Chapter 5

The State
 The State and the Nation
States, Nations, and Nation-states

• Perhaps the single most important concept used in the study of

world politics is the sovereign state.
• A state is a particular type of political unit that has two crucial
characteristics: territoriality and sovereignty.
• Territoriality is straightforward: a state governs a specific,
identifiable portion of the Earth’s surface.
• Sovereignty is the absolute right to govern it.
 The State and the Nation
States, Nations, and Nation-states
• “State” if often used to refer to the government of a country, or
to the structure and practices of the institutions and offices that
make up the government.
• Another word often used as a synonym for state is “nation”. It is
used to denote a group of people who have some combination of
common language, culture, religion, history, mythology, identity,
or sense of destiny. synonym: “ethnic group”
• A state whose citizens are overwhelmingly members of a single
nation is a nation-state. National groups within states often
claim a right to self-government or self-determination. It is the
ability to decide one’s own political fate.
 The State and the Nation
• For an entity to be considered a state, four fundamental
conditions must be met (although these legal criteria are not
absolute):
 A state must have a territorial base.
 A stable population must reside within its borders.
 There should be a government to which this population owes
allegiance.
 A state has to be recognized diplomatically by other states.
• A nation is a group of people who share a set of
characteristics. At the core of the concept of a nation is the
notion that people having commonalities owe their
allegiance to the nation and to its legal representative, the
state.
 The recognition of commonalities among people
spread with new technologies and education. With
improved methods of transportation and invention
of the printing press, people could travel, witnessing
firsthand similarities and differences among
peoples.
• Some nations, liked Denmark and Italy, formed their own states.

• This coincidence between state and nation, the nation-state, is the

foundation for national self-determination, the idea that peoples
sharing nationhood have a right to determine how and under what
conditions they should live.
• Other nations are spread among several states; in these cases, the state
and the nation do not coincide.
– It may be a state with several nations, like South Africa and
India.
– In the case of the United States and Canada, the state and
nation do not coincide, yet a common identity and nationality
is forged over time, even in the absence of religious, ethnic, or
cultural similarity.
– In the United States, national values reflecting commonly held
ideas are expressed in public rituals.
• Not all ethnonationalists aspire to the same goals.

– Some want recognition of unique status

– Some seek solutions in federal arrangements
– A few prefer irredentism: joining with fellow ethnonationalists
in other states to create a new state
• Disputes over state territories and the desires of nations to form their
own states have been major sources of instability and even conflict.
– Of these territorial conflicts, none has been more intractable
as the conflict between the Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs,
who each claim the same territory.
– Five interstate wars have been fought and two uprisings by the
Palestinian people within the territory occupied by Israel have
occurred since the formation of the state of Israel in 1948.
– Should Israel and Palestinian territories be divided into two
separate, independent states?
Contending Conceptualizations of the
State
• The Realist View of the State

– Realists hold a state-centric view: the state is an autonomous actor

constrained only by the structural anarchy of the international system.
– As a sovereign entity, the state has a consistent set of goals—that is, a
national interest—defined in terms of power. Once the state acts, it does
so as an autonomous, unitary actor.
• The Liberal View of the State

– The state enjoys sovereignty but is not an autonomous actor. The state is
a pluralist arena whose function is to maintain the basic rules of the
game.
– There is no explicit or consistent national interest; there are many. These
interests often change and compete against each other within a pluralistic
framework.
• The Radical View of the State

– The instrumental Marxist view sees the state as the executing agent of
the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie reacts to direct societal pressures,
especially to pressures from the capitalist class.
– The structural Marxist view sees the state as operating within the
structure of the capitalist system. Within that system, the state is driven
to expand, because of the imperatives of the capitalist system.
– In neither view is there a national interest or real sovereignty, as the state
is continually reacting to external capitalist pressures.
• The Constructivist View of the State

– National interests are neither material nor given. They are ideational and
continually changing and evolving, both in response to domestic factors
and in response to international norms and ideas.
– States have multiple identities, including a shared understanding of
national identity, which also changes, altering state preferences and
hence state behavior.
• Contrasting the Various Views of the State: The Example of Oil

 A realist interpretation posits a uniform national interest that is

articulated by the state. Oil is vital for national security; thus, the state
desires stability in oil’s availability and price.

