Week 6: the nation state in the age of globalization + Caramani ch. 4 & 24 Flashcards
Four main features of modern states:
- Monopoly of legitimate violence
- Territoriality
- Sovereignty
- Political community
Monopoly of legitimate violence
Legitimacy to use or authorize the use of physical force
Requires the violence being legitimate: based on law
Territoriality
- Violence restricted to territory
- Exclusive claim to a portion of the earth: to police and defend its territory
- Important symbolic value: shape of country as symbol of a state
Sovereignty
- Ultimate authority over its territory and population
- No interference from other countries
Political community
- Unity of people exercising rule an people subjected to that rule
- Minority of political elite (through elections) that has decision making power
- Inherent asymmetry between the people and political elite
- Two means of unity in population: citizenship and nationhood
Citizenship
- Legal relation between individual and the state
- Equality before the law: purpose is equalizing, universal
Nationhood
- Many modern states are nation-states
Nation:
- Etymology: has something to do with shared biological heritage
- Modern view: imagined and socially constructed communities. Symbols, narrative, national holidays, shared history
- Results in a shared sense of belonging, pride, trust. Minimizes differences between people
- “We have made italy, now we must make the Italians” -> socialization process
Failed state:
A state that cannot fulfill its most basic responsibility (security). No effective control over territory, no legitimacy.
Common used measure for failed states: fragile states index (Twelve indicators)
State development: different states were formed in different ways. Five patterns:
- Through absolutist kingships
- Through kingship-facing judges and representative bodies
- Through confederation or federation
- Through conquest and/or unification
- Through independence
Three main phases of state development:
- Consolidation of rule - 12th and 17th centuries
- Rationalization of rule - the ways which power is exercised
- Expansion of rule - 1880s - 1980s
Consolidation of rule - 12th and 17th centuries
- Decrease of polities
- Winning terrain with wars, sometimes with marriage
- “States make war and wars make states”
- War making states borrow extensively,
- More and more direct rule within states
- More and more regulated relations between states:
Rise of diplomacy
Borders becoming more clearly defined - Over time: states became larger, more visible and more stable
Rationalization of rule
- From cooperation between various subordinate, but privileged power-holders
- To a situation in which rulers started to avail themselves of agents and agencies, building bureaucracies.
- Three aspects: centralization (dispossessing lower people), hierarchy (commands from above) and function (internal differentiation to optimize for specific functions).
- World becomes more and more efficient and predictable:
Fixed rules and competences, technical training etc.
Agents selected on competences
Expansion of rule
- For centuries, states had two main concerns:
Between states: secure own territory and pursue own interests
Within states: maintain public order and effectiveness of laws - Between 1880 and 1980’s: activities of states enlarged:
Political parties entered the scene -> with promises and interests of certain groups
Government entities have the tendency to grow naturally
Supporting the economy: education, welfare - For a long period of time: state economies were segregated, under globalization economies, politics and social dimensions became more internationally integrated.
Transition from the modern to post-modern state, dimensions:
- Government: modern state is centralized. Post-modern state is multilevel governance. Massive rise of international government organizations
- Sovereignty: modern state has constitutional independence, with state having supreme authority. Post modern state is increasingly regulated by supranational authorities (EU).
- Nationhood: modern state has a high level of cohesion. Post modern state has a less coherent community, increased diversity.
- Economy: modern state has a segregated national economy. Post modern state has major parts of economy embedded in cross-border networks. Trade and financial globalization
Several ways (scholars) of looking at the relation between states and globalisation
Retreat scholars:
- Retreat of the state, sate has lost power
- State has become unnatural and dysfunctional in an increasingly borderless world
- Globalization erodes the power of states
State centric scholars:
- Nation state remains in charge of globalization, some states have even managed to expand their capacities for regulation and control
- Globalization tendencies have been exaggerated
There is a more pragmatic position: globalization made states stronger in certain areas, and weaker in others.
Definition of state by Weber:
Points to administrative and legal order, rule of law. Compulsory organization with a territorial basis. Use of force is legitimate, only if permitted by the state or prescribed by it.
But: there is a diversity in the additional features of a state, which is a main theme of comparative politics. Differences in:
- The role of law: differences in what can be arranged by law, what is in the constitution
- Centralized organization
unity and coherence is important. Higher sources of power place boundaries on lower. Lower sources can specify products.
Mostly for managerial purposes, not necessarily legal - Distinction between state and society
Where does (civil) society start? - Religion and market
State became increasingly secular.
Role of private law
Economic system and role.
Failed states usually see economic resources used for own purposes - The public sphere
Hinge between state and society.
The ability to observe activities of the state, to communicate with others about them, to criticize them and deliver input to them - Burden of conflict
Different cleavages, can lead to sectionalism
Nations are imagined political community
- Imagined, because members will never know most of their fellow members or meet them. Yet in the mind lives the image of their communion
- It is imagined as limited, because even the largest of them, has finite boundaries, beyond which lie other nations
- It is imagined as sovereign, because the concept was born when enlightenment and revolution destroyed the legitimacy of the divinely ordained hierarchical dynastic realm
- It is imagined as a community because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail, the nation is always conceived of as a deep horizontal comradeship
Globalization is a contested concept. General agreement on:
Globalization:
The expansion and intensification of all kinds of social relations across borders - economic, political, cultural and so on.
It is uneven in terms of cross-national intensity, geographical scope, and national and local depth
Driven by various forces: government, corporation, popular groups
Types of state and globalization:
- Modern state
- Post-modern state
- Weak post-colonial state
- Modernizing state
Modern state under globalization
- Centralized rule, rule of law, legitimate use of force within a defined territory
- A segregated, self-sustained national economy
- State has supreme political authority. Non-intervention from other states
- A people making up a community of citizens. Community of sentiment based on cultural and historical bonds. High level of cohesion
Post-modern state & globalization
- Multilevel governance, international context important
- Identities less exclusively national. Less coherent
- Less self-sustained economies, deep integration in cross-border networks
- Mutual intervention from and to other states. Regulation by supranational authority
Weak post-colonial state
- Inefficient and corrupt government. Rules based on coercion, rather than rule of law. Monopoly on the legitimate use of violence not established
- Importance of local/ethnic cultures. Weak bonds of loyalty with the state
- Economy is heterogeneous: traditional agriculture, urban sector, fragments of modern industry. Strong dependence on the world economy
- Constitutional independence compared with negotiated intervention by international society. Special treatment: weak states cannot reciprocate help or support
Modernizing state
The modernizing state combine features of the modern, postmodern and the weak post-colonial state
