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

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



	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.



	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.'

The American and French Revolutions cast the problem of the state

in new terms. The effect of popular emancipation was to bring the people into the ambit of political theory for the first time. The relationships between the state and the people, and the state and groups of people, especially concerned Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) whom many consider to be the main intellectual force contributing to revolutionary sentiment in nineteenth-century Europe. For him the major problem was how to obtain a kind of association, allowing everyone to be as free as in a state of nature and at the same time protecting the property and person of each individual member. How could collectivity be reconciled with individuality? Could one devise an association in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone and remain as free as before? Rousseau answered the question with the Social Contract by which men entered into a civil association and gave up their individual rights in order to find true freedom in obedience to the rule of law. Liberty was freedom to obey laws prescribed by ourselves. For Rousseau the sovereignty of the people meant the sovereignty of the General Will. We realise our individual rights by obeying the General Will.



	The General Will, however, was not the Will of all which could change from time to time as it expressed different interests. Cleavages in society (see Chapter 10) were harmful. Legislative institutions were unable to express will: this could only be done by referendums. Nor would debates and discussions help to identify the General Will whose true expression lay in unanimity. Consequently parties and sects, the manifestations of particular wills, should not be allowed. They were in error and it was necessary to restrain them and to guide their followers, the 'blind multitude' as Rousseau puts it, towards the perception of what was willed by the General Will. People had to be 'forced to be free'. Thus Rousseau, who some still see as the harbinger of democracy, rejected pluralism and representative democracy. He has been described paradoxically as the prophet of 'totalitarian democracy'. ⁴



	From the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards the relationships between collective forces and the state becomes far more complicated. Industrialisation and urbanisation produced new social groups with compelling demands upon political authority. To the freedoms promised by the French and American Revolutions were added the individualistic ideas of the liberal economists and nationalistic demands of ethnic groups for statehood. The former theme, as far as state theory is concerned, was classically expressed by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) who argued that the state had no right to interfere in the economy. The state should be a 'night watchman' concerned only to safeguard property and the sanctity of business contracts. From the latter trend arose, especially among the new nations, a reaction

against the fragmented pluralism already visible in the fledgling democracies. The outstanding interpreter of this theme was G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) who pointed out that the modern state was distinctive in that it possessed a large sector given over to the activities of independent individuals. He called this die bürgerliche Gesellschaft, usually translated as 'civil society'. Hegel saw the state as encompassing civil society as well as cultural, legal and ethical spheres. Consequently the state should further the quest for perfection in rational and moral values, uphold solidarity and correct the phases of instability to which civil society was prone.



	Kenneth Dyson sums up the theory of the state until recent times in two ways. ⁵ First, he makes a historical analysis, perceiving the state at three different periods of social and economic development.



	1. The state as a reflection of a hierarchic social order. It would be incorrect to speak of a 'feudal state', but where feudal relics linger and there is a society with fairly well-defined status differences this type can be identified. Nineteenth-century European states were of this nature and the collaborationist Vichy regime in France (1940-44) was an attempt at its restoration.



	2. The state as a reflection of an individualistic social order. This is a reaction against 1. above. It is consequent upon the emergence of a market economy and entrepreneurial capitalism and assumes a non-interventionist state with people being allowed greater freedom to pursue their own course of action. No state has ever approached an absolute position on this. It remains an ideal.



	3. The state as an embodiment of the community. This is a reaction against the individualistic state and its alleged lack of coherence. The state is needed to assert 'public good' against individual pressures and to lay down the proper moral values. This could be the position of most democratic political parties except those holding the views of classical liberalism.



	Dyson also suggested three non-historical conceptions of the state.



	1. The state as legitimacy. This incorporated 'the state as law' as long as the laws were accepted by the people as right and proper. It rejected the 'state as might' assuming that nothing based on sheer force could be legitimate.



