Chapter 3
• The Modern State
• State Capacity
• The Bureaucracy
• The Emergence of States
• Failed States
• The Welfare State
• Max Weber:
• “The state is the central political institution that exerts a ‘monopoly on the
legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.’”
• A few important points:
• Legitimacy
• State here refers to what we might commonly refer to as government –
the decision making apparatus, bureaucracy and the provision of public
goods
• What did the non-modern state look like
• Feudalism in Europe
• Multiple actors with legitimate power
• Law and taxes local
• Any other system unfeasible
• The modern state?
• Today, who legally uses power and violence?
• Who has the right to tax?
• Definition:
• “The ability of the state to achieve its objectives, especially the abilities to
control violence, effectively tax the population, and maintain wellfunctioning institutions and the rule of law.”
• How does a state increase its capacity?
• Monopoly on the use of force
• Effective (reasonably speaking) bureaucracy
• Rule of law
• Of note, capacity is a relative concept
• A state that fails to perform as expected
• Multiple purveyors of power and violence
• Ineffective bureaucracy
• Inequality of power or resources
• Leads to:
• Mistrust with government and between individuals
• Less economic development
• Fewer services
• How does one avoid failed states?
• State-building or nation-building projects
• The state is a part of society, but a relatively autonomous part
• At its core, the state acts like a general director, making policies
and passing laws that are designed to achieve the goals it
wants
• At the same time, it isn’t apart from society, as groups and
institutions within society can seek to change the state
• Democracy
• Bureaucracies are often viewed with suspicion
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They’re too big
It’s hard to fire members of the bureaucracy
They’re inefficient
They aren’t innovative
• Effective bureaucracy, though, is necessary for the success of a
state
• Bureaucracies are, in fact, designed to be a very “efficient way
to organize collective action in pursuit of common projects”
• Leadership is not dependent on charisma, rather on presenting
different policy options (more often than not, anyway)
• The state, broadly speaking, doesn’t care who you are –
everyone is treated equally before the law and by government
• Sovereignty:
• Recognition as being the single legitimate power within a territory
• The source of legitimate authority (…that is to say, it is way governments
can actually take action, like tax collection)
• Public Policies: Often defined as “what government does”
• Designed to improve the public good, either through the provision of
resources, protection, or the collection of taxes to accomplish these goals
• Typical Functions of the Modern State:
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Tax collection
Military and Defence
Public Safety and Policing
Broad economic policy: economic management, fiscal and monetary policy
A social safety net
Infrastructure and public goods
• The Bellicist Theory: Lots of war leads to strong states
• States have 3 functions
• Centralized administration
• Significant tax collection
• Ability to mobilize an entire population
• Consistent and total war, forces leaders to pursue each of
these goals
• Explains why Europe which was, otherwise backwards to other
civilizations around the globe, were the first to see emergence
of strong states
• Large, regionally dominant empires were able to create central
bureaucracies, but never forced to extensively tax or mobilize
the whole of their people
• Relation to weak states in South America and Africa
• Marxist Theory
• Interest of the bourgeoisie
• Regime or Coalition Theory
• Coalitions, generally of societal elites, were formed
• The goal of these was to achieve a common end
• Government was an opportunity to that end
• Nationalism
• A unifying factor that makes people more amenable to state-building
exercises?
• Religion
• Theory primarily focused on Calvinism
• Competition?
• Are strong states more effective in war?
• Colonialism
• Economic competition and preference
• Economics?
• The international capital class
• Neo-colonialism
• World Society Theory
• Interaction between states demonstrates the effectiveness of the
organization and is, in turn, copied
• First, what are we talking about:
• The provision of a safety net to those most in need or at risk in society,
often provided in the form of health care and poverty relief
• These are big programs, that require lots of money and
organization to provide
• Cultural theory:
• Norms and values changed
• Problems can be solved through collective action
• Citizenship
• Citizens are deserving of some dignity
• The rise of industrial capitalism
• Economic benefits
• Social costs?
• Role of the state in the economy?
• Marxist interpretation
• Welfare state is designed to make the worst off feel as though they are
getting more
• Doomed to fail…eventually
• OR...is it the state creeping towards left-wing socialism?
• Or…is it simply a response to the incredible societal changes that
happen during and after industrialization?
• Gosta Esping-Andersen
• Doesn’t like any of these options
• Looks to the role of groups in decision making
• Namely: Business, Labour and Government
• Where these groups compromise, strong welfare states appear
to emerge
• Where these groups act in competition, trying to gain
advantage over the others, welfare states are weak