 Liberals believe that multiple national interests influence state actions:

consumer groups, manufacturers, and producers. The state itself has
no consistent viewpoint about the oil; its task is to ensure that the
playing field is level and the rules are the same for all players. There is
also no single or consistent national interest.

 In the radical perspective, oil policy reflects the interests of the owner
capitalist class aligned with the bourgeoisie and reflects the structure
of the international capitalist system. The negotiating process is
exploitative for the advancement of capitalist states.

 Constructivists may try to tease out how the identities of states are
constructed around having a valuable resource.
 The Nature of State Power
• States are critical actors because they have power, which is the ability not
only to influence others but to control outcomes so as to produce results that
would not have occurred naturally.
• Power itself is multi-dimensional; there are different kinds of power.

• Natural Sources of Power

– Whether power is effective at influencing outcomes depends on
the power potential of each party. A state’s power potential depends
on its natural sources of power. The three most important natural
sources of power are:
1. Geographic size and position: a large geographic expanse gives a state
automatic power, although long borders must be defended and may be a
weakness.
• 2. Natural resources: Petroleum-exporting states like Kuwait and
Qatar, which are geographically small but have greater power than
their sizes would suggest.
– Having a sought-after resource may prove a liability making states
targets for aggressive actions.
– The absence of natural resources does not mean that a state has no
power potential; Japan is not rich in resources but is still an
economic powerhouse.
• 3. Population: sizable populations give power potential and great
power status to a state. However, states with small, highly educated,
skilled populations such as Switzerland can fill large political and
economic niches.

Power conversion: the capacity to convert potential

power, as measured by resources, to realized power, as
measured by the changed behavior of others.
• Tangible Sources of Power
 Industrial development: with advanced industrial capacity (such as air
travel), the advantages and disadvantages of geography diminish.

 With industrialization, the importance of population is modified: large

but poorly equipped armies are no match for small armies with
advanced equipment.

 Industrialized states generally have higher educational levels and more

advanced technology, and use capital more efficiently.

国力方程： Pp=(C+E+M)x(S+W)
• Intangible Sources of Power
 National image: people within states have images of their state’s power potential
—images that translate into an intangible power ingredient.

 Public support: a state’s power is magnified when there appears to be

unprecedented public support. For example, China’s power was magnified under
Mao Zedong because there was unprecedented public support for the communist
leadership.

 Leadership: visionaries and charismatic leaders were able to augment the power
potential of their states. Likewise, poor leaders diminish the state’s power
capacity.

 Joseph S. Nye has labeled intangible power soft power: the ability to attract
others because of the legitimacy of the state’s values or policies.

 Liberals would more than likely place greater importance on these intangible
ingredients, since several are characteristics of domestic processes.

 Constructivists argue that power includes not only the tangible and intangible
sources but also the power of ideas and language. It is through the power of ideas
and norms that state identities and nationalism are forged and changed.
 The Exercise of State Power
• The Art of Diplomacy
 Traditional diplomacy entails states trying to influence the behavior of other
actors by negotiating.

 Diplomacy usually begins with bargaining through direct and indirect

communication in an attempt to reach agreement on an issue.

 For bargaining to be successful, each party needs to be credible. Well-

intentioned parties have a higher probability of successful negotiations.
Although states seldom enter diplomatic bargaining as equals, each has
information and goals of its own. The outcome is almost always mutually
beneficial, but the outcome may not please each of the parties equally.
 Bargaining and negotiations are complicated by at least two factors:

1. Most states carry out two levels of bargaining simultaneously:

bargaining between and among states and the bargaining that must occur
between the state’s negotiators and its various domestic constituencies,
both to negotiate and to ratify the agreement. Robert Putnam refers to this
as a two-level game. Trade negotiations with the World Trade
Organization are often conducted as two-level games.

