamentary republic is a republic, like India, Bangladesh, with an elected head of state, but where the head of state and the head of government are kept separate with the head of government retaining most executive powers, or a head of state akin to a head of government, elected by a Parliament;

• federal republic, confederation or federation, is a federal union of states or provinces with a republican form of government. Examples include Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Germany, India, Russia, the United States, and Switzerland;

• Islamic republic is countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran are republics governed in accordance with Islamic law;

• Arab republic — for example, Syria, where Arabs are the overwhelming majority of total population;

• people's republic, or a single-party state is countries like China, Vietnam are meant to be governed for and by the people, but with indirect elections;

• democratic republic is a republic where the people elect their representatives and may engage in some forms of popular referenda. Examples include the United States of America.

• monarchy is a form of government in which all political power is absolutely or nominally lodged with an individual, known as a monarch ("single ruler"), or king (male), queen (female). As a political entity, the monarch is the head of state, generally until their death or abdication, and "is wholly set apart from all other members of the state;

• constitutional monarchy is a form of monarchical government established under a constitutional system which acknowledges an elected or hereditary monarch as head of state;

• absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government where the ruler has the power to rule his or her land or country and its citizens freely, with no laws or legally-organized direct opposition in force;

• state system is the way of territory organization of one state or several states, united in one union. It is interconnection and interdependence of state and his elements (territories), fixed in the Constitution of the country. State system characterizes the territory organization of state power. However, different social organizations, parties and communion can not be regarded as types of state system.

The types of the state are federation, a confederation, a unitary state, empire.

A unitary state is a sovereign state governed as one single unit in which the central government is supreme and any administrative divisions (subnational units) exercise only powers that the central government chooses to delegate.

A federation also known as a federal state, is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states united by the central (federal) government.

A confederation is an association of sovereign member states that by treaty have delegated certain of their competences (or powers) to common institutions, in order to coordinate their policies in a number of areas, without constituting a new state on top of the member states. Under international law a confederation respects the sovereignty of its members and its constituting treaty can only be changed by an unanimous agreement.

Empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples (ethnic groups) united and ruled either by a monarch (emperor, empress) or an oligarchy.

According to another classification states can be divided into:

• sovereign state, a sovereign political entity in international public law;

• member state, a member of an international organization;

• federated state, a political entity forming part of a federal sovereign state;

• nation state, a state which coincides with a nation;

• Rechtsstaat, the legal state (constitutional state, state subordinated to law).

Political regime is the form of social organization with a peculiar form of governing. There are several types of governing:

• authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is opposed to individualism and democracy. In politics, an authoritarian government is one in which political power is concentrated in a leader or leaders, typically unelected, who possess exclusive, unaccountable, and arbitrary power;

• totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system (regime) where the state, usually under the control of a single political person, faction, or class, recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible;

• democracy is a political form of government in which governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum (direct democracy) or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy).

16.3. Law-Governed State and Civil Society

The state is both separate from and connected to civil society. The nature of this connection has been the subject of considerable attention in both analyses of state development and normative theories of the state. Classical thinkers, such as Th. Hobbes, J.J. Rousseau, I. Kant emphasized the identity of the state and society, while modern thinkers, by contrast, beginning with G. W. F. Hegel and Alexis de Tocqueville, started to emphasize the relations between them as independent entities. Following Karl Marx, Jürgen Habermas has argued that civil society may form an economic base for a public sphere placed in political superstructure domain of an extra-institutional engagement with matters of public interests trying to influence the state and yet necessarily connected with it.

Some Marxist theorists, such as Antonio Gramsci, have questioned the distinction between the state and civil society altogether, arguing that the former is integrated into many parts of the latter. Others, such as Louis Althusser, maintain that civil organizations such as church, schools, and even trade unions are part of an “ideological state apparatus.” In this sense, the state can fund a number of groups within society that, while autonomous in principle, are dependent on state support.

Given the role that many social groups have in the development of public policy and the extensive connections between state bureaucracies and other institutions, it has become increasingly difficult to identify the boundaries of the state. Privatization, nationalization, and the creation of new regulatory bodies also change the boundaries of the 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.

Civil society is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state's political system) and commercial institutions of the market.

The London School of Economics Centre for Civil Society's working definition is illustrative: civil society refers to the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. In theory, its institutional forms are distinct from those of the state, family and market, though in practice, the boundaries between state, civil society, family and market are often complex, blurred and negotiated. Civil society commonly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors and institutional forms, varying in their degree of formality, autonomy and power. Civil societies are often populated by organizations such as registered charities, development non-governmental organizations, community groups, women's organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations, trade unions, self-help groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions and advocacy groups.

