Formation of the State

Formation of the State

• The state is a fundamental concept within comparative politics
• It is a political entity that possesses defined borders, a permanent population, a governing structure, and sovereignty
• Though central to political science, the state is frequently overlooked
• Its tangible and societal influences, such as providing public services, upholding laws, and molding identities, necessitate a thorough examination
• It is not an individual entity but a web of interconnected entities shaping everyday life, organizing power, and enforcing rules

Pre-State Political Organization

• Previous political structures were rooted in tribal systems, feudal hierarchies, and kinship
• Authority was decentralized and based on religious beliefs, traditions, or family influence

Emergence of the Modern State

• The modern state arose between the 12th and 17th centuries
• Monarchies were transformed into centralized authorities
• This transition was influenced by the Roman Empire's decline, shifts in religious authority, and the need for consistent governance

Role of the Catholic Church

• The Catholic Church initially assumed power following Rome's decline
• The Church, with its land and revenue, gained importance as a political actor
• It derived legitimacy from biblical texts
• Popes were positioned as St. Peter's successors.
• The Church asserted universal authority through Latin literacy, control over time via the liturgical calendar, and local priests acting as intermediaries
• The Church was a key ally for both kings and lords

Challenges to Church Authority and the Reformation

• Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 challenged Church authority
• The Reformation caused religious and political divisions across Europe
• The Wars of Reformation took place from 1522 to 1648
• The Peace of Augsburg in 1555 established the principle of cuius regio, eius religio
• Rulers of the Holy Roman Empire could determine their territories’ religion
• This was an early form of state sovereignty

The Treaty of Westphalia

• The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) culminated in the Treaty of Westphalia
• The war was caused by religious and political tensions in Bohemia and Europe
• The treaty established modern sovereignty principles
• States could govern without external interference
• Subjects would be loyal to only the state
• Westphalia established these concepts across continental Europe, identifying the sovereign state as a distinct European political entity that expanded globally

Consolidation of State Power

• European rulers aimed to strengthen state power
• Societies wanted order after war
• States asserted monopolies on violence
• Warfare influenced statecraft development
• Successful states effectively defended borders, suppressed internal rivals, and mimicked successful state structures
• Capitalism further facilitated state formation through taxation, debt financing, and infrastructure development for increased productive capacity

Expansion of the State Model

• Colonialism broadened the European model of the sovereign state globally
• With decolonization, many nations adopted the sovereign state model
• Nations sought independence and a safeguard against future domination
• Statehood became the dominant form of global political organization

Internal and External Dimensions

• Sovereignty encompasses internal and external aspects
• A state possesses supreme authority over its territory and population internally
• It gains recognition from other states and engages in foreign relations externally
• Three core tenets define sovereignty: upholding internal and external control, respecting other states' sovereignty, and ensuring domestic law's supremacy within its borders

Key Features of a State

• A state needs a juridical territory, population, government, and institutions for exercising authority and implementing policy
• Legitimacy and the monopoly of violence are essential
• States construct physical infrastructure, such as roads and bridges
• They create cultural infrastructure, such as language and media
• States foster citizenship that offers rights and obligations, transcend class, religion, and region
• They pursue economic solidarity through social services and redistribution

Internal Organization of States

• States are internally divided into administrative units frequently organized by subsidiarity to ensure decisions are made locally
• Political systems differ
• Federal states, like Germany and the U.S., divide power
• Unitary states, like France and Japan, concentrate power
• Decentralization can be political through elected authorities, or administrative through appointed officials, and these combinations vary

Models of State Territoriality

• Two models describe how state territoriality is understood
• The "narrow" perspective views states as separate levels operating independently
• The "integral" perspective views the state as a coordinated system
• In this view, state power is applied strategically and not isolated at each level

Essentials of Modern Political Systems

• Executives and legislatures serve as central institutions with varying forms, functions, and relationships across regimes
• Executives are typically for setting national priorities, making policy, and responding to crises
• Legislatures represent, authorize laws, oversee the executive, and connect local needs to national governance

Functions of Legislatures

• They serve as representative bodies of the population’s will through elected officials
• They legitimize state authority, national issues are deliberated, and the executive undergoes scrutiny
• Public opinion is aggregated and articulated
• National debates are held
• Institutional checks are offered via oversight mechanisms like questioning ministers or forming committees
• Electoral districts connect legislators to local constituencies, ensuring a link between voters and national decisions

