Chapter 2 CPO2002 Lecture

The StateChapter Two

Pearson Publishing 2011

Good Societies

• States have certain interests, such as raising revenue.

• They attempt to tame chaos in order to pursue those interests, but their efforts can sometimes create negatives as well.

• But in some cases, the state’s efforts to plan, coordinate, and administer, permits societies to achieve things they could not have done otherwise.


Good Societies

• Argument: The good society depends upon a society’s institutional arrangements, and the most powerful institution of all is the state.

• Good society based on a set of defensible universal values:• People should be able to meet their physical needs• People should be secure against others including government.• People should have the ability to make educated choices about how

they live.• People should have civil and political rights in order to protect these

conditions so they can develop their capabilities.• States can promote conditions that develop people’s capabilities or

impede them.• It is important to understand the origins of the state and its different

parts or components: legislative, executive and judicial branches, its bureaucratic and military arms, and its subnational or federal levels.


Institutions & Power

• The degree to which countries meet the standards of the good society depends on their institutional arrangements.

• Institutions create and embody written and unwritten rules that constrain individuals’ behavior into patterned actions.• Order and predictability• Meaning and structure to our relationships• Imagine driving a car with no rules.

• Institutions exert power.• Power is the ability to get people to do things that they would not

have chosen to do on their own or to prevail in getting what you want in the presence of opposing claims and competing interests.

• Authority is a form of power that has been accepted as right and proper by those who submit to it.


Institutions and Power

• Power takes three forms:• Cultural• Economic• Political

• Cultural power exists when some people are able to convince others to adopt their values, ideas, and premises as their own.

• Economic or material power emanates from those who control critical scarce resources and are able to obtain compliance from whose who do not.

• Political power is grounded in coercion and control over the means of violence.

• The power institutions exert is based on control over the content of social beliefs, control of material resources, and control of the means of violence.


The State

• Not all forms of power are created equal. POLITICAL POWER TRUMPS ALL OTHERS.

• The institution that embodies political power is the state.• Refers to a set of

organizations imbued with sovereignty over a given area through its control of the means of violence.

• One government, one land, one law, one gun.


Four distinct parts:

The State

• Powers of states can be truly awesome.• Groups struggle for control of the state and its powers.• Groups that are successful in gaining control are said to

form the government.• Government refers to the group of leaders in charge of

directing the state.• Different from state, which is a set of organizations imbued

with sovereignty over a given area.• The state is the car; the government is the driver.

• States are not all-powerful.• May be challenged by other institutions: foreign

governments, institutions or groups within their borders.


The Origins of the State

• Modernization Theory

• Argues that states arose as a result of the increasing division of labor; need to solve coordination problems that came with society’s increasing complexity.

• Portrays states as benign and stabilizing; peaceful and rational.

• Marxist Theory

• Dominant class uses the state and its monopoly over the means of violence to impose its rule over subordinate classes.

• State represents the repressive apparatus which the dominant class wields against other classes to cement its rule.

• Narrow theory.

• War Theory

• States developed in response to the extractive necessities of war.


Political Institutions

• Groups struggle for control of the state BUT also for the nature of the state.• 1787 Constitutional Convention: what will the state

look like?• Distribution of power within the state; groups seek to

empower those parts of the state in which they have the most advantage.

• The way in which power is distributed within a state is presented in its constitution.• Constitutions are blueprints that display the state’s

architecture; “power maps” which may or may not be accurate representations of power distributions.


Federal and Unitary Systems

Unitary Systems• Power is concentrated at the

national level.• Local levels of the state have little

autonomous power to raise revenue, spend money, or make their own policies.

• All sovereignty resides at the top.• China, France, & Japan are

examples of unitary systems.• More common than federal

systems.

• Power is concentrated at the national level.

• Local levels of the state have little autonomous power to raise revenue, spend money, or make their own policies.

• All sovereignty resides at the top.• China, France, & Japan are

examples of unitary systems.• More common than federal

systems.

Federal Systems• Constitutions divide sovereignty

between national & subnational levels.

• Self rule locally combined with shared rule at the national level.

• More fiscal independence.• Control over their own

administrative agencies.• Found predominantly among large

countries (U.S. and India)• May be found in smaller countries

with intense ethnic, religious, and linguistic cleavages.

• Constitutions divide sovereignty between national & subnational levels.

• Self rule locally combined with shared rule at the national level.

