Week 02

The Modern State:

Historical Origin & Evolution
Questions:
1. What does the modern state do? What are the
salient features of the modern state?

2. How has the modern state appeared and evolved?

What was the main impetus or catalyst for the rise of
the modern state?

3. Why do people obey rules & regulations of the state?

Look at simple “normal” things in your daily life

 parking cars
 building houses
 address
 no smoking, no spitting
 no possession of arms
 passports
 changing personal names
 taxation
 Fines, imprisonment
 Modern State: General Characteristics
centralization of power
 regulative & intrusive
- restricts individual freedom (e.g., physical movement)
- control all citizens’ lives everywhere
- The state is an omnipresent busybody

 extractive
- extract our resources (e.g., money as tax)

 coercive
- monopoly over violence
- coerce us into willing/unwilling compliance/quiescence

 ALL states – democratic or authoritarian – share these

features
Difference – one of degree, rather than kind
 But …
 The state has not always taken the present form

 How has the state emerged? What was the

driving force of state formation?

 Charles Tilly (1929-2008)

Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD990-

1992
 Tilly
 The state originated in (Western) Europe
 State formation accelerated since the
17th century
 spread thru rest of the world

 fundamental root of state formation and

expansion:
The regulatory,
extractive, and
= preparing for wars & fighting wars
coercive state
has come into
 States that are good at war-making have being to fight
survived and win wars!

 States that were not good at war-making

have perished or disintegrated
Logic of argument:

 wars get more frequent and/or more lethal & destructive

 rulers live in constant fear of being invaded by outsiders

 insecurity & uncertainty

 overriding imperative of rulers

= prepare for potential wars
= win wars

 What is necessary to win wars?

= large well-equipped standing military
 Tilly (continued)
 What is necessary to build up a large well-equipped standing
army?

(1) money
 systematic & ruthless taxation
e.g., land tax, property tax
pay on time and regularly

(2) manpower
 military conscription
mobilize people (esp. peasants)
throughout territory

All rulers were increasingly compelled to meet these imperatives

= extract monetary & human resources
To enforce taxation & conscription:

 The ruler needs to know exactly:

- how many people live in every village of his territory
- where they live & what their names are

 The ruler needs to extend his power over long geographical

distance

- local agents must be assigned to every village to

enforce tax collection & military conscription

- regulate all people’s lives throughout his territory

e.g., physical movement
change of names & addresses
 creation & expansion of state institutions
 a series of historically novel practices (but now “normal”)
 designed to count, monitor, and regulate the whole population
  state can track u down if u don’t comply (contrast to any slum)
- annual census, family registers, birth registration, house registration
- road construction (= infrastructures of state power)
not politically neutral means of public transportation
political tools of effective state penetration into far-flung corners
few roads  makes state penetration difficult
the more roads, the more state power
- assigning numbers to everyone & everything in society
houses, passports, national IDs, rubber trees replanted
- names for all roads/streets

 revolutionary reorganization of society

 James Scott: Seeing Like a State

Every state tries to make society “legible” = converge with Tilly
 Advent of Industrial Revolution

contribute to further expansion of the state

originate in England (1760s-1830s)

spread to other countries

e.g., France, Germany, US

introduction of machines  mass production 

massive profits
 Effect of Industrial Revolution
 Society becomes more complex
- bigger population
- urbanization
- a wider variety of occupations
- growing class differentiation
capitalists
workers
middle class

 The ruler needed to extract and regulate society more

effectively
 The problem is …

 Nobody wants to be regulated

Nobody wants to pay taxes

Nobody wants to join army & risk being killed

 Coercive functions of the state
Rulers need to catch & punish non-compliant people 

• devise systematic punitive laws

• create & enlarge judiciary at every level of society
• create & enlarge police at every level of society
• disallow private ownership of
weapons
= establish monopoly over violence

• State institutions of physical & legal coercion come into

being
 Upshot is …
War-making set in motion various practices and
measures that laid the foundation for modern state
Threat of external Need for war-making
invasion
Need for military

taxation Military
conscription

Regulative
Extractive
roads census names & Police &
Coercive numbers court

larger & larger state

Our society is ruled by modern state
 Max Weber
Rise of “Iron Cage”
 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (WK 6, too)

= increasingly rigid & impersonal bureaucratization &

regulation of society by modern state

 standardization of behavior:
uniform & conformist behavior expected, demanded &
rewarded

 dehumanizing:
human beings deprived of creative individuality (= Karl
Marx)
 Human beings trapped in
an oppressive iron cage
 All rules & regulations of the state come to control
& suffocate your lives in the name of efficiency &
rationality

 But cannot escape from it as long as they live

 Inevitable but deplorable outcome

 Why do people obey rules of the state?
(1) “stick” wielded by the coercive state

fear of legal & physical punishment

e.g., fines, imprisonment

I have no other
choice. I don’t want I’m forced to
to be arrested. I have obey, although I
a family to support … don’t want to …
 Why do people obey rules of the state?
(II): Carrot
Yet …
We get nothing from
 Many people still rebelled
the state. Not fair!
 open rebellions against ruler
in Europe (week 3 & 4)

What do I have
to do to prevent
 The state can’t always “take”
rebellions?
ruler
must “give” to society, too

 The state comes to make You comply with state rules,

political & economic because You get benefits from
concessions (“carrot”) to the state. The state makes your
appease the rebellious lives better. It’s give and take.
population
 What kind of “carrot”?
e.g.
 higher wages for workers
 social welfare benefits
 production subsidies for capitalists
 political rights - suffrage

