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State, Welfare & Society
Lecture 2: The Modern State and
State-Society Relations
Prof. Majid Yar
Emergence of the Modern State
• Last lecture – development of different forms of collective
organisation in societies – family, clan, tribe, city states,
empires and feudalism
• Modern nation state – emerged between 13th and 16th
centuries in Europe. Now dominant form of political
organisation
• Long-term – in many cases not completed until 19th C
• Treaty of Westphalia (1648) – followed 400 years of political
and religious wars
• Recognised fixed national boundaries and sovereignty of
state within its national territory
Principles of the Modern Nation State (1)
Combines 2 fundamental dimensions. Firstly:
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Idea/ideal of ‘the nation’ as people & territory
united by shared language, customs, religion
and a ‘way of life’
Artificial creations – suppressing differences and
creating traditions as basis common identity
Principles of the Modern Nation State (2)
Secondly:
• Development of formal & centralised apparatus of governance and
control over the territory
• Different from feudalism, in which power was decentralised and
privatised
• Power in modern NS was centralised and public
• In short, we see:
the appearance of political units persisting in time and fixed in space,
the development of permanent, impersonal institutions, agreement on
the need for an authority which can give final judgments, and
acceptance of the idea that this authority should receive the basic
loyalty of its subjects.
(Strayer, On the medieval origins of the modern state – 1970, p.10)
Explanations for the Emergence of the
Modern State (1)
• Moving from ‘what’ and ‘when’ to ‘why’ and
‘how’- what caused this new form to emerge
when it did?
• Political sociologists and historians – many
accounts
• Gianfranco Poggi – three main types of
explanation – managerial, military and economic
1. The Managerial Explanation
• Professional administration and capacity to govern
ever larger territories. More effective ways of:
– Collecting, distributing and using resources (e.g. via
taxation)
– Of providing services to local communities (e.g. policing
and judicial services)
• Role of literacy and print culture in enabling
communication, coordination, standardisation and
record keeping
2. The Military Explanation
• Demands of warfare as driver for development of state
apparatus
• Equipping for war requires control and organisation of
populations, resources, production and technology
• Coordinated management of wide range of social activities
• Expensive – efficient collection of wealth via taxation
• War and public health/welfare programmes – example of
Britain and the Second Boer War (1899-1902)
3. The Economic Explanation
• Economic change as driver of new state form and end of
feudal order
• Industrialisation – changed forms of production:
– Movement from country to city
– Wage labour freed workers from vassalage
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Breakdown of relations of authority and obedience
New powerful social class – bourgeois capitalists
Challenge to power of aristocratic control of state
Demands of new economy – centralised control
From Subjects to Citizens: The Social
Contract
• Declining monarchical and aristocratic power – news ways
of thinking about relation between state and society, political
authority and individuals
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704) –
divine right of kings unreasonable
• Political order needs support and agreement of ruled
• Contract or exchange – state protects person and property,
people recognise state’s authority and obey its rules
• Beginnings of state welfare provision – state has
responsibility for basic well-being and safety of its citizens
Visions of State Responsibility (1)
• Classical liberalism and the minimal state:
– Individual liberty as greatest political good – maximising
freedom to make choices and direct own life
– Ownership and disposal of property is ‘natural right’ –
what people do with their resources is up to them
– State should be minimal – ‘interfere’ as little as possible.
Limited to safeguarding individuals’ freedoms and
security of person and property
– Individual responsibility for own welfare – especially as
state provision requires expropriation of resources from
people via taxation
Two Concepts of Liberty
• Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958)
– Negative liberty: freedom = freedom from interference
and coercion. Liberty is right to be left alone to do as one
wishes. Corresponds to classical liberal position
– Positive Liberty: liberty needs to be enabled. Can only
exercise meaningful choices if has resources to do so.
Emphasis freeing people from disease, ignorance and
want, which prevent people from realising their potential –
incorporated in social liberal vision of state
Visions of State Responsibility (1)
• Social liberalism:
– Individual well-being requires more than non-interference
– Preconditions for self-realisation – health, education,
basic material needs (food, shelter, clothing etc)
– State has responsibility for ensuring that these needs are
met for all citizens, when they are unable to provide for
themselves
– Drive toward a welfare state – providing for these needs
on behalf of society for society