IRD 200: STATE, SOCEITY AND DEVELOPMENT

LECTURE NOTES
Introduction
The nation-state developed fairly recently. Prior to the 1500s, in Europe, the nation-state as we
know it did not exist. Back then, most people did not consider themselves part of a nation; they
rarely left their village and knew little of the larger world. People were more likely to identify
themselves with their region or local lord. At the same time, the rulers of states frequently had
little control over their countries. Instead, local feudal lords had a great deal of power, and kings
often had to depend on the goodwill of their subordinates to rule. Laws and practices varied a
great deal from one part of the country to another. The timeline on page 65 explains some key
events that led to the rise of the nation-state.
Nations, Society and Government
A State is a political unit that has sovereignty over an area of territory and the people within
it. Sovereignty is the legitimate and ultimate authority over a polity (i.e., a political unit). For
example, the Kenya is a state that is sovereign over all the 47 counties and its territories. There is
no higher political authority over the geographic region that is controlled by Kenya as a state.
A country is simply another word for state. Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania among others, can be
referred to as either a 'country' or a 'State.' People use the terms interchangeably. However, in
political science, and especially in the area of international relations, the term 'State' is used as it
is more precise and less ambiguous, as 'country' can refer to other things, such as a rural
environment.
The 47 counties are political subdivisions of Kenya. The 47 counties do not have independent
sovereignty like Kenya. It is convention to capitalize the term 'State' when referring to State in
terms of a sovereign political unit.
Nation Defined
Another important term in political science is nation. A nation consists of a distinct population
of people that are bound together by a common culture, language, history, and tradition who are
typically concentrated within a specific geographic region. For example, all Jewish people
comprise a Jewish nation and different tribes of Native Americans are considered nations, such.
Not all nations have States. While the Jewish nation is not a State, Israel is a State. Modern
States tend to try to develop a sense of nation within their territorial boundaries. It is believed
that a state consisting of a nation of people is more cohesive and easier to govern as there is a
common set of beliefs, values, culture, and history. In fact, States that are able to successfully
create a nation out of its population are called Nation-States.
The nation state is therefore a system of organization in which people with a common identity
live inside a country with firm borders and a single government. The nation state has a dramatic
influence on the way we live our lives. It's how we identify ourselves, e.g. I am a Kenyan, a
Ugandan, and a Ghanaian. It also determines what language we speak e.g. Swahili, Luganda,
Afrikaans etc, what laws we follow, and what holidays we celebrate e.g. Madaraka Day, Jamhuri
Day, Shujaa Day, Labour Day for Kenya or Martyr's Day, National Heroes Day and Liberation
Day in Uganda. The nation state is a system of political, geographic, and cultural organization,
1

and it is one of the most important parts of your life that you don't think about. The nation state is
held together by its physical boundaries, its government, and the fact that the people believe they
are connected to each other.
The fundamental parts of the nation state are the nation and the state. In the broadest of
terms, the state is a body of government. All the rules and laws, the government officials and
their titles, the physical boundaries and those who define them these make up the state. The state
is what makes a country run from a political, practical standpoint. The nation, on the other hand,
is the people. The nation is created by a shared belief that the people inside a country are
connected to each other. Whether you live in Busia County, Trans Nzoia County, Vihiga County
or any other county, you still share a connection with other Kenyans. The idea that people of a
nation are connected to each other is called nationalism.
Nation states must also have a shared national culture. This is often achieved through common
language, history, holidays, and education. Sometimes national culture is a result of similar
people living in the same area. In the United States, the colonists began developing a unique
national culture, which led to them declaring war against England and creating their own
government and state.
On the other hand, sometimes the nation state begins as a government and later has to try and
create a national culture. For example, when Mexico became independent from Spain, the
country was too large and fragmented for the people to have developed a national culture. There
were dozens of different identities. It took nearly a century for the Mexican government to
develop a sense of 'Mexican-ness', or Mexicanidad in Spanish.
The government had to carefully, and intentionally, selects the moments from history that all
Mexicans could unite around. They had to control language, education, and holidays to make
sure that all Mexicans celebrated the same national culture. Sometimes this meant violent
oppression of the people who weren't cooperating. However, the government knew that without a
national culture, the nation state had no real power, and it would fall back into war and chaos.
History of the Nation State
Many historians debate the origins of the nation state. The historian Benedict Anderson, author
of Imagined Communities, argued that nation states began because of print media, such as
newspapers, when the rise in literacy and new technologies like the printing press between 1500
and 1600 let people talk to each other in new ways. They discussed their similarities and ideas
through the press, and this meant that they had to share a common language. They began to form
the early versions of national identities. Anderson's argument is still the most commonly held
belief by historians.
However, other scholars have also noted that the early nation states coincided with new mapmaking technologies from the age of exploration and discovery in the 1500s, when European
merchants began sailing around the world for the first time. Better maps and technology to move
people and goods changed the way that people, particularly rulers, understood boundaries and
borders.
2

Whatever the exact cause, many existing governments reorganized to consolidate their people in
terms of borders and shared identity as new ideas and technologies circulated. In places where
there was not a long-standing government in place, particularly European colonies in the
Americas, people got rid of old governments and formed new ones. Some of the first true nation
states were former colonies.
In some parts of the world, such as Italy and Germany, a shared cultural identity came first and
helped lead to a unified political state. In other areas, like England or China, the political state
was established first and then had to develop a national culture, just like in Mexico. By the late
1800s, the nation state was the dominant form of political and cultural organization in the world.
To understand the differences between state and nation, consider an example like Poland. The
people of Poland have long formed a nation with a shared language and culture, but that nation
has, through history, been cross-cut by various political borders. Thus, at times, members of the
Polish nation have been governed by different states. Today, Poland's boundaries roughly align
with the geographical area where the people of the Polish nation live, and thus Poland can be
thought of as a nation state.
Sovereign states
A sovereign state is a political organization with a centralized government that has supreme
independent authority over a geographic area.
Government Defined
The term 'government' also has a more precise meaning in political science compared to the way
it is bandied about in casual conversation. Government can be viewed in two different ways: as
an institution and as a process. As an institution, the government is the group of people with the
authority over a political unit at a given time. In other words, it's the people in power that
exercise the power of the political unit, whether it's a small town or a sovereign state.
What Is a State Government?
A state government is a unit of government that specifically makes and enforces laws for a
state. Several modern nations, such as the United States, Australia, and India, utilize state
governments to administer to the local needs of an area. In modern nations, state governments
have certain reserved powers - specific powers and responsibilities that the national government
does not have.
A government is the agent, or instrument, of the political society of which the government is a
part. For example, the United States national government is the agent of American society as a
whole the instrument of the national political community we call the United States of America.
A political society's agent, or government, consists of public institutions--institutions which have
the authority to make and enforce decisions which are binding on the whole society and all of its
members.
In American society, the U.S. national, or central, government consists of the public institutions
possessing authority to make and carry out decisions which are binding on all individuals
3

dwelling within the territorial borders of the U.S.A. and on the separate governments of the fifty
states comprising the American federal union.
In South Carolina, as is the case in every member-state of the federal union, there exists an
additional set of public institutions--the institutions making up the state government and having
the authority to make and enforce decisions binding on all inhabitants of the state, the state being
a sub-national, regional community (i.e., a sub-society) within the overall American national
society.
What Do State Governments Do?
Typically, state governments are responsible for administering to the local needs and problems of
a particular state or region. The powers and responsibilities of state governments are usually laid
out in a state constitution. In the United States, each of the fifty states has a state constitution
that spells out who has power, how the power is shared, how policy can be made, what rights the
citizens of the state have, and how elections are conducted. State constitutions tend to be more
specific than national constitutions because the states tend to deal with more narrowly focused
interests.
In general, state governments are responsible for regulating trade within their borders and for
establishing regulations for local corporations. State governments also administer to the needs of
the many smaller local governments by establishing charters for county and city government.
State governments play a strong role in regulating the educational system of their states and
establishing licensing rules for professionals who practice in the state.
Who is part of the state government?
Most states have a President, who acts as the head of the state's executive branch. In the United
States, most state governors serve for four years at a time. Like U.S. presidents, state governors
serve as the ceremonial leader of the state government, presiding over major state events and
representing their state around the nation. The governor is also the head of the state political
party. Usually, members of legislature in the governor's party follow the cues of the governor in
supporting or opposing particular pieces of legislation.
The governor manages the state government and during times of disaster or crisis the governor
will generally take charge and direct response-and-relief efforts. In most states, the governor also
is the primary author of the state budget, although the legislature is responsible for approving the
budget.
States often also have a state legislature that is responsible for exercising legislative authority.
In forty-nine of the fifty United States, the state legislature, like the U.S. Congress,
is bicameral meaning that there are two houses, a state House of Representatives and a state
Senate. Nebraska is the only state in the United States that have a unicameral, or one house
state legislature. State legislatures are responsible for making laws that affect their state. State
legislatures also share power over the budget with the state governor's office.

What makes an independent State or a country today?

Has internationally recognized land and borders even if border disputes exist;
Has permanent residents;
Has sovereignty so that no other country has power over its territory;
Has organized economic activity that regulates foreign and domestic trade and issues
money;
Has a transportation network for moving goods and people;
Has an education system;
Has recognition from other independent states
How many countries are there in the world?
Today, there are 195 independent countries or states recognized in the world. Kosovo, which
declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, is the newest country. Territories, such
as Hong Kong, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and Greenland that belong to other countries are not
considered countries.
Disputes often arise when a territory claims to be a country, but is not recognized by any other
countries. Taiwan, for example, claims to be an independent country, but China states that
Taiwan is a part of China. Therefore, other countries that dont want to upset China also do not
recognize Taiwan as independent.
Characteristics of the Nation, State and Government
A state is an organized political community acting under a government. States differ in
sovereignty, governance, geography, and interests.

Federated or Central states differ from sovereign states in that they have transferred a portion
of their sovereign powers to a federal or county government.
Under the rule of law, no one person can rule and even top government officials are bound by
the law.
The "nation" refers to a large geographical area and the people living there who perceive
themselves as having a common identity.
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving
as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit.
Civil society is the arena outside of the family, the state, and the market where people
associate to advance common interests.

Public Institutions--Distinguishing Characteristics:

The institutions comprising the government of a political society differ from the other institutions
within the society. That is, the public, or governmental, institutions differ from the private
institutions such as private business corporations, labour unions, private schools, religious
organizations (except in societies characterized by the union of state and religion), and voluntary
clubs and associations.
Governmental, or public, institutions differ from private institutions in six ways: (1) the
jurisdiction of a government extends to all members of the society, or community, of which it is
the agent. (2) The government controls the use of physical force and coercion within the political
5

society. (3) the government, if stable, is characterized by political legitimacy. (4) The decisions
of the government are authoritative; the decisions (a) are vested with the authority of the society
for and in the name of which they are made and carried out and (b) are binding on all members
of the society. (6) Every decision or action of the government is the legitimate concern of the
general public.
Universality of the Government's Reach within Society:
A government, within the borders of its own society, is universal in its reach. That is, the
jurisdiction, or authority, of the government extends to all persons and groups within the society.
The authority of a private institution existing and operating in the U.S.A., for example, does not
extend to all members of American society.
The Government's Control of the Use of Physical Force and Coercion:
The government reserves to itself a monopoly of control over employment of armed force and
violence by the society and its members. The government has the legal right to utilize
instruments of physical force and coercion, when deemed necessary, to preserve or restore
domestic order or to compel obedience to the official decisions of government.
In addition, it has ultimate authority to control and regulate the possession and use of such
instruments by private citizens and groups. The government possesses the authority to decide
who does and who does not legally go around armed within society. It has the power to decide
if--and if so, under what conditions--private citizens shall be allowed to use armed force and
violence.
The Government and Political Legitimacy:
A stable government in a stable society is characterized by political legitimacy; that is, the
government possesses legitimate political authority. The people making up the political believe
that the government has the moral as well as the legal right to exercise political power over all
subordinate parts of the society.
The government is widely perceived by the citizenry to have the legitimate right to make and
carry out decisions which apply to and are binding on all members of the society. Within the
political society, there is the feeling, widespread and strongly held, that (1) the government itself
is legitimate, (2) the officeholders in the government obtained their positions by legitimate
means, (3) these government officeholders possess legitimate authority to make binding
decisions, and (4) the decisions themselves are legitimate and ought to be obeyed.
Political legitimacy reflects the underlying consensus within society the widespread agreement
on matters of fundamental importance to the society which is indispensable to the long-term
existence and operation of the government, including its ability to make and enforce binding
decisions for the entire society.
Authoritative Decision-making and Action by the Government:

The decisions made and carried out by governmental offices and institutions are authoritative.
The official decisions made and implemented by government for and in the name of the entire
society are authoritative decisions.
Governmental decisions are authoritative because they (1) are vested with the authority of the
overall society for which they are made and enforced, (2) are binding on all members of the
society, and (3) are accepted as binding by the vast majority of the society's members.
Compliance with the government's decisions is not voluntary; compliance is mandatory,
or compulsory. The decisions of the government are not requests or recommendations; they are
authoritative commands that must be obeyed. Standing behind these decisions are the
instruments of physical force and coercion the police, the military forces, the courts, and the
prisons.
The government, in other words, possesses the legitimate right to resort to or threaten to resort to
armed force and violence, if necessary, to obtain citizens' obedience to its authoritative, binding
decisions. One political observer has referred to the government as the shotgun behind the door.
Also standing behind the decisions of government and making them authoritative are widespread
and strongly-held feelings that the decisions not only have to be obeyed in order to avoid
punishment for disobedience but also should be obeyed because it is the moral as well as legal
duty of citizens to comply with the laws of the political community.
In other words, governmental decisions bear the force of legitimacy; they are considered to be
legitimate by all or most members of the society. Because the decisions are widely accepted as
legitimate, they bear a very high probability of compliance. It is highly probable that the
decisions will be obeyed, with few, if any, members of the society challenging the right of the
government to make the decisions or its capacity and will to effectively enforce them.
The Government's Authoritative Allocation of Resources and Values:
The official decisions and actions of government help allocate society's relatively scarce
resources. When the government makes and implements decisions that are binding on all
members of the society, it authoritatively allocates resources and values for the society. That is,
the decisions and actions of government have the effect of authoritatively distributing the
benefits and costs of living in politically organized society.
The allocations made by government differ from those made by the institutions comprising the
private sector of the economy. The private economic sector engages in a market allocation of
resources and values, distributing society's resources and values--benefits and costs--by means of
the market mechanism. In the market, millions of individuals, groups, and firms receive society's
benefits, advantages, and rewards in accordance with their ability and willingness to pay for
them or provide satisfactory products and services in voluntary exchange.
In contrast, the government engages in a command, or authoritative, allocation of resources and
values. The government accomplishes the allocation by making and enforcing official decisions
which are binding on all members of the society.
7

