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Concept of the State in Political Theory and International Relations

Society, State, Constitution and Government

Have you ever wondered why we pay taxes, drive on the left, do not smoke or drink alcohol in public places? For that matter, why do we expect that some entity would provide reservations in jobs, cheaper petrol, diesel, food, electricity and fertilizers to the people? Furthermore, why do we assume that the safety and security of the people against hostile forces would be the responsibility of some powerful agency? We do so as we trust that there is an agency powerful enough to enforce discipline and order in society, to redistribute its resources and wealth and to protect through a publicly maintained national defence force. We identify this agency as the ‘State’. In this chapter we will try to understand the nature of the State, which is one of the central themes of political science. The State is an organ of society, representing coercive power, which it uses or threatens to use for collecting taxes, enforcing discipline, providing subsidies and ensuring security.

Society is the primary basis of human association and social relationships. Sociologists suggest that society has emerged through the process of natural evolution and instinctive affiliation of human beings with each other. It is a realm of various relationships—for establishing and sustaining families, making friends and peers, becoming and remaining members of religious, cultural, interest and professional associations such as castes, communities, unions, etc. Because society is a primary and natural association, it encompasses all aspects of the familial, religious, cultural, economic and political realms of human life.

However, society needs to maintain social order and regulate the rights and obligations of its members. This is done through social customs, traditions and social control. Social control may be exercised through social and religious means such as social boycotts, ostracism, criticism, moral appeals and peer pressure. But such means alone may not be adequate. It requires the application or the threat of application of force, along with negotiation, adjustment and reconciliation. Moreover, a society with members having different customs, traditions, religions and cultural affiliations requires a separate agency. Therefore, society must make use of a separate and impartial agency, the State, which can carry out these functions. Like the elder in a family or a student union in a college or university, the State becomes the representative of society as a whole, as well as the repository of society's power to regulate social order and adjust interests and relationships of different individuals and associations. By virtue of this, it becomes a superior or sovereign power. When we accept an older male or female in our family as its head, we concede that the elder will decide on all the vital matters concerning the family members. In turn, we also expect that the elder will be impartial and fair in dealing with all the family members, in the same way that you expect your class representative on a student-faculty committee or a class monitor or a student union president to be impartial. This understanding of the State is part of a liberal approach to it.

The Marxist approach views the State differently. It considers the State to be a class instrument which serves the interest of the economically dominant class alone. According to them, this class wants to maintain stability and order in society so that inequalities in economic relationships are justified and maintained.

The laws of the State have primacy over all other rules and regulations in society. The State–society relationship is characterized by the:

• State as a product of society where society is natural and prior to the State¹
• State as something that covers a smaller realm of individual life than the society
• State as something that emerges from society, but is the repository of the power of society
• State as something that needs to represent the reconciled interest of all the members by becoming acceptable as a general power of all its members

In the modern world, the power and functions of the State are organized through constitutions and governments. The terms and conditions of exercise of power by the State are regulated through a formal document called the constitution. A constitution defines the scope and limits of power, the rights and obligations of individuals and associations in society and the organs through which power of the State is exercised in day-to-day life. The government represents the day-to-day operation of the power of the State. This is carried out through the organs of the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. While the State is considered a permanent i nstitution, governments are treated as changeable. For example, after every election, a new government is formed in all democracies, but the basic source of the government, the State, continues to be the same. The State is considered to be the source of all power. The government is only a trust or agent of the State. Governments enjoy power on behalf of the State and are considered to be one of the elements of the State. John Locke regarded the government to be the trust of the supreme power of the people. Harold J. Laski refused to give primacy of power to the State because he thought that the State was operationally run, as government, by fallible men. Thus, he equated State with government.

The State differs from the nation. A nation is understood as a group of people who share emotional and customary unity on the basis of shared traditions, customs, ethnicity, language, culture, etc. A nation is a society that may or may not have a State. When a nation is organized under a single political authority which has the supreme power of decision making, it is called a nation-state. It is generally argued that Palestinians, Kurds and Tibetans are agitating for statehood, as they constitute separate nations. For example, before 1971, Bangladesh qualified as a nation due to its linguistic basis, but was not a nation-state. It became a nation-state after it set up an independent decision-making power.

Concept and Idea of the State

The concept of the State has received different treatment by different political thinkers. Some glorify it, some denigrate and reject it, some seek to restrict its role and functions and some make it central to the goal of public welfare. The Organic-Idealist school of thinkers (Plato, Aristotle, W. F. Hegel, T. H. Green, Bluntschli, etc.) glorified the State as if it had its own personality and objectives, like a living organism. The Marxists, the neo-Marxian thinkers and the anarchists rejected the State as an exploitative instrument. The liberals, the pluralists and the neo-liberals saw a very limited role for the State, as they gave priority to the rights of individuals and groups/associations. The utilitarians, the social democrats and the welfarists moderate the two extremes and assign a positive role to the State in terms of human and individual good.

Concept of the State

The State, as a power separate from society, did not exist from the beginning of human history. It might have emerged either as a specific way of organizing civic and public activities by groups of people with similar allegiance, habitation, leadership and resources at command or as a specific agency to work for the powerful and dominant class in society. It is difficult to find out an exact time in history when the concept of the State could be identified. Generally, early Greek civilization is treated as the progenitor of the concept of the State, coinciding with the era of city-states.² The Greek polis, the city-state (a good example is Athens), represented a holistic concept of life for its inhabitants. Such was the all-encompassing nature of the city-state that the Greeks would call a person an ‘idiot’ (from the Classical Greek word idios, which means ‘one's own private’ as opposed to public affairs, i.e., the polis) if he was disinterested in the affairs of the polis.

The Greek city-states came to be identified with specific elements like territory, population, government and some kind of sovereign authority. Compared with this, it is easy to guess that there would have been ‘stateless societies’, which lacked some of these elements (or at least, the sovereign authority).

For Romans, the res republica or the things pertaining to the public realm signified what we call the State.³ In ancient Rome, the group of people who enjoyed rights and performed duties was called the civitas or community where individuals possessed something very similar to the concept of modern citizenship. The concept of res republica, however, implied not merely the idea of citizenship but also conveyed the notion of public welfare.⁴ In Greece and Rome, the form of the state was comparable to that of a city or municipality, excepting the Roman Empire.

In medieval Europe, the concept of the secular state found itself struggling against the Christian church. With the decline of the Greek and the Roman political setups and the spread of Christianity in Europe, a long-drawn struggle between religious and political power-centres ensued. The Church, fearing the reduction of its power, claimed that the State was only a limited arm of human life, the primary aspect being the religious and spiritual life. On the other hand, due to the feudal nature of the medieval economy, the power of the state was not very consolidated. At best, the State could only enjoy ‘suzerainty’, i.e., limited and pre-determined rights over various groups and power wielders. The Church challenged any secular agency claiming ethical and moral superiority over it. The feudal nature of the economy allowed only a limited type of secular authority in the form of the State. In short, the concept of the state during the medieval period became a victim of the Church on the one hand and feudalism on the other.

