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Social Contract Theories

Social contract theories

:For political policies of the same name see Bob Rae's Social Contract (Ontario), Harold Wilson's Social Contract (Britain), Malaysia's Social contract (Malaysia), and The Social Contract Press, for the American printing company. Social contract (or contractarianism) is a phrase used in philosophy, political science and sociology to denote a real or hypothetical agreement within a state regarding the rights and responsibilities of the state and its citizens, or more generally a similar concord between a group and its members, or between individuals. All members within a society are assumed to agree to the terms of the social contract by their choice to stay within the society or by not violating the contract. The social contract, as a political theory, explains the origin and purpose of the state and of human rights. The essence of the theory (in its most common form, namely the one proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau) is as follows: In order to live in society, human beings agree to an implicit social contract, which gives them certain rights in return for giving up certain freedoms they would have in a state of nature. Thus, the rights (and responsibilities) of individuals are the terms of the social contract, and the state is the entity created for the purpose of enforcing that contract. Also, the people may change the terms of the contract if they so desire; rights and responsibilities are not fixed or "natural". However, more rights always entail more responsibilities, and fewer responsibilities always entail fewer rights.

History

Contract theory is certainly not new; in Plato's Republic (c.360 BC) Glaucon suggests that justice is a 'pact' among rational egoists, while Cicero (106-43 BC) posited such a theory in the latter stages of the Roman Republic. The first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed contract theory was Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who contended that people in a state of nature ceded their individual rights to a strong sovereign in return for his protection, so social contract evolves out of pragmatic self-interest. John Locke (1634-1704) also posited a contract theory; however, unlike Hobbes, Locke believed that people contracted with one another for a particular kind of government, and that they could modify or even abolish the government. Thus Locke's vision was that of an innate, essential human rationality constituting 'natural law'. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), in his influential 1762 treatise The Social Contract, outlined a different version of contract theory. Rousseau's theory has many similarities with the individualist Lockean tradition, but also departs from it on many significant points. For example, Rousseau theory asserts that an individual should submit is own will to the "general will," and is therefore more collectivist than individualist. This theory has already been presented in the second introductory paragraph of this article, since Rousseau's version of the social contract is the one most often associated with the term "social contract" itself. It is also worth noting that in the century following Rousseau's death, his theories were an important influence in the formation of the socialist movement. Individualist anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon said that social contract is not between individuals and the state, but between individuals themselves to refrain from governing each other: "What really is the Social Contract? An agreement of the citizen with the government? No, that would mean but the continuation of [Rousseau’s] idea. The social contract is an agreement of man with man; an agreement from which must result what we call society. In this, the notion of commutative justice, first brought forward by the primitive fact of exchange, …is substituted for that of distributive justice…. Translating these words, contract, commutative justice, which are the language of the law, into the language of business, and you have commerce, that is to say, in its highest significance, the act by which man and man declare themselves essentially producers, and abdicate all pretension to govern each other" (General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century). John Rawls (1921-2002) proposed a contractarian approach that has a decidedly Kantian flavour, whereby rational people in a hypothetical "original position," setting aside their individual preferences and capacities under a "veil of ignorance," would agree to certain, general principles of justice .

Criticism

Normally, a contract is not presumed valid unless all parties it agree to it voluntarily, that is, no one has been pressured under the threat of physical force to enter into it. Lysander Spooner argues that a supposed social contract cannot be used to justify governmental actions such as taxation, because government will initiate force against anyone who does not wish to enter into such a contract. As a result, he maintains that such an agreement is not voluntary and therefore cannot be considered a legitimate contract at all. In his 1986 book Law's Empire, positivist Ronald Dworkin touches briefly on social contract theory, firstly distinguishing between the use of social contract theory in an ethical sense, to establish the character or content of justice (such as John Rawls' A Theory of Justice) and its use in a jurisprudential sense as a basis for legitimate government. Dworkin argues (see Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire, Fontana Press, 1986, p192-3) that if every citizen were a party to an actual, historical agreement to accept and obey political decisions in the way his community's political decisions are in fact taken then the historical fact of agreement would provide at least a good prima facie case for coercion even in ordinary politics: :So some political philsophers have been tempted to say that we have in fact agreed to a social contract of that kind tacitly, by just not emigrating when we reach the age of consent. But no one can argue that very long with a straight face. Consent cannot be binding on people, in the way this argument requires, unless it is given more freely, and with more genuine alternate choice, than just by declining to build a life from nothing under a foreign flag. And even if the consent were genuine, the argument would fail as an argument for legitimacy, because a person leaves one sovereign only to join another; he has no choice to be free from sovereigns altogether. A typical counterargument is that the choice is not limited to tacit consent to the status quo vs. expatriation, but also includes accepting the contract, then working to alter the parts that are disagreed with, as by participating in the political process.

A first principles formulation and nature of the social contract

From the biology of sexual reproduction, humans must cohabit at for a short time for procreation, with further contact arising by chance. As long as humans congregate, each will need protection from the potentially malicious others. This protection may be offered by the individual themselves or by another person for the individual. In a climate of hostiles, individuals protecting themselves may leave little time for personal pursuits, and may lead to their deaths. Over time, protection is generally offered by a specific person or few, typically the most powerful or strong, being the best equipped to handle conflict. This tradeoff allows greater production from all other members at the cost of the production of a few. This is a primal example of the gains of trade through comparative advantage. However, the protector cannot be everywhere at once. As such, the malicious ones need to fear something greater than themselves to keep the congregation from dispersing. The threat of attack - fear - must thus be everpresent. If people attack one another then there will probably be no net benefit from congregation. Thus, human societies greater than one person will always need something to fear: the givers of force. In small groups this is the leader. In larger groups it is the military and/or police, which are themselves hierarchical in nature, having their own leaders whom ultimately report to one person. Thus, human societies must always be hierarchical. In effect, the community trades fear of the malicious few, to a legitimised fear of a malicious few. This decision also means individual members of the community have a reduced right to decide their own future, as they can be coerced by the leader, to a limit which is decided by each member of the group. Resistance to the leader is a threat to this control. People who refuse to consent will always be removed forcefully, whether by banishment, prison or death, or directed to change through whatever incentives or techniques are available. If a person wanted to leave their community and form their own, in ancient times, this was a simple matter of moving to an uninhabted area. However, in the modern age, this is highly problematic, as all habitable areas are controlled by states. Not only does a secession damage the group through the loss of a member but it emboldens others to leave and damages the collective. Thus, as protector of the collective (and their own privileged position within that collective), the leader will always attack secession with force. Hence, any secession attempts must have the backing of the force equivalent to that of the leader. In the modern state, where citizens are born, there can be no choice but to accept the status quo, as for an individual citizen, force equivalent to that of the leader will be quite improbable to amass. There has almost never been any backing to the statement that for some, the benefits of joining a nation state do not outweigh the benefits of remaining alone. There has never been a state which has freely offered the choice of remaining "alone". However, it can also be argued that humans who do not join societies ultimately have a far lower chance of passing on their genetic material. and will eventually become victims of natural selection, whether it be lack of mates, or through attrition in the protection process. Thus societal living has provided a survival advantage, and through the pressure of evolution, society as an entity has become dominant over time.

References

- Robinson, Dave & Groves, Judy (2003). Introducing Political Philosophy. Icon Books. ISBN 1-84046-450-X.