The government allocates resources and values through exercise of its legitimate authority to (1)
lay and collect taxes, (2) borrow money on the credit of the general public, (3) appropriate and
dispense funds from the public treasury, (4) regulate and restrict human behavior, and (5)
generally, make and enforce laws and other government rules and regulations.
In the exercise of this authority, the government authoritatively decides which individuals,
groups, and firms within the society will receive more of the rewards, benefits, and advantages
and which will bear more of the costs and burdens.
In short, government allocates benefits and costs by means of public policy, while the private
economy accomplishes the allocation through the voluntary, private decisions and actions of
millions of individuals, groups, and firms in the marketplace.
In a predominantly capitalistic society, the private economic sector allocates, by far, the greater
proportion of society's resources and values. Government, however, allocates some very
important resources and values. The benefits and the burdens the rewards and deprivations
authoritatively distributed by government through decisions and actions on public policy affect
the interests of many individuals, groups, and firms within society.
In adopting and implementing income-tax policy, for example, the national government
determines whether private savers and investors will be rewarded or penalized, encouraging or
discouraging savings and investment and thereby very importantly affecting the nation's rates of
capital formation and real economic growth (i.e., economic growth with low inflation), which in
turn decisively affect the economic well-being of virtually the entire American population.
To give another example, national, state, and local funding of the public schools, colleges, and
universities as well as public policies governing such matters as free choice of schools, home
schooling, the status of charter schools, school vouchers, and tax treatment of enrollment in
private educational institutions significantly affect the ability of middle-income persons, the bulk
of the American population, to obtain good educations for their sons and daughters.
To mention still another example, public policies affecting Medicare, Social Security, public and
private employee retirement programs, and tax-sheltered annuities impact significantly on the
interests of a segment of American society that is steadily growing in numbers and political
importance workers who have retired and those who are nearing retirement.
Governmental Activity and Public Concern:
The activities and functions of the government are the legitimate concern of the entire adult
population comprising the political society. Anything the government does or fails to do is the
business of the general public. Authoritative decision-making and action by the government
entails the expenditure of money from the public treasury.
Every government policy adopted and carried out, every government program authorized, funded
and implemented, involves spending tax money money which the government demands and
extracts from the members of the political society. Since the costs of government are borne by
8

the taxpaying members of the community, the decisions and actions of the government, including
its internal operations, are the business of the citizenry at large.
This cannot be accurately said of any private, non-governmental organization or institution
operating within American society. The political society that is not totalitarian recognizes and
permits the existence within its boundaries of a large private sphere of human endeavor, a
substantial and significant dimension of human life that is not the business of the general public.
In the U.S.A., the component institutions of the large private economic sector make and carry out
many decisions that are of no concern to the general public. It is true that particular decisions and
actions of private business corporations may have and, on numerous occasions, have had spinoff
effects which adversely affect the safety and well-being of the whole society or are detrimental to
the legal rights of other business firms or to the rights of individual citizens.
Whenever such conditions obtain, the relevant decisions and actions of the private companies are
the business of the general public and the companies' activities are subject to government
regulation and control. At the same time, however, the corporations remain essentially private in
nature and purpose, with their internal operations being largely their own private business, not
the general concern of the political community at large.
Major Functions of Modern Government:
Major functions of modern government include (1) foreign diplomacy, (2) military defense, (3)
maintenance of domestic order, (4) administration of justice, (5) protection of civil liberties, (6)
provision for and regulation of the conduct of periodic elections, (7) provision for public goods
and services, (8) promotion of economic growth and development, (9) operation of socialinsurance programs to prevent future poverty, and (10) operation of social-welfare programs to
alleviate existing poverty.
Foreign Diplomacy
Handling foreign diplomacy is one of the most important functions performed by the national, or
central, government of a sovereign state i.e., the central government of a completely independent
political society that maintains formal diplomatic relations with a significant number of other
sovereign states in the world, sovereign states whose central governments officially recognize the
independence, or sovereignty, of the particular political society and are willing to maintain
diplomatic relations with its established, existing central government.
Foreign diplomacy is the process of a sovereign state conducting formally peaceful relations with
another sovereign state i.e., all formal relationships and interactions short of war. In handling
foreign diplomacy, the central governments of sovereign states may apply pressure and issue
warnings and veiled--and not so veiled--threats to one another as well as negotiate, bargain,
compromise, and conclude treaties and alliances with each other.
Foreign diplomacy is the process through a sovereign state, interacting with other sovereign
states in the international arena, seeks to protect and further its own national interests by all
means other than waging a hot war.
9

The U.S. national government, functioning as the sole representative of the United States of
America in its dealings and relations with other sovereign states, carries on foreign diplomacy
through the Presidency, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. embassies and other
American diplomatic missions maintained in foreign capitals.
Dating from ancient times, foreign diplomacy is one of the oldest functions of government.
While the use of diplomatic representatives to communicate with foreign governments is as old
as the very first political societies to emerge among members of the human species, it was not
until the 1400s A.D. that the first permanent diplomatic missions abroad were established. The
Italian states of the fifteenth century introduced the practice of maintaining embassies in each
others capitals, and from Italy, the practice quickly spread to the other European states.
Military Defense
A political society's national, or central, government is responsible for preserving the security of
that society from foreign aggression. The government maintains armed forces and, when
necessary, utilizes them to protect the territory and people it governs from attack and invasion by
foreign powers. Military defense is one of the oldest and most important functions of
government.
Domestic Order
A government must control the people it seeks to govern and protect. The government must
maintain internal peace i.e., peace among individuals and groups within the society. In the
Preamble to the United States Constitution, internal peace, or domestic order, is referred to as
"domestic tranquility." Ensuring domestic tranquility was another great purpose for which the
Constitution was ordained and established.
In a constitutional democracy, ensuring domestic order means maintaining law and order
establishing and enforcing the "rule of law" to insure preservation and protection, under orderly
conditions, of the citizen's right to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property.
It is the duty of the government, through suppression of domestic disorders and faithful and
effective enforcement of the laws of the political community, to protect persons from illegitimate
physical violence, safeguard property from vandalism, theft and fraud, and otherwise maintain
the conditions that enable the citizen to safely travel within the society's territorial borders, carry
on legitimate business enterprises, and otherwise legally and peacefully conduct his personal and
private affairs, without having to fear bodily harm or loss of property through the criminal and
subversive activities of others.
"Law and order" is sometimes referred to as "ordered liberty and "liberty under law," the two
latter expressions strongly implying that, without domestic order, there can be no liberty, that the
government's success in suppressing domestic disorder and enforcing the law is essential to the
citizen's enjoyment of the right to life, liberty, and property. Domestic order, like foreign
diplomacy and military defense, is one of the oldest and most important functions of
government.

Administration of Justice
10

To enforce the "rule of law," a government must operate a system of laws and courts that (1)
makes all adult citizens equal under the law and (2) provides them equal opportunities to obtain
just settlement of their civil disputes and receive fair treatment if suspected or accused of
engaging in criminal activity. In other words, the government must operate a system of
administering justice, a system which gives to every person what is his due.
Protection of Civil Liberties
A most important function of government in a constitutional democratic society is to protect civil
liberties i.e., preserve and safeguard the basic rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution
to the individual members of the society.
The basic, constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties which government must preserve and
protect include (1) the right to free exercise of religion, (2) freedom of speech and press, (3) the
right to hold peaceful meetings and to organize, or associate, for peaceful purposes, (4) the right
to petition the government for a redress of grievances, (5) the right to equal protection of the
laws, (6) immunity from deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, (7)
the right to just compensation for private property taken for a public purpose, (8) immunity from
bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, (9) the right to a writ of habeas corpus, if taken into
custody, (10) security of person and property from unreasonable searches and seizures, (11)
immunity from forced self-incrimination in criminal investigations and prosecutions, (12)
immunity from double jeopardy in criminal prosecutions, (13) the right of the accused, in any
criminal prosecution, to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, to be informed of the
nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with witnesses in his favor, and to have the
assistance of counsel for his defense, and (14) immunity from excessive bail, from excessive
fines, and from cruel and unusual punishments.
Provision for and Regulation of the Conduct of Elections
In a constitutional democratic society, a vitally important constitutional duty of government is to
(1) provide for free and meaningful elections, held at frequent intervals to fill major publicpolicy decision-making offices in the government, and (2) regulate the conduct of these elections
so as to ensure that they are carried on fairly, honestly, and peacefully.
Performance of the duty of providing for and regulating the conduct of elections is primarily the
responsibility of the fifty states. The national government, however, also has some important
powers and responsibilities in connection with this particular governmental function.
Provision for Public Goods and Services
Public goods and services are goods and services provided by government. They are goods and
services provided by public institutions, rather than by private institutions.
Governments can and do tax citizens to raise money to spend on goods and services which will
or are expected to benefit all or virtually all citizens but which, according to widespread
perceptions within the society, are not likely to be supplied through voluntary, market- induced
activities of private individuals, groups, and firms. The market mechanism and profit motive in
the private sector of the economy, according to widespread perceptions, cannot be relied upon to
11

satisfactorily provide these goods and services. Governmental decision-making and action are
needed.
Assertion of the need for governmental decision-making and action to insure satisfactory
provision of the goods and services is, of course, an arguable proposition. Persons of Libertarian,
or laissez-faire, persuasion disagree with this proposition. Libertarians, also known as
"Manchester Liberals," believe the proper and legitimate functions of government are limited to
foreign diplomacy, military defense, maintaining domestic order, administration of justice,
protection of civil liberties, providing for and regulating the conduct of elections, and keeping
the records incidental to performance of these functions. Virtually all other human activities,
including provision of goods and services widely desired by individuals and groups within
society, should be left to the private economic sector and its market mechanism.
Examples of public goods and services provided by national, state, and local governments in the
U.S.A. include (1) public parks, (2) public education (public schools, colleges, and universities),
(3) dams and canals, (4) airports, (5) streets and highways, (6) rapid mass transit systems, (7)
post offices and mail delivery, (8) sewers and waste disposal plants, (9) water purification and
distribution systems, (10) garbage collection and disposal, (11) electrical power, and (12) mental
and general hospitals.
Promotion of Economic Growth and Development
The central government of a modern society seeks to facilitate and foster the growth and
development of the nation's overall economy. The government actively pursues public policies
especially in the areas of taxation, foreign trade, and regulation of and subsidies for domestic
economic activities designed to promote increased capital formation and industrial production,
higher levels of commercial activity within the society, a more favorable balance of trade with
foreign nations, and hence low levels of unemployment and widespread economic prosperity
among the members of its own society.
The objectives the government expects to achieve through promotion of economic growth and
development include (1) increasing the industrial and military strength of the society, (2)
ensuring the society's unity and stability and the government's legitimacy, (3) enhancing the
political support enjoyed by the incumbent officeholders in the government political support
provided by individuals and groups benefiting from the high employment levels and widespread
economic prosperity, and (4) securing a broad tax base that will enable the government to fund
its activities and programs.
As regards the fourth objective, high levels of employment (coupled with low inflation) and
widespread economic prosperity, sustained over a long period of time, result in large amounts of
income being earned by the citizens large amounts of income which is subject to taxation. This
brings large amounts of revenue into the public treasury on a regular and continuing basis, thus
enabling the government to fund its activities and programs.
Governmental promotion of economic growth and development is by no means a new function
of government. It has been around for approximately 500 years. This governmental function, in
the form of mercantilism, was very much in evidence during the 1500s. In sixteenth-century
12