	2. The state as law. This conception was implied by Weber, but was best stated in the exegesis of Hans Kelsen (1883-1973) whose theory was that legal systems were based on ordered norms. Among positive norms the most general is the constitution, the

Grundnorm which, in political terms, is the framework for other norms. This constituted the formal theory of the Rechtsstaat.



	3. The state as might (Macht). This goes back to Machiavelli and Hobbes, but finds its best expression in the political philosophers of two countries which had achieved late nationhood through armed struggle. In Italy the elitists, Mosca and Pareto (see Chapter 15) perceived the state as an instrument of force manipulated by elites. A united Germany, Bismarck said, would be achieved by 'blood and iron'. This sentiment was reflected in the writings of the historian Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-96) who said war was an element that unites nations, ⁶ and more recently of Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), who described politics as concerned with the friend-enemy relationship. He began as a protagonist of the state-as-law school, but joined the Nazis in 1933.



	Yet the 'state as might' has not been monopolised by nationalists. In his account of phases of history Karl Marx argued that the state had always been used as an instrument of repression by the class that at that time owned the means of production (see Chapter 13) Under capitalism the state was controlled by the capitalist class who oppressed the industrial workers. When they revolted and overthrew capitalism the means of production would belong to everyone. There could be no class domination and the state would 'wither away'.



	3.3.2 Modern perceptions of the state



	Since the late nineteenth century perceptions of the state have changed. Marx perceived the state as a mere instrument. Thus it was not a power in itself but a tool to be used by those who controlled it. Although ostensibly under the rubric of state theory, much of modern discussion is about where state power is located and how it is exercised. Three forces have been at work. First, neo-Marxists, aware that Marx's prophecy about the state withering away was not being fulfilled, have devised all sorts of explanations for its resilience and proliferation. Second, the complexities of modern democratic industrialised society, its pluralistic nature, have led to state theories compatible with this situation. The pluralists have argued about the relationship between the state and civil society. Third, the expansion of political science has greatly increased the number of people keen to make a reputation by advancing their own theories.



	Neo-Marxist perceptions



	Neo-Marxists have been concerned with an advanced capitalism that Marx never knew. They have to explain why the workers' revolution

has not happened, why capitalism and 'bourgeois democracy' are still flourishing and why the state has not withered away. Several explanations are advanced, some of them combining the following factors:



	1. Marx was wrong in ascribing the role of revolutionary agent to the working class. Marcuse (1898-1979) argued that the impetus for revolution had to be found elsewhere, among students, dropouts and the underclass.



	2. The state has developed resources of coordination that Marx had not foreseen. Poulantzas (1936-79) argued that the state maintained the cohesion of democratic regimes by managing to retain the balance of various factions in which monopoly capitalists dominated, at the same time keeping the appearance of state autonomy. This had led to the decline of democratic institutions such as legislatures and the rise of a type of regime he called 'authoritarian statism'.



	3. The state exerted moral leadership in civil society through its control of the education system, culture and value-forming organisations like the churches. Hence it manufactured a dominant ideology which shaped people's perceptions so that they thought the status quo was the natural order. Gramsci (18911937), who first presented this thesis, argued that, therefore, in democracies the hegemony of the capitalist state was founded on consent rather than force.



	4. Habermas (1929-) argues that the modern capitalist state faces a crisis of legitimation in which it is led into many contradictions. Science and technology are no longer liberating and enlightening, but serve as a legitimating ideology. Likewise the affluence of modern society and the welfare state produce values of hedonism and a lack of initiative which are detrimental to capitalism. Not knowing how to deal with these contradictions, the state is consequently faced also with a motivation crisis. For Habermas the capitalist system is in decline, though he does not speculate about how it will end or who will end it.



	5. Offe (1940-) and other neo-Marxists depict the state as excluded from capitalist decision-making, especially the most important decision, that of investment. The policies of the democratic state are constrained because of the need for capitalist accumulation. Welfare benefits are largely paid out of taxation revenue and are thus financed by the community: this is a way of socialising employers' labour costs. Thus the major function of the state is that of a legitimating framework for the established system. It has many functions, but relatively little power. The working-class



	capacity to mobilise is easily surpassed by that of the capitalist class.



