Morden State

INTRODUCTION

State is a political entity that possesses a legitimate monopoly over the use of force within its territory to achieve its goals (Kendall, 2011, 447).Weber defined the modern state as an administrative and legal order, which claims legal-rational authority over the citizens of the state. The modern state offers protection, order, justice, foreign trade and facilitation of inner state trade to gain loyalty and the state has the right to legitimate use of physical force in its jurisdiction. He argues that modern state is characterised by bureaucracy, centralism and impersonal means of control to safeguard the state (Weber; 1968). In this essay, I will explain the origins of the modern state and how it can be defined using modern state theorist like Weber, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. The second part of the essay will discuss the issues that are raised in the comparing modern states in the world using different case studies.

The state emerged at a stage in social evolution when human society became bigger, more complex; more divided by private property and when the very existence of society required a special mechanism for coordination and use of social power to achieve ultimate goals of security, welfare and human rights. The modern state is based on the patterns that emerged in Europe in the period from 1100 to 1600. Rousseau argued that, states emerged as an unintended consequence of the strategies employed by actors like Lords, Kings to seize and maintain their hold on power. Modern state can be viewed as an extortion racket that threatens the well-being of its citizens and then sells them protection from itself.As e Europe `s Dynastic states embarked on a variety of programs designed to increase centralised political and economic control, they increasingly exhibited many of the institutional features that characterize the modern state. This centralisation of power involved the delineation of political boundaries, as European monarchs gradually defeated or co-opted other sources of power, such as church and nobility (Macionis & Plummer, 2008). In place of the fragmented system of feudal rule, with its often-indistinct territorial claims, large unitary states with extensive control over definite territories emerged. This gave rise to the highly centralised and increasingly bureaucratic forms of absolute monarchical rule of the 17th and 18th centuries, when principal features of the contemporary state system took form, including the introduction of a standing army, a central taxation system, diplomatic relations with permanent embassies and the development of state economic policy mercantilism (Coles, P; 2001). Marx views the state as the toll used by dominant class to maintain its domination and he argues that policies of the state reflect above all the interest of the dominant class, rooted in private ownership of means of production.

* According to Weber, a modern state exists where a political community is: 1. an administrative and legal order that has been created and can be changed by legislation that also determines its role, 2. Binding authority over citizens and action in its jurisdiction, 3. The right to legitimately use the physical force in its jurisdiction.

* Comparative politics is a branch of the broad discipline of Political