Europe, the function was performed by the central governments of the newly emerging national
political societies Spain, Portugal, France, and England.
h. Social Insurance. In order to ensure the income security of citizens and thereby prevent future
poverty, contemporary governments in relatively wealthy societies provide for social insurance
governmented-mandated insurance programs designed to protect the individual members of
society from economic misfortune widely perceived to be due to circumstances beyond the
control of the individuals, circumstances such as old age, physical disability, poor health, and
temporary unemployment.
The benefits distributed under a social-insurance program are paid for by the program's
participants; the benefits are not funded out of general-tax revenues. The benefits are paid out of
the program's trust fund, to which the beneficiaries have made compulsory contribu- tions. Each
participant in the program is required to contribute to his own protection against future
impoverishment.
Examples of government programs in the U.S.A. which, at least in theory, operate as socialinsurance programs include (1) Social Security (old-age and survivors' insurance), (2) Railroad
Retirement, (3) disability insurance, (4) unemployment insurance, and (5) national health
insurance (Medicare).
Social insurance is one of the more recent functions of government. In the U.S.A., social
security, disability insurance, and unemployment insurance are nearly 65 years old. The
programs began under the Social Security Act, enacted by Congress in 1935, and were expanded
by subsequent congressional legislation.
In Europe, social insurance was introduced earlier than it was in the U.S.A. In 1884, the
government of Germany set up a comprehensive system of social insurance. By the beginning of
the twentieth century, the government of every political society on the European mainland had
established and was operating some types of social-insurance programs. In Great Britain,
unemployment and sickness insurance, established under the National Insurance Act of 1911,
was expanded by subsequent parliamentary legislation, old-age and survivors' insurance being
added in 1925 and subsequently expanded. In Canada, Australia and New Zealand, social
security, disability insurance, and unemployment insurance were begun about the same time as
they were in the U.S.A.
In the U.S.A., national health insurance, in the form of Medicare, is nearly 35 years old, having
been established under 1965 amendments to the Social Security Act of 1935. National health
insurance in other English-speaking societies and in the West European countries began earlier
and is universal in coverage.
Medicare, the American version of national health insurance, is not universal in coverage; its
coverage is limited to particular categories of persons specified by law. Under Medi- care, acutecare coverage (hospital care, skilled nursing facility care, hospice care, and some aspects of
home health care) is provided for (1) Social Security and Railroad Retirement beneficiaries, on
reaching the age of 65 years, (2) some disabled persons under 65 years of age (those entitled to
13

receive Social Security and Railroad Retirement disability benefits for a period of 24 months),
and (3) persons suffering from end-stage renal disease (permanent kidney failure treated with
dialysis or a transplant).
Social Welfare
Social-welfare policy also known as public assistance," "public aid and public welfare consists
of government programs to provide assistance to the poor. These programs are designed to
alleviate existing poverty, providing aid to particular categories of persons who are unable to
adequately support themselves, due to circum- stances widely perceived within the society to be
beyond the control of the indigent persons. The categories of persons eligible for public
assistance generally include (1) women with dependent children in families where the father is
absent or unemployed and (2) persons who, though aged, blind or disabled, are not covered by
social-insurance programs and are therefore ineligible for benefits under them.
The money to pay for social-welfare programs does not come out of trust funds to which the
beneficiaries have made contributions, as is the case with social-insurance programs. The
benefits distributed under social-welfare programs are financed with funds coming directly from
the general public treasury. In other words, social-welfare programs are paid for by the taxpayers
in general.
In the U.S.A., social-welfare programs funded, at least in part, by the national government
include (1) Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), (2) Food Stamps, (3)
Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and (4) Medicaid.
Social welfare, as a function of national government, is relatively new. In the U.S.A., the practice
of establishing and operating nationally mandated and funded public-aid programs originated
during the 1930s. As a consequence of the Great Depression of the 1930s, public assistance
became a major responsibility of the U.S. national government, beginning with such New Deal
measures as Old Age Assistance and Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which were
enacted by Congress in 1935, as parts of the Social Security Act.
While social welfare is a relatively new function of national governments, welfare, as a function
of local governments, is quite old. Locally funded and administered public assistance in the
English-speaking world dates back to the sixteenth century.
In England, the policy of levying local taxes to provide aid to the poor began in London in 1547
and, over the next 50 years, spread to many other towns in the Kingdom. Under the Poor Laws
enacted by Parliament in 1563 and 1572 respectively, the principle of local taxation for public
aid was incorporated into national law and the method of collection of the "poor-relief rate" by
the towns was made uniform throughout the Kingdom.
The Poor Law of 1597 was a codifying measure. And the Poor Law of 1601 authorized each
town to levy a poor-relief rate on its property owners. By the beginning of the seventeenth
century, there was operating in England a social-welfare system which was mandated by
Parliament and was based on the principle that it was the legal responsibility of every town to
14

care for any of its impoverished inhabitants who could not be cared for by their respective
families.
Summary
A government, comprised of public institutions and serving as the instrument of its overall
political society, differs from all other institutions within the society. Firstly, the government is
universal in its reach within the society, its authority extending to all members of the society.
Secondly, the government claims a monopoly of control over the use of armed force and violence
by the society and its members. Thirdly, if the government and society are stable, governmental
decisions and actions bear the force of political legitimacy, the decisions and actions being
widely recognized within the society as morally and legally binding on all of its members.
Fourthly, the decisions of government are authoritative; i.e., they (a) are made and carried out for
and in the name of the entire society, (b) are vested with the authority of the society, and (c) are
binding on all members of the society. Fifthly, the government, in making and enforcing its
decisions, authoritatively allocates the benefits and costs of living in the society. Sixthly, all
governmental decisions and actions involve the spending of tax money and are therefore the
business of the general public.
Among the major functions of modern government are foreign diplomacy, military defense,
maintenance of domestic tranquility, administration of justice, provision of public goods and
services, promotion of economic growth and development, and the operation of social-insurance
and social-welfare programs. In constitutional democratic societies, the major functions of
government also include protection of civil liberties and making provision for and regulating the
conduct of elections.
What is a Society?
The analytic approach traditionally adopted by classical liberals is called methodological
individualism. This approach claims that only individuals exist, and that institutions such as the
family, church, and state all result from and can be analyzed in terms of individuals interacting
with each other in particular ways. Society is the shorthand for the sum of all voluntary, or
natural, institutions.
The state has emerged many times and in many forms throughout human history. Sometimes it
has been lauded as the ideal expression of society, as in Platos Republic. At other times, it has
been excoriated as a vicious parasite riding on the back of society, as in Rothbards For a New
Liberty(1978). With such a division of attitudes, the challenge to political thinkers is to discern
the commonality that exists among all states in order to derive a definition of the state.
Historically, when political thinkers have attempted to discover the essential nature of the state
and whether it has legitimacy, they have looked to the origins of that institution for answers. In
general, there are four basic and somewhat overlapping theories of how the state originated. Each
theory carries different implications for its relationship to society.
The first theory is a supernatural one, which claims that the state, or at least a certain ruler, is in
place through the will of God. This theory results in theocracy and the divine right of kings.
15

According to the theory, the members of society who are presumably placed by God in their
roles as well owe some level of allegiance to even an abusive state.
The second theory attempts to ground the state in more naturalistic terms. It claims that the state
like the family is an almost spontaneous institution that naturally evolves from the act of
community. Because individuals and their property require protection, an overriding institution
naturally evolves to act as a policeman and a final arbiter of disputes. According to this theory,
no hard line necessarily distinguishes the state from society; they are engaged in a cooperative
venture.
The third and fourth theories entail conflict. The third theory claims that the state emerges due to
internal warfare within the society. Karl Marx popularized this view by analyzing the state as an
agency of class warfare by which the capitalists control the workers. For Marx, the state is an
expression and protector of one segment of society at the expense of another segment.
The fourth theory looks to external conflicts and maintains that the state arose as the result of one
tribe conquering another tribe.
Within classical liberalism, two theories of the origin of the state have struggled for dominance:
the naturalistic, or consent, theory, by which the state evolves from society; and the conquest
theory, by which the state may be considered to be a continuing act of war committed against
society by a separate group. These are not merely historical suppositions. They are analytical
approaches intended to question or confirm the states legitimacy. If the state in its very genesis
requires the mass violation of human rights, it becomes far more difficult to ethically justify the
institution than if it arose from mass agreement.
The Concept of Society
The term society as mentioned earlier is derived from a Latin word socius. The term directly
means association, togetherness, gregariousness, or simply group life. The concept of society
refers to a relatively large grouping or collectivity of people who share more or less common and
distinct culture, occupying a certain geographical locality, with the feeling of identity or
belongingness, having all the necessary social arrangements or insinuations to sustain itself.
We may add a more revealing definition of society as defined by Calhoun et al (1994): "A
society is an autonomous grouping of people who inhabit a common territory, have a common
culture (shared set of values, beliefs, customs and so forth) and are linked to one another through
routinized social interactions and interdependent statuses and roles." Society also may mean a
certain population group, a community.
The common tendency in sociology has been to conceptualize society as a system, focusing on
the bounded and integrated nature of society. Great founders of sociology had also focused on
the dynamic aspect of society. Such early sociologists as Comte, Marx and Spencer grasped the
concept of society as a dynamic system evolving historically and inevitably towards complex
industrial structures (Swingwood, 1991:313).

16

The common tendency in sociology has been to conceptualize society as a system, focusing on
the bounded and integrated nature of society. But in recent years such an approach has been
criticized. Contemporary sociologists now frequently use the network conception of society.
This approach views society as overlapping, dynamic and fluid network of economic, political,
cultural and other relations at various levels. Such a conception is analytically more powerful
and reflects the reality especially in the context of modern, globalizing world.
Civil society
All of the institutions, voluntary organizations, and corporate bodies that are less than the state
but greater than the family.
States may be classified as sovereign if they are not dependent on, or subject to, any
other power or state. Other states are subject to external sovereignty or hegemony where ultimate
sovereignty lies in another state.
A federated state is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation. Such
states differ from sovereign states, in that they have transferred a portion of their sovereign
powers to a federal government. The concept of the state is different from the concept of
government. A government is the particular group of people that controls the state apparatus at a
given time. In other words, governments are the means through which state power is employed;
for example, by applying the rule of law.
The rule of law is a legal maxim whereby governmental decisions are made by applying known
legal principles. The rule of law is rule not by one person, as in an absolute monarchy, but by
laws, as in a democratic republic; no one person can rule and even top government officials are
under and ruled by the law.
The concept of the state is also different from the concept of a nation, which refers to a large
geographical area and the people therein who perceives themselves as having a common identity.
The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural or ethnic entity. The nation
state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign
entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The term nation state implies that the two
geographically coincide.
In classical thought, the state was identified with political society and civil society as a form of
political community. In contrast, modern thought distinguishes the nation state as a political
society from civil society as a form of economic society. Civil society is the arena outside of
the family, the state, and the market where people associate to advance common interests. It is
sometimes considered to include the family and the private sphere and then referred to as
the third sector of society, distinct from government and business.
Basic Features of a Society
First, a society is usually a relatively large grouping of people in terms of size. In a very
important sense, thus, society may be regarded as the largest and the most complex social group
that sociologists study. Second, as the above definition shows, the most important thing about a
17

society is that its members share common and distinct culture. This sets it apart from the other
population groups. Third, a society also has a definite, limited space or territory.
The populations that make up a given society are thus locatable in a definite geographical area.
The people consider that area as their own. Fourth, the people who make up a society have the
feeling of identity and belongingness. There is also the feeling of oneness. Such identity felling
emanates from the routinized pattern of social interaction that exists among the people and the
various groups that make up the society. (Henslin and Nelson, 1995; Giddens, 1996; Calhoun et
al., 1994) Fifth, members of a society are considered to have a common origin and common
historical experience. They feel that they have also common destiny. Sixth, members of a society
may also speak a common mother tongue or a major language that may serve as a national
heritage.
Seventh, a society is autonomous and independent in the sense that it has all the necessary social
institutions and organizational arrangements to sustain the system. However, a society is not an
island, in the sense that societies are interdependent. There has always been inter societal
relations. People interact socially, economically and politically. It is important to note that the
above features of a society are by no means exhaustive and they may not apply to all societies.
The level of a societys economic and technological development, the type of economic or
livelihood system a society is engaged in, etc may create some variations among societies in
terms of these basic features.
Conceptualizing Society at Various Levels
As indicated above, in a general sense and at an abstract level, all people of the earth may be
considered as a society. The earth is a common territory for the whole world's people. All people
of the earth share common origin; inhabit common planet; have common bio psychological
unity; and exhibit similar basic interests, desires and fears; and are heading towards common
destiny (Calhoun, et al., 1994).
At another level, every continent may be considered as a society. Thus, we may speak of the
European society, the African society, the Asian society, the Latin American society, etc. This
may be because, each of these continents share its own territory, historical experiences, shared
culture, and so on.
At a more practical level, each nation-state or country is regarded as a society. For example, the
people of Ethiopia or Kenya, Japan are considered as a society. Going far farther still, another
level of society is that within each nation-state, there may be ethno linguistically distinct groups
of people having a territory that they consider as their own. They are thus societies in their own
right. Some Such society may extend beyond the boundaries of nation-states. Example, the
Borana Oromo inhabit in both Ethiopia and Kenya.
Types or Categories of Societies
Sociologists classify societies into various categories depending on certain criteria. One such
criterion is level of economic and technological development attained by countries. Thus, the
countries of the world are classified as First World, Second World, and Third World; First World
Countries are those which are highly industrially advanced and economically rich, such as the
18

USA, Japan, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and Canada and so on. The Second World
Countries are also industrially advanced but not as much as the first category. The Third World
societies are thus which are least developed, or in the process of developing.
Some writers add a fourth category, namely, Fourth World countries. These countries may be
regarded as the "poorest of the poor" (Giddens, 1996). Another important criterion for classifying
societies may be that which takes into account temporal succession and the major source of
economic organization (Lensiki and Lensiki, 1995). When societies modernize they transform
from one form to another.
The simplest type of society that is in existence today and that may be regarded the oldest is that
whose economic organization is based on hunting and gathering. They are called hunting and
gathering societies. This society depends on hunting and gathering for its survival. The second
types are referred to as pastoral and horticultural societies. Pastoral societies are those whose
livelihood is based on pasturing of animals, such as cattle, camels, sheep and goats.
Horticultural societies are those whose economy is based on cultivating plants by the use of
simple tools, such as digging sticks, hoes, axes, etc.
The third types are agricultural societies. This society, which still is dominant in most parts of
the world, is based on large-scale agriculture, which largely depends on ploughs using animal
labor. The Industrial Revolution which began in Great Britain during 18th century, gave rise to
the emergence of a fourth type of society called the Industrial Society. An industrial society is
one in which goods are produced by machines powered by fuels instead of by animal and human
energy (Ibid.).
Sociologists also have come up with a fifth emerging type of society called post-industrial
society. This is a society based on information, services and high technology, rather than on raw
materials and manufacturing. The highly industrialized which have now passed to the postindustrial level include the USA, Canada, Japan, and Western Europe.

