Selcuk University - Neba Wais Alqorni - International Politics Week ,3,4,6, Assignments of Political Theory

Download Selcuk University - Neba Wais Alqorni - International Politics Week ,3,4,6 and more Assignments Political Theory in PDF only on Docsity! International Politics 3rd Week: Understanding the Modern State in International Politics What is a state? • The state is, as John Dunn (2000: 66) says, ‘the principal institutional site of political experience’. • The state has been so central to domestic and international political life since the sixteenth century. • A state, in its simplest sense, refers to an abstract entity comprising a government, a population and a territory. • Governments come and go, populations are born and die, territorial borders may shift, but the state – as ‘a continuing structure of government, decisionmaking, legal interpretation and enforcement’ remains. (Devetak, 2012: 135). The state: Weber’s definition • For Weber, the state is best defined in terms of means specific to its functions: namely, the control and organisation of the force that underpins its rule. • Tilly (1985: 170) defines states as ‘relatively centralised, differentiated organisations the officials of which more or less successfully claim control over the chief concentrated means of violence within a population inhabiting a large, contiguous territory’. • His definition includes reference to territory and population, but the key issue for him is control over the coercive means. (Devetak, 2012: 136) The state: Weber’s definition • States claim a monopoly over the right to enforce the law internally and provide security against external threats through the establishment of police and military forces. • One further important point to note hinges on Weber’s word ‘legitimate’. While states may exercise power and seek control, it is authority rather than power or control that defines the modern state’s sovereignty and legitimacy. • States claim the legitimate right or authority to make and enforce laws of their own choosing. This is an important mark of sovereignty. (Devetak, 2012: 137). The modern state • The modern assumption is that a sovereign power claims supreme and exclusive authority to rule over a clearly bordered territory, and that the population residing there constitutes a nation. • A modern state therefore is a particular model of political society; it is, most importantly, a state conceptualised as sovereign. • It possesses ‘the right to be obeyed without challenge’ (Devetak, 2012: 137). Origins of the modern state • Because the king lacked the administrative and financial capacity to extend his authority across the whole divided kingdom, he would appoint representatives, usually a count or duke, to administer justice at the local levels. • The danger was that as counts and dukes consolidated their power by fighting wars, administering law and justice, and raising revenue through taxation, they became independent rulers. • Popes and princes had competing and crosscutting interests that were often complicated by inter-marriage, papal decrees, competing or overlapping territorial claims, conflicting religious beliefs, and general diplomatic intrigue and deception. Power and authority were thus shared or partitioned among a variety of actors. • As a consequence, there was no a clear distinction between the interior and exterior of states could not be drawn (Devetak, 2012: 138). The idea of the sovereign state • Two central questions: first, what does sovereignty mean? • Second, how and why did the idea of the sovereign state arise? • The principle of sovereignty found its first systematic presentation in Jean Bodin’s (1530–1596) Six books of the republic, published in 1576. • This was a time of political violence and instability in France, driven by religious conflict. • Bodin’s central innovation in the Republic was to argue that power and authority should be concentrated in a single decision-maker, preferably the king. He believed that a well-ordered society required an ‘absolute and perpetual (eternal) power’, namely the sovereign, who would hold the ‘highest power of command’ (Devetak, 2012: 139). Leviathan by Hobbes • Hobbes’s (1588–1679) Leviathan – published in 1651 in the context of English civil conflict – advances a powerful argument for establishing state sovereignty around a theory of political obligation. • He argued that in the condition before a state is formed, individuals live in what he calls a ‘state of nature’ where there is no ‘common Power to keep them all in awe(terror)’ Leviathan by Hobbes • The original book cover of Hobbes’s Leviathan contains the image of a crowned prince standing majestically over his land and people, sword in one hand, crozier (bishop’s staff) in the other; keeping watch over an orderly and peaceful city and surrounding countryside. • A careful look at the image reveals that the prince’s body is made up of tiny people all looking up to the prince. Leviathan by Hobbes • The image is a wonderful representation that captures several influential ideas about the state. • First, the sovereign is supreme and absolute, standing over and above a loyal people and territory. • Second, the state is like a natural human body with a head (of state) and a unified body with protective skin (borders) to keep out foreign bodies. Leviathan by Hobbes • According to Hobbes, the state’s need constantly to prepare for war if it is to be secure but also to the external independence of sovereign states. • This claim to independence or ‘masterlessness’ is vital to the idea of the modern state. • As free and independent entities, states have a right to determine their own interests and policies, and to enjoy this liberty free of external interference. The rise of the modern state • Treaties of Westphalia in 1648 which ended the Thirty Years War is