2. Bargaining and negotiating are a culture-bound activity.

Approaches to bargaining vary across cultures. Two styles of negotiations
have been identified:
– Deductive style: from general principles to particular applications.
The South argued in this style during the New International
Economic Order (NIEO) negotiations
– Pragmatic style: addressing concrete problems and resolving
specific issues before broader principles. The North argued in this
style during NIEO negotiations, leading to a stalemate between
North and South
 The use of public diplomacy is an increasingly popular
technique. It involves targeting both foreign publics and
elites, attempting to create an overall image that enhances
a country’s ability to achieve its objectives. It was used
before and during the 2003 Iraq war.
 Diplomacy may need to include more than negotiations,
making other forms of diplomacy necessary.
 • Economic Statecraft
 States may use both positive and negative economic sanctions to
try to influence other states.

 Positive sanctions: enticing the target state to act in the desired way
by rewarding moves made in the desired direction. (a carrot)

 Negative sanctions: threatening to act or actually taking actions that

punish the target state for moves made in the direction not desired.
(a stick)

 A state’s ability to use these instruments of economic statecraft

depends on its power potential.

statecraft ： the art of managing state affairs and

effectively maneuvering in a world of power politics among
sovereign states.
 While radicals deny it, liberals argue that developing states do have
some leverage in economic statecraft if they control a key resource of
which there is limited production.

 In general, economic sanctions have not been very successful. They

appear to work in the short term, but in the long term, it is difficult to
maintain international cohesion because states imposing the sanctions
find it more advantageous to bust the sanctions to gain economically.

 Since the mid-1990s, states have imposed so-called smart sanctions,

including freezing assets of governments and/or individuals and
imposing commodities sanctions. The international community has tried
to affect specific individuals and avoid the high humanitarian costs of
general sanctions.
 Generally, it is harder to get another state to change course
(the purpose of compellence) than it is to get it to refrain
• The Use of Force from changing course (the purpose of deterrence).

 Force may be used either to get a target state to do something or to

undo something it has done—called compellence—or to keep an
adversary from doing something—called deterrence.

 Compellence was used in the prelude to the 1991 Gulf War as the
international community tried to get Saddam Hussein to change his
actions. During each step of the compellent strategy of escalation, one
message was communicated to Iraq: withdraw from Kuwait or more
coercive actions will follow.

 Compellence was also used when the Western alliance sought to get
Serbia to stop abusing the human rights of Kosovar Albanians, and
before the 2003 Iraq war.

 With deterrence, states commit themselves to punishing a target state

if the target state takes an undesired action. Threats of actual war are
used to stop a state from pursuing certain courses of action.
 Deterrence has taken on a special meaning since the advent of nuclear
weapons in 1945. States that recognize the destructive capability of
nuclear weapons and know that others have a second-strike capability
—the ability to retaliate even after an attack has been launched by an
opponent—will refrain from taking aggressive action, using its first-
strike capability. Deterrence is then successful.

 For either compellence or deterrence to be effective, states must clearly

and openly communicate their objectives and capabilities, be willing to
make good on the threats, and have the credibility to follow through
with their commitments. “a state’s credibility is essential”

 Compellence and deterrence can fail. Even if states go to war, they have
choices. They choose the type of weaponry, the kind of targets, the
geographic locus, and to respond in kind, to escalate, or de-escalate.

The direct use of force is such a poor solution for any problem, it is
generally employed only by small children and large nations.
----David Friedman
• Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft
from those who hunger and are not fed, those who
are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its
laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its
children. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be
found on the road the world has been taking.This is
not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the
cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from
a cross of iron.

• ———Eisenhower “The Chance for Peace”

• Democracy, Autocracy, and Foreign Policy

 Is the foreign policy behavior of democratic states any different from the
behavior of nondemocratic or authoritarian states?

 In Perpetual Peace (1795), Immanuel Kant argued that the spread of

democracy would change international politics by eliminating war. The
public would be very cautious in supporting war since they are apt to
suffer the most devastating effects.

