Concepts in Comparative Politics

Power and States

Defining the state

An institution that seeks to monopolize force and legal authority within a given territory

Plus: Set of political institutions: machinery of politics

States as Image and Practice Image: coherent, unified,

above society Practice: diverse people &

agencies; linked to society in various ways

Often fragmented, uncoordinated

Differences between states, regimes, governments, country…?

Political power: definitionsCapacity to affect outcomes

1- to act autonomously 2- to accumulate and hold resources

An ability or potentialRelational!Power and influence?

Political influence: capacity to affect government decision-making

Who has power, and how much? Elites, masses, states, businesses?

Three main attributes of a stateSovereignty

What is it? Who violates it?

Legitimacy How is it earned and maintained? (Weber)

Autonomy Real or imagined? Who impinges on state autonomy? (Marx)

States have varying levels of these! Which have more or less? What is state “capacity”?

Exercise

Where does the state enter your life? Where do you “see” or meet the state?

Development of the modern state

When did modern states emerge?How did they differ from their

predecessors?What three “advantages” do modern

states possess?

Why did so many states that arrived late on the scene model themselves on the early European national states?

How much power do states have? Two models of state-society relations

Why do people obey states? Where does legitimacy come from?

What did Weber say?

1864-1920

Max Weber – key contributions

Definitions of states “Ideal type” categorizations of different types of states Why people obey states founder of modern sociology: developed methodology for

studying societies so they could be compared to each other

Emphasized need for conceptual frameworks and categories rather than simple description

multi-causality: ideas and culture help shape economics and history. Politics is not all about economics!

States and conflicts

What causes them?

Karl Marx1818-1883

Marx, 1882.Marx, an early picture.

Competition for economic resources?

Karl Marx – key ideas

history as a class-based struggle (“materialist” conception of history)

state as a “captive” of an economic elite (downplaying of the state)

national interests & identities becoming subsumed to global market forces

transformation of society: economics organizes society rather than the other way around

Those who are trying to gain entry into politics?

Pierre Bourdieu and the political field

Competing ideological visions?

The state itself?

How far should the state go?

Parc du Bois de Liesse, Montreal.