External links

- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism/ Contractarianism]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism-contemporary/ Contemporary Approaches to the Social Contract]
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- [http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/soc-cont.htm Social contract theory]
- [http://www.againstpolitics.com/contractarianism_faq/ The Contractarian Theory of Morals:FAQ]
- [http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm Ebook: THE SOCIAL CONTRACT by Rousseau] ja:社会契約 simple:Social contract Category:Political philosophy

Social Contract (Ontario)

The Social Contract was a term used by the provincial New Democratic Party government of Bob Rae in 1990s Ontario to describe attempts to impose austerity measures on the labour movement. The plan imposed a wage freeze and mandatory days off for civil servants, which became known as Rae Days. Rae's government did not win reelection, and the NDP has been unpopular in Ontario provincial politics ever since. Category:Ontario history

Social Contract (Britain)

The Social Contract is a term used to describe policy by the Labour government of Harold Wilson in 1970s Britain. Category:Politics of the United Kingdom

Social contract (Malaysia)

:For the philosophical theory, see social contract; for the political policies, see Social Contract (Ontario) or Social Contract (Britain). The social contract in Malaysia refers to the agreement made by the country's founding fathers in the Constitution. Although typically the social contract is used in a context referring to Articles 14–18 of the Constitution, pertaining to the granting of citizenship to the non-Malay people of Malaysia, and Article 153, which grants the Malays special rights and privileges, it has also been used occasionally to refer to other portions of the Constitution, such as the Article stating that Malaysia is a secular state. In its typical context related to race relations, the social contract has been heavily criticised by many, including politicians from the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, who contend that constant harping on the non-Malays' debt to the Malays for citizenship has alienated them from the country. Such criticisms have met with opposition from the Malay media and the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the largest political party in Barisan Nasional. Many Malays, typically from UMNO, have used the social contract to defend the principle of Ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy).

Contractual terms

The Constitution does not explicitly refer to a "social contract", and no act of law or document has ever fully set out what the social contract's terms are or who in particular agreed to it. Its defenders are typically vague in their description of it, often referring to the Constitution as setting out the social contract, and the Malaysian founding fathers having agreed to it, although no reference to the social contract appears to have been made by them in the Constitution or otherwise. Therefore, presumably the social contract is an agreement that provides the non-Malay and other non-indigenous peoples of Malaysia (mostly the Chinese Malaysians and Indian Malaysians) with citizenship, in return for their granting special privileges to the Malays and indigenous people of Malaysia, collectively referred to as the Bumiputra (sons of the soil). The Constitution explicitly grants the Bumiputra reservations of land, quotas in the civil service, public scholarships and public education, quotas for trade licences, and the permission to monopolise certain industries if the government permits. In reality, however, especially after the advent of the Malaysian New Economic Policy (NEP) due to the racial riots of the May 13 Incident which occurred in 1969 when Malays held only 4% of the Malaysian economy, Bumiputra privileges have extended to other areas; quotas are set for Bumiputra equity in publicly-trade corporations, and discounts for them on automobiles and real estate ranging from 5% to 15% are mandated. Some suggest that this bias towards Malays in education and politics is, in part, a response to the ability of the Chinese Malays to secure most of the country's wealth. The Indian Malays, as with the Indian Singaporeans, can make a case for being those that loose out the most, although this may be disputed. The government did roll back the quota system for entry to public universities in 2003, however, and introduced a policy of "meritocracy". However, this new system was widely criticised by the non-Bumiputras as benefiting the Bumiputras by streaming them into a matriculation programme that featured relatively easy coursework while the non-Bumiputras were forced to sit for the Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM, or Malaysian Higher Education Certificate). Although in theory non-Bumiputras may enter the matriculation stream, and Bumiputras may sit for the STPM, this rarely occurs in reality. Meritocracy was also criticised by some quarters in UMNO as being discriminatory, as it caused the rural and less-prepared Malays to fall behind in university entrance rates. Curiously, the Reid Commission which prepared the framework for the Constitution stated in its report that Article 153, the backbone of the social contract, would be temporary only, and recommended that it be reviewed 15 years after independence. The Reid Commission said that the article and its provisions would only be necessary to avoid sudden unfair disadvantage to the Malays in competing with other members of Malaysian society, and that the privileges accorded the Malays by the article should be gradually reduced and eventually eliminated. Due to the May 13 Incident, after which a state of emergency was declared, however, 1972, the year that Article 153 was due to be reviewed, passed without incident. In return for the enactment of these originally temporary provisions, non-Malay Malaysians are accorded citizenship under Chapter 1 of Part III of the Constitution. Except for the Bumiputra privileges, non-Bumiputras are otherwise generally regarded as equal to their Bumiputra counterparts, and are accorded all the rights of citizenship as under Part II of the Constitution. In recent years, some have sought to provide Malay citizens with more political rights as per the ketuanan Melayu philosophy. However, most of these ketuanan Melayu proponents argue that their additional rights are already written as law and thus only seek to "defend" them from their opponents.

Early criticism

Article 153, and thus by extension the social contract, has been a source of controversy since the early days of Malaysia. Singaporean politician Lee Kuan Yew (later the first Prime Minister of Singapore) of the People's Action Party (PAP; its Malaysian branch would later become the Democratic Action Party or DAP) publicly questioned the need for Article 153 in Parliament, and called for a "Malaysian Malaysia". Questioning the social contract, Lee stated: "According to history, Malays began to migrate to Malaysia in noticeable numbers only about 700 years ago. Of the 39 percent Malays in Malaysia today, about one-third are comparatively new immigrants like the secretary-general of UMNO, Dato' Syed Ja'afar Albar, who came to Malaya from Indonesia just before the war at the age of more than thirty. Therefore it is wrong and illogical for a particular racial group to think that they are more justified to be called Malaysians and that the others can become Malaysian only through their favour." Lee criticised the government's policies by stating that "[t]hey, the Malay, have the right as Malaysian citizens to go up to the level of training and education that the more competitive societies, the non-Malay society, has produced. That is what must be done, isn't it? Not to feed them with this obscurantist doctrine that all they have got to do is to get Malay rights for the few special Malays and their problem has been resolved." He also lamented, "Malaysia — to whom does it belong? To Malaysians. But who are Malaysians? I hope I am, Mr Speaker, Sir. But sometimes, sitting in this chamber, I doubt whether I am allowed to be a Malaysian." Lee's statements upset many, especially politicians from the Alliance, Barisan Nasional's predecessor. Then Finance Minister Tan Siew Sin of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) called Lee the "greatest, disruptive force in the entire history of Malaysia and Malaya." Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, considered Lee to be too extremist in his views, while other UMNO politicians thought Lee was simply taking advantage of the situation to pander to the Malaysian Chinese. PAP-UMNO relations were chilled further by the PAP running several candidates in elections on the Malay peninsula, with UMNO retaliating by trying to run candidates on its ticket in Singapore. Eventually, the Tunku decided to ask Singapore, through Lee and some of his closest confidantes, to secede from Malaysia. Eventually, Lee agreed to do so, and Singapore became an independent nation in 1965. The Constitution of Singapore contains an article, Article 152, that names the Malays as "indigenous people" of Singapore and therefore requiring special safeguarding of their rights and privileges as such. However, the article specifies no policies for such safeguarding, and no reference to a "social contract" has ever been made by the political establishment in Singapore.

