El Estado, El Estado-Nacion Y El Estado Democratico PDF

# EL ESTADO, EL ESTADO-NACION Y EL ESTADO DEMOCRATICO Arturo Fernández The study of current political life includes an essential unit of analysis: the state. This unit of analysis is considered in isolation through the political or administrative study of each state, or it is linked to other equiva...

# EL ESTADO, EL ESTADO-NACION Y EL ESTADO DEMOCRATICO Arturo Fernández The study of current political life includes an essential unit of analysis: the state. This unit of analysis is considered in isolation through the political or administrative study of each state, or it is linked to other equivalent units in the discipline known as "International Relations." This derives the importance of the theoretical definition of the "State," being aware that this conceptualization is difficult enough to be able to be exhausted during this chapter alone. Currently, there are 170 formally independent states and a dozen more will become so in the coming years; therefore, these realities present a heterogeneity and diversity: what is less homogeneous than an entity like the Soviet Union, with 270 million inhabitants scattered over 22 million km², and Nauru, a small island state of 21 km² and 8,000 inhabitants? On the other hand, there are states that include a national community¹, a trend that was concretized through the struggles for the respective independence of those communities; but there are also states that group together several nations; or states that express a nation in formation, as is the case today in many countries in Black Africa. What we find in common with all this variety of sociopolitical realities is a set of elements and forms of juridical institutions: the mechanisms for the functioning of the state as a "center that issues" decisions, and the various characteristics of the economic-social organization that configure the social nature of these realities. Regarding the elements and juridical forms of the state, they are prior to the contemporary era and constitute the institutional framework of the core of the political system in charge of making global decisions that interest and concern a society; these decisions are adopted after processing the different options that are presented to state apparatuses. Regarding the mechanisms for the functioning of the state-core of the political system- they also exist from the origins of the state, through the constitution of a system of state power; but they have become more complex during the contemporary period due to the increasing expansion of the functions of the state itself and their diversification. In relation to the economic-social organization that determines the nature of the state, it is worth highlighting the trend towards increasing participation of the system of state power in the tasks that ensure the growth of society; the appearance of the "contemporary state" coincides with the development of capitalism, which implies a greater interpenetration between state apparatuses and the production process, which will not cease to deepen. The state 1 The National Community is constituted by a set of economic, political and ideological commonalities, whose historical development has generated a trend to build a society of its own with an independent state in the vast majority of the peoples that inhabit our planet. This trend constituted one of the main driving forces of contemporary history. # I. ELEMENTS OF THE STATE Historically, states have been created and developed thanks to the combination of three elements: the Population, the Territory (on which that Population is settled) and the Institutionalized Power (which presides over the social life of the same population). Each of these elements acquired a particular legal status and, in turn, related to the other two, configuring the basic aspects of the institutional framework that, by definition, characterizes states since antiquity. ## a) The Population It could be argued that the population, as an element of the State, is the set of individuals and groups that, having inhabited a territory for a certain time, continue living together and wish to continue doing so despite all the vicissitudes that assail individuals and social groups themselves. But this is still a somewhat imprecise definition. Why do individuals and the groups that they form live together? What are the common features of a population as an element of a state? Contemporarily, we can formulate the hypothesis that the population is defined in terms of its nationality; since the last century, with the increasing universalization of the ideology of nationality and nationalism, "nation" designates a common feeling, a common history and a collective demand, rather than structural attributes that could be understood in a strict definition. Moreover, the "nation" implies a historico-social bond that brings together human groups; but the national fact itself does not automatically lead to the recognition and formation of a politically independent unit. However, every nationality aspires to form a state even if it is not possible for them to do so in the short or medium historical term. The principle of nationality involves historico-ideological factors (existence of a community that has its own structure, evolution and collective projects, etc.) and legal aspects (bonds determined by birth or by a subsequent act). This principle of nationality gave life to the modern and contemporary state and its development parallels capitalist and industrial society. From this principle, certain juridical-political corollaries are derived: - Each nation has the right to form a state. - Every Nation-State has the right to apply its own laws to every individual who resides in its territory, even if