generally held to mean a system of states or international society comprising sovereign state entities possessing the monopoly of force within their mutually recognized territories. • Relations between states are conducted by means of formal diplomatic ties between heads of state and governments, and international law consists of treaties made (and broken) by those sovereign entities. • The term implies a separation of the domestic and international spheres, such that states may not legitimately intervene in the domestic affairs of another, whether in the pursuit of self‐interest or by appeal to a higher notion of sovereignty, be it religion, ideology, or other supranational ideal. (Oxford Reference) The modern state • The modern state is built on a series of monopolies. Aside from coercion, within their jurisdictions modern states claim a monopoly right to: • • national economic management • • law making • • international representation • • border control, and • • political loyalty (Devetak, 2012: 145). FIGURE 5 INGREDIENTS OF STATE POWER POTENTIAL Natural sources of power: Geography Natural resources Population Tangible sources of power: Industrial development Level of infrastructure Characteristics of military Intangible sources of power: National image Public support Leadership Understanding the state in IR: The Realist View of the State • Finally, states live in a context of anarchy – that is, in the absence of anyone being in charge internationally. • In the early decades of the twentieth century the “Hobbesian state of nature” and the “discourse of anarchy” came to be seen as virtually synonymous. • For realists, International Relations is a warlike “Hobbesian” anarchy. • Hobbes is regarded as the progenitor of Realism. Understanding the state in IR: The Realist View of the State • Hobbesian view of human nature • Human are naturally unsociable and do not count on anyone else but themselves to survive. • Self-preservation is their most important objective. Human have a right of nature to do whatever they want in order to survive, so they compete against each other all the time, and this creates conflict. • Their natural state is a state of war, in which they distrust one another and try to increase their power so that they can attain superiority over others. Understanding the state in IR: The Realist View of the State • An example of the realist interpretation of the state can be seen with respect to natural resources. • States recognize certain strategic commodities as vital for their national security. • Thus, states desire stability in the availability and prices of these commodities. They do what is possible so that they have a guaranteed supply. • Oil is a key resource for the rapidly developing China. Thus, one high priority of the government is to forge strong relations with governments possessing petroleum resources, like Iran, Sudan, and Angola. China defends these states in international forums and provides foreign aid to guarantee consistent supply. China’s creation of territory in the South China Sea to augment its own resources is another example of China acting in its national interest, consistent with a realist conception of the proper role of the state. Critics of realism • Realists are also accused of focusing too much on the state as a solid unit, ultimately overlooking other actors and forces within the state and also ignoring international issues not directly connected to the survival of the state. • This is due to the state-centred nature of the thinking that realism is built upon. It views states as solid pool balls bouncing around a table – never stopping to look inside each pool ball to see what it comprises and why it moves the way it does. • Realists recognise the importance of these criticisms, but tend to see events such as the collapse of the Soviet Union as exceptions to the normal pattern of things. Critics of realism • Many critics of realism focus on one of its central strategies in the management of world affairs – an idea called ‘the balance of power’. • This describes a situation in which states are continuously making choices to increase their own capabilities while undermining the capabilities of others. • This generates a ‘balance’ of sorts as (theoretically) no state is permitted to get too powerful within the international system. • If a state attempts to push its luck and grow too much, like Nazi Germany in the 1930s, it will trigger a war because other states will form an alliance to try to defeat it – that is, restore a balance. • This balance of power system is one of the reasons why inter-national relations is anarchic. Critics of realism • No single state has been able to become a global power and unite the world under its direct rule. Hence, realism talks frequently about the importance of flexible alliances as a way of ensuring survival. • These alliances are determined less by political or cultural similarities among states and more by the need to find fair-weather friends, or ‘enemies of my enemy’. • This may help to explain why the US and the Soviet Union were allied during the Second World War (1939–1945): they both saw a similar threat from a rising Germany and sought to balance it. • Yet within a couple of years of the war ending, the nations had become bitter enemies and the balance of power started to shift again as new alliances were formed during what became known as the Cold War (1947–1991). • While realists describe the balance of power as a prudent strategy to manage an insecure world, critics see it as a way of legitimising war and aggression. Understanding the state in IR: The Liberal View of the State • The state itself reflects no consistent viewpoint about the oil; its task is to ensure that the “playing field is level” and that the procedural rules are the same for the various players in the market. • The