In The Prince, Machiavelli developed the concept of the modern state and explained that all the powers which have had and have authority over men are States and are either monarchies or republics. This modern concept of the State has been referred to as stati (Italian) in Machiavelli's The Prince, etat (French, as in raison d’etat) and staat (German, as in Landesstaatsrecht). From polis to res republica to stati to the nation-state, the concept of the State as a way of organizing civic and political activities has travelled a long way.

Idea of the State

It may not be inappropriate to look at the State as a concept with its characteristic elements (people, territory, government and supreme authority) and varied forms on the one hand, and as an idea of an ultimate, perfect political and civic association of human life on the other. The idea of the State is different from its forms, institutions, elements and stages of development.

In Plato's vision, it refers to the perfect form ot the State (in lhe Republic). For Aristotle it is the ‘ultimate home of the man’ (man being a political animal) and the ‘nature’ of man is to stay in the State as is the nature of a seed to grow into a tree. For Hegel, it is the ‘march of the God on earth’, i.e., the journey of an overarching ‘Spirit’. Viewed in this context, the idea of the State is the telos or the goal or a moral purpose that would be achieved through stages by evolution of the State as a concept. Each state in its actual form presents an incomplete form of the idea of the State and is only an attempt at reaching it. This can be elucidated in the same way as we compare a horse or a person with the idea of horsiness or humanity. By saying that a particular horse is good or a person is good, we are comparing that specific horse/person with the idea of a perfect horse or a perfect human being.

Critics may argue that such a formulation would render the individual helpless vis-à-vis the State and make one submit to the ‘abstract will’ of the State. it gives credence to an existing State, be it authoritarian or repressive. The pitfall of the ‘idea of the State’ theory is that it would legitimize the processes of colonization and imperialism.

Defining the State in Terms of ‘Concept’ and ‘Idea’

A definition of the State, thus, would be in terms of either: (i) the State as a concept having identifiable elements and characteristics (people, territory, government and supreme authority); (ii) forms and stages in evolution (city-state, nation-state, etc.); or (iii) the State as an idea having moral and teleological end. As such, definitions of what the State is could be based on legal, sociological or philosophical viewpoints. For Aristotle, the State is ‘an association of families and villages for the sake of attaining a perfect and self-sufficient existence’, while for Hegel, it is the ‘march of God on earth’ or ‘actualization of concrete freedom.’ These philosophical positions define the State as an end, a moral objective or a teleos for the human being.

As a rule, sociological theorists do not assign any such end or moral objective to the State. For Max Weber, ‘sociologically, the state cannot be defined in terms of its end … ultimately, one can define the modern state sociologically only in terms of the specific means peculiar to it … namely the use of physical force’ (our italics).’⁵ Definitions containing the elements of the state cover either social or legal viewpoints, including international law in some cases. R. M. MacIver, a sociologist, defines the State as ‘an association which acting through law as promulgated by authority endowed to this end with coercive power, maintains within a community territorially demarcated by the universal external condition.’ Both Weber and MacIver insist on physical or coercive power as one of the significant elements in the definition of the state. MacIver’s definition also describes the constituent elements of the state, namely, authority (government), community (population), territorial demarcation (territory) and the ability to act through legal means with coercive power (sovereignty).

J. W. Garner defines the State in terms of its constituting elements as ‘a community of persons more or less numerous, permanently occupying a definite territory, independent, or nearly so, of external control, and possessing an organized government to which a great body of inhabitants render habitual obedience.’⁶ He has covered all the four elements—people, territory, government and sovereign, which seeks habitual obedience.

Let us take a few examples of the definition of the State from legal, sociological, idealistic or class perspectives. Jean Bodin defines the State as ‘an association of families and their common affairs governed by a supreme power and by reason.’ Bodin's definition advocates the concept of sovereignty as a characteristic of the State. The State is distinguished from other groupings including the family due to the implication of sovereignty. Bodin's concept of the State does not present it as a natural development evolving from families. Aristotle, however, treated the family as the building block of the State.

Lenin has defined the state from a Marxian angle as, ‘an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of order, which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the conflict between the classes.⁷ The Marxian perspective attributes the origin of the State to the emergence of private property and class differences between the propertied and the oppressed. It views the State as an instrument used by the propertied class to oppress and exploit the working class. This presents a class perspective and can be treated as a sociological analysis of the State.

There can be a variety of perspectives from which the state can be defined and explained in terms of: (i) its objectives; (ii) the nature of state power; (iii) the elements that constitute the state; (iv) its origin and purpose; (v) relationship between the individual on the one hand and society on the other; (vi) international relations, and so on. Similarly, based on the perspective one is following, it can be described differently (see Table 2.1).

 

Table 2.1 How the State Is Viewed

Perspective	Description
Organic view	As organism like the human body
Juridical view	As a juristic/legal personality like a corporation
Idealistic view	As an ethical or teleological end
Contractual and utilitarian views	As an artificial machine
Pluralist view	As association of associations
Laissez-faire liberal view	As a necessary evil
Positive liberal view	As an organ of welfare
Class view	As an organ of exploitation by the propertied class
Anarchist view	As an unnecessary evil
Internationalist view	As a stage in evolution towards global governance or international organization
Elitist view	As an arena of bargaining and reconciliation of interests

Thus, there can be a variety of perspectives and vantage points from which the State can be defined. An attempt to analyse from this angle has been done in the Chapter 3—Perspectives and Theories on the State. In short, the State can be understood as an institutionalized coercive force, which is exercised through a government to which a permanently residing population in a territorial limit gives habitual obedience.

Elements of the State

Generally, four constituent elements of the State are considered essential—population, territory, government and sovereignty. Understanding the State in terms of these elements makes it possible to differentiate states from stateless societies.

Population

For organizing political and civic life, the State should have people to act upon. However, a population is only one of the requirements and not the only condition for the recognition that a State exists. Furthermore, the ‘population, as constituent of the State, refers to a group of people united by common interests, who owe allegiance to a set of common rules and have certain rights and duties. These rights and duties are defined through a publicly adopted document usually called a constitution. People who enjoy publicly defined rights and duties are called ‘citizens’.

In a State, the term ‘subjects’ would define the population in a traditional sense more suited to a monarchy or a colonial State. However, the population of a State could be viewed both as citizens and subjects; the former as having certain privileges as members of the State and the latter under the command of the State, obliged to heed the power and be affected by the actions of the State.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French political thinker, interestingly combined these two capacities—first, as active citizens participating in the formulation of the general will, and second, as subjects bound by the laws of the state. In Greek city-states, the principle of exclusion of slaves from citizenship, for example, tells us that merely inhabiting a territory might not necessarily qualify someone for citizenship of the State governing that area. The population was divided into three categories—citizens, slaves (inhabitants but not citizens) and foreigners. Modern states have laid down elaborate rules of citizenship and residency. The principles of non-residency, emigration, political asylum and refugee status are invoked to regulate and limit the population of a state.

The population with respect to the State could be homogenous or heterogeneous in terms of race, religion, language or culture. Greek city-states like Sparta and Athens could be regarded as states having homogeneous populations, modern states are not. Though the modern concept of the nation-state signifies some kind of homogeneity in population, the same is not considered to be an essential feature. Nation-states such as Bangladesh, Russia, France, Serbia, Sweden, Scotland, etc. are examples of states having a homogenous population base. There are many heterogeneous nation-states, e.g., India, Canada, the USA, etc.