they are foreign. - All Nation-States are subjects of International Law, legally equal before. - Every individual possesses a nationality, which may be different from that of the Nation-State that inhabits. Therefore, the population of states is generally multinational; even more so when, as we mentioned, several nations cohabitate, voluntarily or under coercion, within a state. Finally, it should be noted that nation and population are not the same thing. Some authors define "people" as a population that is amalgamated and has a political end; this implies a sociological reality: the unity of the population is an ideological entity (the Nation) and a legal form (consecrated by the principle of equality of all individuals before the law); but, in reality, the population of a State is divided into classes or social strata. Therefore, the unity of the people, which implies a politico-social will, can derive: - From the domination or hegemony of a class over others; - From the agreement or pact between the different classes or strata that are most significant in a society. In this sense, the concept of people can overcome the formalism of the excessively simple notion of population as an element of the state. ## b) The Territory Thousands or millions of individuals that make up a state's population require thousands or millions of km ² of land to settle. Territorial demands are not only quantitative but also qualitative; the importance of the geographical bond is paramount for the development of the state. Territorial inclusion is what distinguishes a state community from others. The territory constitutes the basis on which the centralisation of the state operates, transforming into a coherent unit a population that had been dispersed up until that point. The territory also determines the extent and limits of state power; this generates legal quality and the distinction between citizen and inhabitant. The element of territoriality is inherent to the very existence of the state; without a geographical base, a politically organized population still lacks a state. However, if this situation continues for a medium or long period of time, the same population runs the risk of being assimilated by other states. From these considerations, the legal rules that govern relations between the state and its territory and between the population and the territory of the state of which it is a part are derived. International law principles and rules also emerge that determine the extent of the spatial framework of state entities and their "borders.” The main features of the law of the state on territory are: - The state, and only the state, exercises that right (principle of exclusivity). - The extent of the state's powers over its territory is determined by the state itself (principle of the plenitude of competences). ## c) The Institutionalised Power The will and political purpose of a population are transformed into a state society when a power that is institutionalised capable of bringing together the global society is created, which transforms the state into a mandatory association for all its members. The universal development of state societies has reached such a point that if an individual loses membership of a state or rejects it, they fall under the control of another state. The condition of "stateless person" is an extraordinary and unusual situation that is regulated by International Law and protected by the United Nations. As we will see later, the system of state power is not only based on coercion exercised by institutionalised power and its legal norms; it is necessary that the "power interiorized" exist within society, but this "interiorized power" does not define the state. It is necessary that the institutionalised power, as an element of the state, has the legal and factual capacity to dispose exclusively of the greatest and most extensive prerogatives of command in a given society; and, therefore, of the virtue of being obeyed within its own territory. This is what constitutes the internal sovereignty of states, which is completed with the notion of external sovereignty or the quality of a state to self-determine in relation to the other existing state societies, excluding them from intervening in their internal affairs. However, the reality of state power implies contradictory aspects that configure the nature of the command-obedience relationship: 1) Firstly, power is exercised through a measured combination of force (or coercion) and persuasion. Force generates fear of sanction in the one who "must obey” and knows that if they do not obey, they will be repressed, persuasion is exercised by the one who commands to convince the one who "must obey" about the advantages (moral and/or material) that can be derived from the act of submission. The one who holds state power will alternate between the use of coercion and persuasion, making themselves feared and loved at the same time. If the exercise of power is based exclusively on force and violence, it may be effective in the short social term; but it will not be able to last without a sufficient dose of that persuasion, which generates social acceptance in the medium and long term. In short, coercion is a basic condition for achieving social discipline and persuasion produces consensus. There is no social discipline possible beyond the short term, without a certain degree of consensus or social agreement. 