AXTMANN, Roland (2004) “The State of the State: The Model of the Modern State

and Its Contemporary Transformation”. International Political Science Review, Vol. 25,
No. 3, p. 259–279.

O tipo ideal do Estado-nação soberano territorialmente consolidado:

(1) The Territorial State and the Unitary Sovereign Will

A primeira característica seria a unidade, dentro de um território, da soberania.

In “pre-modern” Europe, political authority was shared between a wide variety

of secular and religious institutions and individuals 1. The modern state project aimed at
replacing these overlapping and often contentious jurisdictions through the institutions
of a centralized state. This endeavor was legitimized by the theory of sovereignty. This
theory claimed the supremacy of the government of any state over the people, resources,
and, ultimately, over all other authorities within the territory it controlled. “State
sovereignty” meant that final authority within the political community lay with the state
whose will legally, and rightfully, commanded without being commanded by others,
and whose will was thus “absolute” because it was not accountable to anyone but itself
(Anderson, 1996; Axtmann, 1996).
Historically, the idea of state sovereignty came to dominate political thought
after the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe.
Then, governments recognized each others’ autonomy from external interference in the
most important matter of the time: religious belief. No longer, so governments pledged,
would they support foreign co-religionists in conflict with their states. This agreement
changed the balance of power between territorial authority and confessional groups in
favor of the state. It created the precondition for the build-up of an effective system of
control and supervision by the state over its population. Such “sovereignty” is premised
on the occupation and possession of territory. The spatial dimension of territorial
integrity manifests itself most clearly in the drawing up of territorial boundaries that
separate the “inside” (the arena of the “domestic”) from the “outside” (the arena of the
“international”). “Governing” by the “sovereign” thus aimed to bring about the artful
combination of space, people, and resources in territorialized containments. As a result
of historical developments that spanned several centuries, the modern territorial state
came into existence as a differentiated ensemble of governmental institutions, offices,
and personnel that claims the exclusive power of authoritative political rule-making for
1
Between emperors, kings, princes and nobility, bishops, abbots and the papacy, guilds and cities,
agrarian landlords, and “bourgeois” merchants and artisans, to name but the most important ones.
a population within a continuous territory that has a clear, internationally recognized
boundary (Axtmann, 2004, p.260).

(2) The Territorial State as a Homogeneous Nation-State

In the 19th century, the notion of the “nation”-state came to stand for the idea that
legitimate government could only be based upon the principle of national self-
determination and that, at least ideally, state and nation ought to be identical with one
another. The nation became the “unitary” body in which sovereignty resided.
Nationalism tightened the relation between “state” and “society.” Nationalism aimed “to
overcome local ethno-cultural diversity and to produce standardized citizens whose
loyalties to the nation [and its state] would be unchallenged by extra-societal
allegiances” (Robertson, 1990: 49). This political nationalism was complemented by the
nationalization of culture in the pursuit of the creation of a national-societal identity.
Cultural achievements became routinely claimed for “nations”; culture became
“nationalized” and “territorialized.” The universalization of the nation-state norm went
hand in hand with the “nationalization” of culture. This development found one
expression in “the expectation of uniqueness of identity” (Robertson, 1990), and thus
the norm of particularism and localism. While the universalization of the nation-state
norm contributed to the global spread of the interstate system, (the idea of) the cultural
homogenization within the nation-state reinforced the cultural diversity of that system
(Axtmann, 2004, p.260).

The success of the modern nation-state in the past 200 years or so rested on the
acceptance of its claim to be able to guarantee the physical security, the economic well-
being, and the cultural identity of its citizens. Through the monopolization of coercion
domestically in the form of police forces, and externally through military forces, states
aimed to enforce order and authority internally, uphold “national” interests vis-à-vis
other states externally, and ensure the safety and security of their citizens more
generally. The preparation for war and the waging of war also allowed states to develop
a strong appeal to the emotions and generate, as well as strengthen, the loyalty of their
citizens to “their” state and their sense of belonging to “their” nation. Since the French
Revolution, states have also turned their attention increasingly to collecting and
collating information about their citizens. The development of the modern state
depended upon effectively distinguishing between citizens or subjects and possible
interlopers, and regulating the physical movements of each. States endeavored to define
“who belongs and who does not, who may come and go and who not” in order to
develop the capacity to “embrace” their own citizens in an attempt to extract from them
the resources they needed to reproduce themselves over time (Torpey, 2000: 2, 13).
These regulatory endeavors contributed to the efforts of states to construct
homogeneous nations. States came to address the “social question” through developing
and institutionalizing welfare policies; to restore order through policing “deviancy” and
improving moral life; to shape the national economy through state subsidies, the
elimination of internal trade barriers (such as tariffs), and the imposition of import
duties; and to expand the transport infrastructure as well as the communication
infrastructure more generally, including state education (261).