There is no agreement amongst political theorists regarding the relative merit of homogeneous or heterogeneous states. John Stuart Mill, for example, favoured mono-national states. Lord Acton, on the other hand, was a vehement critic of the notion of a particular nationality being the basis of the state. While Mill considered coincidence of the boundaries of government with those of nationalities as a necessary condition of free institutions, Lord Acton asserted that the poly-national nature of a state was in fact, a necessary condition of freedom. Lord Acton also defended the poly-national state on the grounds of the development of civilization, as intercourse amongst different nationalities would help the growth of ‘less advanced people’.

The size of the population has also attracted the attention of theorists. Plato, Aristotle and Rousseau were in favour of smaller states and limiting the size of the population. For Aristotle, the principle that limited the size was governed by the fact that ‘it should be large enough to be self-sufficing and small enough to be well-governed’. For Rousseau, ‘the more the population, the less the liberty’. However, the populations of nation-states are not limited by the consideration of size, which varies from a few hundred thousand to billions. Nevertheless, the considerations of resources, civic amenities, job opportunities, law and order, peace and stability and international relations do influence the decisions of States to regulate their size.

It can be said that the population as an element of the State is both advantageous and disadvantageous for the state. A large population could pose problems for effective developmental planning but at the same time could add to technical and professional resources if enabling conditions were provided.

Territory

While the population or membership could be a characteristic of States as well as other associations, ‘territory’ is specific to the State. In 1817, a writer named Kluber is said to have been the first to include territory as an element of the State.⁸ This ‘territory’ refers to a specifically demarcated geographical area upon which the population, which constitutes a State permanently resides. This includes land, water, an airspace having boundaries recognized by other States or/and international law. Here ‘permanently resides’ refers to residency more in the sense of citizenship and the corpus of rights associated with it, not merely in the sense of physical residency. Migrants, refugees, nomads, and other unsettled people cannot claim to have a State as they do not have a demarcated territory upon which they ‘permanently reside’. Migrants and refugees may get their status changed provided they are absorbed into the exiting State and acquire residency either in the sense of citizenship and the corpus of rights associated with it, or any other special status.

The question of territory relating to Palestine and Israel in the post-Second World War period provides a good example of the significance of territory. Israel as a territory brought Jews from many parts of the world into areas it claims to be part of its territory. Palestine, though it has a population and a government, lacks a demarcated territory and has not been recognized as a State.

The recognition of territory as an element of the State is important for the principle of territorial integrity to be applied. International law requires each State to respect the territorial integrity of other States and any violation constitutes an attack on the sovereignty and integrity of the other State. Territory becomes significant from the point of view of the sphere of sovereignty. It is also important as a sphere for providing resources and markets to the state. The territorial spread of a state in a way decides the sources and availability of natural resources and markets.

Some writers support the theory of territory as a subjective element of the state. G. Jellinek, who attributed a juridical personality to the State, maintained that territory is a constituent element of the state's juridical personality.⁹ This means that territory does not lie outside a State but inheres in it—if territory is taken away from a state, it no longer exists. However, Duguit, a pluralist, denies any juridical personality to the state and has attacked this position.

Unlike a population, there is no limit on the territory of a state and there are states with varying sizes. However, the issue of governability has attracted the attention of political theorists from Plato to J. S. Mill. Both Plato and Aristotle supported the idea of a moderately sized, well-formed state. Rousseau also supported a small-sized state in order for it to be well-governed. In his Social Contract, he concluded that monarchy was suited only to large states, aristocracy to states of moderate size and democracy to small states. Montesquieu also advocated a relationship between the size of a state and the form of its government. In his The Spirit of Laws, he suggested that the republican form of government was best suited to small-sized states while moderately-sized states were best served by the monarchical form and a vast State was best dealt with by the despotic form. Alex De Tocqueville also supported the view that the republican form of government was unsuited to large states. John Stuart Mill, in his Considerations on Representative Government, said that there was a limit to the extent of the country which could be advantageously governed or even whose government could be conveniently superintended by a single government. However, Mill's discussion was in the context of the formation of a federal union.

Our experience in modern times suggests that the said relationship between the size of a State and the suitability of a particular form of government vis-á-vis governability may not prevail. The introduction of the principles of federalism with the division of powers between central and provincial governments and the development of local self-government makes this perceived relationship redundant. In their debates on the territorial extent of the United States and its relationship with the republican form of government, Madison and Jefferson, in the first and fourteenth numbers of The Federalist, had refuted this contention of Montesquieu.¹⁰ Both India and USA have large territorial size but have been successfully running republican governments. Means of communication and transportation (which also create an integrated market) have rendered the doctrine of the relationship of the republican form of government with State size meaningless. In fact, the principles of federalism and local self-government on the one hand and integrated markets, communication and the idea of the nation-state on the other, removes any such scepticism regarding the governability of large states.

Most writers of political science consider territory, and the principle of territorial integrity to be an essential element of the State. However, there are a few writers who feel that territory may not be an essential element of the State. John Seeley, for example, holds that fixed territory is not an essential element of the State and nomadic tribes do possess a State even though they do not have any territory. Duguit asserts that ‘territory is not an indispensable element in the formation of a state.’¹¹ He feels that the differentiating characteristic of the State is based on the distinction between the governed and those who govern. Recent studies based on the ‘political system’ framework have insisted on the presence of a political system amongst non-territorial communities.

A change in territorial extent can be either due to political reasons like wars, treaties or mutual transfers of territory or due to constitutional provisions. While the US and Indian constitutions provide for an indestructible union/federation, meaning thereby that the federal constituents cannot secede and form a separate state, the constitution of erstwhile USSR provided for the secession of its constituents.

Government

Generally, the State expresses itself through the government. The government is the day-to-day operating agency of the State. Three branches of government—legislative, executive and judiciary—render functions that the State is traditionally supposed to render. Speaking on the necessity of government, Garner says, ‘Government is the agency or machinery through which common policies are determined and by which common affairs are regulated and common interests promoted’.¹²

Viewed as such, the government uses the legislature to formulate policies and law. It executes and regulates the affairs of the state through its executive branch and promotes common interests. The judiciary is used to maintain and promote the principle of justice and fair play. If we recall Locke's formulation of the branches of the commonwealth in the post-social contract civil society, legislative, executive, which included judicial and federative branches, emerge from the condition of the state of nature which did not have a legislator, an executor and an arbitrator. The government is responsible for maintaining internal peace as well as international relations. Locke's formulation of duties of the federative branch includes treaty-making and the maintenance of external relations with other State.

The government can be at federal or provincial levels. K. C. Wheare defines federalism as ‘The general and regional governments of a country … independent each of the other within its sphere’.¹³ Thus, federalism implies a political arrangement and the division of powers between different levels of government, which may be independent in their sphere. It can also prove to be a significant instrument to accommodate diverse cultural and social interests within a State. India and Canada provide good examples of States where federalism has provided an accommodative political setup for diverse cultural, social and linguistic groups.