 Other explanations have been added to the democratic peace hypothesis.

Perhaps some are more satisfied with the status quo or more likely to be
allies of each other since they share similar values.

 Despite a plethora of studies by political scientists, the evidence is not that

clear-cut and explanations are partial. Even within a single research
program, there may be serious differences in conclusions based on the
assumptions made and methods used.

 Yet the basic finding is that democracies do not engage in militarized

disputes against each other. Democracies are not more pacific than
nondemocracies; democracies just do not fight each other.
 Models of Foreign Policy Decision
Making
• The Rational Model

 Foreign policy is conceived of as actions chosen by the national

government that maximize its strategic goals and objectives.
 In times of crisis, when decision makers are confronted by a
threatening event and have only a short time to make a decision
about how to respond, then using the rational model as a way to
assess the other side’s behavior is an appropriate choice.
 Most U.S. assessments of decisions taken by the Soviet Union
during the Cold War were based on a rational model.
• The Bureaucratic/Organizational Model
 Organizational politics emphasizes the standard operating procedures
and processes of an organization. Decisions depend heavily on
precedents; major changes in policy are unlikely.

 Bureaucratic politics occurs among members of the bureaucracy

representing different interests. Decisions flow from the tug-of-war
among these departments and individuals.

 Noncrisis situations, such as trade policy, provide a ripe area to see

this model of decision making at work. When time is no real
constraint, informal groups and departments have time to mobilize.

 The decisions arrived at are not always the most rational ones; rather
they are the decisions that satisfice—satisfy the most different
constituents without ostracizing any.

 Liberals especially turn to this model of decision-making behavior in

their analyses. The model is relevant in large, democratic countries,
where responsibility it divided among a number of different units.
• The Pluralist Model

 The pluralist model attributes decisions to bargaining

conducted among domestic sources—the public, interest
groups, and multinational corporations (MNCs).
 In noncrisis situations, especially economic ones, societal
groups may play very important roles. Societal groups
have a variety of ways of forcing decisions in their favor
or constraining decisions. The movement to ban land
mines in the 1990s is an example of a pluralist foreign
policy decision.
 Challenges to the state
• Globalization
 Externally, the state is buffeted by globalization, growing integration of the
world in terms of politics, economics, communications, and culture. It is a
process that undermines traditional state sovereignty.

 Politically, the state is confronted by globalizing issues—environmental

degradation and disease—which governments cannot manage alone and that
which requires cooperative action.

 Economically, states and financial markets are tied inextricably together. The
internationalization of production and consumption make it ever more
difficult for states to regulate their own economic policies.

 Culturally, new and intrusive technologies—e-mail, fax machines, worldwide

TV networks—increasingly undermine the state’s control over information
and hence its control over its citizenry.
• Transnational Movements
 Transnational movements, particularly religious and ideological
movements, are now political forces that have challenged the state.

 In Christendom, these movements reject secularism and attempt to

turn political, social, and individual loyalties away from the state and
toward religious ideas.

 Believers in Islamic fundamentalism are united by wanting to change

states and societies by basing them on the ideas contained in the texts
of Islam. They see a long-standing discrepancy between the political
and economic aspirations of states and the actual conditions of corrupt
rule and economic inequality.

 Not all transnational movements pose a threat to the state; many

develop around progressive goals such as the environment, human
rights, and development.
• Ethnonational Movements
 Ethnonational movements identify more with a particular culture than with
a state. Having experienced discrimination or persecution, many of these
groups are now taking collective action in support of national self-
determination.

 Kashmir is one of the more complex ethnonational movement; Kashmiris

are overwhelmingly Muslim but have been ruled by Hindus. It is also tied to
the larger conflict between India and Pakistan.

 Some ethnonational challenges lead to civil conflict and war, as the Kashmir
case illustrates.