2) Secondly, state power is legitimised if it is exercised in terms of a minimum degree of common or general interest of the society it directs; at least, the one who commands must appear and make people believe that they govern "for all those who obey.” In this sense, power creates social integration. But, at the same time, power implies a struggle between individuals or groups for access to the positions of command and the advantages (in some cases, privileges) that derive from them. The struggle for power, which appears structurally linked to the reality of power, conspires against social integration, whether in small institutions, whether within a social class or within a state society that is complex and stratified (with class division). It is true, finally, that a legitimate state power (i.e., exercised paying attention to the minimum general interest) will soften the harshness of the struggle for power and may regulate it. But, at least in societies divided into classes, no power will ever achieve the fullness of the general interest and, therefore, the struggle for power will persist with greater or lesser intensity. Political life (or the political phenomenon) is the set of manifestations and social relations that derive from the contradictory nature of power and its exercise. There is political life in a variety of institutions organized as systems of power, that is, as a set of social elements linked to each other by "political-social integration-struggle”. But the state is the system of power that is most comprehensive and developed in contemporary societies. # II. MECHANISMS IN FUNCTIONING OF THE STATE At this point, we analyze - at a level of abstract description - the functioning of the state as a "center" that issues decisions and its forms of relationship with the civil society that conditions it. We emphasize that this scheme is purely descriptive and does not explain how states are “to be”: only the study of the social determinants will allow us to understand the nature of the phenomenon studied However, it is useful to begin by knowing the "external" forms that state mechanisms adopt. ## a) Relations between Civil Society and the State Considering civil society as a set of structures (cultural, economic, social...), which, in turn, is influenced by other global societies (nation-states), we can think that this civil society generates an infinity of demands and pressures on the system of state power. Each structure generates its own cultural, economic or social demands and they are often contradictory, because they arise from cultural and economic groups that oppose each other. Therefore, the system of state power has a set of mechanisms for filtering, ordering, rationalizing and giving coherence to this mass of pressures and demands. Among those mechanisms, we can distinguish: - The "controls”, that is, a set of groups and individuals, who, being outside the state, are formally or informally located as receivers of pressures or demands. Their function is to select and rank those demands and pressures. These controls may be officials of an institution of mediation, influential individuals or institutions of a cultural, sporting, etc. nature, with little political content. They may also be individuals or groups that are spontaneously located in the role of controlling social demands, such as associations and neighborhood leaders. - The institutions of mediation, which are normatively organized groups, which, for the purpose of this topic, can be roughly divided into parties (or political factions) and pressure groups, such as trade unions. Parties or political factions are groups of individuals motivated. by common ideals, who seek to occupy the concrete mechanisms of power, that is, the state. In some Third World countries, in addition to civil parties (whose organization takes inspiration from the European model of political party, which emerged in the 19th century), the Armed Forces often play a similar role. Pressure groups and "power factors" are all institutions that, by the specific nature of their functions, do not seek to occupy the mechanisms of the state; but, by the weight of their organization, the political scope of their goals or the complexity of their geographical or functional scope, these institutions periodically try to influence political parties and the state in order to achieve decisions favorable to their interests; they are business groups, trade. unions of workers and farmers, churches, the university, student associations and the written and audiovisual press. The function of these institutions of mediation is to process those demands and pressures and give them a decision-making coherence, so that a set of pressures is constituted into a concrete alternative for the state to give a response. For example, dozens of groups demand salary increases; mediation institutions set a medium expected percentage for the groups demanding, reasonably feasible, and transform the set of pressures into a request for a salary adjustment by a percentage of 30%; the state then has the possibility of granting the requested adjustment, of not granting it, or of giving a percentage of 15 or 25%. ## b) The Core of the System of Power We thus arrive at the state, as the set of institutions that materialize the power that exists globally in a society. The modern state is characterized by the fact that its institutions are legally organized and limited; the set of laws that govern state activity constitutes the constitutional and administrative law. Constitutions provide for the creation, functioning, limitations and powers of the so-called "powers" of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, each of which has an administrative apparatus that contributes to the execution of the function of each of the three "powers." Several authors point out that the current state has three functions that do not coincide strictly with the division of powers that is classic. The fundamental function is that of deciding and consists of exercising the power to determine, through laws, decrees, ordinances, etc., what the state does in the face of pressures