Chapter four

State, Government, and Citizenship

 Understanding State

• State refers to a bewildering(confusing) range of things.

• A collection of institutions, a territorial unit,
• A philosophical idea, an instrument of coercion or
oppression.
• The above considerations are not clear and they are
confusing.
• There are four quite different ways of understanding state.
• Idealist
• Functionalist
• organizational
• and international perspectives.
 Cont…
• According to idealism, there are three moments of social existence
including the:
 Family (particular alturism)
 The civil society(universal egoism)
 And the state.(universal altruism)
 The state is conceived as an ethical community underpinned/
supported/ by mutual sympathy (universal altruism)
 The drawback of idealism is that it is an uncritical /hapless or
naive)for the reverence /worship/of the state.
 idealism fails to distinguish between institutions that are part of
the state and those that are outside the state.
 Cont…

According to functionalist approach:-

 The state is defined as set of institutions that uphold/support/
order and deliver social stability.
 This approach focuses on the role or purpose of state institutions.
 The maintenance of social order is the central function of the
state.
 For neo- marxists, the state is a mechanism through which class
conflict is ameliorated /bettered/ to ensure the long-term survival
of capitalist system.
 The tendency of functional approach to associate any institution
 That maintains order such as the family, mass media, trade unions
and the church with the state.
 Cont…
According to organizational approach
 The state is defined as the apparatus of government.
 Set of institutions that are recognizably public.
 These set of institutions are responsible for collective organization
of social existence.
 The state is funded at the public expense.
 Distinction between the state institutions and the civil society.
 The state institutions of government includes the bureaucracy, the
military, the police, the court, and the social security system.
 The state can be identified with the entire body politic.
 The expanding and contracting responsibility of the state(rolling
forward and rolling back)
 Enlarging and diminishing the state institutional machinery
 Cont…

The International approach:-

 An actor on the world stage) on Amphitheatre.
 Basic unit of international politics.
 Two faces of state (dualistic structures)
 The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State

• The state has four features /landscape/.

 Defined territory,
 Permanent population
 Effective government
 And sovereignty.

• Regarding permanent population, the states vary in terms of

demographic strength.
• Whether population of a state is homogenous or heterogeneous?
 Cont…

• The territory of the state is not fixed.

• The size of state’s territory varies.
• The ways of marking out the boundary lines between states
• Government (the soul of the state)

Implementing the will of the community

Protecting people against insecurity
 Cont…

Maintaining law and order

• As a machinery of government terminates anarchy
• Enforcing law and order and keep peace and security
• Forms of governments (monarchical, aristocratic, oligarchic,
democratic, dictatorial)
• Sovereignty(the highest power of the state)
 Cont…

• Principle of absolute and unlimited power

• Two aspects(internal and external sovereignty)
• Recognition as an essential attribute of the state
• Recognition from international community (international legal
actor)
• Recognition as legitimate government by other governments
 Theories of the state

• Rival theories of state (nature of state power)

• Offers different accounts of state origins, development, and
impact upon society
• Controversy about the nature of state power
• Ideological and theoretical disagreements in modern
political analysis
• Whether the state is autonomous and independent of society,
 Cont…

• Whether the state is a product of a society, whether the state is

a reflection of broader distribution of power or resources,
• Does the serve the collective good or is it biased in favor of
privileged groups or dominant class?
• Is the state a positive or constructive force or is it a negative or
destructive?
 Four rival theories of the state
Cont…
 The pluralist and the capitalist

 The leviathan And the patriarchal states

1/ The pluralist state (liberal linage)

• Umpire or refree in the society

• The pluralist has dominant political analysis

• The state institutions (the court, the police, the military, and

the civil service)

 Cont…

An impartial arbitrator, bending to the will of government of the

day
The origin of pluralist state theory (Social contract)
The establishment of a sovereign power (from the insecurity,
disorder, and brutality)
As Locke, where there is no law there is no freedom
 Cont…

Protecting each citizens from encroachments of other fellow

citizens
Acts in the interests of all citizens
Represents the public interests
Hobbes and Locke have different views on the nature of state
power
Hobbes believed stability and order could be secured
 Cont…
• The establishment of an absolute and unlimited state power
(the choice of between absolutism and anarchy)
• Locke believed the establishment of constitutional and
representative government( democratic)
• The defense of a natural or God given individual rights
• These ideas characterize pluralist state
 Features of plural state

• Evenly and widely dispersed power,

• Neutrality of state, free from bias
• The servant of the society, secondary or subordinate to
government
• Non-elected state bodies (the police, the judiciary, the military,
and the civil service)meaningful and effective democratic
processes
 Modern pluralists (neo-pluralists)

• More complex and less responsive to popular pressures

• Business exercises considerable sway /rule over/ any
government
• The ability of the state to maintain its own sectional interest
• Powerful (the most powerful interest group in society)
• A state centered model of liberal democracy (the autonomy
democratic state)
 The capitalist state

• The capitalist state is a Marxist notion (negative). Closely

associated with economic structure of the society.
• An instrument of class oppression (class system)
• Systematic or coherent theory of the state was not developed
by Marx.
• The state is part of a superstructure determined by economic
base.
 Cont…

• The precise relationship between the superstructure (the

capitalist mode of production) and the state is unclear.
• Two ideas of Marx(the executive of the modern state)
• The committee for managing the common affairs of the
whole bourgeoisie.
• The state is dependent on the economically powerful class.
 Cont…

• The state has only relative autonomy.

• The state mediates between conflicting class and so maintains
the class system itself in existence.
• Differences between pluralists and Marxists, According to
Marxists, the state is understood in terms of unequal class
power.
• The state serves as an instrument of oppression wielded by
dominant class.
 Cont…

• The state is an instrument or a mechanism through which

antagonisms are ameliorated/bettered/.
• Marx also viewed the state as constructive or positive
• During the transition from capitalism to communism, the
revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
• The overthrow of capitalism would see the destruction of
bourgeoisie state.
 Cont…

• Marx utilized the first state theory of the state, seeing the state
as an instrument through which economically dominant
class, all states are class dictatorships.
• The dictatorship of the proletariat was seen as a means of
safeguarding the gains of the revolution by counter-revolution
• Marx did not see the state as a necessary and enduring social
formation.
 Modern Marxists (Neo-marxists)

• The domination of the ruling class through ideological

manipulation rather than open coercion.
• Bourgeois domination is maintained largely through
hegemony that is intellectual leadership or cultural control.
• Instrumentalist and structuralist views of the state (rival)
• The instrumentalists view the state as an instrument or an
agent of the ruling class
 Cont…

• The structuralists view the state as the terrain on which the

struggle amongst interests, groups and classes is conducted.
• The state is not an instrument wielded by dominant group or
ruling class.
• The state is a dynamic entity that reflects the balance of power
within society and the ongoing struggle for hegemony.