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