A government is only a particular expression of the State and is subject to change. A government is dissoluble and replaceable by another one. However, the State can be dissolved only at the cost of the loss of its sovereignty. Thus, the State is permanent while government is changeable. The government is a creation of the State and what Locke calls its trustee-enjoying fiduciary power. The State-government relationship can be described by the fact that governments possess neither sovereignty, nor unlimited authority but only derivative/fiduciary authority delegated by the State through its constitution. However, it should be remembered that in certain circumstances (like Nazi or Fascist states or authoritarian states), the distinction between the State and the government gets diluted to the extent of the possession of sovereignty.

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is considered the most important element of the state—the defining element of the state. The element of sovereignty bestows upon the State supreme, exclusive and unlimited legal power, one that gives it control over all individuals within its territory. It also distinguishes ‘fundamentally the state from all other organizations and associations’.¹⁴ Sovereignty includes both internal and external sovereignty. Internal sovereignty refers to the supremacy of the State over individuals, things and groups, associations or organizations within it. External sovereignty refers to the independence from foreign control and independence of decision-making with respect to international relations and international politics. This means that for a State to be sovereign, it must not be in a colonial relationship with other power(s).

Sovereignty has the characteristics of all-comprehensiveness or universality, exclusivity, absoluteness, permanence, inalienability and indivisibility. Sovereignty is universal in the sense that it covers all persons, things and groups, associations or organizations falling within the territorial limits of the State. It is exclusive in the sense that the State does not share sovereignty with any other organization; it is absolute, as there is no limit to sovereignty of the State and no other consideration can be invoked to limit it; sovereignty is permanent because sovereignty of the State continues as long as the State itself exists (without sovereignty, the State does not exist); sovereignty is inalienable, non-shareable and indivisible for the same reason that it should be always be there with the State, without being shared with any other organization.

The concept of internal sovereignty establishes the supremacy of the State over all other organizations, associations, bodies and groups within its territory. The concept of external sovereignty provides for independence of decision-making in international relations and also establishes the doctrine of the sovereign equality of states before international law. Writers on international law like Oppenheim (in International Law, first brought out in 1920) supported this doctrine.¹⁵ The fundamental foundation for the membership of the United Nations Organization (UNO) is based on the sovereign equality of all nation-states irrespective of their size, population and degree of development.

The concept of the right of self-determination has been advocated for enabling the granting of sovereignty to people agitating against the occupation of their territory by colonial powers or control by existing States. This is based on the principle that people constituting a nationality have some kind of natural right to determine their own political destiny. This concept made significant contributions during the anti-colonial struggle and provided the basis for de-colonization in many parts of the world. However, given the fact that various groups perceiving themselves as a separate nationality use this concept to demand independence, it has posed problems for many modern nation-states. It has encouraged various secessionist demands for self-determination. Political theory still has to reconcile the interest of modern nation-states with the principles of the right of self-determination. Whether the recognition of the right of self-determination is an infringement on the sovereignty of the existing State or whether refusal of the same is a denial of human rights is still to be resolved.

It may be appropriate to mention here that many writers on political science and international law accept the existence of sovereignty, but assert that sovereignty is not an essential constituent element of the state. Writers like G. Jellinek and P. Laband deny the necessity of sovereignty as an element of the state. For Jellinek, sovereignty is a ‘historical category’ and not an ‘absolute category’ and there have been states which lacked it, e.g., the medieval state, amongst others. For Laband, ‘the test of statehood is not sovereignty, the power of the community to determine the limits of its own competence’, rather it is ‘the right to govern, to command and enforce obedience’.¹⁶

The State can also be considered in terms of a juristic personality even without a population. The action of the State against corporations or companies or for that matter its citizens is regarded in a court of law as if the State has acted as a legal entity. Article 12 of the Constitution of India defines the state in this sense.

Certain Considerations on the Elements of the State

Constitution

Going by the near-universal existence of a constitution for each country as a defining formal document of the rights and duties of the people, the power and limitations of government and as the source of all coercive power that the modern State exercises or threatens to exercise, we would like to argue that a constitution should qualify as one of the essential elements of the modern State. Hitherto, it has not been considered as an essential element—only population, territory, government and sovereignty are considered essential elements of the State. We would like to argue that in a modern State, the people, the government and sovereignty may not have any political relevance, till these are reflected in a publicly declared constitution.

International recognition

We argue that international recognition is also one of the essential elements of the state. International recognition refers to the formal recognition of the sovereignty of the State in question by international organizations and other States. In this context, we may recall the process of de-colonization and formal recognition of independent states. The UN Committee on de-colonization, formed in 1961 by the UN General Assembly, monitored the de-colonization process in what it called Non-Self Governing Territories. These territories were under the UN Trusteeship Agreements before being sovereign states. Significance of international recognition could be borne by the fact that there have been territories that before attaining international recognition were either under UN ‘Trusteeship’ (e.g., Western Samoa before independence in 1962 or New Guinea before independence in 1975), or under a ‘Condominium’ of certain powers (e.g., the New Hebrides under an Anglo-French condominium before independence in 1980) or as a Protectorate (the Gold Coast protectorate before independence as Ghana in 1957). A recent example of the significance of international recognition can be found in the case of the independence of East Timor or Timor-Leste where international delegations monitored the process of independence and decided the terms of autonomy. However, this has introduced the concept of shared sovereignty in the lexicon of political theory. This means that before granting international recognition, external powers could exercise decision-making during the transition and during the period of peace-making, peace-keeping and peace-building.

It can be argued that the logic of international recognition is an outcome of the concept of sovereignty and not its necessary condition. Furthermore, even if international recognition or recognition by other sovereign powers is pending, a State could be considered sovereign. For example, Bangladesh was not immediately recognized by Pakistan or the People's Republic of China was not recognized for a long time by USA but they came to become sovereign states. Nevertheless, going by the example of Palestine and the lack of international recognition for it, we argue that if at least the major powers (say, USA, Britain, China, France, Russia, India, Germany, Japan, etc.) recognize Palestine as a State, it would serve to pressurize Israel to recognize it.

Permanence of the state and the doctrine of continuity of the state

The concept of permanence of the state means that once organized, a State should continue to exist. Additions or the partial loss of territory due to factors like secessions, conquest, division, merger, etc. should not affect the juridical personality of the State. For example, after independence from British rule, India became a sovereign State despite part of its territory being taken away and made into a separate State, which also became sovereign. Similarly, the division of Czechoslovakia into the Czech and Slovak Republics did not mitigate the sovereignty of either. Furthermore, the division of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 did not challenge the sovereignty of Pakistan. These changes or the changes in types or the nature of governments do not affect the identity or the international obligations of a State. This refers to the doctrine of the continuity of the state. It follows from the principle of State succession, meaning thereby that even if a new State takes over the old State or the latter is annexed or merged with another one, its sovereignty is transferred.