Present debate

Constitution of Singapore or "Malay rights" at the UMNO Annual General Meeting in 2005.]] In 2005, the social contract was brought up by Lim Keng Yaik of the Gerakan party in Barisan Nasional. Lim, a Minister in the government, asked for a re-examination of the social contract so that a "Bangsa Malaysia" (literally Malay for a Malaysian race or Malaysian nation) could be achieved. Lim was severely criticised by many Malay politicians, including Khairy Jamaluddin who is Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's son-in-law and Deputy Chairman of the UMNO Youth wing, and Ahmad Shabery Cheek, a prominent Malay Member of Parliament from the state of Terengganu. The Malay press (most of which is owned by UMNO) also ran articles condemning the questioning of the social contract. Lim was adamant, asking in an interview "How do you expect non-Malays to pour their hearts and souls into the country, and to one day die for it if you keep harping on this? Flag-waving and singing the Negaraku (the national anthem) are rituals, while true love for the nation lies in the heart." A year earlier, Abdullah had given a speech where he mentioned the most "significant aspect" of the social contract as "the agreement by the indigenous peoples to grant citizenship to the immigrant Chinese and Indians". However, Abdullah went on to state that "the character of the nation" changed to "one that Chinese and Indian citizens could also call their own". However, the speech went largely unremarked. In the end, Lim stated that the Malay press had blown his comments out of proportion and misquoted him. The issue ended with UMNO Youth chief and Education Minister Hishamuddin Hussein warning people not to "bring up the issue again as it has been agreed upon, appreciated, understood and endorsed by the Constitution." Earlier that year, Hishamuddin had waved the keris (traditional Malay dagger) at the UMNO Annual General Meeting, warning non-Malays not to threaten "Malay rights" and to question the social contract. This was applauded by the UMNO delegates, but widely ridiculed in the Malaysian blogosphere. Other politicians, mostly from opposition parties, have also criticised the NEP and its provisions, but refrained from directly criticising the social contract or Article 153 of the Constitution. Former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) promised he would roll back the NEP if he ever gained power, and many from the Democratic Action Party (DAP) have also spoken out against the NEP. They criticised the NEP as benefiting only a small portion of Malays, mostly well-connected and urban, while ignoring the rural and poor Malays, and noted that the NEP's avowed goal was to give the Malays a 30% share in the country's economic equity, regardless of whether only a few or many Malays held this share. The DAP has been particular in arguing it does not question Article 153 or the social contract, but merely seeks to abolish inequitable policies such as the NEP. Article 10 (4) of the Constitution permits the government to ban the questioning of Article 153, and thus the social contract; indeed, the Sedition Act does illegalise such questioning. The Internal Security Act (ISA) also permits the government to detain anybody it desires for practically an infinite period of time, and many, including politicians from the DAP such as Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh have been held under the ISA; it is widely believed this was because of their vehement criticism of Malay privileges.

Usage in other contexts

The social contract has also occasionally been referred to in a context other than that involving race relations. In the 2004 general election, the DAP ran on a platform of defending the "social contract" by combatting an Islamic theocracy, which the Constitution forbids, but was endorsed by former Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, Lim Keng Yaik and by PAS, the second-largest Malay-based political party in the country.

References

- Adam, Ramlah binti, Samuri, Abdul Hakim bin & Fadzil, Muslimin bin (2004). Sejarah Tingkatan 3. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. ISBN 983-62-8285-8.
- [http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/42419 "Anwar: Time to suspend NEP"]. (Oct. 28, 2005). Malaysiakini.
- Badawi, Abdullah Ahmad (2004). [http://domino.kln.gov.my/kln/statemen.nsf/0/eee39330c19514e648256e7c0009f6ee?OpenDocument "The Challenges of Multireligious, Multiethnic and Multicultural Societies"]. Retrieved Nov. 12, 2005.
- [http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news.php?id=150404 "Don't Raise Social Contract Issue, Umno Youth Chief Warns"]. (Aug. 15, 2005). Bernama.
- Goh, Cheng Teik (1994). Malaysia: Beyond Communal Politics. Pelanduk Publications. ISBN 967-978-475-4.
- [http://ourstory.asia1.com.sg/merger/headline/mimposib.html "'Impossible to co-operate with Singapore while Lee is Premier'"]. (June 2, 1965). Straits Times.
- [http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/printable.php?id=144240 "Johor Umno Says Meritocracy A Form Of Discrimination"]. (July 9, 2005). Bernama.
- Khaw, Ambrose (1998). [http://ourstory.asia1.com.sg/merger/lifeline/akimpos.html "This man is making too much noise"]. Retrieved Nov. 11, 2005.
- Lim, Kit Siang (2002). [http://www.dapmalaysia.org/english/lks/jul02/lks1700.htm "Liong Sik and Keng Yaik also suffer from the 'Mudah Lupa' syndrome, forgetting the clear and unequivocal calls by Tunku Abdul Rahman and Hussein Onn and MCA founding fathers not to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state"]. Retrieved Nov. 12, 2005.
- Lim, Kit Siang (2004). [http://www.dapmalaysia.org/all-archive/English/2004/mar04/lks/lks2907.htm "2004 general election will be a critical test of the reaffirmation or abandonment of the 46-year Merdeka 'social contract' of Malaysia as a democratic, secular and multi-religious nation with Islam as the official religion but not an Islamic State"]. Retrieved Nov. 12, 2005.
- Musa, M. Bakri (1999). The Malay Dilemma Revisited. Merantau Publishers. ISBN 1-58348-367-5.
- Ooi, Jeff (2004). [http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2004/06/meritocracy_nak.php "Meritocracy: Naked Lies or Partial Truth?"]. Retrieved Nov. 11, 2005.
- Ooi, Jeff (2005). [http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2005/07/the_30_solution.php "The 30% solution"]. Retrieved Nov. 12, 2005.
- Ooi, Jeff (2005). [http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2005/08/we_are_16_days.php "New controversy: Social Contract and Bangsa Malaysia"]. Retrieved Nov. 12, 2005.
- Ooi, Jeff (2005). [http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2005/11/i_went_into_act.php "Perils of the sitting duck"]. Retrieved Nov. 11, 2005.
- Ooi, Jeff (2005). [http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2005/08/the_nst_should.php "Social Contract: 'Utusan got the context wrong'"]. Retrieved Nov. 11, 2005.
- Ye, Lin-Sheng (2003). The Chinese Dilemma. East West Publishing. ISBN 0-9751646-1-9.
- Yeoh, Oon (June 4, 2004). [http://www.sun2surf.com/articlePrint.cfm?id=3441 "Meritocracy: The truth must be well told"]. The Sun.
- Yusoff, Marzuki & Samah, Nazeri Nong (Aug. 14, 2005). [http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/content.asp?y=2005&dt=0815&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=Muka_Hadapan&pg=mh_03.htm "Kontrak sosial: Kenyataan Keng Yaik bercanggah Perlembagaan Persekutuan"]. Utusan Malaysia.

Notes

# - Ye, Lin-Sheng (2003). The Chinese Dilemma, p. 43. East West Publishing. ISBN 0-9751646-1-9. # - Lee, Kuan Yew (2000). The Singapore Story, Abridged edition, pp. 327–328. Federal Publications.

External link

Category:Politics of Malaysia

The Social Contract Press

The Social Contract Press is an American publisher. It is a prominent proponent of immigration reduction and population control. It was founded by John Tanton and is headed by Wayne Lutton. It issues a quarterly journal, reprints books, and publishes new works. It has been criticized for publishing works such as Jean Raspail's The Camp of the Saints, which has been perceived as racist by some critics.