	6. Some neo-Marxists, especially those from the developing world, argue that the class division is between the people of the underprivileged countries and the opulent advanced industrialised states. The cleavage is between 'North and South'. This application of the writings of Hobson, Hilferding and Lenin ⁷ has been much extended by the threat of crises in globalised capitalism in which the developing countries will suffer most.



	7. The dual state thesis perceived the main opportunities for working-class assertion and eventual power lying in local government. This was derived especially from the success of left-wing parties in retaining control for long periods in large cities such as Bologna. Local government was a key part of the capitalist state because it provided the services which helped to reproduce the labour force. Thus the duality consisted of local government being concerned with consumption and central government with production.



	Pluralist perceptions



	A pluralist society is usually regarded as a natural consequence of democracy (see Chapter 4). Freedom of association is one of its necessary conditions. The right of collective organisation allows voluntary associations to form. These can be seen as counterbalancing state power, or balancing one another and so preserving a social equilibrium. In the nineteenth century it was de Tocqueville who extolled the virtues of a system of diverse local pluralism such as he found in the USA. He saw it as an important check on centralised power supported by democratic majorities, the consequence of revolution in his native France. At the beginning of the twentieth century Bentley argued that the study of groups should be the basis of a scientific study of politics.⁸ Empirical investigation, for example Dahl's analysis of power in New Haven, confirmed that oligarchy was not present. In democracies power might not be divided equally, but it was not concentrated. Dahl called this system polyarchy.⁹ It left open the position of the central power apparatus, but it did appear that the state was merely a player in the game, though perhaps sometimes a 'dirty player'.



	Dunleavy and O'Leary in their comprehensive survey depict three models of the democratic state.¹⁰

1. The 'weathervane' model perceives the state as responding to the direction of the political wind, that is to the balance of pressures



	in society. In this model the state has no 'autonomy' because it can be captured by a powerful group. Presumably this may vary with time and place. For example, on agricultural policy the producers, the farmers, win much more often than the agricultural consumers, a very much larger number of people. Executive departments and legislative committees concerned with agricultural policy become 'colonised' by those persuaded by farmers' pressure groups. The same situation will apply in numerous other policy fields. The state is constantly swinging in the wind. Highly responsive, a state of this kind is open to pressures from citizens for programmes of increased public expenditure.



	2. The 'mediator and harmoniser' model envisages the state as neutral between different groups. But neutrality, as Dunleavy and O'Leary point out, can cover three stancesthat of the detached bystander, that of the concerned referee and that of promoter of values of 'fairness'. In this third stance the state is not in the business of conciliating powerful interests. In this version, the ideal of liberal pluralists, unorganised interests like consumers and children will have their needs attended to. Unfortunately democracy is not much concerned with objective fairness. Majorities may be very 'unfair' or, to look at it another way, they will have their own ideas about what is fair.



	3. The 'broker' model perceives the state as a middleman with interests of his own. In this model the state has some autonomy. Public servants involved in the processes of bargaining between different pressures may secure the outcome they would prefer. On the other hand, there may be another group of public servants who would prefer another outcome. With the broker model, conflict takes place as much, or more, within the state apparatus as outside it.



	The broker model may approximate in certain circumstances to 'liberal corporatism', a term initiated by Schmitter. Under liberal corporatist systems the bargaining groups were 'recognised or licensed... by the state'. ¹¹ (This contrasts with 'liberal pluralism' where groups unrecognised by the state compete freely.) But the examples usually quoted by liberal corporatistsSweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Austriawhere strategic elites such as business, labour and agriculture are accorded regular and institutionalised bargaining over economic policy with the state, do not diverge greatly from the broker model. Rokkan called this system, mainly operating in Scandinavia, 'corporate pluralism' and contrasted it with 'numerical democracy', the conventional decision-making system, asserting tersely

