1. What is the State?

  • Population · Territory · Sovereignty · Government – the four pillars.
  • Max Weber: the state holds “a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence.”
  • Key features – sovereignty, public institutions, legitimation, coercion, territorial identity.

2. Species of States (know the labels)

Type Tag line Champions / Examples
Minimalist Night-watchman Classical/Neo-Liberals, Robert Nozick
Developmental Market-partner Post-war Japan, S. Korea; Democratic Socialists
Social-Democratic Welfare guarantor Nordic models
Collectivist Everything nationalised Orthodox communist regimes
Totalitarian Life under one will Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini

 

3. State ≠ Government

The state is permanent and impersonal; the government is the rotating “brain.” The former represents the public good; the latter may chase partisan wins.

4. Why the State matters – six ideological takes

  • Liberals (Hobbes, Locke): a “necessary evil.”
  • Anarchists (Proudhon, Bakunin): an unnecessary evil.
  • Marxists: tool of the bourgeoisie (Engels) – though structuralists grant “relative autonomy.”
  • Democratic Socialists: redistributor of justice.
  • Conservatives: guardian of order and tradition.
  • Anarchist critique: institutionalised coercion.

5. Big Voices on the State

 Garner – “Political science begins and ends with the state.”
Hoffman – the unavoidable focal point.
David Easton – definitional hair-splitting leads to “conceptual morass.”
Neera Chandhoke – civil society re-creates social power inside state parameters.

6. State ↔ Society → Civil Society

Civil society once checked mercantilist crowns; today it is the arena of voluntary power. Remember Machiavelli, Bodin, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, G.D.H. Cole, Robert Nozick for their contrasting labels (stato, republic, commonwealth, body politic, guild, protective agency).

7. Sovereignty – from Bodin to Burgess

 Sovereignty – From Bodin to Laski

Superanus ⇒ supreme. Without sovereignty the “state” is a crowd.

Core Definition & Early Voices

  • Jean Bodin (1576) – first systematic doctrine: “supreme power over citizens, unrestrained by law.”
  • John William Burgess – sovereignty is original, absolute, unlimited power over all persons and associations.
  • Soltau – the state’s “final legal coercive power.”

Monistic (Austinian) Sovereignty

 

Pillar Content Scholar / Quote
Determinate superior One locus commands, many obey Thomas Hobbes seeds it; John Austin perfects it
Habitual obedience Sovereign habitually receives obedience, need not render it “The power of a determinate human superior … not in a habit of obedience.” — Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence
Law = command + sanction Law is the sovereign’s expressed will, backed by force –
Indivisible, absolute, unlimited No split of authority; church, guild, province all subordinate –

Historical backdrop: medieval Europe’s fragmented authority → chaos. Austin’s hammer restored order: one state = one will.

Cracks in the Hammer – Early Critics

  • Sir Henry Maine: Eastern polities show custom trumping any “determinate superior.”
  • Federal practice (U.S., Switzerland): one territory, two sovereign spheres.
  • Custom & convention coexist with positive law → Austin cannot account for them.

Pluralist Turn – Power in Many Keys

Argument Key Voice
State is one association among many G.D.H. Cole, J.N. Figgis
“Since society is federal, authority should also be federal.” Harold Laski
Sovereignty diffused across voluntary groups, churches, unions Robert MacIver, associational pluralism
Federalism proves Austinian indivisibility “an impossible misadventure” Laski

 Statism, warns Hegel, can slide into mysticism: the state as “march of God on earth.” Pluralism arose to tame that absolutism, especially after militarism and fascism misused “organic” sovereignty.

Moderate vs Extreme Pluralists

Point of Divergence Moderate Pluralists (Laski) Extreme Pluralists (MacIver)
Primacy of state Yes – keystone of social architecture No – just another association
Role of intermediary groups Shield individuals from state tyranny Primary actors; state exists to serve them
Service state idea — “The state commands because it serves.”

Monism 2.0 – Absolute v. Concrete

  • Absolute Monism: every institution subordinate; today largely theoretical.
  • Concrete Monism: accepts functional autonomy yet reserves final supremacy for the state.

Post-1945 Realities – Erosion & Layer-Cake

  1. Supranational rise – UN, EU, WTO, ICC chip away at “no external superior.”
  2. International conventions – human-rights covenants bind even domestic legislators.
  3. Globalisation – capital flows out-run territorial commands; “pooled” sovereignty emerges.

Pluralism thus morphs into multilevel governance.

Contemporary Re-mix

  • Cyber domain: who is sovereign—state, platform, or protocol?
  • Pandemic treaties & climate compacts revive debates on “shared” coercive power.
  • In India, Basic Structure doctrine shows constitutional courts as guardians over even Parliament—Austin would wince.

8. Liberal Theory of State – the Dogma of Jurisdiction

 

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” — Lord Acton

  1. a. Bounded Authority
  • Dogma of jurisdiction: state’s reach is legally circumscribed; beyond that, it must not trespass.
  • John Locke: the state secures life, liberty, property—nothing more.
  1. b. Rule of Law
  • A.V. Dicey: equality before law; no arbitrary commands.
  • J.S. Mill: liberty ends only where harm begins; truth surfaces in the clash of views.
  1. c. Separation of Powers
  • Montesquieu: legislative, executive, judicial fire-walls to prevent tyranny.
  • Modern liberals add independent regulators and a free press as “fourth” and “fifth” estates.
  1. d. Multiple Power Centres & Pluralism
  • Competing parties, pressure groups, federal tiers.
  • Neutral umpire ideal—state arbitrates among clashing interests without itself becoming a partisan.
  1. e. Reformist yet Flexible
  • From Keynes–Beveridge welfare state to Rawls’s “justice as fairness” the liberal state can enlarge its toolbox, but always under procedural restraint.
  • Friedrich Hayek reminds: planning beyond a point erodes freedom.
  1. f. Contemporary Tension
  • Digital surveillance vs privacy, climate action vs property rights: modern liberals debate how much expansion still counts as “limited.”