Notable authors

- Roy Beck
- Colin Campbell
- Samuel Francis
- Garrett Hardin
- Samuel P. Huntington
- Richard Lamm
- Michelle Malkin
- Brent Nelson
- Daniel Pipes
- Jean Raspail
- Charley Reese
- Paul Craig Roberts
- Robert Spencer
- Miles Wolpin

External links

[http://www.thesocialcontract.com/ The Social Contract Press] Social Contract Press

Political science

Political science is a social science discipline that deals with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is academic, theoretical and research oriented. Fields and subfields of political science include political theory and philosophy, civics and comparative politics, national systems, cross-national political analysis, political development, international relations, foreign policy, international law and politics, public administration, administrative behavior, public law, judicial behavior, and politics and public policy. Approaches to the discipline include classical political philosophy, structuralism, and behavioralism, realism, pluralism, and institutionalism. Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents and official records, secondary sources such as scholarly journal articles, survey research, statistical analysis, and model building. Herbert Baxter Adams is credited with coining the phrase "political science" while teaching history at Johns Hopkins University.

History of political science

Main Article: History of political science

Antecedents of political science

While the study of politics is first found in the Western tradition in Ancient Greece, political science is a late arrival in terms of social sciences. However, the discipline has a clear set of antecedents such as moral philosophy, political philosophy, political economy, history, and other fields concerned with normative determinations of what ought to be and with deducing the characteristics and functions of the ideal state. In each historic period and in almost every geographic area, we can find someone studying politics and increasing political understanding. The antecedents of politics trace their roots back even earlier than Plato and Aristotle, particularly in the works of Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Euripides. Later, Plato analyzed political systems, abstracted their analysis from more literary- and history- oriented studies and applied an approach we would understand as closer to philosophy. Similarly, Aristotle built upon Plato's analysis to include historical empirical evidence in his analysis. During the rule of Rome, famous historians such as Polybius, Livy and Plutarch documented the rise of the Roman Republic, and the organization and histories of other nations, while statesmen like Julius Caesar, Cicero and others provided us with examples of the politics of the republic and Rome's empire and wars. The study of politics during this age was oriented toward understanding history, understanding methods of governing, and describing the operation of governments. With the fall of the Roman Empire, there arose a more diffuse arena for political studies. The rise of monotheism and, particularly for the Western tradition, Christianity, brought to light a new space for politics and political action. During the Middle Ages, the study of politics was widespread in the churches and courts. Works such as Augustine of Hippo's The City of God synthesized current philosophies and political traditions with those of Christianity, redefining the borders between what was religious and what was political. Most of the political questions surrounding the relationship between church and state were clarified and contested in this period. In the Middle East and later other Islamic areas, works such as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Epic of Kings by Ferdowsi provided evidence of political analysis, while the Islamic aristotelians such as Avicenna and later Maimonides and Averroes, continued Aristotle's tradition of analysis and empiricism, writing commentaries on Aristotle's works. During the Italian Renaissance, Niccolò Machiavelli established the emphasis of modern political science on direct empirical observation of political institutions and actors. Later, the expansion of the scientific paradigm during the Enlightenment further pushed the study of politics beyond normative determinations.

Political science

The advent of political science as a university discipline is evidenced by the naming of university departments and chairs with the title of political science arising in the 1860s. Integrating political studies of the past into a unified discipline is an ongoing project, and the history of political science has provided a rich field for the growth of both normative and positive political science, with each part of the discipline sharing some historical predecessors. In the 1950s and the 1960s, a behavioral revolution stressing the systematic and rigorously scientific study of individual and group behavior swept the discipline. At the same time that political science moved toward greater depth of analysis and more sophistication, it also moved toward a closer working relationship with other disciplines, especially sociology, economics, history, anthropology, psychology, and statistics. Increasingly, students of political behavior have used the scientific method to create an intellectual discipline based on the postulating of hypotheses followed by empirical verification and the inference of political trends, and of generalizations that explain individual and group political actions. Over the past generation, the discipline placed an increasing emphasis on relevance, or the use of new approaches and methodologies to solve political and social problems.

Contemporary political science

Political scientists study the allocation and transfer of power in decision-making, the roles and systems of governance including governments and international organizations, political behavior and public policies. They measure the success of governance and specific policies by examining many factors, including stability, justice, material wealth, and peace. Some political scientists seek to advance positive theses by analyzing politics. Others advance normative theses, by making specific policy recommendations. The study of politics is complicated by the frequent involvement of political scientists in the political process, since their teachings often provide the frameworks within which other commentators, such as journalists, special interest groups, politicians, and the electorate analyze issues and select options. Political scientists may serve as advisors to specific politicians, or even run for office as politicians themselves. Political scientists can be found working in governments, in political parties or as civil servants. They may be involved with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or political movements. In a variety of capacities, people educated and trained in Political science can add value and expertise to corporations. Private enterprises such as think tanks, research institutes, polling and public relations firms often employ political scientists. In the United States, political scientists known as "Americanists" look at a variety of data including elections, public opinion and public policy such as Social Security reform, foreign policy, U.S. congressional power, and the Supreme Court to name only a few issues. As a discipline, political science is primarily advanced by articles in scholarly journals and academic books. The major journals, which are published by academic presses and are associated with associations of political science, are the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics and British Journal of Political Science, referred to in the discipline as "APSR," "AJPS," "JoP," and "BJPS" respectively. Countless other journals focus on more specific areas of the discipline, for example Legislative Studies Quarterly and Political Research Quarterly.

Current fields of study

Civics and comparative politics involve the comparison of patterns of political development—including forms of government—and processes of political change in different settings or at different times. In the United States and Canada, it may also include regional studies; that is, work focusing on a particular state, province or region. Political theory involves the study of normative questions of government, ideology, regimes, movements, and the history of political philosophy. International relations focuses on the study of the dynamics of relations between states, and, more recently, on transnational issues such as the environment, human trafficking, trade, social movements, labor like co-operatives, or preventing terrorism. The complex interplay of economic and political choices is reflected in the field of political economy where political science tries to understand the normative implications of economic structures and theories. Public Administration studies the implementation, determination and outputs of public policies. It seeks to explain the role of political structure, bureaucratic politics and interest group activity on the public policy output and the policy performance of public sector entities. Political elites and political behavior, and the interplay between them, are studied in the field of political psychology.

External links

- [http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/psusp.html Political Science Resources]
- [http://www.progressiveu.org/ Progressive U] New media from political science students
- [http://www.admu.edu.ph/depts/polsci/courses.html Courses] Political Science Courses
- [http://essays.org.uk/political-science/ Essays on Political Science] Category:Politics
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Sociology

and their consequences are the subject of sociology studies. Here we see people engaged in various actions on the stairs of the institution of Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.]] Sociology is a social science on the study of the social lives of people, groups, and societies, sometimes defined as the study of social interactions. It is a relatively new academic discipline that evolved in the early 19th century. It concerns itself with the social rules and processes that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members of associations, groups, and institutions. Sociology is interested in our behavior as social beings; thus the sociological field of interest ranges from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes. In a broad sense, sociology is the scientific study of social groups, the entities through which humans move throughout their lives. There is a current trend in sociology to make it a more "applied" discipline, applicable in areas such as non-profit organizations and nursing homes. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, and others interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy. Most sociologists work in one or more specialties, such as social organization, social stratification, and social mobility; racial and ethnic relations; education; family; social psychology; urban, rural, political, and comparative sociology; sex roles and relationships; demography; gerontology; criminology; and sociological practice.

