Concepts in Comparative Politics Power and States

Defining the state  An institution that seeks to monopolize force and legal authority within a given territory  Plus: Set of political institutions: machinery of politics  States as Image and Practice  Image: coherent, unified, above society  Practice: diverse people & agencies; linked to society in various ways  Often fragmented, uncoordinated Differences between states, regimes, governments, country…?

Political power: definitions  Capacity to affect outcomes  1- to act autonomously  2- to accumulate and hold resources  An ability or potential  Relational!  Power and influence?  Political influence: capacity to affect government decision-making Who has power, and how much? Elites, masses, states, businesses?

Three main attributes of a state  Sovereignty  What is it?  Who violates it?  Legitimacy  How is it earned and maintained? (Weber)  Autonomy  Real or imagined?  Who impinges on state autonomy? (Marx) States have varying levels of these! Which have more or less? What is state “capacity”?

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

Development of the modern state  When did modern states emerge?  How did they differ from their predecessors?  What three “advantages” do modern states possess? Why did so many states that arrived late on the scene model themselves on the early European national states?

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

Why do people obey states? Where does legitimacy come from? What did Weber say?

Max Weber – key contributions  Definitions of states  “Ideal type” categorizations of different types of states  Why people obey states  founder of modern sociology: developed methodology for studying societies so they could be compared to each other  Emphasized need for conceptual frameworks and categories rather than simple description  multi-causality: ideas and culture help shape economics and history.  Politics is not all about economics!

States and conflicts What causes them?

Karl Marx Marx, 1882.Marx, an early picture. Competition for economic resources?

Karl Marx – key ideas  history as a class-based struggle (“materialist” conception of history)  state as a “captive” of an economic elite (downplaying of the state)  national interests & identities becoming subsumed to global market forces  transformation of society: economics organizes society rather than the other way around

Those who are trying to gain entry into politics? Pierre Bourdieu and the political field

Competing ideological visions?

The state itself? How far should the state go? Parc du Bois de Liesse, Montreal.