2

States, Nations and Governments

States

States are important in international relations, though just how

important is a matter of controversy. The traditional view of interna-
tional relations has been that the discipline's primary concern is the
behaviour of states and their interactions with each other. These
interactions were characterized by that fact that they took place in a
situation of anarchy where there was no government to oversee and
control them. Thus, war became a common feature of the system and
security the dominant goal of foreign policy. States are regarded as
sovereign in the territories under their jurisdiction, meaning that the
state, or rather its government, controls what goes on within its
borders. There is no overriding body in the world which rules over
the states and their governments and, legally at least, there is nothing
anyone can do in the area of a state without the active or tacit consent
of that government. Formally, in the state system, all states are fully
sovereign in that no authority takes precedence over them in their
territories (though this is modified in the case of the European Union.
See Chapter 3). This view is known as the realist approach which is
discussed in more detail in Chapter 6.
It can be argued that the realist view described the nineteenth
century rather well from a political point of view, even if it rather
neglected the economics. States ruled the roost. Industrial firms were
clearly located in particular countries and could be controlled by the
government of that country. Many countries were not disposed to leave
economic life to the vagaries of the market but, like Germany and
France at that time, explicitly conceived of the control of the economy
as a part of the security policy of the state. Realism also describes some

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© Michael Nicholson 1998
16 International Relations

aspects of much more recent periods. Thus the Cold War can be seen in
realist terms. It can be described as an instance of states pursuing
security, though not everyone would do so.
However, in the late twentieth century, to reduce everything to state
behaviour would seem to leave out too much. Even apart from the
United Nations (though this, of course, is an organization of states),
the whole growth of the multinational corporations (MNCs) vitiates
this position. In any case, once there is significant international trade, a
state's economic sovereignty is seriously limited. A slump in the
economy of a trading partner quickly affects one's own economy.
Trade is the partial relinquishment of sovereignty and was so even in
the nineteenth century. It reduces the domain over which the state can
take decisions. Even if the state still has dominion over such issues as
security, the range of international relations is now much larger than it
used to be and, for the most part, this has not been an enlargement of
the state's domain but of that of other actors such as MNCs. Other
actors gain their significance because they move in a mass, such as the
buyers and sellers in a market. I shall call these mass actors movements
and discuss them in Chapter 3. Markets such as stock markets are
effectively uncontrollable, at least by a single actor such as a state, and
probably even by a group of states. However, they are a major
influence on the behaviour of states.

States, Nations and Governments

States and nations are often confused. Both play an important part in
international relations as the very name of the discipline suggests. We
are told, simultaneously, that the state is declining and that we are
living in an age of burgeoning nationalism. Can both be right or is
there simply a confusion about terms?
A few more careful definitions are needed in order to talk precisely
about international relations. First let us consider states. A state
consists of an area of territory which is under the single rule of a
government (a term we shall come back to shortly). Broadly, the people
who live in that territory are citizens of the state, something which
confers both obligations and benefits. Citizens pay taxes. However, if
they are lucky and the state works reasonably efficiently, they will
receive benefits such as roads and schools, internal security and, in
richer countries, unemployment benefit. They are expected to comply