Kautilaya's Saptang theory or the seven elements of the state

In his Arthásastra, Kautilaya discusses seven elements that constitute a state.¹⁷ This is referred to as the Saptang theory according to which the seven elements (prakàtis) include: (i) the king (Svamin), (ii) the ministers, councillors and high officials (Amatyas), (iii) the territory on which people are settled (Janápada), (iv) the fortified towns and cities (Durgá), (v) the treasury or the wealth of the state (Kosá), (vi) the forces (Dandá) and (vii) the allies (Mità).

In the king lies supreme power and the yogákshema, (well-being) of the people; janápada connotes both population and territory; the king, the ministers, the army and treasury constitute the government; Durgá, Kosá and Dandá can be taken as part of the supreme power. Interestingly, Kautilaya includes allies as one of the prakàtis of the state. Th is may be attributed to his concept of inter-state relations based on the mandala theory. Kautilaya developed an elaborate arrangement of allies and adversaries, the most famous being axiom being, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. As such, an ally is a strategic partner against an enemy state. The seven prakàtis are essential elements of Kautilaya's statecraft and are relevant form the standpoint of practical administration.

Journey of the State

The State has travelled a long journey from its initial stage, the city-state, to the present form, the nation-state. The change in the form of the State can largely be attributed to the evolution of society and socio-economic development. Its form has reflected changes in the realm of society, economies, cultures, religious views and scientific developments. A brief survey of the evolution of the State may drive the point home. However, most of the literature on the subject gives only the eurocentric view of the growth of the State. It may be useful to cite relevant developments in Asia, especially in India.

Pre-state Societies and Oriental Empires

The State is a historical phenomenon—it emerged in a particular stage in history. Prior to the emergence of the State, there were primitive forms of social organizations, which lacked definite forms of political authority. We can call this stage the stage of ‘stateless societies’ where no territorial allegiance existed nor was any centralized authority.¹⁸ Though many writers have advocated what they call a ‘tribal state’, it would be a misplaced notion to attribute statehood to these societies. In the Marxian sense, as Engels in his The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State presents, the possibility of such a state is easily refutable given the class-based nature of the State and its emergence alongside the emergence of classes in society.

Asian societies were characterized by the spread of civilizations along the Ganges (India), the Nile (Egypt), the Euphrates (Iraq/Syria), and the Yangtze or the Yellow River (China). These were agrarian-based monarchies (some benevolent but mostly despotic) where the rulers represented, what Gettell calls, ‘only as slave driver and the tax collector.’ Recall the rule of Ramses II in Egypt against which Moses fought.

Almost all writing on political theory rarely mention the fate of the State in Africa. It is assumed that even in contemporary times, given tribal divisions, the State is in a rudimentary form in African nations. A representative example could be South Africa, which is considered to be an organized state in the African continent (as borne out by its claim to the United Nations Security Council seat). However, writers have opined that even South Africa emerged as a State less than a century ago. Furthermore, it has been mentioned that as late as the 1870s, the subcontinent was divided into a large number of polities, chiefdoms, colonies and settlements of widely differing size, power and racial composition without political unity or cohesion.¹⁹

City-States

In the Western hemisphere, the emergence of the Greek city-states heralded the era of the State. The earliest form is recognized as the city-states between 800 BC and 500 BC. By and large, the Greek city-states were organized on the basis of the earliest forms of democracy—’direct democracy’ with direct participation of the people. Subsequently, two of the larger city states, Athens and Sparta, expanded their territorial spread and absorbed the earlier city-states.²⁰ In the Eastern hemisphere, we do not find many documented examples of statehood. In India, however, examples are found of Janapada (local democracies).

The Roman Empire

Rome initially emerged as a powerful city-state and subsequently spread to become a large empire. The authority of the emperor was understood in terms of the conception of dominium, which meant the right of ownership of land and people connected with it. Unlike the other city-states, which were democratized, the Roman Empire gave birth to the res republica. The republic was dominated by the aristocratic power and the Senate was the arm of this aristocratic power, though, subsequently, its base was broadened. The main characteristics of the Roman Empire in the context of the emergence of the State were a systematized code of Roman law that helped to distinguish between state and society, a citizenship defined by law and not by strict territoriality, the concept that state power was founded in law leading to the development of the ‘rule of law. The population was divided into two major classes, the patricians and the plebeians. Unlike Greek slaves, the plebeians enjoyed greater privileges. As the Roman Empire continued its expansion east and northward, its downfall started. Rural unrest and slave rebellions on the one hand and barbarian invasions from the north by Germanic tribes weakened the Roman Empire.²¹

Feudal States

With the decline of the Roman Empire, centralized authority was eroded and led to an era of what many have called ‘feudal anarchy’.²² A politico-economic system based on the hierarchical relationship of patronage emerged in Europe. This system of hierarchical patronage created a chain of pyramidal dependencies starting from the ruler or lord. The latter gave loyal and trusted subordinates grants and rights of land called benefices in repayment for gold and in return for military services. In the German vassal system, warrior communities declared their personal loyalty to their lord in return for protection. A combination of these two elements is considered to have given rise to feudalism. A vassal was obliged to show loyalty and homage to a feudal lord in return for being allowed to occupy land belonging to the lord and receiving his protection. The land came to be known as a ‘fief, which was granted on a tenure basis. The vassal lord in turn, created dependent peasantry.

We can say that a hierarchy of sub-infeudation (hierarchical system of privileges and services) was created, which signified the dispersal of power in the feudal state. At the top of this hierarchy stood the feudal lord and at the bottom, the serfs. We can differentiate between two forms of relationships in this system—One was the lord-serf relationship and another was the lord-vassal relationship. While the former signified a feudal economy and an exploitative relationship where the final obligation lay on the serfs who were landless peasants, the latter was a form of political rule. The system of vassalage meant that there was no absolute monarch. With the exception of Northern France and England where monarchy was stronger, it is said that the feudal monarch was different from his lords only in degree and not in kind. The dispersal of power, a weak central authority, internal tensions between different and overlapping sources of power, etc. characterized the feudal state. Stuart Hall concludes that ‘the feudal monarchy was, therefore, never “sovereign”, only a suzerain—a particularly limited type of secular authority.’²³

Amidst this feudal anarchy, the Christian church emerged as another centre of power claiming overriding authority invoking ecclesiastical sources. Until the advent of Machiavelli and other political thinkers in the Renaissance, the State in its feudal form was kept captive by feudal anarchy on the one hand and the church-state controversy on the other. However, while the Roman Empire contributed in terms of law, the concept of citizenship, the public realm and so on, the feudal state created conditions where the germ of modern conceptions of sovereignty could be found. The church-state controversy and the Papal claim of sovereign spiritual power provoked a counter-claim to retain the supreme, secular and independent authority of the monarchy. Machiavelli gave expression to the latter in his The Prince. Changes in the mode of production during the Renaissance and the advent of the Industrial Revolution were proof enough that the feudal state had disintegrated.

The Modern Nation-state and Its Discontents

In Europe, between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, feudalism was in crisis and the Renaissance gave rise to a new form of human enlightenment and doctrine of human destiny. The emerging scientific and liberal modes of enquiry were discrediting the claims of the Church on the lives of individuals. Feudal-agrarian relations were giving way to commercial and trade-based relations. Amidst these changes, some of the territorially organized monarchies like those in England, France and Spain were examples of absolutist States.

