State

Short history of the word

The word State appears in the European languages with the turning of XVe and XVIe centuries to indicate a form of organization of the policy which developed starting from the Rebirth in Western Europe before being exported, seems it in the whole world. For Arendt “this word comes from Latin status rei publicae whose equivalent is “the shape of government””. For this philosopher, at Machiavel which was one of the first to make use of the word stato , this term especially indicates “the political unit of people which double it and can survive the comings and goings not only of the governments but also of the shapes of government”. The State is one of the shapes of political organization of the possible company. The State is not everywhere same also the Georg Simmel recommended it to stick to the singularities and the regularities of the official phenomenon.

max Weber in Economy and company understands by State “a company Politique with character Institutionnel when and as long as its direction Administrative asserts successfully, in the application of its payments, the monopoly of the physical constraint Légitime on a Territoire given”. For Weber thus a political company in institutional matter can be a State only in so far as its administrative structure succeeds in being only, directly or by delegation, to make respect the Loi S through the Armée, the Justice and the police force.

According to the first edition of the dictionary of the French Academy (1696) the State has two significances: “the government of alive people under the domination of a prince or in republic”, “is also caught for the country even which is under such a domination”. The idea of domination subjacent with this definition seems, nowadays, to pose problem in France.

The State and the civil society

Some contemporary approaches of the study of the State

Three great traditions as well in political science as in sociology structure the theories of the State.: Marxist, pluralist approaches and institutionalists. Each one was used to arrive at a better comprehension of the State which remains imperfect have regard to the complexity of the problem. On the one hand the borders of the State are not fixed but constantly moving, on the other hand, the State is not only one place of conflicts between various organizations, it is also a place of conflicts inside the organizations. So certain researchers speak about the interest of the State, it should be noted that there are often divergent interests between the parts constituting the State.

Marxism

For the contemporary Marxists as Ralph Miliband the leading class uses the State like an instrument of domination of the company by using the personal bonds between the senior officials and the economic elites. For this author the State is dominated by an elite which in the same beginning as the capitalist class.

For certain theorists néo-Marxists this question of which controls the State is without interest. Influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas noticed that the capitalist States always did not follow the leading class and that when it did it was not inevitably consciously but which it was because the structures of the State were such as the long-term interests of the capitalists were always assured.

Pluralism

If the approach néo-Marxist were influential in Europe in the Sixties seventy, the pluralist approach had at the same time a broad audience in the United States. For Robert Dahl the State is at the same time like a neutral arena for interests in conflicts and itself crossed of conflict of interests between its various agencies or departments. The policy for him is the product of a constant bargaining between groups which have a whole a means of pressure on the State. Dahl names this type of State a polyarchy .

Institutionalism

For the Marxists and pluralist the State is satisfied to react to the activities of the social groups. Also they were criticized by other researchers who reproached them not to emphasize enough the autonomy of the State and to be too centered on the company.

For holding of the new approach institutionnalist in policy, the behaviors of the individuals are basically modelled by the institutions and the State is neither an arena nor an instrument and does not function in the interest of only one class. The researchers of this school put L `accent on the need for interposing the civil society between the State and the economy.

Theda Skocpol suggests that the members of the State have an important degree of autonomy and that they can continue their interest independently (and sometimes in conflict) of the other actors of the company. As the State has the means of coercion and that the groups of the civil society are dependant on him, the civils servant can impose on the whole their preference on the civil society.

Sovereignty and institutions

Sovereignty

State and institutions

Institutions of the State

max Weber in the reflection on the State which it had at the beginning of the twentieth century is interested in the State as a Institution like with the relationship between policies and administrative.

The State is managed by controlling elected and of the controlling civils servant (Jacques Lagroye), i.e. the State is at the same time administrative and political, with a social Division of work (Emile Durkheim) between this two personnel. In general, the State is composed of what constitutes for John Locke the civil government (executive power and legislative power), of justice and a whole military apparatus and administrative: police force and administration. The State is a Institution of institutions in permanent Interaction of which each one has a culture distinct - i.e. universes from direction and practices different. The State one, nor is thus not unified. It is a space where develop and where coexist of the Culture S and the Logique S Institutionnelle S sometimes different.