Unit II: Foundations of a Nation, State and Governments

Although the terms "state" and "government" are often used interchangeably, international law
distinguishes between a non-physical state and its government; and in fact, the concept of
"government-in-exile" is predicated upon that distinction. States are non-physical juridical
entities, and not organizations of any kind. However, ordinarily, only the government of a state
can obligate or bind the state, for example by treaty.
The state is a jurisdictional claim to territorial sovereignty that persists through time. The
government was the actual agency that acted to carry out the decrees of the state. Thus, the
government might change from KANU, to DP, FORD, ODM, Republican to Democrat, but the
state remains the same. Whether Kenyatta, Moi, Kibaki or Uhuru occupies the State House, each
19

man would represent the same state, which derives its legitimacy from the Kenyan struggle for
independence and the ratification of the Kenyan Constitution.
Individual natural rights, limited government depending on the consent of the governed,
separation of powers within government, and most radically, the right of people within society to
depose rulers who fail to uphold their end of the social contract. Lockes work, from which both
the French and American revolutions drew heavily, remains the touchstone for consent theory
within the classical liberal tradition.
Since less developed countries (LDCs) were severely confronted with problems of market failure
and market imperfections due to lack of information and externalities, markets were not able to
efficiently allocate scarce resources and co-ordinate individual decision making.
During the early 1980s many LDCs were confronted with major economic problems as the debt
crisis unfolded. The IMF and the World Bank stepped in to assist these countries with reforming
their economies. According to these international organizations one of the main underlying
causes of the debt crisis was heavy government intervention.
Therefore, in the reform programmes (Structural Adjustment Programmes, or SAPs) they
attached to their financial support they emphasised the reduction of the role of government and
the enhancement of the market as the major device for allocating scarce resources. These reform
programmes clearly voiced the neo-liberal view, which became the dominant paradigm.
The concept of civil society pops up in discussions recently. It is acknowledged that both the
government and the market are embedded in society. The relationship between the government
and the society seems to be dependent on the existence of a civil society. Civil society
complements both the government and the market in their contribution to attaining higher
economic growth.
Rules of the game are important, but they should be supported by society. Interaction between
the state, market and civil society sometimes also termed the governance structure seems to be
necessary, to both develop the rules of the game and create ways to guarantee implementation
and respect of these rules. Civil society, which is comprised of free press, trade unions, etc.,
might provide the institutional and behavioural embodiment of respecting rules.
It may help to guide and to screen the activities and outcomes of both the state and the market. In
this context, attention is increasingly being paid to questions like the importance of having a
democratically chosen government, the need for having well established property rights, etc.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the
earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, which
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
20

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive
of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as
to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which
they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which
constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of
Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a
candid world.
Even the noblest goal without a realistic plan to achieve them, however, is just vanity. The quest
for a more competitive and successful national economy, like any major undertaking, demands a
well-conceived strategy. For many years the United States has deftly strategized to advance our
physical security. We possess a comprehensive, regularly updated battery of plans superintending
the nations defense, military, and homeland security policies and programs. Yet, at a time when
our ability to compete is definitional, we have no equivalent national competitiveness strategy
in service to our nations economic security.
If such a strategy is to be successful it must be realistic, comprehensive, disciplined, and
adaptable. It must energize and inspire the nation by its common sense and practicality. It must
empower America to earn its place of global leadership and influence in the 21st century. Each of
these musts will be well-served by a strategic campaign featuring seven essential pillars.

A cogent definition of purpose

The purpose of any state, nation or government is achieving unmatched competitive excellence.
The road to success needs a clear understanding of what it means for us to be an economically
competitive nation. Fundamentally, its defined by the countrys ability to foster vibrant
commercial enterprise and to excel in bringing desirable goods and services to market, at home
and abroad, in the face of relentless international competition.
It means that when job creators decide where to take risks, invest capital, and employ people,
they will choose the United States. It means that when consumers abroad are purchasing
products and services, we give them every reason to buy Kenyan. Competitiveness, at its core, is
not a zero sum game of capturing value that would otherwise go to another. Its about creating
21

value, pushing the limits of human achievement, meeting needs, and harnessing the power of
freedom.
Clearly understood stakes
A global economy isnt a choice its a reality. The competitive excellence will produce stronger
economic growth, more well-paying jobs, healthier public treasuries, greater security, continuing
global leadership, and a better place for our kids to live and grow. It means that the United States
will remain a nation of great consequence and leadership that is able to advance our values and
principles by example and practice.
Flagging competitiveness means a declining America of unfulfilled potential, hobbling our
ability to provide a higher quality of life at home and necessary leadership abroad. Either we
compete or retreat. Whats needed is a whole-of-society drive alerting America to this reality.
Better organization
We must organize ourselves properly for action. By all accounts, the primary engine of U.S.
global competitiveness is our private sector, the policymakers will either foster a competitive
national economy or foil it. Government mustnt just get out of the way. It needs to participate
in creating the way and, often, take the lead in clearing the way. Good governance engenders the
trust and confidence of risk takers through wise and consistent policy instrumental to sound
business planning.
Currently, no senior U.S. official is responsible for overseeing national competitiveness per se
and no executive apparatus is chartered to coordinate across the interagency the development and
implementation of competitiveness-related policy. This does not presuppose the creation of new
czars or additional layers of bureaucracy. Instead, it demands that we vest accountability for
this portfolio in longstanding but modernized seats of authority.
Similarly, state, nations or governments must be organized to address issues bearing on U.S.
competitiveness holistically, rather than through jurisdictionally stove-piped committees deft at
churning out discombobulated and confusing policy. Improved national-level coordination must
be accompanied by greater synchronicity between federal, state, tribal, and municipal
governments that will cultivate a more fertile American business environment and by teaming
between the public and private sector.
Sound foundational planning
Our strategy must be structured with well-conceived national plans to promote trade, innovation,
infrastructure, manufacturing, and other prerequisites for competitive success. We have no such
set of comprehensive blueprints. This isnt to suggest the failed approach of economic central
planning. Rather, it recognizes that government plays a central role in creating the conditions for
success. A strong business environment is created by vision, thoughtful planning, and the
execution of enlightened laws, policies, and programs that elevate national performance in the
fundamentals.
Strong fundamentals
22

National competitiveness policy and planning must laser in on eight widely recognized factors
that attract job creators and investors:
Access to customers
Without access to customers businesses fail, jobs arent created, and economies flounder.
Achieving market access requires the pursuit and ratification of mutually beneficial international
trade pacts. Without them we cant tap demand for our goods and services in the fastest growing
consumer markets abroad, thereby spurring employment growth and prosperity at home. While
China and Europe are vigorously pursuing trade agreements spanning the globe, the United
States is negotiating only one albeit a sizeable one in the form of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Reasonable costs
The cost and complexity of our tax and regulatory systems must stack up well against other
countries. Yet, we have the highest business tax rates in the OECD. The revenue authority of any
state, code is a tangle of quantum complexity and gamesmanship. The Code of Federal
Regulations is a fast-accreting mass of duplication, confusion, and inefficiency. Both codes are
major liabilities and must be modernized.
Reasonableness in the cost of universal inputs such as health care, energy, labor, and liability can
contribute mightily to a national economy able to sustain strong purchasing power, employment,
and productivity; it will make our offerings more attractive abroad. International market access
will produce little benefit if we cant compete vigorously on the bases of both cost and quality.
Affordable and accessible capital
Entrepreneurs must have the financial resources necessary to hire, build, and grow. Access to
affordable capital is being impaired by new and contradictory financial and tax rules, economic
and policy uncertainty, and the threat of higher interest rates from outsized public debt that rivals
the biggest deadbeats in Europe. Each of these obstacles needs immediate attention so that
financial lifeblood can flow to our entrepreneurs and enterprises, big and small.
A highly-skilled and mobile workforce
Our employers require access to the worlds most skilled workers if we are to excel in todays
technology-based economy. Americas student body is lagging in the disciplines of the future:
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Our workforce is aging, relatively
immobile, and ill-prepared to fill the better-paying jobs in the modern economy.
World-class infrastructure and reliable energy
Americas prospects depend on having modern networks and ample, affordable power to keep
our people and goods on the go and operations humming. Other countries are investing heavily
in state-of-the-art transportation, communications, and public utility systems. U.S. infrastructure
is aging, underfunded, and falling behind. Retooling Americas infrastructure will take time and
resources, and the time to begin is now.
Even the most elaborate systems, however, cant compensate for an economy that doesnt have
sufficient energy. America has a wealth of resources and know-how to meet the growing
domestic and global need for clean, abundant energy and energy-efficient goods and services.
23

Harnessing these assets wisely to meet our national economic, security, and environmental needs
is essential to achieving competitive success.
A responsible fiscal environment
Explosive levels of government debt impair economic growth, repel job creators, and undermine
national competitiveness. Americas swelling tidal wave of red ink portends higher taxes, rising
interest rates, and inflation. Debt service continues to gobble up a growing portion of a nations
annual budget, siphoning resources that would otherwise be available for purposes that support a
healthy and competitive economy, such as education, training, and infrastructure. Rather than
leaping over fiscal cliffs, our way to a more prosperous future is through a sensible glide path
to a more balanced national ledger.
Good governance, rule of law, justice, and civil society
Job creators wish to locate where public institutions are dependable, honest, and effective, where
legal rights are protected, and where a safe and stable civil society supports a high quality of life.
The nation, State or a government is an economic and political safe haven precisely because of
our comparative advantage in many of these areas. Americas numerous strengths, though, are
undermined by significant weaknesses, including poor public-sector efficiency and productivity,
slow and cumbersome permitting and approval processes, a tort system that leads the world in
cost and excess, significant cyber-vulnerabilities, and an unacceptable rate of violent crime and
social division.
A fertile culture of innovation
No economy can remain vibrant without a fertile ecosystem for spawning the advanced goods,
services, and solutions that fuel prosperity. Other countries are rapidly enhancing their creative
capacity. Strengthening innovation, long the engine of economic achievement requires a national
commitment to academic and professional excellence in STEM, intensive cross-disciplinary
collaboration, ample public and private R&D investment, a strong patent system, and the
vigorous protection of intellectual property. In each of these categories the some nations are
performing well below our potential and swiftly losing ground to competitors.
Benchmarks and measures
As important as each of the above fundamentals are, we cant expect to excel in any of them
without honestly benchmarking our competitive performance and continuously measuring
progress. There is need for any state, nation or government to track a multitude of economic
indicators; none, however, are designed specifically to assess our comparative global
competitiveness a richer and deeper evaluation than traditional economic barometers.
Charting our position and progress will enable us compare our standing with the competitive
performance of other economies. The important task of analyzing U.S. global competitiveness
shouldnt be relegated to the World Economic Forum, World Bank, OECD, or United Nations.
Achieving national excellence is our responsibility. Its incumbent upon us to chart our own
course, establish our own benchmarks, and measure our own headway.
Leadership
24

The indispensable element that pulls it all together is leadership. America must prosper in order
to lead and we must lead in order to prosper.
A trade-based global economy cant function fruitfully without principled norms, rules, and best
practices that guide international economic, political, and security relations. Evolving challenges
such as terrorism, corrupt trade practices, and state capitalism wont fix themselves. They require
an America at its best and at the fore in a world where nations are necessarily vested in one
anothers prosperity, stability, and success.
U.S. leadership abroad, however, is unsustainable without excellent leadership at home. Whether
in government offices, business suites, union halls, or other seats of civic responsibility, we need
our leaders to embrace a longer-term vision and keener sense of teamwork. Too many of our
institutions and those who lead them are fixated on short term gratification looking to the next
election, the next quarterly earnings report, or the next negotiation rather than on building solid
fundamentals for success that will stand the test of time.
The essence of good leadership is keeping faith with lasting principles political and economic
freedom, the rule of law, the sanctity of human rights, the dignity of the individual, civic
responsibility and the values undergirding the document that begins with We the people. If we
match our fidelity to this code with adroit strategy to right the nations economic ship and remain
on course, a nation will surely set the pace for progress in a challenging yet opportunity-filled
21st century and beyond.

Unit III: The Concept, Objective and Practice of nationalism

The term nationalism is generally used to describe two phenomena: the attitude that the
members of a nation have when they care about their national identity, and the actions that the
members of a nation take when seeking to achieve (or sustain) self-determination. Raises
questions about the concept of a nation (or national identity), which is often defined in terms of
common origin, ethnicity, or cultural ties, and specifically about whether an individual's
membership in a nation should be regarded as non-voluntary or voluntary. Raises questions about
whether self-determination must be understood as involving having full statehood with complete
authority over domestic and international affairs, or whether something less is required.
25

It is traditional; therefore, to distinguish nations from states whereas a nation often consists of an
ethnic or cultural community, a state is a political entity with a high degree of sovereignty. While
many states are nations in some sense, there are many nations which are not fully sovereign
states. As an example, the Native American Iroquois constitute a nation but not a state, since they
do not possess the requisite political authority over their internal or external affairs. If the
members of the Iroquois nation were to strive to form a sovereign state in the effort to preserve
their identity as a people, they would be exhibiting a state-focused nationalism.
Nationalism has long been ignored as a topic in political philosophy, written off as a relic from
bygone times. It came into the focus of philosophical debate two decades ago, in the nineties,
partly in consequence of rather spectacular and troubling nationalist clashes such as those in
Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet republics.
Surges of nationalism tend to present a morally ambiguous, and for this reason often fascinating,
picture. National awakening and struggles for political independence are often both heroic and
cruel; the formation of a recognizably national state often responds to deep popular sentiment but
sometimes yields inhuman consequences, from violent expulsion and cleansing of nonnationals to organized mass murder.
The moral debate on nationalism reflects a deep moral tension between solidarity with oppressed
national groups on the one hand and repulsion in the face of crimes perpetrated in the name of
nationalism on the other. Moreover, the issue of nationalism points to a wider domain of
problems related to the treatment of ethnic and cultural differences within democratic polity,
arguably among the most pressing problems of contemporary political theory.
In the last decade the focus of the debate about nationalism has shifted towards issues in
international justice, probably in response to changes on the international scene: bloody
nationalist wars such as those in the former Yugoslavia have become less conspicuous, whereas
the issues of terrorism, of the clash of civilizations and of hegemony in the international order
have come to occupy public attention.
One important link with earlier debates is provided by the contrast between views of
international justice based on the predominance of sovereign nation-states and more
cosmopolitan views that insist upon limiting national sovereignty or even envisage its
disappearance. Another new focus for philosophers is provided by issues of territory and
territorial rights, which connect the topic of nation-states (or, the nation state) with questions
about boundaries, migration, resource rights and vital ecological matters.
In this entry we shall first present conceptual issues of definition and classification (Sections 1
and 2) and then the arguments put forward in the debate (Section 3), dedicating more space to the
arguments in favor of nationalism than to those against it, in order to give the philosophical
nationalist a proper hearing.
Nationalism Types
Risorgimento and Integral nationalism
26