History of sociology

Main Article: History of sociology Sociology is a relatively new academic discipline among other social sciences including economics, political science, anthropology, history, and psychology. The ideas behind it, however, have a long history and can trace their origins to a mixture of common human knowledge and philosophy. Sociology as a scientific discipline emerged in the early 19th century as an academic response to the challenge of modernity: as the world was becoming smaller and more integrated, people's experience of the world was increasingly atomized and dispersed. Sociologists hoped not only to understand what held social groups together, but also to develop an antidote to social disintegration. social disintegration The term "sociology" was coined by Auguste Comte in 1838 from Latin socius (companion, associate) and Greek logia (study of, speech). Comte hoped to unify all studies of humankind--including history, psychology and economics. His own sociological scheme was typical of the 19th century; he believed all human life had passed through the same distinct historical stages and that, if one could grasp this progress, one could prescribe the remedies for social ills. Sociology was to be the 'queen of sciences'. The first book with the term 'sociology' in its title was written in the mid-19th century by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer. In the United States, the discipline was taught by its name for the first time at the University of Kansas, Lawrence in 1890 under the course title Elements of Sociology (the oldest continuing sociology course in America and the Department of History and Sociology was established in 1891 [http://www.ku.edu/%7Esocdept/about/],[http://www.news.ku.edu/2005/June/June15/sociology.shtml]) and the first full fledged independent university department of sociology in the United States was established in 1892 at the University of Chicago by Albion W. Small, who in 1895 founded the American Journal of Sociology [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJS/home.html]. The first European department of sociology was founded in 1895 at the University of Bordeaux by Émile Durkheim, founder of L'Année Sociologique (1896). The first sociology department to be established in the United Kingdom was at the London School of Economics and Political Science (home of the British Journal of Sociology) [http://www.lse.ac.uk/serials/Bjs/] in 1904. In 1919 a sociology department was established in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich by Max Weber and in 1920 in Poland by Florian Znaniecki. Florian Znaniecki] International cooperation in sociology began in 1893 when René Worms founded the small Institut International de Sociologie that was eclipsed by the much larger International Sociologist Association [http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/] starting in 1949 (ISA). In 1905 the American Sociological Association, the world's largest association of professional sociologists, was founded. Other "classical" theorists of sociology from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Karl Marx, Ferdinand Toennies, Émile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto, and Max Weber. Like Comte, these figures did not consider themselves only "sociologists". Their works addressed religion, education, economics, psychology, ethics, philosophy, and theology, and their theories have been applied in a variety of academic diciplines. Their most enduring influence, however, has been on sociology, (with the exception of Marx, who is a central figure in the field of economics as well) and it is in this field that their theories are still considered most applicable. theology] Early theorists' approach to sociology, led by Comte, was to treat it in the same manner as natural science, applying the same methods and methodology used in the natural sciences to study social phenomena. The emphasis on empiricism and the scientific method sought to provide an incontestable foundation for any sociological claims or findings, and to distinguish sociology from less empirical fields like philosophy. This methodological approach, called positivism, became a source of contention between sociologists and other scientists, and eventually a point of divergence within the field itself. As early as the 19th century positivist and naturalist approaches to studying social life were questioned by scientists like Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Rickert, who argued that the natural world differs from the social world, as human society has unique aspects like meanings, symbols, rules, norms, and values. These elements of society result in human cultures. This view was further developed by Max Weber, who introduced antipositivism (humanistic sociology). According to this view, which is closely related to antinaturalism, sociological research must concentrate on humans and their cultural values. This has led to some controversy on how one can draw the line between subjective and objective research and also influenced hermeneutical studies. Similar disputes, especially in the era of Internet, have also led to the creation of branches of sociology such as public sociology.

The science and mathematics of sociology

Sociologists study society and social behaviour by examining the groups and social institutions people form, as well as various social, religious, political, and business organizations. They also study the behaviour of, and social interaction among, groups, trace their origin and growth, and analyze the influence of group activities on individual members. Sociologists are concerned with the characteristics of social groups, organizations, and institutions; the ways individuals are affected by each other and by the groups to which they belong; and the effect of social traits such as sex, age, or race on a person’s daily life. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, and others interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy. Most sociologists work in one or more specialties, such as social organization, social stratification, and social mobility; racial and ethnic relations; education; family; social psychology; urban, rural, political, and comparative sociology; sex roles and relationships; demography; gerontology; criminology; and sociological practice. Although sociology emerged in large part from Comte's conviction that sociology eventually would subsume all other areas of scientific inquiry, in the end, sociology did not replace the other sciences. Instead, sociology came to be identified with the other social sciences (i.e., psychology, economics, etc.). Today, sociology studies humankind's organizations, social institutions and their social interactions, largely employing a comparative method. The discipline has concentrated particularly on the organization of complex industrial societies. Recent sociologists, taking cues from anthropologists, have noted the "Western emphasis" of the field. In response, many sociology departments around the world are encouraging multi-cultural and multi-national studies. Today, sociologists research micro-structures that organize society, such as race or ethnicity, social class, gender roles, and institutions such as the family; social processes that represent deviation from, or the breakdown of, these structures, including crime and divorce; and micro-processes such as interpersonal interactions and the socialization of individuals. Sociologists often rely on quantitative methods of social research to describe large patterns in social relationships and in order to develop models that can help predict social change. Other branches of sociology believe that qualitative methods - such as focused interviews, group discussions and ethnographic methods - allow for a better understanding of social processes. Some sociologists argue for a middle ground that sees quantitative and qualitative approaches as complementary. Results from one approach can fill gaps in the other approach. For example, quantitative methods could describe large or general patterns while qualitative approaches could help to understand how individuals understand those patterns.

Social theory

Main article: social theory Social theory refers to the use of abstract and often complex theoretical frameworks to explain and analyze social patterns and macro social structures in social life, rather than explaining patterns of social life. Social theory always had an uneasy relationship to the more classic academic disciplines; many of its key thinkers never held a university position. While nowadays social theory is considered a branch of sociology, it is inherently interdisciplinary, as it deals with multiple scientific areas such as anthropology, economics, theology, history, and many others. First social theories developed almost simultaneously with the birth of the sociology science itself. Auguste Comte, known as 'father of sociology', also laid the groundwork for one of the first social theories - social evolutionism. In the 19th century three great, classical theories of social and historical change were created: the social evolutionism theory (of which social darwinism is a part of), the social cycle theory and the Marxist historical materialism theory. Although the majority of 19th century social theories are now considered obsolete they have spawned new, modern social theories. Modern social theories represent some advanced version of the classical theories, like Multilineal theories of evolution (neoevolutionism, sociobiology, theory of modernisation, theory of post-industrial society) or the general historical sociology and the theory of subjectivity and creation of the society. Unlike disciplines within the “objective“ natural sciences -- such as physics or chemistry -- social theorists are less likely to use the scientific method and other fact-based methods to prove a point. Instead, they tackle very large-scale social trends and structures using hypotheses that cannot be easily proved, except by the history and time, which is often the basis of criticism from opponents of social theories. Extremely critical theorists, such as deconstructionists or postmodernists, may argue that any type of research or method is inherently flawed. Many times, however, social theory is defined as such because the social reality it describes is so overarching as to be unprovable. The social theories of modernity or anarchy might be two examples of this. However, social theories are a major part of the science of sociology. Objective science-based research can often provide support for explanations given by social theorists. Statistical research grounded in the scientific method, for instance, that finds a severe income disparity between women and men performing the same occupation can complement the underlying premise of the complex social theories of feminism or patriarchy. In general, and particularly among adherents to pure sociology, social theory has an appeal because it takes the focus away from the individual (which is how most humans look at the world) and focuses it on the society itself and the social forces which control our lives. This sociological insight (or sociological imagination) has through the years appealed to students and others dissatisfied with the status quo because it carries the assumption that societal structures and patterns are either random, arbitrary or controlled by specific powerful groups -- thus implying the possibility of change. This has a particular appeal to champions of the underdog, the dispossesed, and/or those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder because it implies that their position in society is undeserved and/or the result of oppression.

