State and Government

Question 1

What is Heywood’s (2013) definition of a state?

Answer 1

a political association establishing sovereign jurisdiction with defined territorial borders and exercising authority through a set of permanent public institutions

Question 2

what is a state sovereign?

Answer 2

exercises absolute and unrestricted power above all other groups

Question 3

what is state legitimation?

Answer 3

decisions are binding

Question 4

state domination?

Answer 4

state monopoly on ‘legitimate violence’

Question 5

territorial state?

Answer 5

geographically defined

Question 6

government - who rules?

Answer 6

• Mechanism through which order is maintained
• Makes decisions and enforces them
• Formal and institutional processes

Question 7

What do legislatures do?

Answer 7

Make law

Question 8

What do executives do?

Answer 8

implement law

Question 9

what do judicaries do?

Answer 9

interpret law

Question 10

What does the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State (1933) define a state as?

Answer 10

• A defined territory
• A permanent population
• An effective government
• The capacity to enter into relation with other states

Question 11

When did south sudan become an independent state?

Answer 11

1956

Question 12

Why did south sudan want independence?

Answer 12

southern states were unhappy with a lack of autonomy

Question 13

Why do we have states?

Answer 13

Idealist (social existence - Hegel), functionalist (maintenance of social order), organisational (a set of public institutions), operational

Question 14

when did states emerge?

Answer 14

• 16th/17th century
• treaty of westphalia (1648)
• fuedalism to capitalism (Engels)
• 19th century - industrialisation - move to nation-state

Question 15

What is the pluralist theory of the state?

Answer 15

• It is a neutral empire approach

- ‘the servant of society and not its master’ (Schwarzmanter, 1994)

Question 16

What is the marxist theory of the state?

Answer 16

“an instrument for the oppression of the exploited class” (Lenin)
-Autonomy of the state is relative - mediation between classes

Question 17

What is the new right theory of the state?

Answer 17

• Early and classic liberalism - radical individualism
• Antipathy towards state intervention
• ‘nanny state’

Question 18

What is the feminist view of the state?

Answer 18

• Patriarchal state

- no universal feminist theory of the state

Question 19

What role do minimal states play?

Answer 19

• classical liberalism

- protective framework but no other constraints on human behaviour

Question 20

What role do developmental states play?

Answer 20

• economic growth

- partnership between state and economic interests e.g. Japan

Question 21

what are the characteristics of social democracies?

Answer 21

-social reconstructing, equality and fairness, positive state, welfare state e.g. Sweden

Question 22

what are the characteristics of collectivised states?

Answer 22

-entirety of economic life controlled - culture, religion, family e.g. Hitler’s Germany

Question 23

What evidence is there for politics operating beyond the state?

Answer 23

• Globalisation - global economy, migration
• Non-state actors and international organisations
• ‘Pooled sovereignty’
• Failed states e.g. Liberia

Question 24

What evidence is there for politics not operating beyond the state?

Answer 24

• Market economies depend on states
• Governance - complex societies and regulation/policy
• Retraction from the international e.g. Brexit