• More fiscal independence.• Control over their own

administrative agencies.• Found predominantly among large

countries (U.S. and India)• May be found in smaller countries

with intense ethnic, religious, and linguistic cleavages.


In Brief: Federal & Unitary SystemsIn Brief: Federal & Unitary Systems

• In federal political systems:• The central state shares

sovereignty with lower political units of the states.

• Regional governments can raise their own revenue and make their own policy.

• Lower state units have their own officials, agencies and administrative integrity.

• In unitary political systems• Political power is

concentrated at the national level.

• Subnational levels of the state are primarily administrative arms of the central government.

• Lower levels of the state do not have the power to levy taxes or make policy.


The Legislature

• Political power distributed vertically: national and subnational levels.

• Also distributed horizontally among different branches of the state: the legislature, executive, and judiciary.

• Legislatures appear under different names in different countries:

• U.S. – Congress; Britain – Parliament; France – the National Assembly.

• They all do the same thing: they are assemblies that approve of policies on behalf of a larger political community that they represent.

• They do this in authoritarian countries, too, but offer participation without power.• Example: China – the National People’s Congress only passes those bills

proposed by the government and not a single bill from an individual deputy has ever been enacted.

• Legislatures in democracies are more than rubber stamps. They actually influence policy.


The Legislature

• Most legislatures are unicameral – meaning they have one chamber.

• The bicameral structure (two chambers) as is found in the U.S. House and Senate is atypical.• Where bicameralism exists, each chamber is based on a different principle of

representation. In U.S., the House is based on population, whereas the Senate has equal representation for each state.

• Larger countries tend toward bicameralism; also more common in countries with federal systems.

• Australia and Germany

• Advantage of unicameral legislature is that there is no second chamber to delay, veto, or amend bills that the first chamber has already passed.

• Advantage of bicameralism: it can offer a broader basis of representation than one chamber alone.


The Legislature

• Another comparative dimension to legislatures: internal organization, particularly committee systems.• A strong committee system is a good indicator of a legislature’s

power to influence policy.

• Clear jurisdiction and adequate resources permit their members to specialize.• U.S. committee system is exceptionally strong. Indicative of a very

powerful legislative branch.

• In practice, most legislatures today are reactive, not proactive: they reject and modify bills, but do not often propose their own.• Respond to the executive rather than setting their own priorities.


The LegislaturePearson Publishing 2011

The Legislature

• Legislatures tend to be powerful:• When they have a strong committee system (expertise for

legislators).

• When parties are weak (no disciplined legislative majorities)

• In some issue areas more than in others.• Social welfare policy – areas that directly touch their

constituents

• Less so in foreign policy and economic policy – dominated by the executive


The Executive

• The executive branch is supposed to elaborate, coordinate, and implement the legislature’s decisions.

• Energy center of government; agenda setter

• The executive branch is supposed to elaborate, coordinate, and implement the legislature’s decisions.

• Energy center of government; agenda setter

• Three distinct parts of the executive branch:• Core executive, which

includes the ruling government;

• The bureaucracy, which is directly below the core executive and includes different departments and agencies;

• The military, which includes the armed forces.

• Three distinct parts of the executive branch:• Core executive, which

includes the ruling government;

• The bureaucracy, which is directly below the core executive and includes different departments and agencies;

• The military, which includes the armed forces.


The Executive

• The core executive includes all the significant policy-making and coordinating actors in the executive branch, such as the president or prime minister, members of their Cabinet, their personal advisors, and senior civil servants.

• Apex – resolving disputes within it and setting priorities for it.

• Top of the core executive are its political leaders: head of state (represents the country) and the head of government (directs the executive branch).• Positions can be one in the same (U.S.) or

separated into two (Britain).• Ministers come next – Cabinet

The center of the executive branch is the

core executive.


The Bureaucracy

• The core executive directs the bureaucracy.• The bureaucracy is supposed to be an extension of the

government in power and its political leadership.• They execute policy in an impartial and professional way.• But often the executive has a hard time imposing its will on

the bureaucrats.• Executive tries to get around this obstacle by strengthening

personal staffs and increasing the number of political appointees who work in the bureaucracy.

• Spectrum: Democratic Republic of Congo to Great Britain (cooperative loyalists versus highly professional civil servants).