There are different types of nationalism including Risorgimento nationalism and Integral
nationalism. Whereas risorgimento nationalism applies to a nation seeking to establish a liberal
state (for example the Risorgimento in Italy and similar movements in Greece, Germany, Poland
during the 19th century or the civic American nationalism), integral nationalism results after a
nation has achieved independence and has established a state. Mussolini's Italy and Nazi
Germany, according to Alter and Brown, were examples of integral nationalism.
Some of the qualities that characterise integral nationalism are anti-individualism, statism (plans
by the few ideology), radical extremism, and aggressive-expansionist militarism. The term
Integral Nationalism often overlaps with fascism, although many natural points of disagreement
exist. Integral nationalism arises in countries where a strong military ethos has become
entrenched through the independence struggle, when, once independence is achieved, it is
believed that a strong military is required to ensure the security and viability of the new state.
Also, the success of such a liberation struggle results in feelings of national superiority that may
lead to extreme nationalism.
Civic nationalism
Civic nationalism (also known as liberal nationalism) defines the nation as an association of
people who identify themselves as belonging to the nation, who have equal and shared political
rights, and allegiance to similar political procedures. According to the principles of civic
nationalism, the nation is not based on common ethnic ancestry, but is a political entity whose
core identity is not ethnicity. This civic concept of nationalism is exemplified by Ernest Renan in
his lecture in 1882 "What is a Nation? where he defined the nation as a "daily referendum"
(frequently translated "daily plebiscite") dependent on the will of its people to continue living
together.
Civic nationalism is a kind of non-xenophobic nationalism that is claimed to be compatible with
liberal values of freedom, tolerance, equality, and individual rights. Liberal nationalists often
defend the value of national identity by saying that individuals need a national identity in order
to lead meaningful, autonomous lives, and that liberal democratic polities need national identity
in order to function properly.
Civic nationalism lies within the traditions of rationalism and liberalism, but as a form of
nationalism it is contrasted with ethnic nationalism. Membership of the civic nation is considered
voluntary, as in Ernest Renan's "daily referendum" formulation in What is a Nation? Civicnational ideals influenced the development of representative democracy in countries such as the
United States and France (see the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776, and the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789).
Some authors deconstruct the distinction between ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism
because of the ambiguity of the concepts. They argue that the paradigmatic case of Ernest Renan
is an idealisation and it should be interpreted within the German tradition and not in opposition
to it. For example, they argue that the arguments used by Renan at the conference What is a
nation? are not consistent with his thinking. This alleged civic conception of the nation would be
determined only by the case of the loss gives Alsace and Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War.]
27

Ethnic nationalism
Whereas nationalism in and of itself does not necessarily imply a belief in the superiority of one
ethnicity or country over others, some nationalists support ethnocentric supremacy and/or
ethnocentric protectionism.
National purity
Some nationalists exclude certain groups. Some nationalists, defining the national community in
ethnic, linguistic, cultural, historic, or religious terms (or a combination of these), may then seek
to deem certain minorities as not truly being a part of the 'national community' as they define it.
Sometimes a mythic homeland is more important for the national identity than the actual territory
occupied by the nation.
Left-wing nationalism
Left-wing nationalism (occasionally known as socialist nationalism, not to be confused with
national socialism)[52] refers to any political movement that combines left-wing politics with
nationalism.
Many nationalist movements are dedicated to national liberation, in the view that their nations
are being persecuted by other nations and thus need to exercise self-determination by liberating
themselves from the accused persecutors. Anti-revisionist MarxistLeninism is closely tied with
this ideology, and practical examples include Stalin's early work Marxism and the National
Question and his Socialism in One Country edict, which declares that nationalism can be used in
an internationalist context, fighting for national liberation without racial or religious divisions.
Other examples of left-wing nationalism include Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement that
launched the Cuban Revolution ousting the American-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959,
Cornwalls Mebyon Kernow, Ireland's Sinn Fin, Wales's Plaid Cymru, the Awami League in
Bangladesh and the African National Congress in South Africa.[citation needed]
Territorial nationalism
Territorial nationalists assume that all inhabitants of a particular nation owe allegiance to their
country of birth or adoption.[53] A sacred quality is sought in the nation and in the popular
memories it evokes.[54] Citizenship is idealised by territorial nationalists. A criterion of a
territorial nationalism is the establishment of a mass, public culture based on common values,
codes and traditions of the population.[54]

Pan-nationalism
Pan-nationalism is unique in that it covers a large area span. Pan-nationalism focuses more on
"clusters" of ethnic groups. Pan-Slavism is one example of Pan-nationalism. The goal was to
unite all Slavic people into one country. They did succeed by uniting several south Slavic people
into Yugoslavia in 1918.
Anti-colonial nationalism
This form of nationalism came about during the decolonization of the post war periods. It was a
reaction mainly in Africa and Asia against being subdued by foreign powers. It also appeared in
the non-Russian territories of the Tsarist empire and later, the USSR, where Ukrainianists and
28

Islamic Marxists condemned Russian Bolshevik rule in their territories as a renewed Russian
imperialism. This form of nationalism took many guises, including the peaceful passive
resistance movement led by Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian subcontinent.
Benedict Anderson argued that anti-colonial nationalism is grounded in the experience of literate
and bilingual indigenous intellectuals fluent in the language of the imperial power, schooled in
its "national" history, and staffing the colonial administrative cadres up to but not including its
highest levels. Post-colonial national governments have been essentially indigenous forms of the
previous imperial administration
Criticisms
Critics of nationalism have argued that it is often unclear what constitutes a nation, or why a
nation should be the only legitimate unit of political rule. A nation is best viewed as a cultural
entity and not a political association, nor as necessarily linked to a particular territorial area. But
nationalists hold the opposite as self-evident: that the boundaries of a nation and a state should,
as far as possible, coincide with only one culture within its boundaries; multi-culturalism is one
of their first targets.
Nationalism is inherently divisive because it highlights perceived differences between people,
emphasizing an individual's identification with their own nation. The idea is also potentially
oppressive because it submerges individual identity within a national whole, and gives elites or
political leaders potential opportunities to manipulate or control the masses.
Much of the early opposition to nationalism was related to its geopolitical ideal of a separate
state for every nation. The classic nationalist movements of the 19th century rejected the very
existence of the multi-ethnic empires in Europe. Even in that early stage, however, there was an
ideological critique of nationalism. That has developed into several forms of anti-nationalism in
the western world. The Islamic revival of the 20th century also produced an Islamic critique of
the nation-state.
The Basic Concept of Nationalism
Although the term nationalism has a variety of meanings, it centrally encompasses the two
phenomena noted at the outset: the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care
about their identity as members of that nation and the actions that the members of a nation take
in seeking to achieve (or sustain) some form of political sovereignty
Nations and national identity may be defined in terms of common origin, ethnicity, or cultural
ties, and while an individual's membership in the nation is often regarded as involuntary, it is
sometimes regarded as voluntary. The degree of care for one's nation that nationalists require is
often, but not always, taken to be very high: according to such views, the claims of one's nation
take precedence over rival contenders for authority and loyalty
Despite these definitional worries, there is a fair amount of agreement about the historically
paradigmatic form of nationalism. It typically features the supremacy of the nation's claims over
other claims to individual allegiance and full sovereignty as the persistent aim of its political
29

program. Territorial sovereignty has traditionally been seen as a defining element of state power
and essential for nationhood.
It was extolled in classic modern works by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau and is returning to
center stage in the debate, though philosophers are now more skeptical. Issues surrounding the
control of the movement of money and people and the resource rights implied in territorial
sovereignty make the topic politically center in the age of globalization and philosophically
interesting for nationalists and anti-nationalists alike.
The Concept of a Nation
In its general form the issue of nationalism concerns the mapping between the ethno-cultural
domain (featuring ethno-cultural groups or nations) and the domain of political organization.
In breaking down the issue, we have mentioned the importance of the attitude that the members
of a nation have when they care about their national identity.
Objectives of Nationalism
Nationalism is necessary in order to have a well-functioning democracy. Without nationalism
there can be no modern democracy. Everyone who values democracy, and I do, therefore has to
accept some form of nationalism.
Nationalism is an ideology that tries to bind the people to the state in such a way that the people,
or the nation, coincide with the state, thereby forming the nation-state. An important
characteristic of nationalism is that it doesnt allow for self-appointed elite to govern the people,
but instead requires the people to rule themselves.
The people have to believe that the state represents them in order for them to accept the authority
and legitimacy of the state. If not, then the state would need such a large police force to enforce
cooperation that we would end up with a police state. Nationalism therefore is a driving force for
a free and open society with no room for oppression by elite.
Another objective of nationalism is to have all members of the nation identify with the same
culture and thereby each other, which is done by standardising the language, education, legal
codes, media etcetera. This doesnt mean that everyone has to be identical to each other, but
everyone needs to share a similar identity and needs to feel part of one community, that is in the
same boat, so to speak. Only within such a community is it possible to have the democratic
institutions that enable a modern democracy to function. Without such a national community it is
impossible to have democratic debate.
Of course nationalism can also be used to exclude and eliminate others, but this is rare. These
rare occasions are however often used to discredit nationalism. An elite who doesnt have the
best interest of the people at heart, but which does want all the benefits of a high social position
often tries to promote patriotism instead, and at the same time downgrades nationalism.
Patriotism is simply to owe allegiance to the state even if that state is not legitimized by the
people. The state is in that perspective merely an organisation like any other.
If that were true it would be like asking soldiers to die for the telephone company. Without
identification and an emotional bond between people and state we would have no alternative then
30

to live under a police state. If we dont want a police state then we need some degree of
nationalism.
Where there are multiple cultures present in the same location who each have different rules on
how to order the world then there needs to be another ethical system to mediate between them.
For example, Muslims have Sharia law which describes how a good Islamic society should be
organised. These laws are not accepted by non-Muslims for if they would accept them they
would be Muslim as well. In a truly multicultural society the Sharia law would govern the lives
of Muslims and each of the other cultures would have their own laws as well.
Now Germany, as with other European nations, has a culture based on Christianity and the
Enlightenment, which values ideas like freedom, equality and self-determination. If you
implement multiculturalism then the values of the Enlightenment are degraded to the level of
only being appropriate to the ethnic German population. You would get a Germany where each
(ethnic) community has its own rules. Of course such a system could never work in a modern
society because people are not isolated in small communities.
Multiculturalism can however also be used to invalidate all of the cultures present, because if all
cultures are equal, which multiculturalism implicitly states, than none may rule over the other.
This means that, in the case of Germany, the mere presence of another culture is already reason
enough to replace German culture with something else. This new culture is by definition antidemocratic, because it is one of a small elite who appoints itself as mediator between the various
cultural groups.
In this way an elite rules over a set of distinct peoples. In that sense multiculturalism is a leap
backward in time when there were large empires ruled by small nobility and peoples positions in
society were fixed by birth. Characteristics of such empires are that they are fiercely antidemocratic, oppressive and unable to compete economically in a globalised world.
A second implementation of multiculturalism is at least as bad because it is geared towards the
eventual destruction of the original population. In this view of multiculturalism immigrants with
different backgrounds need to be supported, meaning privileged compared to the native
population, to integrate into society because they are at a disadvantage due to their different
cultural background. However, there is always integration and disintegration in an individualistic
society regardless of the presence of foreigners.
Each individual strives to obtain the best possible social position and self-development, which
can sometimes come at the expense of others. In Western society this is always accompanied by
conflict between individuals who consequently drift apart and cause society to disintegrate.
In order to keep the community intact there need to be mechanisms to keep these individuals
together. The nation-state, representing and imposing a distinct national culture, has historically
proven to be the best suited mechanism for this purpose. Integration and disintegration are
eternal processes and there will therefore still be integration in the year 2525 even if all of
humanity would have miraculously been transformed into one single community.
31

The fact that integration is an everlasting process and not a fixed endpoint has major
consequences for individuals in Europe. By privileging foreigners you automatically
discriminate Europeans. Due to the fact that competition in Western society is individualistic
means that all Europeans who are not fortunate enough to belong to the elite happy few will be
limited in their opportunities and simply have to accept being second class citizens. The
opportunities of Europeans are then sacrificed to give those opportunities to foreigners.
Another policy which aggravates this situation even further is that the same people who advocate
integration and affirmative action also try to keep the borders open. Seeing that every newcomer
needs to be assisted to integrate into society, the resulting system will be Apartheid which
privileges foreigners. The eventual consequence will be a replacement of the native European
population. Integration can therefore best be compared to a neutron bomb which leaves the
structures intact but destroys all people living within it.
The Practice of Nationalism
Nationalism is a set of beliefs about political legitimacy and cultural identity. Nationalism has
provided a significant framework for historical writing in Europe and in those former colonies
influenced by Europe since the nineteenth century.
Nationalism is an umbrella term covering elements such as national consciousness, the
expression of national identity, and loyalty to the nation. The exercise of nationalism is the
assertion and/or reassertion of the mutual (political) sovereignty of a community in the form of a
nation-state. The -ism in nationalism is a practice, a process of development, an activity, "a
mechanism of adjustment and compensation, acting as a vehicle of delivery for both the mass
and elite within a community.
In one of its modern expressions, nationalism is the self-identification of a community of people
who see themselves as having an observable sovereignty and identification of a political unit
housing a culturally homogeneous group. What this means is that there is a relative congruence
of a political unit and a high culture where a certain kind of homogeneity is necessary for a
cohesive nation-state. The nation-state is a power body in which community and polity come
together.
Roger Masters in The Nature of Politics (1989) says that both the primordialist and modernist
conceptions of nationalism involve an acceptance of three levels of common interest of
individuals or groups in national identity
1. at an inter-group level, humans respond to competition or conflict by organizing into
groups to either attack other groups or defend their group from hostile groups
2. at the intragroup level, individuals gain advantage through cooperation with others in
securing collective goods that are not accessible through individual effort alone
3. on the individual level, self-interested concerns over personal fitness by individuals either
consciously or subconsciously motivate the creation of group formation as a means of
security

32

The behaviour of leadership groups or lites that involves efforts to advance their own fitness
when they are involved in the mobilization of an ethnic or national group is crucial in the
development of the culture of that group.
Causes
Two major bodies of thought address the causes of nationalism:
1. the modernist perspective describes nationalism as a recent phenomenon that requires
the structural conditions of modern society in order to exist
2. the primordialist perspective describes nationalism as a reflection of the ancient
evolutionary tendency of humans to organize into distinct groupings based on an affinity
of birth
The practice of nationalism calls for unity of a nation and the non-discriminatory states and
government activities. For example in UK the nationalism emergent coincided with high levels
of immigration, combined with the feeling that UK was in decline. A clear disparity between the
classes/regions all lead to disgruntled working class to look for somebody to blame. This made
them to reduce the belief in war abroad but a belief in state involvement helping old people,
bring back capital punishment.
Nationalism is not the rite of passage to modernity, but goes beyond this. It is a cultural and
political reaffirmation of a group within modernity and towards post-modernity. Collectivities
are dynamic and new or altered high cultures always have the potential to still emerge.
The exercise of nationalism is a result of a set of social conditions that produce a situation where
the pervading culture is the high culture. This does not just effect the elite minorities but the
entire population and constitutes very nearly the only kind of unit which men willingly and
often ardently identify in modernity.
Nationalism as a function of modernity (and post-modernity) is used by the elite as a vehicle for
social mobility a method of redefinition. It is the role of the elite as intellectual awakeners to
mobilise the mass, and by doing so nationalise them, either through management or outright
manipulation.
This process sees the birth of a new high culture, whether via education or by inherited
characteristics, which either replaces some previously dominant cultural group or creates a new
one recreated by political will and cultural engineering, based on elements drawn from a distant
past. The elite govern and the mass follow, but the elite must be moved from below.
The route towards nationhood has in theory been divided into two possible categories: the pursuit
of a national identity as housed in a nation-state; or the exercise of national identity as the
(re)assertion of a culture as being politically legitimate.