Absolutism as the basis of the State involved the strengthening of unified territorial rule; the absorption of weaker and smaller territories into stronger and larger ones; the tightening of law, order and security throughout the kingdom; the application of a more unitary, continuous calculable and effective rule, with its power gathered under a single sovereign head’.²⁴ Changes such as replacing feudal military obligations with the growth of standing national armies (recall how Machiavelli discredited the idea of mercenaries as unreliable and advocated standing national armies) and supplanting feudal tax-farming with central taxation by the state were aimed at putting the absolutist monarchy on solid ground. Revenue collection through taxation and defence through a standing army (an army paid for by public money) became significant elements in the absolutist State.

The theory of the divine rights of kings, which implied that the authority of the king was derived directly from God, was a powerful theoretical basis for defending absolutist monarchies. This was based on the concept of the supremacy of kings advocated earlier to put forward a defence against the Church. The absolutist State laid strong foundations for the development of the modern nation-state in terms of sovereignty, territorial consolidation and governance.

The three major revolutions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England, the French Revolution of 1789 and the American Revolution of 1776—added the aspects of constitutionalism, popular sovereignty and democracy to the state. They also added the principles of liberty and the rights of individuals, equality, justice and the rule of law to the constitutionalism that has come to be identified with modern nation-states. Constitutionalism stands for an institutional arrangement that ensures the diversification of authority (separation of powers), limitations on the exercise of power (a charter of rights) and responsible government (democratic government).²⁵

While the roots of the nation-state grew in Europe and North America, Africa, Asia and Latin America were unaware of these developments. As borne out by historical developments (and as fate would have it), most of Africa and Asia experienced the nature of the State as surrogates and entities under colonial rule. The umbrella of the colonial State was to prove that the idea of the State in these continents was to be an Aristotelian master-slave relationship. As Aristotle advocated that the slave realizes his self through serving the master, the state in colonized countries were to realize the flavour of the state by serving the imperial states. This also proved that the ‘march of god’ at times could be at the cost of sovereign equality of certain states.

Doctrine of the national basis of the state

The term nation-state signifies that the State is organized on the basis of nationhood. During the rise of absolutism, a consolidation of territories took place. This brought diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups into the fold of centralized absolutist States. Before the eighteenth century, the concept of nationalities was not clearly recognized. Lord Acton, in his History of Freedom and Other Essays (1907), has remarked that rights of nationalities in the old European system were neither recognized by the governments nor asserted by the people.²⁶ It could be said that Machiavelli's The Prince sought to awaken nationalist feeling amongst the people of Italy and was hoping that the Medici dynasty could perform the national consolidation where regional identities such as Florentine, Venetian, Pisan, etc. would be transcended. Similarly, Otto von Bismarck dreamt of Germany as one nation transcending the identity of Prussia, Bavaria or Hanover. Writers have pointed out that the Napoleonic policy of dominating Europe aroused national spirit in Russia, Italy, Germany and Spain. Furthermore, the philosophy and writings of Kant, Hegel, Schiller and Goethe provided political justification for this nationalist spirit.

However, after the defeat ot Napoleon, the Vienna Congress in 1814–15 ignored national spirit in the post-Napoleonic reconstruction of Europe. The resulting new states (like Italy and Germany) became more of a geographical expression and confederation than nation-states (for example, the Belgians were joined with the Dutch). However, nineteenth-century Europe saw Bismarck, Mazzini and others emerging as ‘prophet[s] of nationalism. The late nineteenth century also saw revolutions in the Balkans against the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the subsequent independence of Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Romania.

Doctrine of the right of self-determination

By the late nineteenth century, the political doctrine of the right of self-determination based on nationality gained weight. After the First World War, Woodrow Wilson advocated the doctrine of right of self-determination as the basic principle of reorganizing the Austro-Hungarian, the German and the Ottoman empires. It was based on the principle that every group of people who constituted a nationality had the right to be independent and to exist as a separate state. This doctrine of cultural, ethnic and linguistic similarity being the basis of political organization gained de facto legitimacy as the basis of nation-states. States composed of different nationalities came to be regarded as unnatural alliances. The post-First World War era saw the full operation of the principle of the right of self-determination. Statehood to Poland, Czechoslovakia (taken out from Austria), Serbia, Yugoslavia (for Croats) and Slovenia (taken out from Austria and Hungary), Estonia and Lithuania (taken out from Russia), Albania, etc. were such examples.

In the post-Second World War era, this doctrine was invoked by many nationalities to gain independence from colonial rules. Though it helped many ethnic, linguistic and cultural groups gain independence, there are limitations of the doctrine. Practically, taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean a large-scale disintegration of modern states which have multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic groups within it. This doctrine has helped many colonized people to demand independence from colonial rule; at the same time it has provoked internal movements for autonomy or independence in many nation-states.

The case of India may be taken as an example. India is a multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country. The doctrine of the right to self-determination along with the issue of the right of the minority has combined to provoke, on the one hand, a two-nation theory during British rule and several autonomy and separatist movements on the other in independent India. The struggle of independence for India witnessed the demand for a separate state on the basis of religious identity. Present-day India is still grappling with the problem of nationalities and demands for autonomy. For example, movements in the north-eastern region of the country including Assam and Nagaland, as well as in other parts like Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir for autonomy/separate status have posed problems for national integration and nation building.

Nation-states, national-states and state-nations

An understanding of the relationship between the Nation and the State must confront with two different trends—first, nationalities seeking their states; and second, politically or administratively demarcated states seeking and creating nations for themselves. In the latter case, political sovereignty is considered as contributing to the strengthening of nationalities/nation-building. This duality of relationships between ‘the Nation’ and ‘the State’ can be found both in Western as well as non-Western societies.

There can be, in fact, three possibilities in this context—one, a nation-state organized on the basis of homogenous cultural or ethnic identity; two, a nation-state organized on the basis of culturally or ethnically plural groups; and three, a colonially or administratively demarcated State having no clear-cut national basis. Some writers differentiate between the ‘Nation-State’ and the ‘National State’ as coinciding with the first two categories respectively.²⁷ Many post-colonial societies as well as other States found themselves in the situation of having a state and political sovereignty but an absence of national consciousness. This has led to a state-sponsored nation-building process where national integration has been led by the State itself. David Beetham, in The Future of the Nation State has pointed out that ‘many of these new states were highly artificial constructions, states in search of nations still to be formed, in which the only national force remaining after the decay of the nationalist movements has been the army and the state bureaucracy.’²⁸ This entity can be termed a state-nation, a nation being built by the State. The process of nation building reverses the relationship between the nation and the State; instead of the nation being the basis of the State, the given State becomes the basis of evolving a nation. In many developing countries, the process of creating an identity of citizenship as the basis of the nation seems to be addressing the need to wean individuals away from other loyalties such as tribal, caste-based, religious, ethnic, etc. These States were more or less artificially constructed and then left in search of their nations. Viewed in this context, as Beetham comments, ‘a nation can be as much the conscious creation of state policy as a pre-existing cultural entity demanding political autonomy within its own state boundaries.’²⁹ Many States having multiple nationalities could be called state-nations instead of nation-states. The erstwhile USSR was one of them, which made the State the basis of integrating nationalities (Uzbeks, Kazaks, Chechens, Turks, Slavs, etc.). Thus, the relationship between the nation and the State could be viewed either way—as nation-state or state-nation.