Social research methods

Main article: social research There are several main methods that sociologists use to gather empirical evidence, which include questionnaires, interviews, participant observation, and statistical research. The problem with all of these approaches is that they are all based on what theoretical position the researcher adopts to explain and understand the society the researcher sees in front of themselves. If one is a functionalist like Émile Durkheim, they are likely to interpret everything in terms of large-scale social structures. If a person is a symbolic interactionist, they are likely to concentrate on the way people understand one another. If the researcher is a Marxist, or a neo-Marxist, they are likely to interpret everything through the grid of class struggle and economics. Phenomenologists tend to think that there is only the way in which people construct their meanings of reality, and nothing else. One of the real problems is that sociologists argue that only one theoretical approach is the "right" one, and it is theirs. In practice, sociologists often tend to mix and match different approaches and methodologies, since each method produces particular types of data. The Internet is of interest for sociologists in three ways: as a tool for research, for example, in using online questionnaires instead of paper ones, as a discussion platform, and as a research topic. Sociology of the Internet in the last sense includes analysis of online communities (e.g. as found in newsgroups), virtual communities and virtual worlds organisational change catalysed through new media like the Internet, and societal change at-large in the transformation from industrial to informational society (or to information society).

Sociology and other social sciences

In the early 20th century, sociologists and psychologists who conducted research in industrial societies contributed to the development of anthropology. It should be noted, however, that anthropologists also conducted research in industrial societies. Today sociology and anthropology are better contrasted according to different theoretical concerns and methods rather than objects of study. Sociobiology is a relatively new field to branch from both the sociology and biology disciplines. Although the field once rapidly gained acceptance, it has remained highly controversial as it attempts to find ways in which social behavior and structures can be explained by evolutionary and biological processes. Sociobiologists are often criticized by sociologists for depending too greatly on the effects of genes in defining behavior. Sociobiologists often respond, however, by citing a complex relationship between nature and nurture. In this regard, sociobiology is closely related to anthropology, zoology, and evolutionary psychology. Nonetheless, for most in the discipline, its ideas are unacceptable. Some sociobiologists, such as Richard Machalek, call for the field of sociology to encompass the study of non-human societies along with human beings. Sociology has some links with social psychology, but the former is more interested in social structures and the latter in social behaviors. A distinction should be made between these and forensic studies within these disciplines, particularly where anatomy is involved. These latter studies might be better named as Forensic psychology. As shown by the work of Marx and others, economics has influenced sociological theories.

Subfields of sociology

- Collective behavior
- Comparative sociology
- Computational sociology
- Environmental sociology
- Interactionism also known as the social action theory and symbolic-interactionism
- Economic development
- Economic sociology
- Feminist sociology
- Functionalism
- Historical sociology
- Human ecology (sometimes included into sociology proper)
- Industrial sociology also known as sociology of industrial relations or sociology of work
- Media Sociology
- Medical sociology
- Political sociology also known as sociology of politics or sociology of the state
- Program evaluation
- Public sociology
- Pure sociology
- Rural sociology
- Social change also known as sociology of change
- Social demography
- Social inequality
- Social movements
- Sociology of culture
- Sociology of conflict also known as Conflict theory
- Sociology of deviance also known as criminology
- Sociology of disaster
- Sociology of gender
- Sociology of the family
- Sociology of markets also known as behavioral finance
- Sociology of religion
- Sociology of science and technology
- Sociology of sport
- Sociography
- Urban sociology
- Visual sociology

External links

Self-study courses:
- [http://www.trentu.ca/trentradio/tklassen/ Free audio Lectures, An Introductory Sociology produced for the Trent University, Canada]
- [http://core.ecu.edu/soci/juskaa/SOCI2110/soci1.htm Lectures notes from Introduction to Sociology Course, East Carolina University] Other resources:
- [http://www.thearda.com American Religion Data Archive]
- [http://www.asanet.org/ American Sociological Association]
- [http://www.anovasofie.net/ Analysing and Overcoming the Sociological Fragmentation in Europe: European Virtual Library of Sociology]
- [http://www.ku.edu/%7Esocdept/centuryofsoc.pdf A Century of Sociology at University of Kansas, by Alan Sica (Adobe Acrobat PDF file)]
- [http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/ International Sociological Association]
- [http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/ Resources for methods in social research]
- [http://www.sociosite.net/ SocioSite - Social Sciences Information System]
- [http://www.sociologyprofessor.com/ Social theories and theorists]
- [http://www.sociolog.com/ The Sociolog. Comprehensive Guide to Sociology]
- [http://www.theory.org.uk Theory.org.uk] - idiosyncratic but content-rich social theory site by David Gauntlett
- [http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy]

References

- John J. Macionis, Sociology (10th Edition), Prentice Hall, 2004, ISBN 0131849182
- Piotr Sztompka, Socjologia, Znak, 2002, ISBN 8324002189
- Stephen H. Aby, Sociology: A Guide to Reference and Information Sources. 3rd edn. Littleton, CO, Libraries Unlimited Inc., 2005, ISBN 1563089475

State

:This article discusses states as sovereign political entities; for other meanings, see state (disambiguation). A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty. Recognition of the state's claim to independence by other states, enabling it to enter into international agreements, is often important to the establishment of its statehood, although some theories do not make this a requirement - for instance, the Montevideo Convention. The "state" can also be defined in terms of domestic conditions, specifically, as conceptualized by Max Weber, "a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." [http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/study/xweb.htm] The exact meaning of this definition depends on what is understood by "legitimate". For more information see government.

Introduction

The word "state" in contemporary parlance often means the "Westphalian state", in reference to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. In this sense, the modern state is an entity that enjoys extensive autonomy in its domestic economic and social policy, largely free from interference from other states and powers. A number of modern commentators have claimed that we are experiencing the decline of the Westphalian state as the principal actor of the international system, pointing to economic, cultural, political, and technological changes in the world, such as globalization and the emergence of regional and supernational groupings such as the European Union. The term "state" is also used to describe subnational territorial divisions within a federal system, as in the case of the United States of America. See state (law) and state (non-sovereign). In common speech, the terms country, nation and state are casually used as synonyms, but in a more strict usage they are distinguished:
- country is the geographical area.
- nation designates a people (however, national and international both confusingly refer as well to matters pertaining to what are strictly states, as in "national capital", "international law").
- state refers to the government, and an entity in international law. Currently, the entire land surface of the Earth is divided among the territories of the roughly two hundred states now existing, with the special case of Antarctica, a variety of disputed territories, and a number of areas where state power exists in theory, but not in practice (the most significant of these being Somalia and Iraq).

Etymology

The word "state" originates from the medieval state or throne upon which the head of state (usually a monarch) would sit. By process of metonymy, the word state became used to refer to both the head of state and the power entity he represented (though the former meaning has fallen out of use). A similar association of terms can today be seen in the practice of referring to government buildings as having authority, for example "The White House today released a press statement..."

