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4’th Lecture
Nation, state, government and citizen
The role of the state
Constitution
Freedom and the State
Discussions: Is the State necessary
Discussions: Can we claim that absolute freedom is possible and beneficial?
Reading: Study concepts (definitions): “The State”, Dictionary of the History of Ideas
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhiana.cgi?id=dv4-40
Classifying governments; Aristotelian six types of governments
CORRECT yourself
In our last lecture on features of nation I told you a one view, and did not tell another one. According to this alternative view nation is both cultural, historical and political.
As I take information from different sources some time I cannot correlate some points e.g. among elements of nation last one must be ‘aspiration’ not aspire, because previous points were in noun form. We have to pursue a uniform ….
codified constitution means that the constitution is written down
Nations (from Latin “nasci”, meaning to be born) are complex phenomena that are shaped by a collection of cultural, political and psychological factors. Culturally, a nation is a group of people bound together by a common language, religion, history and traditions, although nations exhibit various levels of cultural heterogeneity. Politically, a nation is a group of people who regard themselves as a natural political community. Although this is classically expressed in the form of a desire to establish or maintain statehood, it can also take the from of civic consciousness. Psychologically, a nation is a group of people distinguished by a shared loyalty or affection in the form of patriotism. However, such an attachment is not a necessary condition for membership of a nation; even those who lack national pride may still recognize that they “belong” to the nation.
=In the final analysis, the nation is a psycho-political construct. What sets a nation apart from any other group or collectivity is that its members regard themselves as a nation. What does it mean? A nation, in this sense perceives itself to be a distinctive political community. This is what distinguishes a nation from an ethnic group. ethnic group, unlike nation lacks collective political aspirations. These aspirations have traditionally taken the form of the quest for, or the desire to maintain political independence or statehood. On a more modest level, however they may consist of a desire to achieve a measure of autonomy, perhaps as part of a federation or confederation of states.
SUMMARY- nations are defined by a combination of cultural and political factors. Culturally, they are groups of people who are bound together by a common language, religion, history and traditions. Ultimately, however, nations themselves through the existence of a shared civic consciousness, classically, expressed as the desire to achieve or maintain statehood.
Cultural nationalism emphasizes the regeneration of the nation as a distinctive civilization on the basis of a belief in the nation as a unique, historical and organic whole. Political nationalism recognizes the nation as a discrete political community and is thus linked with ideas such as sovereignty and self-determination.
There are a number of contrasting manifestations of political nationalism: Liberal (based on a belief in a universal right to self-determination); Conservative (aims to achieve social and political unity), Expansionist (which is a vehicle for aggression and imperial conquest); Anti-colonial (associated with the struggle against for national liberation, social development)
Sovereignty, in its simplest sense, is the principle of absolute and unlimited power. We may make distinctions between legal and political sovereignty, and internal and external notions of sovereignty. Legal sovereignty refers to supreme legal authority = unchallengeable right to demand compliance, as defined by law. Political sovereignty, in contrast refers to unlimited political power = the ability to command obedience, which is typically ensured by a monopoly of coercive power.
In contrast to government, which is merely one of its parts, the STATE encompasses all public bodies and exercises impersonal authority on the basis of the assumption that it represents the permanent interests of society rather than the partisan sympathies of any group of politicians
What constitutes a nation? The elements of nationhood:
1) territory, 2) population, 3) common identity, 4) common history/ experience, 5) aspirations for the future
What constitutes a State? The elements of statehood:
1) territory, 2) population, 3) independence, 4) sovereign government
4’th lecture= FROM JILL CAROL Mill and Gln, Discussions: Can we claim that absolute freedom is possible and beneficial?