(3) Democratization and Popular Sovereignty

 As a consequence of its activity, the modern state became the focal point for
political mobilization. Ever more social groups found themselves compelled to strive to
capture, or influence, the core institutions of the state in order to advance their own
objectives. Thus, the state pulled society into its political space, at the same time as it
was trying to shape society according to its own objectives. In this process, state–
society relations were tightened and social relations were “caged” (Mann, 1993: 61)
within the national rather than the local and regional or transnational terrain. The state
could no longer be evaded. It became imperative for the state’s subjects to gain rights as
citizens in order to be better able to control its activities, share in the benefits it could
bring, and lessen the negative effects of its policies on the life of individuals, families,
and communities.
In the course of the struggle for democratic rights, the “subjects” of the state
constituted themselves as “citizens” on whose sovereignty as a collective the power and
legitimacy of the state was claimed to rest. Sovereignty is understood to have been
transferred from the (monarchical) ruler to the people, and the people to have been
defined as the sum of legally equal citizens. The dominant understanding of
“popular sovereignty” emerged out of a welding together of key ideas from
nationalism and liberalism. Liberalism aims to create a society in which conditions
obtain that enable the individual to exercise her or his capacity of self-rule. In that
respect, its key concern is with curtailing the power of other individuals as well as of
government to interfere with an individual’s freedom. The democratic idea centers upon
the assumption of the capacity of individuals as citizens to govern themselves or, to put
it differently, to determine for themselves their collective life. It is assumed, first, that
every adult individual can be rightly considered to be, in principle, sufficiently well
qualified to participate in the democratic process of governing the state to whose laws
they are subjected. It is further assumed that “among adults no persons are so definitely
better qualified than others that they should be entrusted with the complete and final
authority over the government of the state” (Dahl, 1998: 75, 76, 78).

The collective “self” whose own determination modern political liberalism aims
to ensure in the democratic process is the politically organized nation. Individuals must
be members of the state, must be its “nationals,” in order to possess citizenship rights.
Popular sovereignty is thus understood as the self-rule of nationals in their capacity as
citizens. This “liberal” conceptualization of “popular sovereignty” is premised upon the
acceptance of this dual notion of self-determination: the capacity of the individual to
govern herself or himself and the capacity of individuals as citizens to govern
themselves as a political community. Democratic rule is exercised in the sovereign,
territorially consolidated nation-state. In a bounded territory, people’s sovereignty is the
basis upon which democratic decision-making takes place and “the people” are the
addressees, or the constituents, of those political decisions. The territorially
consolidated, democratic polity, which is clearly demarcated from other political
communities, is seen as rightly governing itself and determining its own future through
the interplay between forces operating within its boundaries. Only in a sovereign state
can the people’s will command without being commanded by others (261-262).

We can see that a “sovereign” right to ultimate authority and control does not
imply an ability to exercise it. The history of state formation can be analyzed as the
protracted efforts of rulers and their staff to translate “juridical” sovereignty into
“empirical” sovereignty (263p.).
 To sum up, where modern state-building has been successful, the state is
constituted in terms of, and is expected to meet, six characteristic requirements:
First, it should be territorially distinct, possess a single source of sovereignty,
and enjoy legally unlimited authority within its boundary. Second, it should
rest on a single set of constitutional principles and exhibit a singular and
unambiguous identity . . . Third . . . [it] represents a homogeneous legal space
within which its members move about freely, carrying with them a more or
less identical basket of rights and obligations. Fourth . . . all citizens are
directly and identically related to the state, not differentially or through their
membership of intermediate communities. Fifth, members of the state are
deemed to constitute a single and united people . . . Sixth and finally, if the
state is federally constituted, its component units should all enjoy the same
rights and powers (Parekh, 2002: 41–2).