received from the social environment (in the previous example, whether or not to grant a salary increase and, if granted, the scope of the percentage). The other functions are the execution of decisions (administrative, judicial function, etc.) and control of decisions by the same state mechanisms and by all society to prevent the abuse of power, arbitrariness, etc. This set of institutions, functions and mechanisms constitutes the core of the system of power, because the one or ones who can truly dominate this set have the command or supreme authority in a society. Moreover, within this core, the essential part is the position of the one or ones who hold the power of decision, which, in modern societies, despite the necessary and irreversible march towards democratization, tends to become a power exercised by groups of people who lead political parties and some "power factors." ## c) The Mechanism of Reaction-Action Once the State takes a decision, by issuing laws, decrees, etc., this decision reverts to civil society, that is, to the set of structures that make it up, particularly those that may be most affected by a specific decision. As we suggested before, a decision may satisfy the demands that generated it, it may not satisfy them, or it may partially satisfy them. In the first case, decisions will be a source of support and solidarity for the system of power, whereby society will manifest a response in accordance with the determination of that power. In the case where pressures have not been fully satisfied, social structures will provoke new pressures to try to force the action of the system of power in a direction more favorable to the demands. It is clear that the State can create decisions without there being any sensible pressures, in which case it is likely to do so in order to obtain support for the system of power. Likewise, there are self-generated pressures by institutions of mediation and even by the "controls,” to fill gaps in the social body of which there is no public awareness, or to ingratiate themselves with the social environment. It also seems clear that a state must achieve a minimum of social satisfaction in order to survive in the long term; since 1800, there have been fewer and fewer states in the. world that do not need to be concerned about the reaction that their decisions generate (perhaps the case is true for some theocratic monarchies in the Arab world). But even there, in the long term, it is possible to observe the explosive effects of state decisions that are permanently unaware of pressures from the social environment. When the social reaction never manifests itself in support and, on the contrary, implies new and greater pressures, there is a path towards "revolution"; but I repeat that this process is only possible over long periods. In order to mitigate the effects of the action-reaction-social state, every state implements an "ideology” that tends to justify the action of the state contrary to the pressures received, to reduce those pressures and to legitimize the command exercised. ## d) State Institutions and Institutional Change There are political institutions, state institutions and non-state institutions, etc. It is worth asking what an institution is in order to understand a reality that seems quite varied and diverse. While the topic offers some complexity, we arbitrarily opt for a simple conceptualization that serves as a basis for delving into the topic of state institutions. In this sense, we argue that an institution is a set of statuses (objective situation that an individual has in society) and roles (conduct of the individual expected by the social environment); and an institution is also, at the level of social consciousness, a system of values and collective beliefs. Therefore, institutions require at least a minimum degree of awareness among those who are part of it and a system of norms that governs it, which may be a moral system, a system of customs and practices or a system of legal norms; in modern times, institutions strictly speaking have precisely a legal normativity. The scope of this legality determines the nature of institutions. Those that can sanction the violation of the laws that govern them are state institutions; and those that have to resort to the state in the last instance to sanction such non-compliance are private institutions, whose functioning is often authorized and controlled by the state. Although there are states that tend to control the greatest possible number of important institutions, there is no country today that does not present this simple distinction, between state and private institutions. Likewise, there is an intermediate zone that constitutes para-state institutions and institutions of mixed participation between the state and private individuals. Since every institution is a human group that is created to meet the needs of that group, it is likely to think that the institutional framework originally corresponds to the desires, demands and aspirations of those who integrate it; moreover, it tends to harmonize the statuses and roles of individuals through the system of community beliefs. But this legal framework does not always evolve together with the changing needs of individuals, nor with the variations that its members experience in their psychological and social situation; it is because law offers a natural resistance to social change that, on the one hand, ensures the stability and longevity of the different social bodies and, on the other, tends to sclerotize them, ignoring the changing nature of human life. This phenomenon, known as institutional persistence, is ambiguous, because, on the one hand, it facilitates the rational and organizational nature of human relations, but at the same time, it