33

Unit IV: Classification of State Systems

A political system is a system of politics and government. It is usually compared to the legal
system, economic system, cultural system, and other social systems. However, this is a very
simplified view of a much more complex system of categories involving the questions of who
should have authority and what the government's influence on its people and economy should be.
The classification of power systems operating states plays an important role in power systems
control and operation. Determining the state of a power system is crucial and requirements for
34

real-time decision making in power systems security assessment demand low dimensionality and
low computational time.
Anthropological forms of political systems.
Anthropologists generally recognize four kinds of political systems, two of which are
uncentralized and two of which are centralized.
Uncentralized systems
Band society
Small family group, no larger than an extended family or clan; it has been
defined as consisting of no more than 30 to 50 individuals.
A band can cease to exist if only a small group walks out.
Tribe
Generally larger, consisting of many families. Tribes have more social
institutions, such as a chief or elders.
More permanent than bands. Many tribes are sub-divided into bands.
Centralized governments
Chiefdom
More complex than a tribe or a band society, and less complex than a state
or a civilization
Characterized by pervasive inequality and centralization of authority.
A single lineage/family of the elite class becomes the ruling elite of the
chiefdom
Complex chiefdoms have two or even three tiers of political hierarchy.
"An autonomous political unit comprising a number of villages or
communities under the permanent control of a paramount chief"
Sovereign state
A sovereign state is a state with a permanent population, a defined
territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other
sovereign states.
Supranational Political Systems
Supranational political systems are created by independent nations to reach a common goal or
form an alliance.
Empires
Empires are widespread states or communities under a single rule. They are
characterized by the rulers desire for unanimous religious affiliation or posing as
threat for other empires in times of war.* Empires often made considerable
progress in ways of democratic structures, creating and building city
infrastructures, and maintaining civility within the diverse communities. Because
of the intricate organization of the empires, they were often able to hold a large
majority of power on a universal level.*
Leagues
Leagues are international organizations composed of states coming together for a
single common purpose.* In this way leagues are different from empires, as they
only seek to fulfill a single goal. Often leagues are formed on the brink of a
military or economic downfall. Meetings and hearings are conducted in a neutral
location with representatives of all involved nations present.
35

Political parties in political systems

Political systems do not inherently require the institution of political parties to advance the
politics of the political system. Political parties are formed after political systems are put in
place.
Law and politics
State (polity), an organized political community living under a single system of
government
Sovereign state, a sovereign political entity in public international law
Nation state, a state which coincides with a nation
Member state, a member of an international organization such as the United
Nations
Federated state, a political entity forming part of a federal sovereign state such
as the United States, Australia, India and Brazil
State sector, the part of the economy concerned with providing various
government services
The Estates or the States, a national assembly of the estates, a legislature
States-General (disambiguation)
Rechtsstaat, the legal state (constitutional state, state subordinated to law) in philosophy
of law and as principle of many national constitutions
Sociology of political systems
The sociological interest in political systems is figuring out who holds the power in the
relationship of the government and its people and how the governments power is used. There are
three types of political systems that sociologists consider.
Authoritarianism
In authoritarian governments, the people have no power or representation and it is
characterized by absolute or blind obedience to [formal] authority, as against
individual freedom and related to the expectation of unquestioning obedience. The
elite leaders handle all economic, military, and foreign relations. Dictatorships are
examples of authoritarianism.
Totalitarianism is the most extreme form of authoritarianism because it controls
all aspects of life including communication between citizens, censors the media,
and threatens by means of terror.
Monarchies
A monarchy is a government controlled by a king or queen determined by a
predisposed line of sovereignty. In the modern world there are two types of
monarchies, absolute monarchies and constitutional monarchies. An absolute
monarchy works like a dictatorship in that the king has complete rule over his
country. A constitutional monarchy gives the royal family limited powers and
usually works in accordance with an elected body of officials. Social revolutions
of the 18th, 19th, and 20th century overthrew the majority of existing monarchies
in favor of a more democratic governments and the rise of the lower-class.
Democracy
36

A democracy is a form of government in which the citizens create and vote for
laws directly or indirectly via representatives. The idea of democracy stems back
from ancient Greece and the profound works of ancient academics. However, the
presence of democracy does not always mean citizens wishes will be equally
represented. For example, in many democratic countries immigrants, and racial
and ethnic minorities do not receive the same rights as the majority citizens.
Unitary System of Government
A unitary system of government, or unitary state, is a sovereign state governed as
a single entity. The central government is supreme, and the administrative
divisions exercise only powers that the central government has delegated to them.
Subdivisional units are created and abolished, and their powers may be broadened
and narrowed by the central government.
The United Kingdom, for example, is a unitary state, as its constituent countries
England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have no power to challenge the
constitutionality of acts of Parliament. Unitary states contrast with federal states,
such as the United States, in which power is shared between the federal
government and the states. (The states themselves are unitary.) More than 150
countries are unitary states, including France, China, and Japan.

Unit V: Social Stratification

The Concept of Social Stratification
Stratification (def.): divisions and distinctions of groups based on status differences
and/or control of basic resources
stratification involves structured inequality associated with group membership
stratification also involves ideology that supports the system of stratification
Stratification is very much about one's life chances for a good quality of life
37

Social stratification vs. social differentiation

Major criteria for stratification:
authority
power (political, economic, military)
ownership of the means of production (factories, land, etc.)
income (amount, type, sources)
consumption patterns and life style (the rich and famous)
occupation/skill
education
divinity (control over the supernatural)
altruism/public service/morality
place in "high society"
associational ties
ethnicity/ race

Max Weber's concept of "life chances":

Life chances: the extent to which individuals have access to important societal resources, such as
food, clothing, shelter, education, and health care.
Classical perspectives on social class stratification
Karl Marx: Relations to the means of production
The economic system of capitalism has two central classes:
capitalist/bourgeoisie--those who own or control the means of production (land, factories,
transportation sources, banks, etc.)
working class/proletariat-those who survive by selling their labor power (capacity to
work) to owners
The goal in capitalist system is the creation of surplus value for theaccumulation of
capital
surplus value-the difference between what workers are paid and the value of what they
produce
capital accumulation-for capitalism to prosper it must keep expending (looking for new
investment opportunities, looking for new labor markets, for new markets to sell
commodities, for new activities to capitalize, i.e., turn into a commodity form)
Note: The commodification of cultural and service activities: birthday parties (you can buy a
birthday party); the commodification of dating (you can buy a date selection), what is next? The
commodification of finding a friend, say for a few days, or a couple of weeks?
The commodification of services is enhanced in advanced capitalist societies into the
service economy.
The service economy may be very active/profitable because there is much demand for
services, since service is a nondurable goods that is immediately consumed (production =
consumption).
Marx viewed the capitalist system as a much improved social system over earlier systems
(slavery, feudalism) but a system that still had many problems, namely:
capitalists are always seeking to impose wor-under capital's control--in order to create
surplus value and accumulate captial (very descriptive of early capitalism)
38

capitalist work is alienating to workers-workers are separated from their natural condition
("species being"); in the factories workers have no control, produce things that don't
belong to them and behave like machines
employers attempt to keep wages low and maintain poor working conditions in order to
make a more profit
For Marx, the problems of capitalism created class conflict between owners/employers (the
whole bourgeoisie) and workers.

Marx called this class conflict "class struggle." He got the idea from Giambattista Vico
(remember?). According to Marx, class struggle would lead to a workers? revolution that would
bring down the capitalist system.
But Marx's prediction has not occurred. Why was Marx wrong?
Social systems may take many hundreds of years to transform.
In many countries captialism created a relatively prosperous and stable middle-class of
employees dependent on the system.
Some of the worst production jobs (; physically difficult and harmful and low-paying)
have been sent abroad to peripheral countries.
Many foreign workers do menial, low-paying work in advanced capitalist countries.
Democratic governments created welfare programs (unemployment income, retirement
support, minimum wage, etc.) to lessen workers' problems
Strong ideology prevails in support of capitalism, and capitalism is equated with
nationalism (which says that to be against capitalism is to be a traitor to your country)
Marx after Marxism: The Zero Work Perspective
Workers' struggle against capitalism has been against the imposition of work: to struggle against
capital, workers struggle to reduce the length of time they spending working for capitalism
Struggles to reduce the length of the work day from 18 hours to 16 hours to 14 to 12 to 8
to . . . 0 (zero work!)
Sabotaging work in the factory
Zero work in the social factory (society as a whole): e.g., students avoid the imposition of
school work: avoid coming to class, read newspaper during class, postpone studying class
notes until the night before the exam, wait until the last possible moment to write term
papers, and then write short papers, even wide page margins are a sign of zero work.
Max Weber: Wealth, Prestiage and Power
Weber agreed with Marx that economic factors are important in understanding individual and
group behavior, but felt other factors are also important in defining a person's class location.
(Max never wrote a theory of class, and died while starting a chapter on class.)
Wealth-the value of all of a person's or familys economic assets, including income,
personal property, and income-producing property.
Weber divided the wage workers into two classes:
the middle class (office workers, public officials, managers, and professionals)
the working class (skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled)

39

Prestige-respect or regard with which a person or status position is regarded by others.

Weber believed that people with common prestige level belonged to same class
regardless of wealth. Occupation is a key source of prestige ranking.
Power-the ability to influence others, to influence decision making, to achieve goals
despite opposition
What have the sources of power in the social history of humankind? How have the
sources of power changed today? (Power with authority and power without authority)
Sociologists often use "socioeconomic status" to refer to a combined measure that
attempts to classify individuals, families, or households in terms of factors such as
income, occupation, and education to determine class location.

Four underlying principles

Four principles are posited to underlie social stratification. First, social stratification is socially
defined as a property of a society rather than individuals in that society. Second, social
stratification is reproduced from generation to generation. Third, social stratification is universal
(found in every society) but variable (differs across time and place). Fourth, social stratification
involves not just quantitative inequality but qualitative beliefs and attitudes about social status.
Complexity
Although stratification is not limited to complex societies, all complex societies exhibit features
of stratification. In any complex society, the total stock of valued goods is distributed unequally,
wherein the most privileged individuals and families enjoy a disproportionate share
of income, power, and other valued resources.
The term "stratification system" is sometimes used to refer to the complex social
relationships and social structure that generate these observed inequalities. The key components
of such systems are: (a) social-institutional processes that define certain types of goods as
valuable and desirable, (b) the rules of allocation that distribute goods and resources across
various positions in the division of labour (e.g., physician, farmer, housewife), and (c)
the social mobility processes that link individuals to positions and thereby generate unequal
control over valued resources
Social mobility
Social mobility is the movement of individuals, social groups or categories of people between
the layers or strata in a stratification system. This movement can be intragenerational (within a
generation) or intergenerational (between two or more generations). Such mobility is sometimes
used to classify different systems of social stratification.
Open stratification systems are those that allow for mobility between strata, typically by placing
value on the achieved status characteristics of individuals. Those societies having the highest
levels of intragenerational mobility are considered to be the most open and malleable systems of
stratification. Those systems in which there is little to no mobility, even on an intergenerational
basis, are considered closed stratification systems. For example, in caste systems, all aspects of
social status are ascribed, such that one's social position at birth is the position one holds for a
lifetime
40

The categories of Social Stratification

The concept of social stratification in modern society should be introduced through a definition
and study of two of the following categories of social stratification social class, gender, race
and ethnicity and age.
Some indicative features of these categories are as follows:
a) Social Class
Distinction between wealth and income and their distribution in society.
Social mobility and the link between class and life chances.
Changing nature of class and its relationship to the economy and occupational
structure.
Use of the Africa as an example.
b) Gender

Difference between biological notion of sex and the socially constructed notion of
gender.
Nature and consequences of gender-role socialisation.
Gender inequalities in terms of occupation, family and social roles and
expectations.
Use of Africa as an example.

c) Race and Ethnicity

Nature, size and distribution of different racial and ethnic groups in modern
society.
Inequality relating to race and ethnicity; in particular, discrimination in education,
employment and on life chances.
Role of the mass media in the formation of stereotypes and the consequences for
ethnic groups.
Use of the Africa as an example.
d) Age

Social construction of the concept of age, including awareness of different notions

of childhood, adolescence and old age in different societies.
Inequalities as a result of age, such as employment, unemployment, low pay,
access to benefits and restrictions on social behaviour.
Implications of changes in the age structure of modern society.
Use of the Africa as an example.

e) Disability
Social construction of disability.
Inequality relating to disability; in particular, discrimination in education,
employment and on life chances.
Role of the mass media in the formation of negative stereotypes and the
consequences for disabled individuals and groups.
Use of the Africa as an example.
41

The effects of stratification on the lives of individuals and groups

The above aspects of social stratification should be studies in order to explore the nature of social
relationships, processes, structures and issues. Sub-cultural, cross-cultural, historical,
contemporary or anthropological examples (including the Africa) should be used wherever
possible and candidates should be encouraged to apply insights to current social issues or their
own life experiences.
The idea of stratification comes from geology which studies the ways rocks form into levels or
strata.
The concept of stratification describes how society is organised in layers; some people in a
higher layer or strata than others. Unlike rocks, social stratification is made by people in society,
for instance the class system in the UK is an example of social stratification.
Social strata are groups of people, for instance a group of people who all belong to the same
social class.
Social strata are organised in a hierarchy. This is where one group or strata lies one on top of
each other. Those in the top group in society are seen to be better than those at the bottom. For
instance in a society where age stratification exists the older people are, the higher up the social
strata they move.
Individuals and groups have unequal access to advantages and disadvantages in society based on
their position within the stratification scheme.
The more favoured group or strata are placed at the top of the hierarchy and the less privileged
are placed at the bottom. This means that those at the top, for instance those in the top social
class, are usually able to have large, comfortable homes, a lot of material possessions, luxury
holidays, lots of savings and so on. They usually also have access to very good education, often
private, and they also tend to experience better health and live longer than those in lower social
classes.
This contrasts with those in the lower social classes whose life chances are affected by this type
of stratification. For example, those in the lower social classes in the UK tend to live in housing
that is rented and often overcrowded, their children tend to achieve less at school and they often
experience poor health.
Formal Indicators of class
The Kenya Society and government recognises social class and measures it using the Registrar
Generals classification. This system places people into broad social groupings based on their:
occupation
income
Status.

