MC1 Fundamentals of Political Science

Politics and the State

Mr. Peter Adam G. Daet
Political Science Department
BUCSSP
 Key Issues

❖ 1. What are the defining features of politics?

❖ 2. How has ‘politics’ being understood by various thinkers and traditions?
❖ 3. What are the main approaches to the study of politics as an academic
discipline?
 What is Politics?

❖ Disagreements:
❖ How should we live?
❖ Who should get what?
❖ How should power and other resources be distributed?
❖ Should we cooperate or be in conflict?
❖ How we cooperate or resolve conflict?
 What is Politics?

❖ the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general
rules under which they live.
 What is Politics

❖ Any attempt to clarify the meaning of ‘politics’ must address two major
problems:
❖ The first is about the use of the word “politics” in everyday language. It is
a ‘loaded’ (a biased) term.
❖ The second and more intractable difficulty is that even respected
authorities cannot agree what the subject is about.
 Politics defined as…

❖ The exercise of power

❖ The exercise of authority
❖ The making of collective decisions
❖ The allocation of scarce resources
❖ The practice of deception and manipulation
 Four different views of politics

❖ Politics as the art of government

❖ Politics as public affairs
❖ Politics as compromise and consensus
❖ Politics as power
 Politics as the art of government
❖ The exercise of control within society through the making and enforcement
of collective decisions.
❖ politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of the polis – or in its modern
sense ‘what concerns the state’.
❖ in essence to study government, or, more broadly, to study the exercise of
authority.
❖ Political and non political or outside of politics
❖ Anti-Politics
 Politics as public affairs

❖ Aristotle: man is by nature a political animal

❖ Public life vs Private life
❖ State and Civil Society
 Politics as compromise and an consensus
❖ politics is seen as a particular means of resolving conflict: that is, by
compromise, conciliation and negotiation, rather than through force and
naked power.
❖ “Politics [is] the activity by which differing interests within a given unit of
rule are conciliated by giving them a share in power in proportion to their
importance to the welfare and the survival of the whole community.”
❖ politics is certainly no utopian solution because compromise means that
concessions are made by all sides, leaving no one perfectly satisfied.
 Politics as power
❖ “Politics is at the heart of all collective social activity, formal and informal,
public and private, in all human groups, institutions and societies.”
❖ politics takes place at every level of social interaction; it can be found within
families and amongst small groups of friends just as much as amongst
nations.
❖ Politics concerns the production, distribution and use of resources in the
course of social existence. Politics is, in essence, power: the ability to achieve
a desired outcome, through whatever means.
 Politics as power

❖ politics is about diversity and conflict, but the essential ingredient is the
existence of scarcity: the simple fact that, while human needs and desires are
infinite, the resources available to satisfy them are always limited.
❖ power can be seen as the means through which this struggle is conducted.
 ‘Faces’ of power

❖ Power can be said to be exercised whenever A gets B to do something that B

would not otherwise have done. However, A can influence B in various ways.
❖ Power as decision-making
❖ Power as agenda setting
❖ Power as though control
 Politics and the State

❖ “The shadow of the state falls on almost every human activity.”

❖ “Politics is the study of the state…”
 Defining the State

❖ State is a political association that establishes sovereign

jurisdiction within defined territorial borders, and exercises
authority through a set of permanent institutions.
 Four perspectives:

❖ 1. Idealist: Hegel

❖ Family – Particular Altruism

❖ Civil Society – Universal Egoism
❖ State – Universal Altruism
 Four perspectives:

❖ 2. Functionalist: focus on the role and or purpose of the state

institutions

❖ “the central function of the state is invariably seen as the

maintenance of social order…”
 Four perspectives:
❖ 2. Organizational: apparatus of government in its broadest sense—set of institutions that are
recognizably ‘public’

❖ Five key features of the state:

❖ 1. The state is sovereign (Thomas Hobbes);
❖ 2. State institutions are public;
❖ 3. The state is an exercise in legitimation;
❖ 4. The state is an instrument of dominations;
❖ 5. The state is a territorial association.
 Four perspectives:
❖ 4. International: State as the primary actor on the world stage and the basic unit of international politics

❖ Four features of the state:

❖ 1.A defined territory
❖ 2.A permanent population
❖ 3.An effective government
❖ 4.The capacity to enter into relations with other states.

❖ Some states are classified as ‘great powers’ or ‘superpowers’ and others are ‘middle’ or ‘small’.
 The modern state

❖ The Peace of Westphalia (1648) paved the way for modern

notion of statehood.
❖ The Nation-state: A sovereign political association within which
citizenship and nationality overlap; one nation within a single
state.
Two main issues in studying the state: State power and the Role of the state.

❖ Theories on State Power

❖ 1. Pluralist state – comes from liberal tradition; States act as referee or umpire
among different competing interests (i.e. social groups).
❖ Hobbes and Locke and the state of nature.
❖ Pluralism: Theory of society vs Theory of State
❖ Liberal democracies, power is widely and evenly dispersed vs state that is
neutral but susceptible to the influences of various groups and interests.
❖ 2. Capitalist state (Student Volunteer)
 Theories on state power

❖ 3. Leviathan state: Leviathan is the name of a sea monster mentioned in the

Bible—represents badness or evil.

❖ The New Right and Individualism

❖ 4. Patriarchal state (Student Volunteer)

 The Role of the State

❖ What the state should do?

❖ What functions or responsibilities should state fulfill, and which
ones should be left in the hands of private individuals?
 The Role of the State

❖ 1. The minimal states

❖ 2. Developmental states
❖ 3. Social-democratic states collectivized states
❖ 4. Totalitarian states
❖ 5. Religious states