generates a certain rigidity that, sooner or later, will conflict with individual roles and, eventually, with the general social body; consequently, a number of outdated institutions can be observed, which do not respond to current needs of society, but which successfully resist change or adaptation to present reality. How is this possible? Well, the strength of the institution is such that many of its members cling to the defense of the institutional structure, denying its lack of adaptation to social change; and, in the case of state institutions, conditioning and even falsifying the real form of the society in which they live; these are the institutionalists. These individuals or groups often collide, in all institutions, with those who want to adapt and change them, accepting social reality and denouncing their inhibiting. and obsolete features; these are the anti-institutionalists. If, in an institution, there is no mediating group between these two types of individuals (those who preserve the institution and those who reform it), the institution runs the risk of splitting or being destroyed. This applies in a good measure to state structures. # III. SOCIAL NATURE OF THE STATE A sociological analysis that seeks to demythify cannot avoid asking about the nature of the state, and it must formulate a concept that determines its tendencies and profound mechanisms, which are usually hidden from the eyes of an unobservant or superficial observer. In this sense, critical social thought has provided significant conclusions: the state is the product of unequal societies and, therefore, conflictive, since these societies require a form of sociopolitical control that contributes to maintaining inequality and mitigating conflicts and struggles between social classes. Leading or dominant groups must create and develop the state in order to consolidate their social dominance and the state cannot be under the exclusive control of subordinate classes, for fear of reversing the existing social order. Therefore, the state is, in the last instance- the expression of a given social hierarchy. However, the expansion of the functions of the state sphere has generated, in more developed capitalist societies, the so-called "relative autonomy of the state”, that is to say, a certain capacity for arbitration and for putting state institutions at a distance from the "capital-labour" conflict. This explains how parties of subordinate classes can access the government of those capitalist countries, and even remain in positions of state leadership for long periods, without essentially altering the nature of the state; but then new forms of relationship between classes and correlations of political force are generated, which are naturally expressed in the state itself. Thus conceptualized, the state, as a center of social conduction, plays different and sometimes ambiguous roles: a) On the one hand, the state is an agent integrating society, especially because it monopolizes the legitimate and/or legal exercise of violence and coercion within the political and social community. b) On the other hand, this State can implement social changes demanded by the social classes and political forces; but these changes are relatively limited by the interests of the dominant class of a society, which ultimately controls state action insofar as it constitutes the hegemonic social support of state institutions. c) State apparatuses can play the role of arbitrator of social conflicts only in the event that those struggles do not endanger the interests of the dominant. class; when this happens, the state will represent this class because, by nature, it cannot be neutral, since it constitutes the political support for the power of a class - or fraction of class- that holds hegemony over the social whole. d) Therefore, it is necessary to avoid characterizing the state as a simple juridical reality that is more or less immobile or immutable; on the contrary, the essence of its functioning lies in its social nature. In this sense, it seems valid to assert that the. state is the stage and stronghold to be occupied, in which the conflict between the classes and fractions of classes of a social formation unfolds. That is, the dominated classes will not be able to impose their interests within state apparatuses until such time as they can force the dominant class to accept them. But to achieve this, they must develop "social power" and partially or fully control the state. Only under this hypothesis, the former dominated class will be able to achieve a new social organization. State and inter-state struggles, with the aim of controlling institutional mechanisms whose purpose is to control social mechanisms that are developed at an economic, political, and ideological level, are, in the last instance, a reflection of these social contradictions, which are, in the last instance, a reflection of these social contradictions. e) State action is expressed through global decisions of different kinds, which we can call "state policies." f) To the extent that the state is a theater for social conflicts, it acquires a relative autonomy with respect to the hegemonic social block. # THE CASE OF DEMOCRATIC STATES. COMPETITIVE ELECTIONS The previous reflections would be at risk of being schematic if we were to stick to them literally. The reality is more complex than all the interpretations presented here. These interpretations are especially true in the case of advanced capitalist nations. In general, social struggles run through the state apparatus and even into the political parties; that is, there are state institutions in which representatives of different social classes and interests clash and there are parties in which trends that express groups or fractions of class