11’th lecture= Elections and Types of Electoral Systems (Single Member, Proportional Representation, Mixed Member Proportional Representation System)
KEY TOPICS
● The citizen’s rights and obligations
● The state, the government, power and authority
● Liberal democracy: uniting the citizen and the state
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Citizen |
the Individual Member of the State |
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Civil Rights |
special freedoms which citizens of a country enjoy and which are protected by the law |
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State |
a country which is independent of all others; the permanent political authority within an independent country |
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Political power |
the ability to get things done, to change something in the country or to decide to keep it the same |
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Authority |
the quality possessed by a political leader or a government which has legitimacy or a right to rule |
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Democracy |
the system of government where the people rule themselves |
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Liberal Democracy |
A state where the people rule themselves but in addition the rights of the citizen are protected by law |
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Citizen
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Civil rights
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The state
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Justice
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Liberty
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Equality
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Political power
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Authority
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Democracy
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Liberal Democracy
Early study of politics took place in small communities. The ancient Greeks who asked many of the important questions (and answered some of them well enough to satisfy many people today) lived in city states where rulers and decision-making were not remote. Their primary concern was with the nature of the good and just society and what the attitude of the citizen should be towards authority. The nature of our obligation to our rulers became an important theme in the early study of politics. Why do we obey the state? (see Chapter 3).
The easy answer to this question is that people obey out of habit. It does not occur to them to disobey. In modern times the question might be answered by anthropologists studying primitive societies, or by psychologists studying small groups of people and their response to leadership in laboratory situations. The ancient philosophers believed the answer lay in the nature of man. Aristotle perceived man as an animal of the polis: outside society people could not attain true happiness. The real nature of man could only be realised by associating with others. He assumed that the good life lay in the polity and that legally constituted government was the natural form, so that corruptions of good government were aberrations. Hence harmony was more natural than conflict. Neither Plato nor Aristotle seems to have conceived that disagreement could be irreconcilable. Christian philosophers believed that authority came from God and, therefore, should be obeyed. Later dynastic rulers transformed this into the claim that hereditary rulers were appointed by divine law and so disobeying them was unthinkable.
Once the acknowledgement of basic disagreement arose the question of political obligation either disappeared or became far more complicated. The Scientific Revolution, the Renaissance, the Reformation and finally the eighteenth-century Enlightenment removed many of the old certainties. Machiavelli (1469-1527), who had been imprisoned and tortured by rulers' commands, believed people were fickle and prone to evil. He was the holder of high office at the period of the expulsion, and then reinstatement, of the Medici in Florence. Instability, he held, could always be round the corner. When the safety of the country is ultimately in question, he wrote, there must be no question of justice or injustice, of mercy or cruelty, of praise or ignominy. It was not a matter of obligation, but of success or failure. Similarly Hobbes (1588-1679), writing in the period of the English Civil War and religious intolerance, perceived man's nature as fearful in consequence of the struggle for survival. People battled against one another to achieve their ends and in consequence life was 'nasty, brutish and short'. Hence a sovereign was needed to enforce law and order. We obey the sovereign because if people start disobeying everyone will be miserable in a state of mutual conflict. It is not a moral obligation, it is a necessity.
From the late seventeenth century onward the question of the relationship between the individual and the state generally shifted from the obligation to obey to the circumstances in which one could disobey. It was argued by John Locke (1632-1704) that rulers rule with the consent of their people with whom they have a contract. If the ruler breaches their individual rights the people have a right to replace him. This justification of the English Revolution of 1688, when Parliament replaced a hereditary monarch it disapproved of, became an inspiration for the American Revolutionaries. Thus the study of political thought turned to constitutional liberalism and the need to control powerful government. Montesquieu (1689-1755) believed that this could only be done by separating the powers of the judiciary, legislature and executive from each other. Rousseau (1712-1778), with his belief in equality and sovereignty belonging to the people, challenged all previous ideas about authority.
After the American and French Revolutions obedience was no longer either a habit or an accepted and expected pattern of behaviour. Conflict among the people, who were rarely even 90 per cent in favour of any proposal, had to be assumed. The arrival of the Common Man and the pluralistic society meant that philosophic thinking about politics could no longer be the simple matter of the relationship between the individual and the state.
This is only the briefest summary of that part of most political science syllabuses known as political philosophy or political theory. (In Chapters 2 and 3 more recent developments are discussed.) It is possible to make a distinction between these two rubrics. Political philosophy is more concerned with implicit assumptions and internal logic, while political theory tends to be more related to intellectual influences and to cultural and historical environments, but the terms are sometimes used interchangeably
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2. 'The government' (with the definite article) usually refers to the rulers, that group of people who are in charge of the state at a particular time. Terminology is not universal even in the English speaking world. In the USA it is usual to call them the 'administration'. (Thus (in 1996) one would write of the Major Government in Britain and the Clinton Administration in America.)