Concerning France, Alexis de Tocqueville in his book the Acien Mode and the Revolution insists on two points: the permanence of the institutions of the State built starting from Richelieu and influences it Physiocratie on the reforms introduced by the Révolution. He writes on this subject: “All the institutions which the Revolution was to abolish without return were the particular object their attacks; none found thanks to their eyes. All those, on the contrary, which can pass for its own work were announced by them in advance and were recommended with heat; one would quote hardly only one whose germ was not deposited in some their writings; one finds in them all that there is of more substantial in it”.

Separation of the capacities and countervailing powers

The basic principles of a modern State, such as they were stated by large the philosophical policies, include the Séparation of the capacities. John Locke, in the two treaties of the civil government (1690), distinguishes the executive power and the legislative power. Montesquieu, in Of the spirit of the laws , will associate later on a third capacity, the judicial power. If the American constitution of 1787 takes as a starting point these two philosophers, as well as principles of natural right of Samuel von Pufendorf, a long time this current only one very tiny influence on the institutions in France, England will have even, it will lose of its influence starting from first half of the 19th century.

For Elie Halévy, the idea of against-force which one finds at Montesquieu and the English liberals who made the Révolution S at the 17th century rests on a moral pessimism, on a doubt about the capacities of the man to include/understand his true interest and that of the city from where need for institutions intended to refine the thought and the action of the men, to oblige it to include/understand what the others think. It lies within a scope where the “line reason” is not purely abstract but must be nourished of a confrontation with reality. In addition, for these men the laws are not commands of any higher entity but, are, we saw it, of the relations. Also, Halévy notes it… “the liberal State is a State which one can say, at will, that it is a State without sovereign, or that it contains several sovereigns”.

In France, at the end of the 18th century, the idea of expensive against-force to Montesquieu and the English liberals of the 18th century strongly fought by Quesnay and the Physiocrates, i.e. if one follows Tocqueville by one of the currents which had the most influence in France. Quesnay in the general Maxims of the economic government of an agricultural kingdom , written: “the system of the against-forces in a government is a disastrous opinion which lets see only the discord between the large ones and the overwhelming pressure of small”. This same opposition is in an important British current at the 19th century which was influenced by the physiocrats before influencing in his turn of the French republicans: the utilitarianism called also by Elie Halévy, “philosophical radicalism” (Bentham, Ricardo, John Stuart Mill). Elie Halévy writes when he wants to expose what differentiates the liberal State from the radical State: “The radical State, on the contrary, such as the utilitarianism of Bentham defines it is a State which confers sovereignty to the people; after the people is constrained to delegate a certain number of political offices to a minority of individuals….not to limit itself its power, to abdicate its sovereignty partly, but to return on the contrary more effective and more concentrated the expression, then execution of its wills. The problem is then to prevent that the representatives of the people conceal with those which constituted them such whole or part of their sovereignty. From where need for finding “against-forces” able “to hold in failure” the selfishness of the civils servant”.

Federalism and supranational organization

In a federal system , it arrives that the two levels of sovereignty which coexist allow the existence of several States in same a Fédération. With the the United States, which function with a federal system, in addition to the Federal state (Washington, cd.) one finds fifty States local, having legislative bodies, executive and legal clean which exert, according to the division of the capacities envisaged in the Constitution of the United States, a sovereign right in their fields of competence.
the European Union is a supranational Organization, it is not a State: the countries Membre S of the Union are all of the States, the European Union with its Parlement, its Court of justice of the European Communities and its other bodies has only certain attributes of the State. The European Union can also be seen like a new emergent political entity.

Historical development of the State

the State before the State in antiquity

The birth of the State, in the broad sense of the term, coincides with the advent of civilization. For the major part of its existence, the mankind, wandering, lived of gathering and hunting. This lifestyle changed approximately 9000 years before J.C with the invention of the Agriculture. The practice of agriculture forced the men to settle in a permanent way at certain places, close to the zones which they cultivated. Thus, the control of the ground became a problem. Thus was born the private property, and with it, the first “wars” on the dissensions concerning the land ownership.

In certain parts of the world, in particular the Mésopotamie and the Valley of the the Nile, the natural conditions made that the grounds were concentrated in little with hands. Finally, an small group of people ended up controlling the grounds worked by many people who depended on it. Thus were born the first primitive States. Certain political economists or theorists of the State do not regard them besides as State, because being too primitive, without infrastructures and laws. They prefer the term of “proto-State”. However, all the companies were not organized in States (Pierre Clastres speaks about “companies without State”, even against the State: primitive companies (for example Inuits) where there is neither hierarchy of the capacities, nor authority.

