Chapter 5. State in Political System of Society

Chapter 5. State in Political System of Society

Plan

1.          Definition. States origin.

2.          Main signs and state functions.

3.          Forms of state ruling and national-territorial structure.

4.          Law and civil society.

The word “state” can be used to mean a historical entity or a philosophical idea, a perennial form of human community or a specifically modern phenomenon. These different meanings are not necessarily contradictory, but need to be carefully distinguished.

Probably the most common use is to equate “state” with the body politic or political community as such, something that has existed throughout history in a wide variety of differing forms, and whose mutations provide traditionally the central subject matter for the science of history. Only the primitive nomadic form of political community is customarily excluded from the designation, the implication being that such communities lack the firmly defined order that seems inherent in the concept. A state requires a fixed relationship between a community and territory.

The great classical works of political theory, whether they be those of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes or Hegel, can be seen as so many definitions of the state as it ought to be, according to its own inherent logic. Much of their work was devoted to distinguishing the state from other types of human association with which, in empirical or historical reality, it has often been blended and overlaid.

The term “state” means a special type of social phenomenon, which is characterized by such essential features: rule and submission relations; monopoly right of authority to use violence; legal order existence; relative constancy and so on. The main elements of the state are: territory; population; authority. The first element – territory – includes: land, entrails, air space (aerial domain), and territorial waters. It means that the state realize its power there and defends the territory from external invasion. The second element of the state is the population. It is human society, which lives at the state territory and is submitted the state authority. The population may be nationally homogeneous or multinational. The third element of the state is the authority or in other words ruling and submission relations, which exists between the political elite and rest of the population. The political elite imposes its authority using legal rules.

State is a total combination of representative institutions, supervision instances, and bodies of maintenance of public order, armed forces – which form specific ruling system. The main features of  a state are: territory with a state borders (frontier); political organization of public authority (apparatus of state power, apparatus of coercion – army, service of maintenance of the order and the state security bodies); state sovereignty in home and abroad; the right to promulgate laws and norms which have obligatory character; taxes, which pay the population.

State has some functions (state functions it’s a duty, range of activity, aim and role in general form). There are internal and external functions of a state.

Internal functions	External functions
political, legal, organizing function of the state, economic, social, educational, cultural.	are connected with the defence of a state border (defensive function); brazen (gross) intervention in the internal (home) affairs of the other states (war–aggressive, forcible (violent) function; maintenance and extension of inter–state relations (diplomatic function); foreign–trade activity of a state; participation in blocks and alliances and so on.

There are two main forms of governing: monarchic and republican.

Monarchy. According to this form of governing supreme authority unites the Head of state functions’ and some legislative and executive functions. There are two types of monarchies: absolute and constitutional.

Constitutional or parliamentary frames do not limit absolute sovereign: exercises legislative power, guides a government, exercises control over justice and local self–government. Examples: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

In constitutional monarchy sovereign authority is limited by the constitution: parliament exercises lawmaking. Under the control of the Head of the state and parliament a responsible government is formed and an independent justice and local self–government are formed. Examples: Great Britain, Sweden and Spain are constitutional monarchies. Sovereigns in those countries haven’t a considerable political authority. In reality parliamentary or constitutional monarchies are not differ from republics.

Republic is a form of ruling according to which supreme authority is vested to elective organs – parliament, president; they exercise control over government an independent justice and local self-government are existed. There are three types of republican ruling: republic with the presidential form of governing; parliamentary republic; mixed form.

In republic with presidential form of governing, the USA, for example, president is a Head of a government, Prime Minister selects ministers and controls their activity. Legislative and executive authorities are divided and have their own elective systems.

Parliamentary republic differs from presidential one. Supreme legislative organ is formed by parties, which won the elections. Government is formed by parliament from leaders of winner-party and has responsibility towards the parliament. This type of republic less spread and exists in Italy, Germany, India, Austria, Finland, Iceland and other countries.

Mixed republican forms have two models: French model – where president plays more important role than in the parliamentary model. He takes part in forming of government and appoints members of the Cabinet. Government depends from president and from parliament too. President in France can retain his political positions if he had a majority in parliament, if not – the authority-holder must be Prime Minister. The second type – presents by Switzerland: it combines features of presidential and parliamentary forms of governing. Parliament forms the Cabinet. 

Form of the state structure is a national–territorial organization of the state and interrelationship between central and local organs. There are two main forms of the state structure:

Unitary

Federative

unitary states (Italy, France, Denmark, Sweden and others) have a single constitution, which adopts all over the territory; uniform citizenship; uniform law system; judicial system; administrative-territorial unites haven’t the political independence. But number of unitary states granted some regions administrative autonomy (for example, Scotland and Northern Ireland in Great Britain, regional autonomy in Italy).

federative states (Australia, Austria, India, Russia, the USA, FRG and other countries) – these are alliances of state unites which have legal and some political independence. States, cantons, republics, and provinces are subjects of the federation and have their own administrative-territorial division. The main signs of federations are: territory of federation not is a political-administrative as a whole; subject of federation has constituent authority (it means that it’s granted the right to adopt their own constitution, lawmaking and have legal and judicial systems. Characteristic features of federation are dual citizenship and two-chamber (bicameral) structure of parliament.

Besides of unitary and federative state structures there is an original state unit. It’s confederation – union of independent states for military, foreign-policy activities etc. These unions are very unstable. As a rule they either break up after the accomplishing of the tasks set before confederation or develops into federation: for example, the USA and Switzerland.

There are many other unions. This is a union of states center of which is a former metropolitan country. Around it a former colonies are grouped. It’s first of all, British Community of Nations and French-speaking African countries that are based on language identity, cultural elements and existence of supranational staff. The main sphere of cooperation of these states is culture but last time it attained great importance to policy and economy.

Legal state and civil society. An idea of “legal state” was born thanks to Plato, but Cicero substantiated correlation between the state, policy and the law. E.Kant, J.Locke, S.Montesque developed this idea.

Now jurists and all social scientists consider that “legal state” is the greatest achievement of civilization. The main signs of legal state are: supremely importance of law at all spheres of public life; reality of rights and freedoms of the individual; mutual responsibility of the state and the individual; authority division for legislative, executive and judicial; presence of effective forms of control and supervision after realization of laws.

Legal state is connected with a civil society. 1) Originally, a generic term for society and state, synonymous with ‘political society’. 2) More recently, social and economic arrangements, codes, institutions apart from the state. “The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on Earth… It is the moral Whole, the State, which is that form of reality in which the individual has and enjoys his freedom. The individual who wishes to live the free life must therefore find his freedom in his role as citizen. The state is the embodiment of morality, and this may only be known and shared by obedience to political authority. Freedom is consciousness of the Idea, and the Idea is expressed by the State. Civil society is a social domain where people are connected and interrelated as independent individuals. The main condition of the civil society is the individual and its right for self-realization. This right is based on recognition of individual freedom.