In this reading, the territorially consolidated state is a thoroughly homogenizing

institution.

(1) Multiculturalism meets Nationalism

Over the past few decades, in ever more countries, national and ethnic
communities with distinct languages, histories, and traditions have demanded
recognition and support for their cultural identity. They demand group differentiated
rights, powers, status, or immunities that go beyond the common rights of citizenship.
These claims encompass demands for territorial autonomy (ranging in its form from
federalism to devolution and to the acquisition of the status of “autonomous” region in
either symmetrical or asymmetrical arrangements); for self-government in certain key
matters such as education, health, or family law; for guaranteed representation in the
political institutions of the larger society on the basis of quota systems favorable to the
group and guaranteed veto powers over legislation and policies that centrally affect the
respective minorities; and for group-specific legal exemptions. These demands are
premised upon the belief that only by possessing and exercising these rights, powers,
and immunities will it be possible for these communities to ensure the full and free
development of their culture. A policy of assimilation, which aims to incorporate (or
“melt”) the “minority” into the dominant “majority” culture, is therefore not an option
(Barry, 2000; Gagnon and Tully, 2001; Kelly, 2002; Kukathas, 2003; Kymlicka, 1995;
Kymlicka and Norman, 2000; Parekh, 2000).
These demands raise the question of the very nature, authority, and permanence
of the “multicultural,” or rather “multicommunal,” state of which these various cultural
communities are part. Our prevailing assumptions of common citizenship, common
identity, and social and political cohesion will be questioned. The question has arisen
as to how these communities can coordinate their actions in areas of common concern
or common interest, for example, with regard to the environment, the economy, or
military security. The much more fragmented, decentralized institutional pattern
emerging from this diversity would have to allow for the following: first, democratic,
communal self-government; second, a public debate on the matters communities have in
common; third, protection of legitimate powers to uphold autonomy; and, fourth, the
political coordination of the communities that keeps them part of one larger
community. Given that many of these communities have “transnational” political,
economic, and cultural links with their “home country” and retain a sense of loyalty to,
and possibly derive even their identity from, their “place of origin,” the state will find it
difficult to facilitate or, even more ambitiously, steer their interactions within the state
territory (Cohen, 1996). The net effect would appear to be a state that is limited to act as
the coordinator of these political and cultural networks that are formed by a plethora of
“cultural” communities.

Indigenous peoples, on the other hand, are firmly (if not exclusively) mobilizing
around a more static, descent-based, and culturally exclusive conception of group
identity and membership. To the extent that they do not (wish to) speak the political
language of “liberal nationalism,” and make demands for official apologies for past
humiliations and atrocities, indigenous peoples raise the stakes in the intercultural
dialog and challenge the assumption that political accommodation could be
achieved within the institutional arrangements of liberal democracy (Kymlicka,
1995; Kymlicka and Norman, 2000). The indigenous claim to “sovereignty without
secession” develops the idea of “nested” sovereignty, which demands the right of self-
determination over those jurisdictions of direct relevance to the indigenous people while
at the same time acknowledging a shared jurisdiction over certain lands and resources
on the basis of mutual consent (Tully, 2000). Indigenous demands raise, then, a number
of questions. What does it mean to do justice to indigenous claims within the framework
of a democratic and postcolonial state? Again, at stake is the need for reconfiguring
political authority structures as well as the redefinition of democracy so that it should no
longer be seen as an affair of a single body of citizens who together constitute a single
people, but rather as an affair of citizens who constitute a plurality of diverse peoples,
groups, and associations (see, for example, Hindess, 2001; Wilson, 2001)

(2) Some Structural Causes for Societal Heterogeneity

Western societies are increasingly understood to be “multicultural” societies in which distinct and
cohesive communities demand the recognition and institutionalization of group rights in order to preserve
their culturally and morally distinct way of life. They increasingly resemble an assemblage of national,
ethnic, cultural, or religious communities with distinct languages, histories, traditions, and more or less
complete institutional structures. In order to ensure the full and free development of their culture, these
communities demand the right to govern themselves in certain key matters, urging the transfer of power
and legislative jurisdictions from central government to their own communities.