clash, seeking to hegemonize them in order to better launch themselves into the struggle for control of the state. On occasion, adverse social interests lead to confrontations between sectors of the public administration that represent them. Therefore, at a level of theoretical abstraction we can affirm that the state is a reality of class and responds to the needs of the domination of one class over another. However, this reality exists and can be verified in the long historical. contradiction of capital-labor. Take the example of democratic and competitive elections that regulate the political conflict in the developed capitalist state and, in general, constitute the substance of the democratic state. Democratic elections consist of competitions by political parties (sometimes preceded by mini-elections between partisan factions) through which the people, transformed into electorate, determines which of those parties will occupy the functions of command in. the state. While elections theoretically grant each citizen in a country the faculty to choose their rulers, in the practice of all existing states, this faculty is limited by the electoral system, which depends on the system of political parties and, in turn, conditions and even shapes it; that is, the voter, whether under a universal suffrage system, whether under a restricted or qualified suffrage system, can only. choose those candidates who appear on ballots that are sustained by political parties and can only make that choice in the way prescribed by the electoral laws. Therefore, the dominant classes or fractions of classes - through. their control of states- have influenced and/or limited the expressions of the electorate in a more or less crude, more or less subtle, direct or indirect. way; for this, they have enacted laws that condition the constitution and activities of parties and norms that regulate electoral processes. Therefore, in some countries, certain political groups. are prohibited; in others, fraudulent electoral mechanisms are created; finally, many states, ensuring free competition among all existing parties, regulate the system of representation to favor groups that are close to the most powerful classes (for example, through the formation of electoral constituencies or by applying some specific electoral mechanism such as the second round or "ballotage”). In reality, this free competition between parties representative of all classes and fractions of class, without proscriptions or significant fraud, is observed only in around 40 capitalist states, almost all of them developed, especially after the Second World War; in the vast majority of these countries, there is an “agreement” or "pact", explicit or implicit, by which the subordinate classes accept, perhaps conditionally but lasting over time, their participation in political power with the aim of achieving better working and living conditions, committing to respect the socioeconomic foundations of the capitalist system, that is, private ownership of the means of production; in exchange for this "guarantee”, bourgeois groups with greater wealth and capacity for social conduction have “granted” truly free electoral systems that have enabled parties representative of workers and popular sectors to access the government of the states mentioned through voting. This has substantially strengthened the leading role of Western bourgeoisie capable of leading societies in which universal suffrage is practiced without restrictions or tricks. It is only in this context that elections effectively fulfill their function of mitigating or channeling the class struggle, transforming the war for socio-political power into a sporting competition, where winners and losers. accept the rules of fair play, eliminate violence or reduce it to residual levels and, above all, they alternate between victory and defeat, or at least, they have hope that this alternation will occur through the respect of the will of voters by all competitors acting. It is also in this context that the vote is truly universal, and not qualified, with little abstention of potential voters (in the American case, with politically insignificant abstention). If the “social pact”, a condition of the “democratic pact", which governs the “stable” capitalist societies were to break, the electoral “game” would change qualitatively and lose democratic validity. The hegemony of the current ruling classes and the alliances between factions of those classes would be seriously questioned. In underdeveloped countries, where large sectors of the population are socially marginalized, it is precisely this marginalization that makes each electoral competition unpredictable and risky for the ruling class. Therefore, different forms of fraud and even proscription against popular political groups are practiced in many of these states; and the validity of the electoral processes is sometimes challenged by the subordinate classes, through abstention, blank voting or violence. Not even the differences between factions of the ruling class can be resolved through elections, because those factions also consider the arbitration of the electorate to be Insufficient as a means of accepting the domination of one of them over, the rest. Moreover, the inability of elections to channel the. intensity of the class struggle in many peripheral countries is manifested by the periodic disregard of the will of voters, represented by frequent military coups that overthrow democratically elected governments when these threaten the interests of the ruling class - or their allies in the imperialist system. Consequently, there is no possibility of resolving essential socioeconomic and sociopolitical issues through electoral mechanisms, either within a bloc of power in