The literature on relations between civil society and democratic political society have their roots in early liberal writings like those of Alexis de Tocqueville. However they were developed in significant ways by XX century theorists like Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, who identified the role of political culture in a democratic order as vital.

They argued that the political element of many voluntary organizations facilitates better awareness and a more informed citizenry, who make better voting choices, participate in politics, and hold government more accountable as a result. The statutes of these organizations have often been considered micro-constitutions because they accustom participants to the formalities of democratic decision making.

More recently, Robert D. Putnam has argued that even non-political organizations in civil society are vital for democracy. This is because they build social capital, trust and shared values, which are transferred into the political sphere and help to hold society together, facilitating an understanding of the interconnectedness of society and interests within it.

Others, however, have questioned how democratic civil society actually is. Some have noted that the civil society actors have now obtained a remarkable amount of political power without anyone directly electing or appointing them. Finally, other scholars have argued that, since the concept of civil society is closely related to democracy and representation, it should in turn be linked with ideas of nationality and nationalism.

The general features of civil society:

- privacy, free enterprise, private enterprise;

- existence of independent political parties, civil organizations;

- free mass media;

- Private life and families are not completely regulated by the state

- The principle of equality of opportunity

- the participation of non-state organizations and different groups and communities in the society’s life.

The term “law-governed state” originates from the German word “Rechtstaat”. It is a concept in continental European legal thinking, originally borrowed from German jurisprudence, which can be translated as "legal state", "state of law", "state of justice", or "state of rights". It is a "constitutional state" in which the exercise of governmental power is constrained by the law, and is often tied to the Anglo-American concept of the rule of law. In a law-governed state the power of the state is limited in order to protect citizens from the arbitrary exercise of authority. The citizens share legally based civil liberties and they can use the courts. A country cannot be a liberal democracy without first being a Rechtsstaat. The Rechtsstaat in the meaning of "constitutional state" was introduced in the latest works of German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) after US and French constitutions were adopted in the late XVIII century. Kant’s approach is based on the supremacy of a country’s written constitution. This supremacy must create guarantees for implementation of his central idea: a permanent peaceful life as a basic condition for the happiness of its people and their prosperity. Kant was basing his doctrine on constitutionalism and constitutional government. Kant had thus formulated the main problem of constitutionalism, “The constitution of a state is eventually based on the morals of its citizens, which, in its turns, is based on the goodness of this constitution.” Kant’s idea is the foundation for the constitutional theory of the XXI century. In his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals philosopher claims: “The task of establishing a universal and permanent peaceful life is not only a part of theory of law within the framework of pure reason, but an absolute and ultimate goal. To achieve this goal, a state must become the community of a large number of people, living provided with legislative guarantees of their property rights secured by a common constitution. The supremacy of this constitution… must be derived a priori from the considerations for achievement of the absolute ideal in the most just and fair organization of people’s life under the aegis of public law.” The most important principles of the Rechtsstaat are:

- the state based on the supremacy of national constitution and guarantees the safety and constitutional rights of its citizens;

- civil society is equal partner to the state;

- separation of powers, with the executive, legislative and judicative branches of government limiting each other's power and providing for checks and balances;

- the judicature and the executive are bound by law (no acting against the law), and the legislature is bound by constitutional principles;

- both the legislature and democracy itself is bound by elementary constitutional rights and principles;

- transparency of state acts and the requirement of providing reasoning for all state acts;

- review of state decisions and state acts by independent organs, including an appeals process;

- clear hierarchy of laws, requirement of clarity and definiteness;

- reliability of state actions, protection of past dispositions made in good faith against later state actions, prohibition of retroactivity;

- principle of the proportionality of state action.

The general features of law-governed state:

- supremacy of law;

- sovereignty of nation as the source of state power;

- separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial;

- human rights.

Basic concepts and categories:

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. It consists of social relations involving authority or power and refers to the regulation of a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy

Political system is a system of state and non-state social institutes that fulfill certain political functions.

State is an organized political community, living under a government; an organized social structure that controls some aspects of men’s behavior and maintains the social order.

Civil society is a society composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state's political system) and commercial institutions of the market.

Questions and Tasks for Self-Control

1. What is the difference between politics and policy?

2. Is there any correspondence between state and civil society?

3. What are the main features of civil society?

4. Name the types of political system.

5. What are the major forms of monarchies?

6. Consider the basic forms of republic governing.

7. Why is the principle of separation of powers necessary for a law-governed state?

8. What are the forms of state system?