 Ordinary citizens come to

No representation, demand political participation
no taxation!! in return for compliance

 The state becomes less

authoritarian
American
democratic breakthrough
Revolution 
e.g., US, France
 Why people obey state rules?
(III)
In many countries, the reality is …

 The state obtains people’s compliance

without having to make extensive use That’s the odd
of coercive institutions, and without reality, which
having to make many concessions to
society defies the other
two explanations.
 Even in countries that are still under
authoritarian rule, many people
comply, if grudgingly, with state
policies
The state implements
a particular policy,
 People may be unhappy with state
policies or benefits they get from the and people just obey.
state, but still comply without
rebelling or protesting
 Michel Foucault (1926-84)
 Discipline and Punish
how modern state exercises power & why people comply

 obedience/compliance = plain habit

 Our physical body has been (unknowingly) habituated or

disciplined to obey state policies (even if we don’t agree
with them)

 insidious effect of mundane practices of the modern state

 similar to Tilly & Scott, but goes beyond
 Foucault:
Discipline and Punish
 state’s domination based on naked use of
repression

= physical punishment or public spectacles of

physical punishment

public execution of “criminals,” “dissidents”,

“subversives”, “insurgents,” etc.

make a public spectacle of state’s ruthlessness

 inspire fear
 Foucault (continued)
 Now, states less reliant on public executions
executions are done in secret

 more reliant on “panoptic” (all-seeing) control over the

whole society, which makes people imagine that they are
being watched by the state
= a new & more effective mode of rule

 Analogy: Modern society is an extension of a panopticon

= a new type of prison structure, designed to enable the
centrally located warden to observe all prisoners at one
time
= compartmentalized prison cells with numbers
= one prisoner in each cell
= (invisible) warden in the center
 Someone in that building
out there must be
watching me all the time,
although I don’t know
who it is …

I can never escape

Prisoner
from here …
There is no point
trying to escape …

The minute I do anything

wrong, they will catch me.
I’d better behave myself.
 Panopticon is a microcosm of modern society
compartmentalized, numbered, ordered
 allow the invisible powerful authority in the center to observe
all people

 People come to instill the state’s (imagined) omnipresent

surveillance in their bodies
“Thousands of eyes are everywhere!”
internalized in one’s body
You may not be watched all the time, but you think you
are...

 whether democratic or not – irrelevant

 effect of small mundane practices
eg. surveillance camera, tax invoice
• As you do this over and over and over again, you come to
avoid speeding, even in places where there is no
surveillance camera.

• Initially, you may refrain from speeding because you don’t

want to pay a fine, but over time, you come to avoid
speeding without really thinking about it.

• Your body has been disciplined or habituated to avoid

speeding, even though you may want to speed in your
mind.

• A case of habitual compliance with state rules

 Effects of (Imagined)
Constant State Surveillance
 Your body gets disciplined or habituated to obey the
state and its rules/regulations

 You may comply because of coercion/fear initially,

but it becomes less important over time

 Do the same thing again & again, over weeks,

months & years 

 Obedience/compliance becomes a habit or routine

over time
This is an enormously
powerful & effective type of
rule by the modern state.
Foucault
You obey state rules, not
because you are forced to,
or because you want to ...
You just obey without really
thinking about it.
The state doesn’t have to
resort repression & public
execution.
That’s what you have been
doing all along… It has
become a habit – just like
brushing your teeth every
morning. You obey as a
routine.
 Questions
 To what extent was war-making part and parcel of the
state formation in Spore in the 1960s-70s? How relevant is
Tilly’s argument to Spore?

 Why do your parents or most Singaporeans pay taxes?

Why is there little tax evasion in Singapore? Because they
fear legal sanctions? Because they are public-spirited
citizens? Because of habitual compliance?

 Many modern states, including the US, England, and Japan,

have sought, with a good deal of success, to regulate and
monitor the lives of their citizens. To what extent is
Singapore similar to, or different from, those countries?
How unique is Singapore? Is the difference really one of
degree rather than kind, as the lecturer said?

 Is the state unnecessary? Or is it a necessary evil? Or is it

something more desirable and positive?
 Tip on Paper (I)
 Make an argument; don’t write a purely descriptive paper

 descriptive paper:
Event A happened in 2000. Politician B said … . Then C did …
= simply describe what, who, when

 argumentative paper:
analyze facts & state what you think about them

 Make a thesis statement in 1st or 2nd paragraph by using “I”

as pronoun
In this paper, I argue ….
My argument is …. (or This paper will argue …)

 Let the reader know where you will go

 Assignments for Next Week
 F. Fukuyama, “The End of History”
What kind of “history” has ended?
Don’t bother with Hegel

 Animal Farm, by George Orwell

animals’ rebellion against an oppressive human rancher to

establish “animalism”

how communist utopian ideals gave way to totalitarianism

after Russian Revolution of 1917

Napoleon (a pig) = Stalin

 Assignments for Next Week

(1) Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History”

What kind of “history” has Does FF’s

ended, according to FF? argument fit the
Do you agree with him? case of
Singapore?
 (2) George Orwell, Animal Farm

• animals’ rebellion against an oppressive human rancher to

establish “animalism”
All animals should be free & equal!

rebellion = Russian Revolution of 1917

animalism = communism
human rancher = capitalist
animals = workers
Napoleon (a pig) = Joseph Stalin

• how communist utopian ideals gave way to totalitarianism

after Russian Revolution of 1917