 Ethnonationalist movements can pose a challenge even to the strongest of

states. For example, China has been confronted by Uighur uprisings.
• Transnational Crime

 Transnational crime has led to the accelerating

movement of illegal drugs, counterfeit goods, smuggled
weapons, laundered money, and trafficking in poor and
exploited people.
 It has created new businesses while distorting national and
regional economies. States and government are incapable
of responding because of rigid bureaucracies and corrupt
officials undermine the states’ efforts.
• Fragile States

 Fragile States include those having several characteristics:

an inability to exercise a monopoly on the legitimate use of
force within its territory, make collective decisions because
of the erosion of legitimate authority, interact with other
states in the international system, or provide public
services.
 pose internal threat to the people residing with in them.
 pose an international threat, serving as hideaways for
transnational terrorists, criminials, and pirates.
 Terms of Chapter 5

• bureaucratic politics a model of foreign policy making that

posits that national decisions are the outcomes of bargaining
among bureaucratic groups having competing interests
• celebrity diplomacy use of popular individuals to bring
attention to an issue and/or to try to influence both the public
and decision makers to pursue a course of action
• compellence a strategy in which a state threatens to use
force to try to get another state to do something or to undo an
act it has undertaken
• democratic peace theory supported by empirical evidence
that democratic states do not fight wars against each other, but
do fight wars against authoritarian states
• deterrence a strategy in which a state commits to punishing
a target state if that state takes an undesired action; threats of
actual war are used as an instrument of policy to dissuade a
state from pursuing certain courses of action
• diplomacy the process in which states try to influence the
behavior of other actors by bargaining, negotiating, taking a
specific action or refraining from such an action, or appealing
to the foreign public for support of a position
• ethnonational movements self-conscious communities
that share an ethnic affiliation and participate in organized
political activity
• extremist Islamic fundamentalism groups seeking to
change states and societies through violent and coercive means
to support imposition of Sharia law
• first-strike capability the ability to launch a nuclear attack
capable of completely preventing a retaliatory strike
• fragile state state which has ineffective or nonexistent
government, widespread lawlessness, often accompanied by
insurgency and crime; situation where state authorities are not
protecting their own people
• nation a group of people sharing a common language, history,
or culture
• nation-state the entity formed when people sharing the same
historical, cultural, or linguistic roots form their own state with
borders, a government, and international recognition; trend
began with French and American Revolutions
• nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) private
associations of individuals or groups that engage in political,
economic, or social activities, usually across national borders
• organizational politics the foreign policy decision-making
model that posits that national decisions are the products of
subnational governmental organizations and units; the
standard operating procedures and processes of the
organizations largely determine the policy; major changes in
policy are unlikely
• power the ability to influence others and also to control
outcomes so as to produce results that would not have
occurred naturally
• power potential a measure of the power an entity like a state
could have, derived from a consideration of both its tangible
and its intangible resources; states may not always be able to
transfer their power potential into actual power
• public diplomacy use of certain diplomatic methods to create a
favorable image of the state or its people in the eyes of other states
and their publics; methods include, for example, goodwill tours,
cultural and student exchanges, and media presentations
• sanctions economic, diplomatic, and even coercive military force
used to enforce an international policy or another state’s policy;
sanctions can be positive (offering an incentive to a state) or
negative (punishing a state)
• satisficing in decision-making theory, the tendency of states and
their leaders to settle for the minimally acceptable solution, not the
best possible outcome, in order to reach a consensus and formulate
a policy
• second-strike capability in the age of nuclear weapons, the
ability of a state to respond and hurt an adversary after a first strike
has been launched against that state by the adversary; ensures that
both sides will suffer an unacceptable level of damage
• smart power using a combination of coercion (hard power)
with persuasion and attraction (soft power)
• soft power ability to change a target’s behavior based on the
legitimacy of one’s ideas or policies, rather than on material
(economic or military) power
• state an organized political unit that has a geographic
territory, a stable population, and a government to which the
population owes allegiance and that is legally recognized by
other states
• transnational movements groups of people from different
states who share religious, ideological, or policy beliefs and
who work together to change the status quo