Formation of the state

The birth of the state, in the broadest sense of the word, coincides with the rise of civilization. For most of the existence of the human species, people lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. That lifestyle began to change with the invention of agriculture around the 9th millennium BC. The practice of agriculture made it necessary for human beings to build permanent settlements and spend most of their lives in close proximity to the land they cultivated. Thus, control over land became an issue for the first time. To express that control, various forms of property rights developed, with people claiming different kinds of rights over various areas of land. Disagreements over the nature and extent of such claims of ownership degenerated into violence and the first "wars". In some parts of the world, notably Mesopotamia and the Nile valley, natural conditions favoured the concentration of land ownership in few hands. Eventually, a small group of people found themselves owning the land on which many other people worked for a living. This control over the land meant control over the people whose livelihoods depended on the land; thus, the first primitive states arose. These states were usually despotic and unstable, with the ruler(s) holding absolute power over their subjects until some other ruler(s) displaced them. Since there were no laws and no infrastructure, and since power was exercised arbitrarily, some political theorists and historians do not consider such early forms of despotic rule to have been states in the proper sense of the word; they are sometimes called proto-states. One of the earliest known sets of laws, the Code of Hammurabi, has been dated to ca. 1700 BC. It was around this time that the concept of law - one of the foundations of the modern state - began to appear. But the rulers of the Ancient Near East had a long tradition of holding absolute power and claiming the status of god-kings (see hydraulic despotism). Thus, laws limiting the power of monarchs did not develop very far in that region. The city-states of Ancient Greece were the first to establish states whose powers were clearly defined in laws (even if the laws themselves could usually be changed quite easily). Also, notably, the idea of democracy was born in ancient Athens (see Athenian democracy). Many institutions of the modern state (especially in Western Europe and areas once dominated by Western-European empires) can trace their origins back to Ancient Rome, which inherited the political traditions of the Greeks and developed them further (particularly the rule of law, albeit in incomplete form). However, the Roman Republic gave way to the Roman Empire - which, in turn, created the concept of universal empire: the idea that the entire world was (or should be) under the authority of one single legitimate state. The fall of the Roman Empire and the Great Migrations changed the character of European politics. The "barbarian" (i.e., non-Roman) kingdoms and chieftains that followed the Roman Empire were ephemeral and transitory and bore little resemblance to the modern state. Even the kingdom of Charlemagne was fleeting; without the tradition of primogeniture, it dissolved into three smaller kingdoms with the Treaty of Verdun in 843. These kingdoms were treated more as land holdings by the royalty that ruled them. Once again, the state became little more than an expression of the ruler's private ownership of a certain area of land. The lack of a real successor to the Roman Empire in Western Europe created a power vacuum. The kingdoms of Western Europe were besieged by invaders on the frontiers - first, the Muslim invasions from the south, then a series of new migrations from the east and finally the Viking invasions from the north. At the same time, the various kingdoms (and smaller political units) were often involved in wars with each other over territory and succession. The solution that evolved out of these affairs was decidedly opposed to the system of independent states and temporary alliances that dominate the modern international system. Religion, which had rarely been a factor in the power calculations of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, became the cornerstone of an extremely loose pan-European defensive bloc under the aegis of the Catholic Church. This system produced an extensive framework of institutions - sometimes called "feudalism" - that regulated internal conflict and enabled Western Europe to confront exterior threats, even while no individual secular entity was truly independent in the sense of the modern state. This system asserted itself abroad in the form of the Crusades as the Middle Ages progressed. In 1302, Pope Boniface VIII stated that the political powers of Christendom exercised their prerogatives "at the command and sufferance of the priest." This limited the power of kings, who were obliged to pledge their ultimate allegiance to the Pope. The Holy Roman Empire, one of the strongest medieval authorities, emerged as a competitor to Papal power under Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who invaded Italy to press his claims to secular authority in the mid-12th century. The weakening of the papacy was a major theme of the Middle Ages; the Western Schism in the later 14th century, a dispute over papal succession, was exploited by secular authorities and contributed to their growing power. The emergence of large, stable land holdings by single dynasties - for instance, France and Castile - enabled them to take a more active and independent role than their traditionally subsidiary role in the earlier middle ages. This shift to more independent, more secular actors would become a major point of controversy in Early Modern Europe. The great dynasties of Europe dramatically consolidated power by the beginning of the 16th century; additionally, the external threats to Europe had considerably lessened. The Reformation was to have a powerful impact on the structure of European politics; the dispute was not only theological, but also threatened the very fabric of the ancient political institutions of feudalism. The bloody conflicts that followed, blending the religious and political, pitted those who asserted the authority of the Pope (and in Germany, the Holy Roman Emperor) against those who asserted the authority of secular authorities and their sovereign ability to make internal policy, particularly when that policy reflected religious affiliation, Roman Catholic or Protestant. These conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War of the 17th century. In 1648, the powers of Europe signed the Treaty of Westphalia which ended the religious violence for purely political motives and the Church was stripped of temporal power - even though religion continued to play a political role as the foundation of the divine right of kings. The principle of "cuius regio, eius religio" established at Westphalia and previously in the Peace of Augsburg set a precedent of noninterference in other states' internal affairs that was key in the evolution of the modern state. In Germany, the office of the Holy Roman Emperor, the most prominent symbol of lingering institutions of feudalism, was emasculated as a secular authority in favor of the constituent elements of the Holy Roman Empire. The modern state was born. The state continued to develop as monarchs brought nobles and free towns into line and amassed spectacular resources and prestige. The growing numbers of civil servants eventually became known as the bureaucracy after the elevation of the Republican ideal. Nearly a century and a half after the Peace of Westphalia, the state became fully modern through the French Revolution. Claiming 'national will' as its justification, Napoleon and the Grande Armee of France swept over Europe. In response, conquered and neighboring principalities discarded their old systems and adopted the new model of the nation state. The nation state has remained the dominant political entity all over the world ever since, even though the many ideologies of the 19th and 20th century have created numerous different ways of running the affairs of nation states, as well as numerous different forms of internal and external organization (see political system and economic system).

International point of view

The legal criteria for statehood are not obvious. A document that is often quoted on the matter is the Montevideo Convention from 1933, the first article of which states: :The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. Also, in article 3 it very clearly states that statehood is independent of recognition by other states. This is the declarative theory of statehood. While the Montevideo is a regional American convention and has no legal effect outside the Americas, some have nonetheless seen it as an accurate statement of customary international law. On the other hand, article 3 of the convention is attacked by the advocates of the constitutive theory of statehood, where a state exists only insofar as it is recognized by other states. Which theory is correct is a controversial issue in international law. An example in practice was the collapse of central government in Somalia in the early 1990s: the Montevideo convention would imply that the state of Somalia no longer existed, and the subsequently declared republic of Somaliland (comprising part of the so-called "former" Somalia) may meet the criteria for statehood. However the self-declared republic has not achieved recognition by other states. Article 1 of the convention is also attacked by those who claim that it fails to take into account the complicated situations of military occupation, territorial cession, and governments in exile. Richard W. Hartzell is a leading proponent of this view, and stresses that the four criteria of article 1 need to be expanded to nine. See [http://www.taiwanadvice.com/conventions/montconv.htm The Montevideo Convention and Military Occupation].