Types of Legislatures

• A unicameral legislature features a single, directly elected chamber that expresses popular will and avoids duplication
• A bicameral legislature involves two chambers, typically a directly elected lower house and an upper house
• The upper house may be appiointed, elected or representative of regional interests, giving a "sober second thought" for balanced national legislation

Problems and Critiques of Legislatures

• Concerns exist regarding how well legislatures mirror a nation's diversity
• The accessibility of politics and whether "average" citizens can govern are questioned
• Political professionalization may create a distinct political class, distancing legislators from constituents

Executive Role

• The executive sets the agenda, makes policy decisions, manages emergencies, and oversees law implementation
• Executive power centralization fluctuates based on regime or balance with the legislature

Parliamentary Systems

• The executive is drawn from the legislature, requiring executive confidence to retain power
• A prime minister is the head of government, distinct from the head of state like a monarch
• The legislature scrutinizes the executive
• Mutual dependence is key
• Government falls if the legislature removes confidence
• Strong party discipline emphasizes executive reliance for advancement

Executive-Legislative Relations

Forms of relations include:

• Cabinet government entails collective leadership
• Prime ministerial government centers around the PM
• Ministerial government is where the influence of individual ministers is key

Executive Power Debates

• The presidentialization thesis argues that parliamentary executives centralize power
• This is particularly so when political parties become leader-centric and most legislation originates from the cabinet
• Critics note legislative power in minority governments or with high intra-party dissent

Advantages and Disadvantages of Parliamentary Systems

• Efficient lawmaking, policy continuity, and adaptability are advantages
• Drawbacks include potential instability and legislative rubber-stamping during majority governments

Presidential Systems

• The executive and legislature are separate and independently elected
• The president holds executive power as the head of state and government by appointing a cabinet independent of the legislature
• Fundamental checks and balances exist, with fixed terms and limitations on dismissals
• High legal and political thresholds exist for presidential removal through impeachment

System Dynamics

• The system demands negotiation between branches, when controlled by different parties that can cause gridlock
• Cabinets assist presidents in government functions, but isn't accountable to the legislature

Benefits vs Drawbacks

• Separation of powers, direct presidential legitimacy, and fixed terms offer predictability
• Drawbacks include potential deadlock, slow implementation, and difficulty removing poor leaders

Semi-Presidential Systems

• These blend presidential and parliamentary features
• The president is directly elected
• A prime minister, appointed from the assembly, leads a cabinet requiring legislative support
• The president can dissolve parliament or declare emergencies, making them powerful
• Power is shared by both

Key System Dynamic

• A key dynamic is cohabitation, where the president and prime minister are from different political parties, and there is power-sharing and compromise

System Subtypes

Subtypes include:

• Premier-presidential systems are where the prime minister and cabinet are accountable to the legislature, which alone can remove them
• President-parliamentary systems are where the prime minister and cabinet are accountable to both the president and legislature, which can dismiss them

Attraction to Newer Democracies

• Provide both leadership, unity by the president and governance by PM/cabinet
• Power struggles between the president and prime minister can happen

Majoritarian vs. Consensual Democracy

• Political systems vary in organizing accountability and distributing power
• Majoritarian democracies concentrate power
• A single party or coalition governs with a legislation majority
• Often in unicameral systems or where the lower house dominates
• Courts have limited powers, and the constitution is flexible
• Typically unitary with two parties using plurality voting, it centralizes power, can potentially overlook minority interests
• Consensual democracies share and disperse power
• Coalitions govern
• Power is balanced between the executive and legislature
• Systems have bicameral legislatures, judicial review, and constitutional rigidity
• Often federal, proportional representation systems with multiple parties, they emphasize inclusivity and negotiation, potentially sacrificing efficiency

Bureaucracies and Policymaking

• Bureaucracies serve as the administrative bodies of the state
• Politicians determine policy goals
• Bureaucrats implement these through daily operations
• They're structured departmentally with hierarchies
• Ministers typically oversee but civil servants wield considerable power due to expertise, continuity, and institutional memory

Organizing Bureaucracies

• Max Weber saw modern bureaucracies as efficient
• He emphasized hierarchical structure, merit-based appointments, and permanent salaried officials
• Uniform rule apps are imposed
• These are unelected officials with political power Recruitment practices vary
• The generalist recruitment favors those with knowledge and move between departments, like the UK civil service
• The departmental practices favor specialized knowledge, staying between in specific sectors, like administrations influenced by France and Germany