9. Post-Colonial take – soft, overdeveloped, prismatic

 

Lens Core Insight Scholar
Soft State Rules exist, aren’t enforced Gunnar Myrdal
Prismatic/Bazaar-Canteen Modern shells, traditional guts F.W. Riggs
Over-developed State Massive apparatus, thin economy Hamza Alavi
Dependency Development of under-development A.G. Frank, Samir Amin, Immanuel Wallerstein
Psychology of violence Decolonisation of mind Frantz Fanon
Neo-colonialism Economic strings linger Kwame Nkrumah
Subaltern voice “Can the subaltern speak?” Ranajit Guha, Gayatri Spivak

10.  Anarchist Theory of the State – “The urge to destroy is a creative urge.”

 

Strand Core Claim Signature Voices & Quotes
Mutualist / Cooperative Property rights create hierarchy; swap them for voluntary exchange Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – “Property is theft.”
Collectivist / Insurrectionary Spontaneous mass revolt; dictatorship of the proletariat merely swaps masters Mikhail Bakunin – state power “corrupts those who exercise it.”
Anarcho-Communist Free federation of communes; mutual aid > competition Peter Kropotkin
Anarcho-Syndicalist Trade-union strike power will smash the state; workers self-manage production Rudolf Rocker
Individualist Only the Ego is real; state is a ghost Max Stirner – “I have based my cause on nothing.”
Contemporary Corporate-state nexus moulds public opinion; resist via grassroots Noam Chomsky – “manufacture of consent”

 

Analytical points

  1. Society ≠ State – society is spontaneous order; the state monopolises coercion.
  2. Violence critique – all states rest on organised force; legitimacy is fiction.
  3. Positive vision – decentralised federations, direct democracy, cooperative economics.

 

  1.  Fascist / Authoritarian Theory of the State – “Everything within the State, nothing outside the State.”

 

Pillar Idea Key Figures & Notes
Totalitarian Unity State is organic, transcends individuals Benito Mussolini, Giovanni Gentile (actual chief theorist)
Corporatism Economy run via state-supervised professional corporations; class conflict dissolved in nationalism Fascist Italy’s “corporazioni”
Statolatry State worship = moral duty Mussolini
Friend–Enemy Principle Politics founded on existential antagonism Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political
Limited Pluralism Authoritarian regimes lack mass mobilisation yet suppress opposition Juan Linz – “limited political pluralism, no guiding ideology”
Syndicalist Roots Georges Sorel’s “myth of the general strike” feeds fascist glorification of violence
Social Darwinism Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca – elite circulation legitimises hierarchy

 

Critique

  • Liberals: violates rule of law, suppresses rights.
  • Marxists: class-based tool of monopoly capital.
  • Feminists & minorities: erases difference in a “masculinist” nation-body.

12. Feminist Theories of the State – Patriarchy institutionalised

Wave / School State Diagnosis Key scholars
Liberal Feminism State can re-engineer equality via rights & education Mary Wollstonecraft, Betty Friedan
Socialist / Marxist Feminism Dual systems: capitalism + patriarchy exploit women’s labour Clara Zetkin, Heidi Hartmann (two-system theory)
Radical Feminism State is male power organised; law normalises domination Andrea Dworkin, Shulamith Firestone
Post-modern / Queer State categories (male/female, public/private) are discursive constructs Judith Butler – gender as performativity
Legal-Critical Law “neutralises” male dominance; pornography & harassment reflect systemic power Catharine MacKinnon, Towards a Feminist Theory of the State
Psycho-analytic Western metaphysics coded as masculine logic; need écriture féminine Luce Irigaray

Key threads

  1. Public / Private split – feminist critique shows the “private” is political.
  2. Intersectionality – class, race, caste entwine with gender (Kimberlé Crenshaw, Dalit-feminists for India).
  3. Reform vs Revolution – liberals lobby the state; radicals aim to dismantle patriarchal structures.
  4. Strategic Essentialism – Gayatri Spivak says -unite but stay alert to internal hierarchies.

Scholar Index –

Aristotle · Plato · Augustine · Aquinas · Machiavelli · Bodin · Hobbes · Locke · Rousseau · Montesquieu · Weber · Barker · Garner · Sabine · Dunning · Laski · MacIver · Jacobson · Catlin · Leo Strauss · Isaiah Berlin · Germino · Heywood · Chandhoke · Lasswell · Easton · Dahl · Merriam · V.O. Key · Almond · Tingsten · Deutsch · von Bertalanffy · Popper · Kuhn · Mill · Marx · Engels · Cobban · Maine · Parsons · Myrdal · Riggs · Alavi · Frank · Amin · Wallerstein · Fanon · Nkrumah · Ranajit Guha · Spivak · Wollstonecraft · Friedan · Zetkin · Hartmann · Butler · Irigaray · MacKinnon · Proudhon · Bakunin · Kropotkin · Rocker · Stirner · Chomsky · Schmitt  Linz.

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