42

However, the relative merits of various occupations and their status is often questioned. For
instance, in the Kenya non-manual work is usually given a higher status than manual work.
However, it can be the case that manual workers earn more than non-manual workers, especially
if they are skilled. For example it will usually be the case that a plumber will earn more than a
person who works in a call centre but using the governments definition of social class (see over)
the plumber is in a lower social class.
Informal Indicators of Class
Accent/Grammar the way people speak. We can often associate certain accents with certain
social classes, eg. Glaswegian accent and working class or Aberdeen accent and farm worker.
Education the type of school, eg. private or state, university, etc. If a person is educated in a
private school we usually assume that they have come from a middle or upper class
background.
Shopping where people shop, goods they buy, etc. We tend to associate certain shops with
certain social classes. For example Harvey Nics and upper class ladies who lunch!
Entertainment what people do for fun? Bingo or opera? Certain activities tend to be
associated with certain social classes.
Holidays where people go on holiday, length of holiday, etc. Skiing in Klosters or the
Pleasure Beach at Blackpool?
District/Area people live in. Often certain neighbourhoods or even parts of the country are
associated with certain social classes.
Type of house detached/terrace/semi; bought or rented.
The Effects of Income and Wealth
Food and Clothing
What and how much you buy is dependent on the amount of money you have.
Food: a good level of income can buy quality food such as organic produce, fresh meat, fruit
and vegetables, which can ensure a balanced and healthy diet. A poor level of income may
necessitate buying inferior types of food, eg. filling up on bread and potatoes.
Clothes: a good level of income can buy good quality basic clothing and allow the choice to
buy designer clothes or other luxury items.
Housing
If a person has a high level of income this allows them to buy or rent a house that is warm
and free from damp. You can choose to rent or buy and choose which area of the
country/town to live in. Those with a low income may find themselves without this choice
and suffer from housing which is damp or overcrowded. They may also find themselves in an
undesirable area of town, eg. a noisy neighbourhood or one without facilities such as safe
play areas for children.

Consumer Goods
In modern society buying things is important to us. Many people feel it is important to have a
certain lifestyle. Money can buy most things, eg. mobile phone and Play Stations.
43

Education
If a person has a high level of income they may choose to send their children to private
schools or can choose to live in an area where there is a school with a good reputation.
They will find it easier to fund their family if they choose to go on to further or higher
education.
Services
If a person has a high level of income they can pay for their own car(s) or taxis. They may
also choose to opt for private services such as hospitals, dentists, etc.
Types of social mobility
Intragenerational mobility
This is when mobility happens within a generation.
This is measured by comparing the occupation of a person at two or more points in their life. For
instance if a person starts off their working life as a cleaner and within ten years is employed as a
teacher, they have achieved social mobility intragenerational mobility.
Intergenerational mobility
This is where mobility happens between generations.
We can measure this by comparing the occupation of children with their parents.
For example if the son of a building labourer becomes a doctor, he has achieved social mobility
intergenerational mobility.
Sociologists disagree about the amount of social mobility that exists in the UK.
disagreements are related to two issues:

These

1. Theories about the formation of class and class conflict.

2. Problems concerning the measurement of social mobility.
Theories about the formation of class and class conflict
As you have already studied (or will study), sociologists have differing theories about the
formation of class and class conflict.
Marxists for example view class in relation to ownership of the means of production; this means
ownership of industry, factories, banks, etc. Simply put you are either in the class that owns
and controls the countrys wealth, or you are not.
Marxists use the term exploitation to describe the relationship between the class who own the
means of production the bourgeoisie and the people who work for a living the proletariat.
They claim that the bourgeoisie try to keep the wages of the proletariat as low as possible so that
they can make as much profit as possible.
So, for Marxists the interests of these classes are opposite to each other. The bourgeoisie want to
increase profits and the proletariat want to increase their wages Marxists argue you cant really
do both.
44

Functionalists, however, take a very different view of class.

Functionalists see class as necessary we need class to make society run effectively. They claim
that in our society, to get the best people to do the best jobs we have to pay some people more
money than others. Functionalists claim that this is fair because we live in a meritocracy this
means that we all have the opportunities to do well in education, to get a well-paid job and to
become wealthy. All we have to do is take these chances and work hard.
Problems concerning the measurement of social mobility
Occupation is used as an indicator of social class but sociologists use different criteria for
ranking jobs. For instance, some researchers put most emphasis on the status of jobs while others
place more emphasis on the economic rewards jobs bring.
Many studies of social mobility do not include any information about women. Patterns of
mobility tend to be different for women, as they tend to have different types of jobs.
Poverty in the Land of Riches
1. Currently, the poverty rate tends to vary from about 11 percent to 15 percent; however some
people are falling into poverty while others are climbing out and therefore at some point in their
lives one-fourth of all people in the United States will be poor.
2. What Is Poverty? Poverty may be defined in two ways:
a. Relative poverty: people are poor only in comparison to others, therefore there will always be
some group at the bottom of the hierarchy.
Relative poverty refers to the deprivation of some people in relation to those who have more
b. Absolute poverty: the inability of people to maintain a certain standard of living.
Absolute poverty: a deprivation of resources that is life threatening
I. Explaining Poverty
1. The poor are primarily responsible for their own poverty (culture of poverty)
a. Culture of poverty. Some sociologists believe that the culture of poverty "blames the poor"
for their plight when, in fact, the causes of poverty lie in society.
2. Society is responsible for poverty?
a. Most evidence suggests that society rather than the individual is responsible for poverty
b. The working poor
3. The truly disadvantaged. This group consists of people who live predominantly in the inner
city and who are trapped in a cycle of joblessness, deviance, crime, welfare dependency, and
unstable family life.
a. William Wilson argues that poor economic conditions are the main problems facing the truly
disadvantaged.
b. Other sociologists note that only some people drift into a life of dependency or deviance
because they cannot find work.
J. Who are the poor?
1. Age
2. Race and Ethnicity
3. Gender and Family patterns
a. The feminization of poverty is the trend by which women represent an increasing proportion
of the poor
45

UNIT VI: THE PROBLEM OF POWER, AUTHORITY AND INFLUENCE

46

Power is the ability to influence, command, or apply force; a measure of a persons potential to
get others to do what he or she wants them to do, as well as to avoid being forced by others to do
what he or she does not want to do.
Power can have both a positive and negative form.
Positive power results when the exchange is voluntary and both parties feel good about the
exchange.
Negative power results when the individual is forced to change.
Power in organizations can be exercised upward, downward, or horizontally.
Authority is legitimate exercise of power, the right to issue directives and expend resources,
related to power but narrower in scope. Authority is a function of position in the hierarchy,
flowing from the top to the bottom on the organization. An individual can have power without
having formal authority.
Power is the intentional influence over the beliefs, emotions and behaviours of people (French
and Bell 1999).
The phenomenon of power is ubiquitous. Without influence (power), people
would have no cooperation and no society. Without leadership (power) in medical,
political, technological, financial, spiritual and organizational activities, humankind would not
have the standard of living as it does today. However, many problems with power stem from the
goals of persons with power and the means they use, not the possession of power as such.
Most of the current theories about power use the analysis conducted by French
and Raven over 40 years ago. They identified five principle sources or basis of power:
Coercive power: the crudest form, which uses threats and punishment to achieve its
ends; e.g. sanctions against suppliers, dismissals for non-co-operating staff,
demonstrations.
Reward power: the use of rewards to influence peoples compliance. To be effective the
rewards must be desired by the target group; e.g. financial inducements.
Legitimate power: generally known as authority, and implies the power to act as well
as the power over resources and is invariably limited in some way.
Expert power: which comes from possessing specialist knowledge and skills and is
dependent on the expertise being recognised by those concerned, thus credibility is
vital; otherwise, no-one will take any notice!
Referent power: generally known as personal power, or charisma and comes from the
high regard he or she is held by others. Should this falter or wane then this form of power
vanishes, but is often employed in conjunction with other sources.
Other sources of power include knowledge (as information) and personal contacts and alliances.
Legitimate power can carry with it elements of other sources e.g. information or internal
contacts. Greiner and Scheins work demonstrates the strategies for holding the power to gain the
support of others, in order for change to be achieved.
Power
47

As your textbook points out, Power is basic to politics. The author defines power as the
ability of persons, groups or institutions to influence political developments. Competition for
power among a great many interests of all kinds is a major characteristic of American politics.
Many people seek to influence public policy, and use a variety of resources to achieve this.
Considering all of the factors than can come from policy decisions it is no surprise that people
seek political power. What is important is that here in the United States we have rules that help
define the struggle for that power. Rules are necessary in politics because the stakes are often
very high.
Government
Not defined in your textbook, but I feel it is necessary to do so here. Government can be defined
as the effort of people to find agreeable ways of living together. It is, essentially, a social
institution. We can also view it as a public institution with the authority to allocate values in
society. It is a way for defining the relationships between people within a society.
Two aspects to government:
1) the institutions in a society which make decisions that affect the whole society
2) it also involves the processes by which decisions are made.
Know this: government is deeply involved in politics, but politics is also found in other aspects
of society.
Democracy
According to your textbook, democracy is a form of government in which the people govern,
either directly or through elected representatives. It is a form of government based upon the
theory that the legitimacy of any government must come from the free participation of its
citizens. It is based on the idea of the consent of the governed, which has come mostly to mean
majority rule.
Theories of Power in Modern Democracies
For our purposes in this class, there are essentially three different theories of power in modern
democracy in the United States. These provide a basis for understanding how power is exercised
within our country as well as understanding who specifically benefits under each of these
theories.
1) majoritarianism. This is the concept that the numerical majority prevails not only in
counting votes but also in determining public policy. This is sometimes referred to as
classical democracy. The problem with this form of democracy is that sometimes
minority groups can get overlooked when considering public policy. It is also rare that
majorities make decisions under our system of democracy.
2) pluralism. This holds that policies are effectively decided through power wielded by
special interests that dominate particular policy areas. It helps to protect the rights of
minorities. It tries to assure representation for all segments of a diverse (pluralistic)
48

society. The problem with this form of democracy is that many times the will of the
majority is thwarted.
3) elitism. This holds that policy is controlled by a small number of well-positioned, highly
influential individuals. It is NOT democratic at all. In most theories of elitism the elite is
an economic elite who controls the principal economic resources and products in society.
The elite uses its economic power to gain and hold political power, sometimes openly and
sometimes covertly.
No one of these theories completely explains how decisions are made, but each has its merits,
and, as we shall see during this semester, helps to explain how things happen within our
government institutions and processes.
Sovereignty and the Social Contract
Sovereignty can be defined as the ultimate authority to govern. Under our system of
government, each individual has the authority to govern themselves. They concede some of this
sovereignty to a government to help make an orderly society. This is the basis of what is called
the social contract, first theorized by Thomas Hobbes, which creates an unwritten bond
between those who are governed and those who do the governing. This is discussed further in
Chapter 2 and in a special handout which you can download and read.
Legitimacy
The belief people have that their government is based upon morally right principles, and that
therefore they should obey its laws. All governments, in order to be effective, must have this.
Somehow, the people must recognize the right of the government to govern.
Authority
Authority is the recognized right of officials to exercise power. The rules that define how
power is exercised allow for the institutions that are granted power.
Constitutionalism
Rules of this restrict the lawful uses of power, and relate specifically to the idea that there are
limits on the rightful power of government over its citizens. In a constitutional system, officials
govern according to law, and citizens have basic rights that government cannot deny or abridge.
Your textbook then goes on to cite examples, such as freedom of expression, of things that
government cannot take away from its citizens. Remember, a constitution is a limiting
document, its purpose to limit the powers of government.
Free Market System
The concept of a free market (laissez-faire) system was first hypothesized by Adam Smith. It is
basically a set of rules governing the distribution of supply and demand. In theory it states that
government should interfere with the economy as little as possible due to the fact that this is a
natural system. It emphasizes free enterprise and individual self-reliance.

