Politics in Everyday Life (127100)
The Second Semester, Academic Year 2015 Lecturer: Manita Noosawat
Week 2 •Defining “State”
• The Origin of “State”
What is “state”?
• The term of the state used to refer to be a wildering range of things:
• “A collection of institutions, a territorial unit, a philosophical idea, an instrument of coercion or oppression.”
• The state can be understood in 3 different ways:
• 1. Idealist perspective
• The state is an ethical community underpinned by mutual sympathy.
• 2. Functionalist perspective
• It focus the state on the role or purpose of the state
institutions
• 3. Organizational perspective
• The state as apparatus of government.
• The state can be seen as:
• “A political association that establishes sovereign jurisdiction within defined territorial borders, and exercises authority through a set of permanent institutions”
• Those institutions are recognizably “public” in that they are responsible for the collective organization of communal life, and are funded at the public’s expense.
The origin of state
• 1. Social Contract Theory
• A social contract is a voluntary agreement made amongst individuals through an organized society, or state
• A state of nature is established. Therefore, individuals seek to escape from the state of nature by entering into social contract.
• The social contract obliges citizens to respect and obey the state, because a system of political rule can
deliver the stability and security.
The origin of state
• 2. The divine theory
• The oldest theory concerning the primary origin of the
state.
• It believes that the state is established by God, who rule the state directly or indirectly through someone regarded as an agent.
State and Government
• What the difference between “State” and “Government” ?
• The state is a political association that exercises sovereign jurisdiction within defined territorial
borders.
• The government is merely one of it parts, the state encompasses all public bodies and exercises impersonal authority.
Five key features of the state
• In the modern notion of sovereign, it is possible to identify the important features of the state as following:
• 1. The state is sovereignty
• It is exercises absolute and unrestricted power in that it stands above all other associations and groups in society.
• 2. The state is an exercise in legitimation.
• Thedecisionsofthestateareusuallyacceptedas
binding on the members of society.
• That because it is claimed, they are made in the public interest.
• The legitimation is used by government.
• 3. The state is a territorial association.
• The Jurisdiction of the state is geographically defined and it encompasses all those who live within the state’s borders, whether they are citizens or noncitizens.
• On the international level, • the state is regarded
• as an autonomous entity.
• 4. The state is an instrument of domination.
• State authority is backed up by coercion.
• The state must have the capacity to use legitimate violence for ensuring that its law are obeyed and keeping its order.
• 5. State institutions are recognizably “public”.
• Public bodies are responsible for making and enforcing collective decisions.
Next class
• You have to search and select one political
news from newspaper, news website, etc.
• Then you must bring your news with you for next class.