THE STATE AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS State and Government State and Government ordinarily are terms that

are used interchangeably. But there is difference between them. State represents a wider and more stable entity than government. Government is the agency or the machinery through which common policies are determined and by which common affairs are regulated and common interests promoted. It is a manifestation of the state and is made up of all those persons, institutions and agencies by which the will and policy of the state is expressed and carried out. The main distinction between state and government is that government is a narrower term than the state, being only one part of it. The state includes both the Government and the governed. Government is only the machinery through which the purposes of a state are sought to be realised. Again sovereignty is a characteristic of the state, not of the government, though it may be exercised by the government on behalf of the state. Moreover, the state is relatively more permanent than the government, as government of a state frequently changes. As long as the state maintains its identity and independence, governments may be formed and dissolved according to the established procedure without any effect on the state. A state may lose its identity if it is suppressed or conquered by a foreign power and its constitution or the established procedure of forming a legitimate government is suspended. The state serves as a symbol of unity of the people. The image of the state inspires unity among the people and provides them with an identity of as a nation. It arouses national pride and a spirit of sacrifice among the people. Government commands our obedience; state commands our loyalty. State and Society There is need to distinguish the state from society. Society is a wider term than the state. Society is an association of the human beings and suggests the whole complex of the relations of man to his fellows. Society is made up of groups and institutions expressing human association. It is an association of human beings which fulfils all their needs. The state fulfils their particular need of political organisation. It subjects people to

binding laws and decisions to provide for order and security, and common services. A society qualifies to be state when it is governed by a common set of rules, regulations and supreme decision-making authority. Society binds men into multifarious relationships which as a matter of fact do not fall in the domain of the state. Society stands for the whole scheme of life and it is interwoven by different associations which serve different purposes to complete the whole purpose of life. Political purpose is one of those purposes and it is performed by the state. According to Kapur, the state is therefore, one of these functional institutions, the creation of mans will and reasons. It is organised in a special way to secure certain results. Since society is natural and instinctive and the state is the creation of will and reason, society is prior to the state and it embraces all communities organised or unorganised. Organisation is not the essential characteristics of society. But the state must necessarily be organised. The state is sovereign and it lays down a system of imperatives. If the imperative of the state is disobeyed which is in the form of laws, punishment can be applied, but society does not have such coercive power. It is true that society has its own rules which regulate social behaviour, but they are not considered as imperatives. Simply they are rules of conduct which the member of the society are desired to observed. The state represents the highest form of social organisation and it exists to regulate and cement social relations. It binds people together and enjoins upon them to observe certain uniform rules of behaviour, without which we cannot think of a well-ordered social life. Society may coincide with the state especially when society takes the form of a nation. The state is formed out of society. It is society which chooses the pattern of its political grouping. States may be created, altered or dissolved but society goes on forever, men can live without a state, but not without society. The state depends on society for its existence, not vice versa. Thus, man owes much more to society than what he owes to the state. But when state and society are identified and mans obligation toward society are attributed to the state, it leads to socially disastrous

consequences complete subordination of man to the authority of government, unrestrained by any control-mechanism. To make the distinction between state and society is fundamental because it helps the realisation of individual freedom. Thus, to equate state with society would justify state interference in all aspects of the life of the individual and consequently may breed tyranny of state control. Individual liberty hence suffers where no distinction is made between state and society as in most totalitarian system. State and Nation So far we have done an extensive discussion on the term state. At this point we need to understand how the concept of state relates with the nation. To be able to see the point of meeting and divergence between these two concepts, we need to fully understand also the concept of nation. Nation has become an important political term largely either through the idea of nationalism, or as part of the nation state concept. Technically, there is no obvious definition of nation. Robertson says the difficulty of definition arises from the way in which all of these criteria may be false in a set of examples. For him then; a nation is a body of people who possess some sense of a single communal identity, with a shared historical tradition, with major elements of common culture, and with a substantial proportion of them inhabiting an identifiable geographical unit. The word nation is derived from the Latin nation which means born. This gives the term racial or ethnical meaning. Etymologically, a nation is a people descended from a common stock. When used in this sense, a nation means a people welded together in a society by ties of blood relationship. It is a body of people united by common descent and a common language. A more realistic definition and analysis of nation is that given by Baker (Principles of Social and Political Theory). In this view, a nation is a body of persons inhabiting a definite territory and thus united by primary fact of living together on a common land.

Many scholars have made contributions towards defining a nation. Dorothy Pickles for instance sees a nation defined politically as a sovereign state, having a definite territory, a population, a government, formal independence and a sense of national identity made possible by a combination of both subjective and objective factors. Ernest Renan saw the nation as a historical phenomenon which binds people together in view of their past background, and the need for a continuous existence in the future. Thus, we see that a nation is a great solid unit, formed by the realisation of sacrifices in the past, as well as of those one is prepared to make in future. A nation implies a past: while, as regards the present, it is all contained in one tangible fact, viz., the agreement and clearly expressed desire to continue a life in common. The existence of a nation is a daily plebiscite, just as that of the individual is a continual affirmation of life. In the words of Anifowose, a nation is defined in the ethnological sense, as a group of people, who form a distinct community by inhabiting a definite territory and recognise themselves as possessing a relatively homogeneous set of cultural traits. These include a common historical tradition and common customs and habits. The concept of a nation as presented by Webber is useful in our discussion. In his view, if the concept of nation can in any way be defined unambiguously, it certainly cannot be stated in terms of empirical qualities common to those who count as members of the nation:
In the sense of those using the term at a given time, the concept undoubtedly means, above all, that one may exact from certain groups of men a specific sentiment of solidarity in the face of other groups. Thus the concept belongs in the sphere of values. Yet, there is no agreement on how these groups should be delimited or about what concerted action should result from such solidarity.

For Webber, national solidarity is not necessarily limited to common blood, language and territory, but may be connected with differing social structures and mores and hence with ethnic elements. I suppose in this sense Benedict Andersons conception of the nation imagined political community can be understood. Anderson sees the nation imagined as a community because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as deep,

horizontal comradeship. In the end we have to agree with Hugh SetonWatson that the term nation defies scientific definition. A nation is in place when people feel they are bound together by a sense of solidarity, a common culture and a national consciousness. For Seton-Watson, a nation exists if a significant number of people in a community consider themselves to form a nation, or behaved as if they formed one. In other words, the essence of a nation is a matter of self-awareness or selfconsciousness. He does not, however, stipulate the number of people that could constitute the nation and the nature of the community in which they are located. The issue is that national consciousness, that is, the sense of belonging to a political or social community which constitutes a nation organised as a state, is the fundamental basis of the cultural or political nation. In summary, a nation is a human group, inhabiting a given territory, where its members may, but not necessarily, claim one origin or a certain indefinable community of culture, traditions, memories, aspirations, and interests and above all a collective will to live together and make a common and concerted modus Vivendi to live together forever with honour and dignity.

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