The relationship between these two can be understood in terms of both the state-building process and the nation-building process. To understand further, Table 2.2 briefly discusses the process of state-building on the one hand and nation-building on the other.³⁰

 

Table 2.2 State-building and Nation-building

State-building Process	Nation-building Process
Creation of a single code of law and system of courts through the country	Creation of national consciousness through cultivation and transmission of common symbols of the community
Creation of a single taxation system and fiscal policy	Selection and transmission of shared historical traditions
Construction of a unified transport and communication system	Cultivation and transmission of elements of shared culture like language, customs, even religion
Creation of unified administrative system and formation of professional cadres of skilled personnel for administrative institutions	Symbolization and sanctification of territorial integrity as historic homeland
Creation of effective military institutions and technology under central control	Attaching national pride with standing army
Provision of public goods and welfare of citizens
Extension of franchise to all strata of society and seeking legitimacy through their participation. This participation and their mobilization can be arguably of different types based on the types of regimes.

As can be seen from Table 2.2, the state-making process itself could inculcate (to a certain degree) national consciousness. For example, it is said that colonial rule, partly and due to its requirements, contributed to national consciousness through their measures of state-making. However, in developing countries, both the processes have been taking place simultaneously. It may be mentioned that while the concept of the nation-state has generally described the relationship between the nation and the State, enquiry in post-colonial societies has led some writers like William Zartmann to describe this relationship in the context of African States as ‘State-nation’ where a State seeks to forge a nation for itself.

If we may attempt to categorize modern States in the categories that we have discussed so far—the nation-state, the national-state and the state-nation—the following grouping (see Table 2.3) may emerge.

 

Table 2.3 State and Nation

Nation-State	National-State	State-Nation
Conventional concept with strong nationality-based State where boundaries of a State coincide with the boundary of a nationality or a nationality with majority population	Poly-national basis of State where multiple ethnic and cultural groups/two or three cultural or ethnic groups are together with shared values	State forging nations
Examples include Armenia, Bosnia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Georgia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey, Uzbekistan, etc.	Examples include India, United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, etc.	Examples include Afghanistan, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Congo, Iraq (after Saddam Hussein), etc.

This suggests the dynamic nature of the relationship between the State and the nation, and that the journey of the nation-state is neither universal nor uniform. In fact, we can associate the emergence of these categories of nation-states at certain points in history—Treaty of Westphalia (1648), the Vienna Congress (1814-15) Europe, after both the World Wars and the post-colonial era, the end of the Cold War and the post-Soviet period. These represent terminal points when many nation-states emerged and got recognized as such. We should understand the present debate on the impact of globalization on the nation-state in the context of such a dynamic character of the state.

Ideal Type of Nation-state

If we can attempt to understand what constitutes the modern State or what could be the reference points that would qualify a State to be a nation-state notwithstanding our three categories, let us consider the following.

The nation as the basis of the state

The modern State has its population organized on the basis of national identity. When the concept of the population as an element of the State is combined with the doctrine of the location of legitimate political power in ‘the people’, the relationship between the State and the nation becomes clear; with the nation as the basis of the political community with legitimate political power. The world is divided into nations, each with its own characteristics.

Mono- or poly-nationality as basis of nation

The community could be mono- or multi-ethnic, mono- or multi-cultural, mono- or multi-linguistic, mono- or multi-religious (notwithstanding the debate on mono- versus poly-national states by theorists such as J. S. Mill and Lord Acton). The community has transferred its primordial loyalties to the central authority of a constitution or any such authority and intra-community differences and interests have been subsumed in the interest of the community. All the constituents of the community perceive that the interest of the community and their own interests are common or at least generally common. In short, nation-states become the primary focus of political loyalty. Many nation-states are plural in their character and are inhabited by poly-ethnic groups. However, it is also true that most nation-states draw their power and sustenance from one or two dominant ethnic/cultural groups.

Attributes of the state

The nation-state has all the attributes of the State—population, territory, government and sovereignty. People comprising a nation become the sole source of legitimacy from which the State derives its legitimacy. This means that the State has legitimacy and acceptance of all the constituent groups within its boundary. Moreover, the territorial integrity of the State is unquestioned and there is a standing national defence force for its protection from any violation by an outside force. This territorial integrity also includes the regulation of the movement of trade, resources, people, cultural influences and economic transactions emanating from outside which have a bearing on the welfare and development of the nation-state. Furthermore, the government of the nation-state is considered as its sole representative in relation to other nation-states and supra-national organizations on the one hand and representing the interest of all other organizations and groups within its boundary on the other. Finally, sovereignty means the supremacy of the nation-state, both internally and externally.

Citizenship as the basis of relationship between population and the state

The relationship between the community/population and the central authority, the State, is defined in terms of citizenship. This is usually reflected in constitutions through charters of rights. The modern State is the representative of this central authority and the sovereignty of the modern state is not ‘shared.

Basis of public good, welfare and security of its citizens

The nation-state is the basis of all decisions relating to its citizen including the public good, the welfare and the security of the citizenry. Public good defined in terms of the principles of excludability and non-rival consumption is provided by the nation-state. While the principle of excludability implies that the exclusion of individuals from the benefits of the public good is not possible as it is available to all, the principle of non-rival consumption means that the consumption of public good by an individual does not exclude the possibility of consumption by another. For example, national defence provides security from external aggression to all and does not exclude any, and its consumption by one person does not diminish another's chance of being protected. In other words, there is no marginal cost to provide security to more than one citizen. The nation-state is considered as the basis for providing welfare, public good and security to its people and has the ability/right to tax and redistribute incomes. Any decision affecting the citizen either emanates from the nation-state or has its consent. If it is otherwise, it is considered either as intervention/aggression or violation of the right of the nation-state. As such, the nation-state is considered to be the sole instrument or at least the overarching instrument of development, security, welfare and redistribution of resources for the population within its boundary. Thus, the nation-state is the most effective political formation that can guarantee the economic well-being, physical security and cultural identity of the people who constitute its citizens.

Nation-state as the primary economic, political and cultural actor³¹

The nation-state is considered to be the primary actor and representative of its people in these areas. The nation-state is considered to be the ‘terminal entity’ in the international system which captures the loyalties of the people.

Right to recognize and get recognized

The nation-state has the recognition of other similar nation-states or a majority of them, along with recognition from supra-national organizations. The nation-state has the right to recognize other nation-state(s) and be part of supra-national organizations on the principle of the sovereign equality of the nation-state.

Equality of nation-state

A nation-state interacts with other nation-states on the principle of equality and enjoys similar privileges and obligations towards each other. For peace and justice to prevail in the world, nation-states must be free and secure.

These elements or characteristics present an ideal type of nation-state and we may compare specific nation-states with the formulation discussed. These characteristics invariably describe a nation-state. These will help us analyse and compare the nature of the nation-state in the developing and how different factors have influenced it.