place, or throughout society. However, an electoral process has other functions besides channeling the struggle of classes; these functions explain why the electoral method is used in almost every country around the world, even in countries governed by single parties. Among these functions, we highlight: a) Selecting the political and administrative staff of direction; b) Generating a feeling, maybe a delusion, of popular participation in state matters; c) Periodically assessing the state of public opinion on the entirety of the population about the social and political system; d) Legitimizing the political staff through popular vote, which votes, or at least approves, the candidates presented by the parties. e) Contributing to shaping democratic ideology, which serves to conceal the real mechanisms of power and justifies the representative form of government. If elections are a sociopolitical phenomenon that is limited in its possibilities of social transformation (it is unthinkable that, simply because of an electoral defeat, a social class should relinquish power in favor of another), they fulfill enough political and ideological functions that they have become the center of concern for all political systems and, given certain prior social requirements, they are the most direct route to consolidate the hegemony of a real ruling class. In short, if competitive elections, the substance of the democratic state, are conditioned by the social nature of the state itself, it seems fair to conclude that, in general, the. state is a (non-mechanical) product of the contradictions of that society, from which it emerges to lead it. # PARTICIPATION IN THE DEMOCRATIC STATE We have said that state functions are those of making decisions, of executing and of controlling; the latter, implies participation. The word participation suggests the ideas of taking part and of giving part. These ideas give us a hint about what this topic means in sociopolitical and. institutional terms, starting from a general observation: participation in the state is still an unresolved problem in depth and a reality that is insufficient. For participation in any institution, and in the state in particular, to be effective, the will of the social base that integrates it to participate and the creation. of mechanisms that enable that participation at the level of decisions, execution and control of those decisions must coincide. On the other hand, social theory debates about the real meaning of participation. For liberalism, the democratization of political power is a sufficient condition to be able to think of a society of citizens subject to history; for a partial reading of Marxism, participation is only possible if the means of production are socialized. However, it would seem that the mere socialization of the economy, without corresponding democratic political measures, does not guarantee full democratization of political power, as historical experience seems to indicate. Without attempting to provide a definitive answer to this complex problem, we tend to analyze the problem of participation at the different functional levels of the state institution. - a) Participation at the decision-making level. This constitutes the most thorny problem: if it is true that the tendency to concentrate decision-making power can be seen in the same technological evolution of society, how can popular. participation at this level be guaranteed? It would seem. that participation can be implemented according to the object of the decision, according to the means for implementing participation and according to the individuals who can participate in decision-making. - b) Participation at the executive level. Perhaps it is not feasible to envision an executive body that is wholly representative of the society to which the decision is to be applied. But it is possible to desire a greater proportion of elected administrative and judicial positions, that is, with direct responsibility to the administrative subjects. - c) Participation at the control level. It is here where the tendency towards democratization to a mass participation in state institutions (or others) can be multiplied, without undermining their efficiency or contradicting good administrative techniques. If the decision is a process that reaches the social base, which reverts its reactions to the top, it is possible. to ensure a fluid and agile mechanism for communication, through broad and free channels of information, through which the top understands the aspirations of the society that it directs and this society knows the foundations of key options. To make this reality possible, it may be necessary to multiply the bodies of political control and real popular participation in these bodies. But it is understood that a harmonization of popular control with leading groups. and those responsible for decision-making requires common socioeconomic and political projects, that is, legitimate. Without that common project, any control will be a source of insoluble conflicts. The problems presented at the global sociopolitical level may. be applicable and suitable to systems of power and microsocial institutions. But. the issue of participation seems to be inextricably linked to these institutions, including those that are not political or private. In fact, if the decision is a "movement" that starts from the top and travels down to the social base, participation is the strictly inverse movement, that is, it should occur in small social cells and from there reach the apex of the metaphorical social pyramid. Therefore, implementing participation at a political level is only possible if this mechanism "of giving and taking part" takes place in. all social groups, from the smallest and farthest from political power.