The characteristics of the people who rule, their behaviour in office and the methods by which they reach their positions, are paramount in any analysis of POLITICAL SYSTEMS
The way one set of rulers succeeds another is one of the main distinguishing marks of political systems. In very traditional systems there may be one-man rule. This is usually dynastic rule and succession is by the hereditary principle, but in pre-Communist Tibet monks used esoteric methods to discover the next Dalai Lama. In many countries the method of succession is not prescribed and adventurists may seize power by force of arms. Much of the world is governed by MILITARY REGIMES and power changes hands after successive coups d'état. In countries ruled by single parties succession may be decided in small committees in secret and the procedure is obscure. In democracies succession of governments takes place through ELECTIONS, either directly, or as a result of negotiations by elected representatives.
Elements
in
Political Science
Frank Bealey, Richard A. Chapman and Michael Sheehan Edinburgh University Press
THE STATE
The concept of the state is one of great complexity. The term state is used in at least three different contexts 1) philosophical, 2) legal and 3) political and each of these three streams of thought provides us with a history of the development of the concept which has also been a response to the social and political environment.
There are three common perceptions of what is meant by the term 'the state'
3.1 The state as an apparatus of control
This is the image of the state with which most people are familiar. It is concerned with policy-making and policy-implementation. It means much more, therefore, than the government or any other group of politicians who may control the administrative apparatus at the centre. It consists also of all other public servants including the armed forces, the police and administrators in local government.
It may help in envisaging the scope of the modern state to examine the broad functions of the contemporary state. The functions can be grouped under five headings.
3.1.1 Guardian of law, order and property
This is the oldest function of the state. It includes:
1.policing backed up if necessary by the armed forces
2. punishing and imprisoning
3. interpreting the laws the function of the judiciary
3.1.2 Treasurer
This takes two forms.
1. Tax gatherer. This is another ancient function. Today more than two-thirds of annual British revenue is collected by the Board of Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. Schumpeter called the modern state the 'tax state' because of its scope and range. 1 Taxes make a great impact on the public as they emphasise the punitive role of the state.
2. Accountant. This is a more recent function in a professional sense. The Comptroller and Auditor General and his department examine the details of the national accounts. He is independent of the executive and responsible to Parliament.
3.1.3 Inspector
This is a more recent function, dating from the nineteenth century. Factory inspection began in 1833 and sanitary inspection in 1866. Vehicle licensing and safety checks are twentieth-century functions and food inspection is even more recent. The state with its inspectors is enforcing standards in numerous fields.
3.1.4 Allocator of values
Because of its activities in rewarding some sections of society and penalising others the modern state is very much involved in making value-judgements. This is especially so with the redistribution of income, collected through the state's function as tax gatherer, taking place under the umbrella of what is called the 'Welfare State'. Some of these functions go back to the late nineteenth century
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1. Provider for the poor. This is the oldest social function, beginning with the Elizabethan Poor Law. Money is paid, though often with increasing reluctance, to people not able to provide for themselves. |
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2. Educator. Education is compulsory between the ages of 5 and 16 and is largely administered by local governments though, increasingly, central government has intervened as inspector and regulator. |
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3. Insurance agent. The state makes provision for people in work against sickness and unemployment. Contributions by citizens to these schemes helps to provide benefit after retirement in the form of old age pensions. |
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4. House builder and landlord. In Britain this function dates from the 1920s when 'homes fit for heroes to live in' were provided for ex-servicemen of the First World War. Provision was delegated to local governments who rented them out and so became landlords. |
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5. Doctor and nurse. Since 1947 British governments have administered a National Health Service, providing free medical care to the population. |
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3.1.5 Coordinator |
The modern state is a coordinator in three ways: it coordinates functions, resources and policies
1. To coordinate functions governments have increasingly structured themselves on hierarchical lines. In parliamentary government there is a tendency to ranking among ministers with not all departmental ministers being in the cabinet. There is what S.E. Finer called the 'cone of command' with the prime minister at the top. 2 The increase in the functions of the state which has gradually taken place has led to more layering of power, and this is bound to lead to more coordination
2. The coordination of resources takes place in national treasuries which vet the annual estimates of expenditure of all government departments. A process of evaluation and prioritisation takes place with treasuries arbitrating between different claims. Demands from sections of the electorate and pressure groups are great, and these tend to be passed on to appropriate government departments