substantive outcome of the game—which group’s interests predominate —changes depending on circumstances and is of little import to the state. • There is no single or consistent national interest: at times, it is low consumer prices; at other times, stability of prices; and at still other times, high prices to stimulate domestic production. • For liberals, the state provides the arena for groups, each with different self-interests, to find a common interest. Understanding the state in IR: The Liberal View of the State • The state is: • ■ a process, involving contending interests • ■ a reflection of both governmental and societal interests • ■ the repository of multiple and changing national interests • ■ the possessor of fungible (refundible) sources of power • (Mingst, 2018: 143). Understanding the state in IR: The Liberal View of the State • Assumption: State as a neutral mediator of competing interest groups. • State to take or adopt a liberal attitude towards the rights, privileges, functions and various other things of the citizens. • It has been assumed that the restrictions or any type of conservativeness adopted by the government will curb the liberty. • A liberal state denotes a limited government or limited state.  • ‘Individual vs state’: liberal state always favours the interest of individuals. Understanding the state in IR: The Marxist View of the State • In neither view is there a national interest: state behavior reflects economic goals. • In neither case is real sovereignty possible, because the state is continually reacting to external and internal capitalist pressures. The Marxist View of the State: The Miliband-Poulantzas debate • A debate between instrumentalist (Ralph Miliband) and structuralist (Nicos Poulantzas) Marksists. • Instrumental Marxism is a theory which reasons that policy makers in government tend to "share a common class interests« • It tends to view the state and law as an instrument or tool for the dominant class to use for their own purposes. • Structuralists view the state in a capitalist mode of production as taking a specifically capitalist form, and the state reproduces the logic of capitalist structure in its economic, legal, and political institutions. • Structuralists would thus argue that the state and its institutions have a certain degree of independence from specific elites in the ruling or capitalist class. Understanding the state in IR: The Marxist View of the State • In the Marxist perspective, a state’s policy toward primary commodities reflects the interests of the owner capitalist class aligned with the bourgeoisie (in the instrumental Marxist view) and reflects the structure of the international capitalist system (in structural Marxist thinking). • Both views would more than likely see the negotiating process as exploitative, where the weak (poor and dependent groups or states) are exploited for the advancement of strong capitalists or capitalist states. Understanding the state in IR: The Constructivist View of the State • Because constructivists see both national interests and national identities as social constructs, they conceptualize the state very differently from theorists who have other perspectives. • To constructivists, national interests are neither material nor given. • They are ideational and ever-changingand evolving, in response to both domestic factors and international norms and ideas. • States share a variety of goals and values, which they are socialized into by international and nongovernmental organizations. Understanding the state in IR: The Constructivist View of the State • Those norms can change state preferences, which in turn can influence state behavior. • So, too, do states have multiple identities, including a shared understanding of national identity, which also changes, altering state preferences and hence state behavior. • In short, the state “makes” the system and the system “makes” the state. Understanding the state in IR: The Constructivist View of the State • While constructivists may pay little heed to materialist conceptions of power defined in terms of oil resources, they may try to tease out how the identities of states are forged by having such a valuable resource. • Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have developed an identity based on a seemingly limitless, valuable resource. • Oil permits them to merge that identity with their identity as Islamic states that export the faith to other countries. Understanding the state in IR: The Feminist View of the State • State exercise power through its claim to legitimate violence but also through «state activities, forms, routines and rituals» • State constitutes its patriarchal base by not only contructing but also manipulating the ideology describing public and private life. • State constitues itself as the realm of political acitons. • Personal is political!: The relationships we once imagined were private are in fact infused with power, usually unequal power backed by public authority. Understanding the state in IR: The Feminist View of the State • The public/private divide is clearly central to a feminist theory of the state • The man who dominate public life have used their power to construct private relationships. • Women are the objects of masculinist social control not only through direct violence (murder, rape) but also through ideological constructs such as «women’s work» and the cult of motherhood. • Is militarism/nationalism is possible without masculinism? Understanding the state in IR: The Feminist View of the State • What is state power? • Where, socially, does it come from? • How do women encounter it? • What is the law for women? • How does law work to legitimate the state, male power, itself? • Can law do anything for women? • Can it do anything about women’s status? • Does how the law is used matter?