State (polity)
These gained state capacity in conjunction with the growth of cities, which was often dependent on climate, and economic development, with centralisation often spurred on by insecurity and territorial competition.
Over time, varied forms of states developed, which used many different justifications for their existence (such as divine right, the theory of the social contract, etc.).
With the revival of the Roman law in 14th-century Europe, the term came to refer to the legal standing of persons (such as the various "estates of the realm" – noble, common, and clerical), and in particular the special status of the king.
[12] The early 16th-century works of Machiavelli (especially The Prince) played a central role in popularizing the use of the word "state" in something similar to its modern sense.
[citation needed] The expression "L'État, c'est moi" ("I am the State") attributed to Louis XIV, although probably apocryphal, is recorded in the late 18th century.
[22] Tilly defines states as "coercion-wielding organisations that are distinct from households and kinship groups and exercise a clear priority in some respects over all other organizations within substantial territories.
[31] While economic and political philosophers have contested the monopolistic tendency of states,[35] Robert Nozick argues that the use of force naturally tends towards monopoly.
In contrast, some states have sought to make a virtue of their multi-ethnic or multinational character (Habsburg Austria-Hungary, for example, or the Soviet Union), and have emphasised unifying characteristics such as autocracy, monarchical legitimacy, or ideology.
[47] Other states may bring ideas of commonality and inclusiveness to the fore: note the res publica of ancient Rome and the Rzeczpospolita of Poland-Lithuania which finds echoes in the modern-day republic.
[citation needed] For most of human history, people have lived in stateless societies, characterized by a lack of concentrated authority, and the absence of large inequalities in economic and political power.
[82] Mesopotamia is generally considered to be the location of the earliest civilization or complex society, meaning that it contained cities, full-time division of labor, social concentration of wealth into capital, unequal distribution of wealth, ruling classes, community ties based on residency rather than kinship, long distance trade, monumental architecture, standardized forms of art and culture, writing, and mathematics and science.
[89] The formalization of the struggles over taxation between the monarch and other elements of society (especially the nobility and the cities) gave rise to what is now called the Standestaat, or the state of Estates, characterized by parliaments in which key social groups negotiated with the king about legal and economic matters.
These estates of the realm sometimes evolved in the direction of fully-fledged parliaments, but sometimes lost out in their struggles with the monarch, leading to greater centralization of lawmaking and military power in his hands.
[95] Adom Getachew writes that it was not until the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples that the international legal context for popular sovereignty was instituted.
As a result, such perishable goods were of little interest to either looters or the king (In ancient times, especially before the invention of money, taxation was primarily collected from agricultural produce.)
[100][101] Such a system exhibited characteristics of a natural monopoly, as its construction involved substantial fixed costs, making it a lucrative asset for the ruling elite.
Bentzen, Kaarsen, and Wingender (2017) showed that in pre-modern societies, regions dependent on irrigation-intensive agriculture experienced higher levels of land inequality.
Murray Rothbard argues in Power and Market that any and all government functions could better be fulfilled by private actors including: defense, infrastructure, and legal adjudication.
[122][123][124] Michel Foucault believed that modern political theory was too state-centric, saying "Maybe, after all, the state is no more than a composite reality and a mythologized abstraction, whose importance is a lot more limited than many of us think."
Max Weber's concept of charisma is also explored by Fukuyama, who uses it to explain why individuals relinquish their personal freedoms and more egalitarian smaller communities in favor of larger, more authoritarian states.
The Scholars goes further by saying that Charismatic leaders can leverage this mass mobilization as a military force, achieving victories and securing peace, which in turn further legitimizes their authority.
Fukuyama cites the example of Muhammad, whose influence facilitated the rise of a powerful state in North Africa and the Middle East, despite limited economic foundations.
[141] The third is rational-legal authority, whereby legitimacy is derived from the belief that a certain group has been placed in power in a legal manner, and that their actions are justifiable according to a specific code of written laws.
[full citation needed] In order to solve and prevent these issues in the future, it is necessary to focus on building strong institutions, promoting economic diversification and development, and addressing the causes of violence in each state (Mkandawire, 2001).
The transition to this modern state was possible in Europe around 1600 thanks to the confluence of factors like the technological developments in warfare, which generated strong incentives to tax and consolidate central structures of governance to respond to external threats.
Unlike the European case, late state formation occurred in a context of limited international conflict that diminished the incentives to tax and increase military spending.
[146] As a complement to this argument, Migdal gives a historical account on how sudden social changes in the Third World during the Industrial Revolution contributed to the formation of weak states.
The expansion of international trade that started around 1850, brought profound changes in Africa, Asia and Latin America that were introduced with the objective of assure the availability of raw materials for the European market.
These changes consisted in: i) reforms to landownership laws with the objective of integrate more lands to the international economy, ii) increase in the taxation of peasants and little landowners, as well as collecting of these taxes in cash instead of in kind as was usual up to that moment and iii) the introduction of new and less costly modes of transportation, mainly railroads.
As a result, the traditional forms of social control became obsolete, deteriorating the existing institutions and opening the way to the creation of new ones, that not necessarily lead these countries to build strong states.
