3 Politics and the State

Question 1

What are Hegel’s three moments of social existence, and what form of altruism/egoism characterises each?

Answer 1

The family –particular altruism
Civil society –universal egoism
State –universal altruism

Question 2

What is the organizational view of the state?

Answer 2

The set of institutions that are recognisably public, for the public and funded at the public’s expense.

Question 3

What is sovereignty?

Answer 3

Supreme authority within a territory.

Question 4

What are the five key features of the state?

Answer 4

1 Sovereignty
2 Publicness
3 Legitimation
4 Domination
5 Territorial

Question 5

The state is an exercise in legitimation –what is meant by this?

Answer 5

Decisions of the state are accepted as binding, or legitimate, by members of society.

Question 6

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel dates?

Answer 6

1770-1831

Question 7

What was Hegel’s definition of art?

Answer 7

“The sensuous presentation of ideas”

Question 8

When did the modern state emerge in Europe?

Answer 8

16th and 17th century

Question 9

What was important about the Treaty of Westphalia (1648)?

Answer 9

Recognized sovereignty of states and principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations, discouraging hegemony.

Question 10

What did the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) mark the end of?

Answer 10

The Thirty Years’ War in the Holy Roman Empire and the Eighty Years’ War between Spain and the Dutch Republic.

Question 11

What preceded modern statehood in Europe?

Answer 11

Feudal system, where lords had local judicial power, and often were vassals to hegemon (e.g., Holy Roman Empire) –all subservient to power of Catholic Church.

Question 12

What is Charles Tilly’s argument (1990) about why the state developed?

Answer 12

“War made the state, and the state made war.” His theory posits that war needed more resource extraction, leading to centralized administration, broader taxation, and state legitimacy.

Question 13

Why were states like protection rackets (Tilly, 1990)?

Answer 13

Rulers offered protection from external threats in exchange for taxes and military service, much like gangsters demand payment for protection.

Question 14

Thomas Hobbes dates?

Answer 14

1588-1679

Question 15

What even coloured Hobbes view of the necessity of the state?

Answer 15

The English Civil War

Question 16

What is Hobbes’ main argument in Leviathan (1651)?

Answer 16

Obedience to sovereign, even a wicked one, is necessary as without rule man descends into chaos of state of nature, where life is “nasty, brutish and short”.

Question 17

Hobbes held that law could only be upheld through a state that with _______ ________. And that citizens are presented with a choice between _________ and __________.

Answer 17

Hobbes held that law could only be upheld through a state that with absolute power. And that citizens are presented with a choice between absolutism and anarchy.

Question 18

Locke: the state acts as a ________, whose services are called upon only when _____ _______ is threatened.

Answer 18

Locke: the state acts as a nightwatchman, whose services are called upon only when orderly existence is threatened.