The domestic point of view

Looked at from the point of view of an individual nation, the state is a centralized organization of the whole country. Those studying this dimension emphasize the relationship between the state and its people. The English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued that in order to avoid a multi-sided civil war, in which life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short", individuals must necessarily surrender many of their "natural rights" -- including that of attacking each other -- to the "Leviathan", a unified and centralized state. In this tradition, Max Weber and Norbert Elias defined the state as an organization of people that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a particular geographic area. Also in this tradition, the state differs from the "government": the latter refers to the group of people who make decisions for the state. For Weber, this was an "ideal type", or model, or pure case of the state. Many institutions that have been called "states" do not live up to this definition. For example, in countries such as Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the central state has so far not succeeded in monopolizing the legitimate use of force, and must compete with various local warlords. These cases are sometimes called "failed states". One of the most basic characteristics of a modern state is regulation of property rights, investment, trade and the commodity markets (in food, fuel, etc.) typically using its own currency. Although many states (by their own decision) increasingly cede these powers to trade bloc entities, e.g. North American Free Trade Agreement, European Union, it is always controversial to do so, and opens the question of whether these blocs are in fact simply larger states. The study of political economy, which evolved into the modern study of economics, deals with these specific questions in more detail. However, although states are often influenced in their decisions and no longer hold an absolute jurisdiction over their internal affairs, they are nonetheless much stronger in relation to international organizations or to other states than lower (substate) political subdivisions normally are. But the trend at the moment is for the power of superstate levels of governance to increase, and there is no sign of this increase abating. Many (especially those who favour constitutional theories of international law) therefore reject as outdated the idea of sovereignty, and view the state as just the chief political subdivision of the planet.

Philosophies of the state

Different political philosophies have distinct opinions concerning the state as a domestic organization. In the modern era, these philosophies emerged with the rise of capitalism, which coincided with the (re)emergence of the state as a separate and centralized sector of society. Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau pondered issues concerning the ideal and actual roles of the state. Recent philosophers like John Rawls and Robert Nozick were more concerned with distributive justice and the morality of exercising political power. There are four theories about the origin (and indirectly the justification) of the state. They are:
- Supernatural or natural authority - In this view, the state is either ordained by a higher power (such as God for the "Divine right of kings") or arises naturally out of a presumed human need for order and authority.
- Natural rights - According to this theory, human beings have certain rights that are "natural" (the implications of this word may vary), and establish states for the protection of those rights.
- Social contract - This idea holds that the state is established by the people (i.e. through the consent of the governed) in order to provide for various collective needs that cannot be satisfied through individual efforts, such as national defense, public roads, education, "the general welfare", etc.
- Conflict - Perhaps the simplest of the theories, it holds that the state did not arise out of any conscious decision, but merely as the result of violent conflict. Various groups of people fought each other for control over land or other resources, and the winning side imposed its domination on the losing side. These four theories can accommodate the full spectrum of political views. In practice, most people (and most political philosophies) subscribe to a combination of two or more of the above theories - arguing, for example, that different states have different origins. The conflict theory, in particular, is often combined with one of the other three in order to separate the illegitimate states (those created through conflict and subjugation) from the legitimate ones. There are at least five major philosophies of the state today, the last four of which correspond to specific political ideologies: contractarianism, liberalism, Marxism, conservatism, and anarchism. Contractarianism, as the name implies, is based on the social contract theory. It is also the only major philosophy of the state that does not fall within any single political ideology - perhaps because several different ideologies have adopted it as their own. Contractarianism is the foundation of modern democracy, as well as most forms of socialism and some types of liberalism. In contractarian thinking, the state should express the public interest, the interests of the whole society, and reconcile it with the separate interests of individuals. The state provides public goods and other kinds of collective consumption, while preventing individuals from free-riding (taking advantage of collective consumption without paying) by forcing them to pay taxes. Liberalism, in the classical sense, is based mainly on the natural rights theory. In this view, some or even all "rights" exist naturally and are not created by the state. For example, John Locke believed that individual property rights existed prior to the creation of the state, while the state's main job should be to preserve those rights. Historically, liberals have been less concerned with determining what the state should do and far more interested in stipulating what the state shouldn't do. The liberal philosophy of the state holds that the powers of any state are restricted by natural rights that exist independently of the human mind and overrule any social contract. However, there has been considerable debate among liberals as to what these natural rights actually are. Critics argue that they do not exist at all, since they are not evident from any observations of nature. On the other hand, there are also liberals who subscribe to the contractarian theory. In most cases, they fall on the left wing of liberalism, being social liberals ("New Deal" liberals; see American liberalism) and arguing for a welfare state. They stand in opposition to adherents of the natural rights theory, who tend to be libertarians, falling on the right wing of liberalism and arguing for a "minimal" state. The Marxist philosophy of the state is based on the conflict theory - specifically, on the idea of class conflict. In this view, the primary role of the state in practice is to enforce the existing system of unequal property and personal rights, class domination, and exploitation. The state also mediates in all types of social conflicts, and supplies necessary social-infrastructural conditions for society as a whole. Under such systems as feudalism, the lords used their own military force to exploit their vassals. Under capitalism, on the other hand, the use of force is centralized in a specialized organization which protects the capitalists' class monopoly of ownership of the means of production, allowing the exploitation of those without such ownership. In modern Marxian theory, such class domination can coincide with other forms of domination (such as patriarchy and ethnic hierarchies). Further, in Marxist theory, classes and other forms of exploitation should be abolished by establishing a socialist system, to be followed later by a communist one. Communism, the final goal, is a classless, propertyless and stateless society; however, socialism still preserves personal property and a (democratic) state. Thus, Marxism is opposed to the state (which it views as illegitimate, in accordance with the conflict theory), but does not wish to abolish the state immediately. As such, there is some overlap between Marxism and contractarianism: the socialist state that Marxists wish to establish as their short-term goal is to be based on a form of social contract. This state ought subsequently to slowly "wither away" as the representative democracy of socialism gradually transforms into the direct democracy of communism. Once the process is complete, the communist social order has been achieved and the state no longer exists as an entity separate from the people. In conservative thinking, which is based on the theory of (super)natural authority, the existing structure of traditions and hierarchies (of class, patriarchy, ethnic dominance, etc.) is seen as benefiting society overall. Thus, in a way, conservatives accept some ideas from both the Marxist and the liberal schools of thought, but view them in a different light: the state forces people to accept class and other kinds of domination, but this is seen as being for their own good. This perspective posits that, in general, current traditions only exist because they have been demonstrably successful in the past. Further, as with the liberals, the state is seen as always existing and/or "natural". Many conservatives, especially in recent decades, have come out in favor of the liberal theory of natural rights. Finally, in anarchist thinking, the state is nothing but an unnecessary and exploitative segment of society. Totally rejecting the Hobbesian notion that only a state can prevent chaos, anarchists argue that the state's monopoly of violence creates chaos. They believe that if the state and its restrictions on individual freedom were abolished, people could figure out how to work together peacefully and individual creativity would be unleashed. Contrary to the Marxist perspective, the anarchists see the state as an unnecessary evil, rather than a tool to be used in the class struggle.

References

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External links

- Franz Oppenheimer; [http://www.opp.uni-wuppertal.de/oppenheimer/st/state0.htm The State. (1914/1922)]
- Franz Oppenheimer; [http://www.opp.uni-wuppertal.de/oppenheimer/fo27a.htm The Idolatry of the State. (1927)] Category:International law Category:International relations Category:Social sciences Categor

Social contract theories

History

Criticism

A first principles formulation and nature of the social contract

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References

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Social Contract (Ontario)

Social Contract (Britain)

Social contract (Malaysia)

Contractual terms

Early criticism

Present debate

Usage in other contexts

References

Notes

External link

The Social Contract Press

Notable authors

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Political science

History of political science

Antecedents of political science

Political science

Contemporary political science

Current fields of study

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Sociology

History of sociology

The science and mathematics of sociology

Social theory

Social research methods

Sociology and other social sciences

Subfields of sociology

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References

Further reading

State

Introduction

Etymology

Formation of the state

International point of view

The domestic point of view

Philosophies of the state

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References

External links