Need to look at the definition of what a state is and how essentially modern states came into being through 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. Why is there the need for the concept of the state and to whom is the state answerable? How has, and is, the state defined, looking at:
1. Charles Tilly:
2. Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States (1933)
3. G W F Hegel
4. Vladimir Lenin
5. Max Weber
6. Andrew Heywood
7. Errico Malatesta
8. Catharine MacKinnon
Need to look at:
1. What is common to all or most of these definitions?
2. What is distinctive about each definition?
3. Is it possible to say that one definition is right?
4. Or at least that it is better than the others?
Need to look at defining features of what we perceive as states, looking at arguments put forward by Dryzek and Dunleavy:
1. A unified set of institutions
2. Controlling a given territory
3. Making and enforcing collectively binding decisions
4. Monopolizing the legitimate use of force
5. Operating in a distinctive public realm
6. Deciding citizenship and controlling entry
7. Claims to advance common interests
8. Is generally accepted as legitimate
9. Has a bureaucracy and tax system
10. Has a constitution and legal system
11. Is recognized as a state by other states
Compare Dunleavy and Dryzek’s arguments to those of:
Marxists, Anarchists, Feminists, Communitarians?
What differences do these different definitions make?
What sorts of states are there? Micro-states / super-states Vatican City / European superstate’
Focus on size of territory and population
Strong, weak, failing and failed states
Failed states – Somalia, Afghanistan
Focus on state ‘capacity’ – its ability to do what it wants
From unitary to federal states
Need to also look at:
Are there other important differences between types of states?
Given all of these differences, is it possible to talk simply about ‘the state’?
Are there, and if so, what are the core characteristics of all states?
Which other characteristics may states possess?
Why is there disagreement about such characteristics?
Why is there disagreement about how to define a state?
Is it possible to agree on a single definition of the state?
Should such a definition include super-states and micro-states, strong states and weak states, federal and unitary states, democratic and authoritarian states?
Looking at:
Micronation, entity that claims to be an independent state but whose sovereignty is not recognized by the international community. Micronations are distinct from microstates, whose sovereignty over extremely small territories and populations is internationally recognized’1
And superstates, Europe. Is Europe nothing more than a sovereign state – a tried and tested type of polity that predominates in the modern world – operating on a European wide scale?
Full democracies: … basic political freedoms and civil liberties are respected. The functioning of government is satisfactory. Media are independent and diverse. There is an effective system of checks and balances…
Flawed democracies: … free and fair elections and, even if there are problems …, basic civil liberties are respected. However, there are significant weaknesses in other aspects of democracy, including problems in governance…
Hybrid regimes: Elections have substantial irregularities that often prevent them from being both free and fair … Serious weaknesses …—in political culture, functioning of government and political participation …
Authoritarian regimes: … state political pluralism is absent or heavily circumscribed. Many … are outright dictatorships. Some formal institutions of democracy may exist, but these have little substance. Elections, if they do occur, are not free and fair?