One of oldest codes laws, that of Hammurabi, date of approximately 1 700 years before J.C. It is at that time that the concept of “Loi”, one of the foundations of the modern State, started to appear. But controlling them of the time were essentially “god-kings”. Thus, the laws which in a certain way limited the capacity of the monarchs were not very developed.

The city-States of the ancient Greece were the first has to establish States whose capacities were clearly defined by the law (even if this one were easily modifiable). Also let us note that the concept of democracy in addition was born in Athens.

Many Institution S official finds their origin in the ancient Rome which inherited its traditions Greece and which developed them thereafter. However, the Roman République ends up becoming an Empire, which created the concept of universal Empire, that is to say the idea that the world was to be plain under only one State-Empire.

The fall of the Roman Empire and the great migrations changed the policy into Europe. The cruel kingdoms which followed were transitory and little organized and had only little resemblance to the modern concept of the State. Even the kingdom of Charlemagne was staggering. It was dissolved in three kingdoms by the Traité of Verdun in 843, the rule of the Primogéniture not having been established yet. Those were more vast possessions of ground than of true kingdoms. Again, the State became the expression of a vast ground possession.

Feudal State at the modern State

The absence of true successor to the Roman Empire created a political vacuum in Europe. The kingdoms of Western Europe were besieged and regularly attacked by invaders: Moslems initially in the south, of the emigrants to the east, and finally the invasions Viking S coming from north. About to the same moment, the religion, seldom more than one simple political factor in the old empires Roman and Greek, contributed here to form a pretense of unit in the middle of politically dissipated Europe. That led to reform an instituted framework, the Féodalisme, which controlled the internal conflicts and helped Europe to face the external threats. This system appeared inter alia by the appearance of the Croisades in which several countries of Europe took part together. In 1302, the pope Boniface VIII even declared that the political power exerted its prerogatives under the order of the priests. Here are which limited the capacities of the kings and forced them to swear allegiance with the Pape, the population of the States being very Christian.

The Holy Roman Empire Germanic, one of the strongest powers of the medieval time, appeared as a competitor with the papal authority by the person of Frederic Barberousse, which invaded the Italy by protesting secularization in the middle of XIIe century. The weakening of papacy is an important topic of the Middle Ages: the schism of Occident at the end of XIVe century (which owes its origin has an argument on the papal succession) was exploited by the secular authorities and contributed to the increase to be able to them. The emergence of long stable dynasties to the broad territories, for example in Spain, France, and Castille, their made it possible to obtain a role at the same time more important and independent politically that before. The passage in States thus more laic became an important point of controversy. The great dynasties of Europe strongly consolidated their capacity in the neighborhoods of XVIe century; at the same time, the threats external to Europe became less important. The Réforme had a considerable impact on the Européenne political structure: the debate was not only ideological, it also threatened the bases of institutions resting on feudalism. The conflict which followed saw to clash the partisans of a State affiliated to the pope against those which wished a free State of the papal and secular influence, able to decide its own policy, internal but so religious.

These conflicts culminated during the Guerre Thirty Year old of the XVIIe century. In 1648, the European powers signed the Traités of Westphalia, putting an end to religious violences for simple political reasons and the Church was private temporal political power, although the religion continued to be used as foundation with legitimated kings, in their allotting the “divine right”. The principle of the “ Cuius regio, eius religio ” (“such prince, such religion”) bench in Westphalia created a precedent by establishing the idea of status quo and the non-interference of States in the policy of other States. The modern State had been born.

The State continued to develop whereas the nobility and the middle-class woman brought and created many richnesses, accentuating economic, but so cultural prestige and policy of the States. One attended even with a rise of the number of the civils servant and the emergence of a stammering Bureaucratie.

Nearly one century and half after the peace of Westphalia, the State became truly modern through the process of the French revolution. The Large army of Napoleon broke indeed on Europe, destroying feudalisms and the substitute by the concept of State-nation, which remained time until now like the official system dominating, in spite of the internal disputes and the various ideologies (like the Marxisme) of XIXe and XXe centuries which will invite to exceed the concept of nation.

Today, the States are declined in all a variety of institutional and political models, each one defining its form of governorship (federal, unit, presidential, parliamentary, constitutional, democratic, dictatorial, etc) and his report/ratio in religion (theocracies, laic, recognition or not of the worships, etc).