In Brief: BureaucracyIn Brief: Bureaucracy

• According to Max Weber, an eminent German sociologist, the essential features of bureaucracies include:• A division of labor in which people are given specific tasks

to perform;

• A hierarchy in which there is a clear chain of command; and

• A set of rules and regulations that govern the conduct of people in positions and limit their discretion.


The Military

• The military is just one specialized department within the bureaucracy but it is special because it embodies the essence of the state and because it controls the armed forces.• Thus it can impose its will on other parts of the state.

• Nature of relationship:• Civilians control military budget, command structure, and promotion and

assignment of commanders, but there is some deference to military self rule.• Military may also inject itself into certain policy debates.

• Civilian control of military is more likely to exist in countries where both state and military institutions are strong.• Most of the developed world manifests this situation, but in developing

countries, states are weak and unable to maintain order. Military has more influence.

• Civil-military relations can shift from the military having veto power over the government to the military actually taking over the government.


The Judiciary

• The judiciary is a political institution that is, theoretically, above politics and outside of the policy-making process.

• Role is to interpret the laws; not make them.

• In authoritarian systems, the powers of the judiciary are very limited. • Lacks independence and is

subordinate to the executive.

• The judiciary enjoys more autonomy and political power in democracies.• Judicial review, which

empowers courts to nullify and invalidate laws that they believe violate the constitution. Controversial.

• Independence of justices is important.• Depends on how members

are selected, how long they have tenure, and how difficult it is to remove them from the bench.


The Judiciary

• “Judicialization of politics” – political disputes are settled in courtrooms rather than legislatures.• Intervention into politics• Italian judges in the 1990s – Christian Democratic Party –

charges of corruption

• U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the 2000 Bush Gore presidential election

• 2004 presidential election in the Ukraine: Supreme Court nullified the results and mandated new elections that produced a different winner.

• Policy makers increasingly legislate in the shadow of the courts.


Comparative Political Analysis: Does the Design of Political Institutions Make a Difference in People’s Lives?


Problem• Do people live better under one

set of institutions than another?• Lijphart’s dichotomy:

• Majoritarian democracies (unitary system; unicameral legislature; weak courts; strong core executives) versus Consensus democracies (federal systems, bicameral legislatures, courts w/ judicial review and weak core executives).

• So what? Do people live better under majoritarian- versus consensus-oriented institutions?

Methods & Hypotheses• Lijphart ranked selected

democracies according to the degree that their institutions conformed to these two models and then statistically compared their economic, political, and social performance.

• He hypothesized that consensus democracies would produce better results because their policies have a broader base of support and not as prone to abrupt policy shifts.




Operationalizing Concepts

1. Some of his proxies to test the relative economic performance of majoritarian and consensus democracies included: average annual growth in GDP, average annual rates of inflation and unemployment levels.

2. His measures of political performance were turnout rates in elections, number of women holding nat’l political office, and survey data on citizen satisfaction with democracy in their country.

3. Measure of social performance: welfare state expenditures; foreign aid contributions, pollution levels, and prison incarceration rates.

Results• He found that consensus democracies

performed better socially, and politically, but there was no difference on economic performance.

• Consensus democracies did not have more economic growth or lower unemployment than majoritarian democracies, although they (consensus democracies) did a better job keeping inflation in check.

• Discussion: were the indicators appropriate? Other tests needed? Why do you think consensus democracies did better on the political and social indicators?


Conclusion

• State is the supreme authority within a country.

• Modern state emerged in response to the insecurity of the international system.

• The form the states take is not neutral or innocent in its effects. There are winners and losers depending upon these arrangements.

• Political actors try to shape how power is distributed because their success in influencing policy depends on the state’s structure.


Critical Thinking Questions

• The authors argued at the beginning of the chapter that power takes three forms: economic, political and ideological. Are these three forms of power equal? What claims for preeminence can be made about each of them?

• Do states promote individual’s capabilities or restrict them?

• If your country was just emerging and was writing a constitution, how would you organize your political institutions? What judicial, legislative, federal, and executive arrangements would you create and why?


Critical Thinking Questions

• Over time, the legislative branch has lost ground to the executive in almost all countries. Why has this happened and is this state of affairs constructive or harmful?

• Since the military has all the guns, why don’t they take over governments more frequently? Why does the military accept civilian control in some countries while it is reluctant to consent to it in others?


Chapter 2 CPO2002 Lecture

Education

power institutions

state groups

state pearson publishing

forms of power

material power

form of power

distribution of power

political power trumps