Reluctant States, Missing Nations and Shared Sovereignty: Nation-states in the Developing World

The growth and rise of the nation-state is neither uniform nor universal. As the nation-state was finding its feet in Europe, most parts of Asia and Africa were under some form of colonial rule. Historically speaking, the colonial power structure has played a dual role. On the one hand, it demarcated geographical boundaries of States irrespective of their national traditions and on the other (though for its own administrative purpose) it created conditions for the rise of national consciousness amongst the colonized people. The conditions emerging from the artificial demarcation of boundaries started posing problems when the process of de-colonization started. Furthermore, the retreat of the colonial power gave rise to a combination of what is referred to ‘post-colonial states, which generally came to be regarded as belonging to the ‘Third World. If one looks at the nature of the State and the growth of nation-states in these countries, the following features emerge:

• The State has been captive to a process of prolonged post-colonial state. This means that neither has the legitimacy of the State been comprehensively accepted by the people (recall sub-national, secessionist and autonomy-seeking movements), nor has national consciousness fully emerged transcending aboriginal/primordial loyalties (recall chauvinist, linguistic and regional assertions).
• While many of these ‘post-colonial’ States have been struggling to get their legitimacy accepted by the people inhabiting their boundaries, many of these nationalities have been fighting to get a state of their own. While the nations are seeking to form their States, the State is struggling to create a nation.
• There has now emerged a new type of situation in many post-colonial societies, where neither the State nor the nation exists (e.g. Somalia, Rwanda).
• The case of what has come to be identified as ‘failed states’ is in point. Consider the societies and states in Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq (after Saddam Hussein's fall), etc. In most of these cases, conflict and civil war situations exist as to not only undermine the legitimacy of the central authority but also the population and its territory. There is neither a State nor a nation and both are playing hide-and-seek.
• There are some people who, though organized as a ‘nation’, have no State of their own. The example of the people of Palestine is one. We may describe this as a ‘state-in-waiting’ as their right to have a State of their own has already been recognized by the international community.
• In many cases, the process of de-colonization has been punctuated by prolonged ‘shared sovereignty. There have been many countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, etc. who became independent without being administered by a third power. However, many ‘territories’ have been subject to the United Nations Trusteeship Agreement or have been listed as ‘Non-Self Governing’ before the ‘territories’ acquired statehood or nation-statehood. For example, Rwanda-Burundi was under Belgian control as a Trust Territory till they got statehood as Burundi and Rwanda in 1962. Unfortunately for these two, it has been a transition from ‘shared sovereignty’ and ‘state-in-waiting’ to ‘failed state. Timor-Leste, which got independence in 2002, was initially administered by Portugal and then remained under Indonesian control between 1975 and 1999.
• It can be seen that the concept of ‘multilateral forces’—either under the UNO or under major powers—has been propounded where they cooperate with the local authorities for what is called, ‘preventive peace’, peace-building, peace-making and peace-keeping (or creating conditions for the transfer of power). Situations in Timor-Leste and post-Second Gulf War Iraq afford such examples.
• Some of the post-colonial, post-Second World War States have their nations based on religious identity. The concept of ‘theocratic states’ refers to nation-states where the nation is organized on religious identity. ‘Theocracy’ comes from the Greek word theokratia literally meaning, ‘rule of God’. As such, the State is organized on religious principles and doctrinaire injunctions. However, what is most interesting is that religious affiliations are considered as the basis of not only the nation but also the political interest represented by the State. Some countries like Pakistan, Iran, Malaysia, Libya and most Arab kingdoms, at one time or the other, have declared Islam to be the basis of their State. What has proved to be unacceptable to the international community is the messianic and dogmatic nature of their doctrines, which differentiate between a morally ‘superior’ theocratic State and other ‘infidel’ non-theocratic States. This has its own discontents and as a result, the phenomenon of fundamentalism has acquired currency. Fuelled by the perceived iniquitous world order and high-handedness of some of the major powers, ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ has acquired international proportions. A divergence between the interests of some of the major powers and these nation-states has provoked many other nation-states (especially USA) to term them ‘rogue states’.
• The group of ‘rogue states’ include a number of nation-states—not only the theocratic-fundamentalist states, but also those states which are hard-line communist States like Cuba and North Korea. In fact, three factors are considered to have combined to pose a threat to the interests of the major powers and the coalition led by USA: (i) the messianic and fundamentalist nature of some of these states; (ii) opposition by some of them to capitalist economic intervention; and (iii) an effort by some of them to acquire or develop nuclear capability on their own. However, not all the states which are theocratic or opposed to capitalist intervention or have nuclear capability are treated as rogue states. This particular characteristic, it seems, is a matter of foreign policy, and is applied selectively by the major powers.

A Brief Note on the Evolution of the State in India

In the third century BCE, a great empire emerged under Chandragupta Maurya which covered almost all of present-day India (south India was not part of it) and even extended to Kabul in the north. During this period, Kautilaya is supposed to have written his treatise, the Arthásastra, (the ‘Science of Polity’), which dealt with statecraft and establishment, the growth and preservation of a state. Jawaharlal Nehru considered the Mauryan Empire to be a prominent example of the emergence of a vast centralized state in India.³² Nehru's analysis of the Mauryan state characterized it as a ‘dictatorship at the top with great deal of local autonomy. He went on to say that, ‘the state was very far from being just a police state, interested in keeping external and internal peace and collecting revenue. Despite its limitations, it interfered with the life of the people and effort was made to regulate and control life.’ Nehru's analysis acquires credence if one looks at Kautilaya's principles of statecraft where he propounds the sphere of activities of the king and the State relating to taxes, welfare (the concept of yogákshema), trade and religious affairs.

During the rule of the Turkish Sultanates and the Mughals, elements of the feudal state could be found. However, the spread and depth of the feudal State in India was not comparable to that of Europe. The mansabdari system somewhat compares with the vassal-based system of patronage and military support by the mansabdars. In fact, it was colonial rule that characterized agrarian relations on the one hand and State revenue collection on the other were characterized by feudal relations. Nehru maintains that Indian feudalism and the king's power, unlike the European system, was not based on the conception of dominium.³³ During the Middle Ages, before Turkish and Mughal rules, glimpses of the Indian polity could be found in a tenth century treatise on polity written by Shukracharya entitled the Nitisara. Though not comparable to Kautilaya's Arthásastra, it gives details of the organization of a central government, the king's council and a government setup, village panchayats, etc.³⁴

During colonial rule, as discussed in this chapter, there was no State for Indians. A constitutionally defined democratic welfare State emerged in India only after independence.

Review Questions

1. How is the State different from society and government?
2. Is the State an institutionalized coercive force of the society?
3. Is the State the central theme of political theory?
4. How do we understand and differentiate between State, government, society and nation-state?
5. What are the defining elements of the State?
6. Is social contract theory the only authentic explanation of the origin of the State?
7. Why was theory of divine origin of the State discarded?
8. Can the theory of social contract be taken as a typical example of a modern political constitution?
9. What is the Marxian theory of the origin of the State?
10. Both Marxian and social contract theories of the origin of the State treat the State as a product of society, though they differ in their perspectives. Elucidate.