Theories of Bureaucracy

• Weber's rational-legal model describes bureaucracy as a pillar of modernity that is neutral, rule-bound, and efficient
• Other theories challenge this model
• Clientelism portrays it as patronage and private gain, offering jobs for loyalty rather than merit, which is where bureaucrats serve parties
• Public Choice Theory views bureaucrats expand departments for self-interest
• New Public Management (NPM), is for market mechanism, and promotes competition, efficiency, and decentralization, is for citizens as consumers

Bureaucratic Functions

• Bureaucracies craft and implement policies using specialized organizational knowledge
• They operate through command chains and shape policy goals into specific actions
• Subtle but profoundly influences policies

Types of Bureaucrats

• Permanent administrators are recruited competitively, are merit-based, and is expected to be neutral
• Political appointments are the senior roles to ensure there is political alignment
• Policy advisors and political staff offers political advice

Controlling Bureaucracies

• Bureaucracies are overseenn
• Political appointees senior levels ensure political alignment
• Ombuds offices investigate complaints
• Legal frameworks maintain professionalism
• Auditing and ministerial serve as institutional checks

Policy and Public Policy

• Policy refers to state goals
• Public policy is actions achieving those goals
• Policy is political and competitive

Agenda Setting

• Agenda setting prioritizes issues
• Public actors pushing issues to reach to government agendas
• Governments bring attention to issue to address
• Elites and institutional actors control which issues reach agendas

Society's Organisation

• Two models discribe how policies are organised:
• Corporatism is where the society is has collective institutions as peak association where thestate reconcile interests, make policy through negotiation
• Pluralism instead emphasizes fragmented and competitive policymaking, in which peak associations are weak

Decision Making

• The rational-comprehensive model says state gathers relevant info, learns from experience
• The incremental model sees policymaking is small, bureaucracies tinker existing, preserve stability

Internationalisation

• Globalization, organisations influence policy making
• State coordinate, adapt, respond to pressures

Constitutions and Laws

• Constitutions are documents that establish the role of political
• Serve regulates and legitimizing laws by known rules
• Constitution defines who can govern, with boundary

Constitutional Emergence

• Created by changes

Types of constitution

• Codified are in single form that is easier to read
• Accumulated are flexible but not easy

Features and Problems

• Allocating authority and set limits, lack legitimacy

Factors in constitution

• Rules of laws, powers

Understanding living

• structured and how to protect rights

Models of rule

• Create to power and limit
• Right not and challenge courts

Role in governing

• Through courts with legal system

Civil vs common

• Apply and shaped

Constitutional Dispute

• Hear

Constitution and Courts

• Hear

Constitutional Role

• Activating or non constitutional to the state

Judicial

• Judges is that shape
• Rights like shape politics

Definition of Ideologies

• Shape how individuals and groups understand the world, and the centre to political actions
• Not a philosophy as actions to make the world
• Positions from left/right

Components of Ideologies

• Representation of the world, narrative to make sense
• current functions, vision
• Plan of actions to change

Key Ideologies

• To react radical. change change

Features

It Emphasising to human

Liberalism

• Locke

Neoliberalism

• F.A

Features

• to function, and ensure wealth

Religion

• Ethics

Beliefs

• reflection of society
• smaller most most authority
• dominate them
• harmony poor

Socialism

Is for worker from capital

• exploitative
• class
• regulations revolution Ballot
• New

Thought

• By Muray
• thought and industries
• degradation monopoly
• local democracy

nationalism

• Place ethnic life
• determination ethnic
• identity ideology
• ethnic

Populism

• " thin" worldview to complex.
• divide between elite
• sense
• problems
• balances
• charismatic of people

Political Culture

• influences by people
• opinions about
• map, interpret life
• and via families,.

Influences on culture

• economic
• identity
• with regions

Political cleavages

influences

• difference
• awareness
• the vision

Elite Theories

• groups culture
• driven

Theories on theory

Existing theory society culture relation

theories

_ concentrated a replace mass

Choice Theories

• calculation
• depends benefit
• free action

Civil Culture

democarcy

Key components

= affect judgements

Type culture

awareness engage with democracy

values

= new value = economic cultures == grass

Culture Values

exits relevant == down

Ingerhardt's

divide relevant == down can co-

Social Capitalky

facilitate Tocqueville social- Work Is

reduce == costs interraction people

interation equal immediete relation equal trust

Capitalky

fund opportinities engagement it limit trust