Chapter 4: The Modern State

What are the common factors in all of those people's definitions?

- a given territory - the use of force or the threat of force to control the inhabitants

What are the two views of a state?

1. Contractarian view 2. Predatory view

What are Max Weber's four characteristics of the modern state?

1. territory 2. sovereignty 3. legitimacy 4. bureaucracy

What's an example of a threat to internal sovereignty?

ISIS

Bureaucracy

Large set of appointed officials who implement the laws of the state as directed by the executive - central part of rational-legal legitimacy/modern state - state can't function without it ex: Supreme Court, Appointments from President, the IRS

Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau Comparison

Look at chart in notebook (chapter 4 section)

Quasi-state

States that have legal sovereignty and international recognition but lack almost all the domestic attributes of a functioning state (ex: Palestine)

State of Nature

The basis of natural rights philosophy; a state of nature is the condition of people living in a situation without man-made government, rules, or laws (NO STATE)

What do the 4 characteristics of a modern state (from Max Weber) allow you to do?

They allow you to decide if a state is: - strong - weak - failed - quasi-state

How to solve the game:

Use the Nash Equilibrium - no player has the incentive to unilaterally switch to another strategy - both players must play the "best replies" to yield the highest payoffs - strategize to predict other player's moves

Every state must have:

a bureaucracy

From this, what's the definition of a modern state?

a state is an entity that uses coercion and threat of force to rule in a given territory

Weak state

a state that is only partially able to provide political goods to its citizens

Failed state

a state that is so weak that it loses effective sovereignty over part or all of its territory

Strong state

a state that's capable of providing adequate political goods to its citizens

Unlike other social organizations, the state is:

a violence producing enterprise - all states use force to organize public life (break the laws = go to jail) - states never perfectly monopolize force (innocent people are convicted) - states never perfectly enforce their will

Territory

an area with clearly defined borders to which a state lays claim

What's Douglas North's definition of a modern state?

an organization with a comparative advantage in violence, extending over a geographic area whose boundaries are determined by its power to tax constituents

Charismatic legitimacy

based on personal virtue, heroism, sanctity, etc. ex: Alexander the Great, Jesus, Cesar, King Arther

Rational-Legal legitimacy

based on their selection according to an accepted set of laws, procedures, or principles - usually a combo of rational legal and one other form of legitimacy ex: Fidel castro, Hitler, Stalin

Rational-Legal legitimacy

based on their selection according to an accepted set of laws, procedures, or principles ex: Fidel castro, Hitler, Stalin

State of Nature & the Game Theory

game theory helps us understand the interaction between people in the state of nature - imagine that 2 people in the state of nature must decide whether or not to steal from one another

What does the bureaucracy contribute to?

highways, education, sewage system, etc.

What did Hobbes say about the state of nature?

it would be a state of war - without a state, life would be poor with constant vulnerability

All states are:

modern states with rational-legal legitimacy

What's the enhanced definition of a modern state that includes all 4 of Max Weber's characteristics?

ongoing administrative apparatus that develops and administers laws and generates/implements policies in a specific territory

Sovereignty (external)

relative to outside powers that's legally recognized in international law (external international organizations) ex: United Nations, NGO's, Nato

Contractarian view of the state

sees the creation of the state as resulting from a social contract between individuals in the state of nature in which the state provides security in exchange for obedience from the citizen

What's Max Weber's definition of a modern state?

state is a "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory

What's Charles Tilly's definition of a modern state?

states are "relatively centralized, differentiated organizations, the officials of which, successfully claim control over the chief concentrated means of violence within a population inhabiting a large, contiguous territory

Legitimacy

the recognized right to rule

Traditional legitimacy

the right to rule based on a society's long-standing patterns and practices ex: dynasties, kings and queens, family rule, chiefs

Sovereignty (Internal)

the sole authority within a territory capable of making and enforcing laws ex: Congress

All states use:

the threat of voice, but in different ways

In the contractarian view of the state:

there's a thought experiment (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau)

What's the resource curse?

when a state relies on a key resource for almost all of its revenue, allowing it ignore the citizens (ex: oil, coal, diamonds, rubies)

What was Hobbes' claim about the state of nature?

without a common power to keep them all in awe, the people will choose to steal and kill