'votes count: resources decide' ¹² (see Chapter 4) The fact is that all the liberal corporatist arrangements suffered great shocks in the 1980s including, most dramatically, the Swedish national lock-out in 1980.¹³



	To sum up: the relationships between the democratic state and interest groups are likely to be intermittent and temporary, however permanent they may appear to be in certain periods. Incumbent governments will think more about numerical democracy when elections approach and subsequent events may result in movement between all these models. The assumption that all groups have equal powernever really crediblegave way among later pluralists (neopluralists), to the view that corporate capital was the most powerful group. In consequence they formed links with the neo-Marxists. Hence we may conclude that the models are aids to understanding different patterns of modern pluralist society-state relationships, not definitive systems of rule.



	The idea at the crux of pluralism was that there are many power centres beyond that of the state, especially in democracies. Yet this is no indication that governments will deal with them. The realisation gradually sank in that constraints on governments are great and are imposed not only by electorates, but also by the economy and, increasingly, by the world economy.



	Bringing the state back in



	There was also questioning among social scientists about the concentration of group power. The historian Otto Hintze argued that the nature of any state's power was dependent on its history of internal class conflicts and its strategic scope and positioning in the world. To understand how a state developed one has to know its social and military history. ¹⁴



	Foremost among such commentators was Theda Skocpol who asserted that states were unique structures with their own histories.¹⁵ The pluralists were in error in thinking of the state as a black box into which inputs went and out of which outputs came, or as an arena in which contests between social and political groups were staged. Each state was an administrative and coercive apparatus extracting resources from society and deploying them as it thought fit. In her analysis of revolutionary changes to states she begins with the Chinese Empire, before 1911 ruled by about 40,000 officials whose overriding attachment was to maintain the irrigation system, and continues with the imperial bureaucracies of France and Russia.



	Wallerstein's contribution to state theory was to emphasise how state
sovereignty had been compromised by links with other states in the world economy. ¹⁶ The globalisation of world markets by the GATT agreements makes this point especially apposite. It is argued that the nation-state is being hollowed out by the growing strength of international organisations and the increasing regulatory power of confederations like the European Union. Is the decline of the nation-state unstoppable?



	Notes



	1. Quoted in M. G. Schmidt, 'The growth of the tax state' in C. L. Taylor (ed.), Why Governments Grow (London: Sage, 1983), p. 262f.



	2. S. E. Finer, A Primer of Public Administration (London: F. Muller, 1950), p. 35.



	3. A. P. D'Entrèves, The Notion of the State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967).



	4. For example, seeJ. L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (London: Secker & Warburg, 1952).



	5. K. Dyson, The State Tradition in Western Europe (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980).



	6. H. von Treitschke, Selections from his Lectures on Politics trans. A. L. Gowans (London: Gordons & Gray, 1914), p. 23.



	7. J. A. Hobson, Imperialism (London: Allen & Unwin, 1902); R. Hilferding, Finance Capital: a Study in the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development (London: Routledge, 1910); V. I. Lenin, Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1916).



	8. A. F. Bentley, The Group Theory of Politics (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1908).



	9. R. A. Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971).



	10. P. Dunleavy and B. O'Leary, Theories of the State (London: Macmillan, 1987), p. 43f.



	11. P. Schmitter, 'Still the century of corporatism', Review of Politics, vol. 36, 1974, p. 93f.



	12. S. Rokkan, 'Numberical democracy and corporate pluralism', in R. A. Dahl (ed.), Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966).



	13. W. Korpi, The Democratic Class Struggle (London: Routledge, 1983), p. 159. See also F. W. Bealey, Democracy in the Contemporary State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 180f.



	14. See F. Gilbert (ed.), The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975).



	15. T. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).



	16. I. Wallerstein, The Modern World System (New York: Academic Press, 1974).



	Questions



	1. To what degree is it realistic to study the relationship between the individual and the state?



	2. What are the problems of the democratic state in dealing with interest groups?

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