49

A major characteristic of the American system is a sharp distinction between what is political,
and therefore to be decided in the public arena; and what is economic, and therefore to be settled
in the private realm.
Public Policies
Public policies are what government formulates, or, per your textbook, decisions by government
to pursue a particular courses of action. Laws, rules, regulations, ordinances - all these things
are examples of public policy. There is seemingly no end to the policies that government
formulates. This is largely in response to what you, the citizens of this nation, request.
Political System
Government is essentially a political system. It exists to resolve conflicts in society. This is a
model of our political system and shows how the various parts of the American government are
interdependent and how they function. The framework for our government is the Constitution.
CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK
Includes provisions for limited government (e.g. checks and balances), representative
government, civil liberties and civil rights.
Inputs
Includes public opinion,
voting and other forms of
participation,
political
parties, campaigns, interest
groups, and the news media

Political Institutions
Includes
the
major
institutions of government:
Congress, the presidency,
the judiciary, and the
bureaucracy

Outputs
Public Policy: Includes
laws, programs, and other
actions in such areas as
economic policy, social
policy, foreign policy, and
defense policy

POWER AS A RELATION AMONG PEOPLE

What is the intuitive idea we are trying to capture? Suppose I stand on a street corner and say to
myself, I command all automobile drivers on this street to drive on the right side of the road;
suppose further that all the drivers actually do as I command them to do; still, most people will
regard me as mentally ill if I insist that I have enough power over automobile drivers to compel
them to use the right side of the road. On the other hand, suppose a policeman is standing in the
middle of an intersection at which most traffic ordinarily moves ahead; he orders all traffic to
turn right or left; the traffic moves as he orders it to do.
Then it accords with what I conceive to be the bedrock idea of power to say that the policeman
acting in this particular role evidently has the power to make automobile drivers turn right or left
rather than go ahead.

UNIT VII: EXTERNAL TRADE AS A FACTOR IN DEVELOPMENT

50

Not long ago, it was referred to poor countries, not as developing countries or economies, but as
underdeveloped. This was the ethnocentric perspective of the colonizers, who used the European
culture, which was considered as enlightened and as based on true knowledge, as a model for a
developed Africa.
The colonizing states believed that they had a responsibility to transfer this culture, which was
seen as favorable to economic development. Inherent in this view was an idea that Africa had to
pass the same type of industrialization as Europe had done before. This kind of intellectual
orientation is very interestingly described by the Palestinian author Edward Said in a book
called Orientalism.
Even if the way of referring to poor countries was changed, and they were now called developing
countries, the view of the development process was only slightly changed in the field of
development economics. Thus, proposed development policies have often focused on rapid
industrialization, where manufacturing and service industries increase at the expense of
agriculture and rural development. Accordingly, development has been synonymous to sustained
growth in per capita income, i.e. output is growing faster than the population.
This measure brings increases in gross domestic product (GDI) into the fore, but for the most
part the well-being of the population has been in focus, which should be associated with
monetary growth of real per capita gross national income (GNI) (monetary growth of GNI
per capita minus the growth of inflation).
During the 1970s it became more and more obvious to those working in the field that even if the
economies were growing, a majority of the populations continued to be poor in combination with
growing inequality. Development was redefined instead emphasizing reduction or elimination of
poverty, inequality and unemployment within the context of a growing economy.
Furthermore, poverty is not just an assessment of income, but it is a fact of life that influence
your self-understanding as a person living a life that is not human as you are unable to control
your hunger, diseases and you know that you are unable to change this situation. This raises two
questions about a how to formulate a more inclusive definition of development. Firstly, if it is
possible to link up with the notion of utility in economics and define a measure that takes
account of how people think about their lives as more or less satisfactory.
Individuals also value a high per capita income but there are important disparities between these
two measures of development. For example, a person can have a high income and, thus, being
able to buy food or books. However, when looking at his or her functioning, we may find that he
or she has low or no capability to function, i.e. has a parasitic disease implying that he or she
cannot extract nourishment from food or is illiterate, and therefore has a low or no well-being in
spite of high income.
With regard to finding a method for measuring development, some economists have linked up
with the notion of utility in the sense of happiness and defined national happiness which they
have identified with family relationships, financial situation, work community, health etc.. It has
been found that the average level of happiness increases with a countrys average income, but
51

evidence also shows that people are happier when they are not unemployed, not divorced,
have high trust of others (social capital) in the society and enjoy democratic freedoms and
have religious faith.

UNIT VIII: FOREIGN AID AND DEVELOPMENT

52

The growing gap between the developed and developing countries has dominated international
relations and diplomacy for a long time. This gap has led to constant capital inflow from the
developed countries to those in the Third World including Africa, with the goal of helping them
overcome their problems and reduces the gap. However, there is evidence that decades of foreign
aid have done little in changing the destinies of many African states, most of which are currently
experiencing low growth rates.
This suggests to some extent that there is more to the African problem than just sending money
there as this is not likely to turn things around. Estimates suggest the West has spent about $600
billion on foreign aid to Africa so far (Akonor, 2008 ). Yet underdevelopment is widespread,
while at same time some states are considered to have collapsed (eg. Somalia).
Foreign aid is aimed at promoting development, but what is (under) development? Is it GDP
growth rates or does it involve a visible change in the lives of a substantial portion of the
population of a country? For this purpose, development is mainly progress, be it economic,
social or cultural, that serves the basic needs of both today and tomorrow. These needs include
(Sen, 1999)five interconnected freedoms; namely, economic opportunities, political freedoms,
social freedoms, transparency and protective security.
Under development occurs when these basic needs and freedoms are denied or not equally
accessible to all members of the populace. Undevelopment is not the absence of development
(Rodney, 1973). It results from the uneven nature of human social, political and economic
development. Development to us means much more than economic growth as measured by
improvement in GDP per capita.
In like manner, a decline in GDP growth rate does not necessarily mean there is
underdevelopment. Two questions are pertinent: firstly, is there any clear link between foreign
aid and (under) development in Africa? Secondly, has aid succeeded in making Africa better or
has it undermined progress? There is no agreement on the appropriate answers to these questions
we are posing.
Sources of failure of aid: Internal versus external
Apart from those who, based on empirical studies, have made definite arguments about the
effectiveness of aid, there remains a contention between those who believe aid failure is a result
of factors within the recipient country and those who argue it is attributable to external
impediments such as the unfair global economic structure. Akonor (2008) argues aid to Africa is
a band-aid, not a long-term solution since aid does not aim at transforming Africas structurally
dependent economies. He adds that if donors aim to make long-term sustainable impact, aid
should target transcontinental projects such as highways, telecommunications and power plants
The problem of aid dependence
It appears as though most African countries are so dependent on aid that without it almost half of
their yearly budgetary commitments cannot be fulfilled. For example in 1992, aid is said to have
accounted for 12.4% of gross national product (GNP), over 70% of gross domestic savings and
investments in Sub-Saharan Africa and over50% of all imports (Ampaw, 2000). Under the ageold saying that you cannot bite the fingers that feed you, leaders of these countries are unable
53

to speak out when fake and unwanted goods flood their markets. It seems aid is not meant to
ensure recipients become self-reliant since if it is the case, powerful states can no longer brag
about who is giving more than the other.
The conclusion we can deduce here is that since aid is not a joystick by which donors can
manipulate macroeconomic or political outcomes (Edgren, 2002).To a large extent, Africas
development depends on African private sector entrepreneurs, African civic activists and
African political reformers not on what ineffective, bureaucratic, unaccountable and poorly
informed and motivated outsiders do (Easterly, 2005).Besides, there is constant debt
servicing where recipients routinely report to donors, service donor consultants and try to keep
things normal (Kanbur, 2000), thus neglecting domestic issues and development. Loans put
Africa in debt and it has to spend eternity in a merry-go-round affair to reschedule and negotiate
to keep gross inflows sufficient to fund debt servicing outflows (Kanbur, 2000).
Factors that influence aid effectiveness
In an IMF seminar publication in 1995, Jaycox argues that although the destiny of Africa lies in
the hands of Africans, Africa will still need international support to overcome its macroeconomic challenges. He mentions that way international donors can help African countries build
the capacity to take ownership of their development is embodied in the World Banks six guiding
principles, namely, selectivity, results orientation, client orientation, cost-effectiveness, financial
integrity and partnership. Recipient countries, on the other hand, are expected to have certain
things in place to make aid more effective: transparency, public expenditure reviews, public
investment programs, donor support of government programs and medium fiscal programming
Correlation between foreign aid and economic development
Is there any evidence that aid facilitate growth? Even if it does, is it growth measured by GDP or
one that is measured by levels of poverty and basic living standards? There is no agreement in
the literature on this question. While Rostow (1990) sees foreign assistance the external
intrusion by more advanced societies as a precondition for the take-off into economic success,
Hayter (1971) argues it is a disguised form of imperialism and as such cannot result in any
desired economic benefits. To her any benefit that could arise from aid would only be incidental,
not planned. These two divergent schools of thought in the aid/development literature are still
present to date

UNIT IX: EXTERNAL TRADE AS A FACTOR IN DEVELOPMENT

Capitalist economic theory holds that a completely liberalized global market is the most efficient
way to foster growth, because each country specializes in producing the goods and services in
54

which it has a comparative advantage. Yet, in practice, cutting trade barriers and opening markets
do not necessarily generate development. Rich countries and large corporations dominate the
global marketplace and create very unequal relations of power and information. As a result, trade
is inherently unequal and poor countries seldom experience rising well-being but increasing
unemployment, poverty, and income inequality.
An additional problem is that free trade is not equally free. Agricultural subsidies and other trade
barriers in the US and the EU prevent poor countries from gaining access to the most important
markets. Meanwhile, poor countries open up their own markets to US and EU exports. Critics of
free trade point out that many of the world's richest countries sheltered their economies by
protection when they were at the start of their own growth.
Further, trade is so dominated by transnational corporations that new trade rules mainly benefit
those companies. A number of NGOs have started to promote "fair trade," arguing that trade can
promote development if it is environmentally sustainable and includes respect for human and
labor rights. This page provides information on trade issues, including how to make trade
contribute to development.
Ricardian theory of international trade (modern development)
The Ricardian theory of comparative advantage became a basic constituent of neoclassical trade
theory. Any undergraduate course in trade theory includes a presentation of Ricardo's example of
a two-commodity, two-country model. A common representation of this model is made using
an Edgeworth Box.
This model has been expanded to many-country and many-commodity cases. Major general
results were obtained by McKenzie and Jones, including his famous formula. It is a theorem
about the possible trade pattern for N-country N-commodity cases.
Contemporary theories
This formulation is employed for example by Matsuyama and others. These theories use a
special property that is applicable only for the two-country case.
Neo-Ricardian trade theory
Inspired by Piero Sraffa, a new strand of trade theory emerged and was named neo-Ricardian
trade theory. The main contributors include Ian Steedman (1941) and Stanley Metcalfe (1946).
They have criticized neoclassical international trade theory, namely the Heckscher-Ohlin
model on the basis that the notion of capital as primary factor has no method of measuring it
before the determination of profit rate (thus trapped in a logical vicious circle). This was a
second round of the Cambridge capital controversy, this time in the field of international trade.
The merit of neo-Ricardian trade theory is that input goods are explicitly included. This is in
accordance with Sraffa's idea that any commodity is a product made by means of commodities.
The limitation of their theory is that the analysis is restricted to small-country cases.
Traded intermediate goods
55

Ricardian trade theory ordinarily assumes that the labor is the unique input. This is a great
deficiency as trade theory, for intermediate goods occupy the major part of the world
international trade. Yeats found that 30% of world trade in manufacturing involves intermediate
inputs. Bardhan and Jafee found that intermediate inputs occupy 37 to 38% of U.S. imports for
the years 1992 and 1997, whereas the percentage of intra-firm trade grew from 43% in 1992 to
52% in 1997.
McKenzie and Jones emphasized the necessity to expand the Ricardian theory to the cases of
traded inputs. In a famous comment McKenzie (1954, p. 179) pointed that "A moment's
consideration will convince one that Lancashire would be unlikely to produce cotton cloth if the
cotton had to be grown in England.
Ricardo-Sraffa trade theory
Economist John S. Chipman observed in his survey that McKenzie stumbled upon the questions
of intermediate products and postulated that "introduction of trade in intermediate product
necessitates a fundamental alteration in classical analysis". It took many years until Shiozawa
succeeded in removing this deficiency. The Ricardian trade theory was now constructed in a
form to include intermediate input trade for the most general case of many countries and many
goods. Chipman called this the Ricardo-Sraffa trade theory.
Based on an idea of Takahiro Fujimoto, who is a specialist in automobile industry and a
philosopher of the international competitiveness, Fujimoto and Shiozawa developed a discussion
in which how the factories of the same multi-national firms compete between them across
borders. International intra-firm competition reflects a really new aspect of international
competition in the age of so-called global competition.
International production fragmentation trade theory]
In his chapter entitled Li & Fung, Ltd.: An agent of global production (2001), Cheng used Li &
Fung Ltd as a case study in the international production fragmentation trade theory through
which producers in different countries are allocated a specialized slice or segment of the value
chain of the global production. Allocations are determined based on "technical feasibility" and
the ability to keep the lowest final price possible for each product. Fragmentation widens the
scope for "application of Ricardian comparative advantage"
An example of fragmentation theory in international trade is Li and Fung's garment sector
network with yarn purchased inSouth Korea, woven and dyed in Taiwan, the fabric cut in
Bangladesh, pieces assembled in Thailand and the final product sold in the United States and
Europe to major brands. In 1995 Li & Fung Ltd purchased Inchcape Buying Services, an
established British trading company and widely expanded production in Asia. Li & Fung
supplies dozens of major retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., branded as Walmart.
Free-Trade Theories
In fact, many countries following mercantilist policy tried to become as self-sufficient as
possible. We discuss two theories supporting free trade: absolute advantage and comparative
advantage. Both theories hold that nations should neither artificially limit imports nor promote
56

exports. The market will determine which producers survive as consumers buy those products
that best serve their needs.
Both free trade theories imply specialization. Just as individuals and families produce some
things that they exchange for things that others produce, national specialization means producing
some things for domestic consumption and export while using the export earnings to buy imports
of products and services produced abroad.

57