The State seen by certain lawyers at the beginning of the twentieth century

The legal theory had much evil to define what was the State. Several schools clashed on this ground; one will retain here the three great prospects for the legal approach.

the State of power, Maurice Hauriou the theory of the State of power goes back to the works of Nicolas Machiavel, Thomas Hobbes and Jean Bodin. In this approach, the State is characterized by its Souveraineté intern and external. The State is Léviathan whose function is to maintain the order in the company of which it ensures the direction. In the first designs of the State de Puissance, the State incarnates the General interest and then has a certain number of prerogatives which emanate from its Souveraineté, in particular the capacity to create the Droit and to take unilateral Administrative acts (AAU) which are binding to the individuals without their assent. The State then lays out of the Legal entity, it is a person as well as the Citoyen. Maurice Hauriou introduced at the beginning of the 20th century the idea of the election of the President of the Republic with the Vote for all.

the Rule of law, Hans Kelsen Positivism legal. For this American of Austrian origin and the German school of the Rule of law, it is not the State which produces the right, but the legal order (i.e. the Hiérarchie of the standards) which produces the State. The State would not be whereas the emanation of the Droit which would limit its power of arbitrary. From this point of view, the State is not defined any more as in the theory of the State de Puissance by its sovereignty, but by its identification with an legal order and its tender with the right. This German theory of the Rule of law was taken again by Raymond Carré of Malberg which tried to transpose this theory to France. To ensure the perenniality of the right, it is necessary that the Hiérarchie of the legal standards is guaranteed and that there exists a jurisdictional control to make respect this hierarchy of the standards in order to force the State to respect the right. This jurisdictional control of the State exists since the stop of the Tribunal of the conflicts (TC), 1873, Blanco.

the State of service, For Leon Duguit, the State is characterized neither by sovereignty, nor by its identification with an legal order. For Leon Duguit, the State is only one empty shell, it does not have personality, cannot have subjective rights and could not be able to impose anything on anyone. The State is thus an empty shell behind which hide controlling - but nothing guarantees that these controlling will agree to limit their power for always and will continue to subject itself to the right. What justifies, according to Leon Duguit, the existence of the State, it is the Public service. The State is indeed according to him the expression of the social solidarity. The men, gathered in companies, became increasingly interdependent. This interdependence was accompanied by the creation of standards, and to make respect these standards, from the leaders emerged. But these leaders only remain leaders as a long time as they continue to be devoted to the company and the organization of the social solidarity by means of the public service. For Leon Duguit, the State is not whereas the emanation of the company and not the consequence of any Souveraineté of the State or a preexistent legal order.

The State today

Place de l'État, recent evolutions

Since the end of the Years 1980, the place of the State changes radically, under the combined effect of the Mondialisation and the European Construction (in Europe). The States lose part of be able to them:

the Universalization, especially in its economic aspects , increases external pressure and decreases the capacity of intervention of the States in the economy Mondiale vis-a-vis the financial Marché S.
In Europe, the States disengage economy by privatisant the State enterprises. The Social security sees its role decreasing. The European directives are essential in more and more branches of industry.
In Europe, the States do not intervene as much any more in public decision making; they lose to be able to them “by the top”, with the European Construction.
In France, the State loses its capacity “by bottom”, with the Décentralisation and the increase in the capacity of the area S.

Functions of the State

Pierre Rosanvallon distinguishes four great functions from the State:

the Kingly State: to make respect the order through the police force, the army and justice.
the State Teacher of the social one: to unify the country through the school (end XIXe century in France with Jules Ferry).
the Welfare state (1945): to redistribute the incomes thanks to the development of solidarity with the Social security.
the economic State Promoter: to support the economy in the line line of the ideas of Keynes (political of great work).

For Daniel Bell, the State is “too large to manage the small things and too small for the large things”.

State security

In France, the crimes and offenses against the fundamental Intérêt S of the Nation are judged by Juridictions of common right, since the suppression of the Cour of state security in 1981.

The President of the French Republic is guaranteeing institutions. It rests on the Constitutional council.

In Belgium, the State security is a department which treats businesses of Espionnage and of Terrorisme.

Towards a post-modern State?

See too

Country (State)
State (France)
Separation of the capacities
Legislative power
judicial Power
Executive power
Government
Country (French territorial division)
political State control
Liberalism
Capitalism of State
Official art
Censure
States of the United States of America
Maurice Hauriou
the State in international law

Random links:

Lina Krasnoroutskaya | List commanderies templières in the Limousin | Hujur Maharaj | Dean Saunders | Speed limits in Albania