3. The coordination of policies is necessary because of the proliferation of policy-making. In Britain the trend is for more of it to proceed in committees and sub-committees of the Cabinet and especially in inter-departmental committees of civil servants. Ultimate synchronisation, at one time achieved through the Cabinet Office, has in recent years passed increasingly to the Prime Minister's Office. As economic policy and the management of it has become more and more important, the necessity for a position giving national direction and supervising the steering has correspondingly increased
To sum up: the state as an apparatus of control has passed through several stages in the last three centuries, usefully summarised under four headings. The early or 'primitive state' was characterised by rudimentary law and order, some legal recognition of claims to property, and a currency and a taxation system that required the beginnings of bureaucracy. Industrialisation and the advent of democracy made this type of state obsolete. It was succeeded by the 'collectivist state' with many more functions, a much larger bureaucracy and a much greater impact on its people, largely in response to their pressures. In the twentieth century the 'interventionist state' emerged as a result of experiences of wartime control of economies, intellectual teachings of economists like Keynes and the growing strength of left-wing ideas and political parties. Over the last twenty years a fourth type, the 'managerial state', has arisen. It is dedicated to efficient management, decentralisation of decision-making within a framework of centrally devised guidelines, and a brisk assertion of centralised power without too much attention to the niceties of constitutional conventions and civilised behaviour.
3.2 The state as an international actor
This follows from the assertion of state sovereignty (see Chapter 25). In its relations with the outside world with other states sovereignty means the capacity of a state to maintain its integrity by ensuring that its frontiers and its nationals are respected by other states. Indeed, a state only becomes one when it is recognised as such by other states and, today, by the United Nations Organisation. The sovereignty of a state may be impaired when another state has military installations on its territory, or by another state dominating economic investment within its borders. Very small states can scarcely feel they possess sovereignty when, like Honduras or Liberia, they have a large multinational corporation within their borders employing a large part of the national labour force.
States are quick to protest when their sovereignty is under threat. They like to preserve the myth that being a state implies 100 per cent sovereignty, and this may be important in international law. But in practice the world today is so interdependent that no state has 100 per cent sovereignty. A complete absence of relationships with other states would be disastrous.
3.3 The state as an abstract concept
3.3.1 Classical perceptions of the state
This was the province of legal theorists and philosophers before political science existed as a discipline. Their central concern was with the
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relationship between human beings and political authority (see Chapter 1). Early precursors of the term state came from Aristotle (384-322 BC) who used the term polis meaning both a city and a form of society and Cicero (106-43 BC) who spoke of res publica (public affairs) in which he believed there was a mixture of populo (the people), the source of power, and auctoritas (authority) which stemmed from the Senate, the ruling body of the Roman republic. Usually, however, it is Machiavelli (1469-1527)who is credited with the first use of the term 'state' in his work, The Prince. Although he is only writing about the small Italian states, he uses the term in its recognised modern sense to describe a political authority with the monopoly of ultimate coercion within a territory with defined borders. Clever diplomacy and statecraft were necessary to sustain a state and morality was not a consideration. He first used the phrase 'reason of state'. 3 |
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The idea of independent, autonomous territories with governments with supreme power over their peoples and single sources of law was widely recognised towards the end of the Middle Ages. Bodin (1529-96) called this characteristic 'sovereignty'. Without sovereignty there is no power and without power there can be no state. Laws are the emanation of the sovereign state and to maintain the laws sanctions are neededpenalties for those breaking laws. Sovereignty also means complete independence in the international context. Hence with Machiavelli and Bodin there develops the concept of the state as a political association different in its nature from other forms of organisation in society. |
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By the seventeenth century political philosophers for the first time were beginning to consider the impact of the individual upon the state. Hobbes conceived the state as made by men through fear of themselves. Because all men sought to gratify their desires they were aggressive and destructive, yet for that reason fearful. Recognising their nature they made a compact and set up Leviathan, a ruler to ensure compliance. John Locke (1632-1704) asserted that individuals had basic rights which could be enshrined in a contract with the state. These rights were broadly expressed in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 as 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'. It went on to proclaim 'That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens 1789, promulgated by the new National Assembly, similarly declared 'Men are born and always continue free and equal in respect of their rights', and 'The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.' |
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The American and French Revolutions cast the problem of the state |
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