Political Sociology in a Global Era

An Introduction to the State and Society

Berch Berberoglu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317254034
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Political Sociology in a Global Era provides a critical analysis of the origins, nature, development, and transformation of the state and society historically and today, examining the class nature and social basis of politics and the state in different societal settings. The book emphasizes the centrality of class relations in explaining political power and the role of the state in class-divided societies by providing powerful theoretical and empirical analyses of themes in political sociology in an era of globalization. It examines in detail the major political issues and events of our time, and makes them relevant to the study of power and politics today. Some of the features of this text include: Introduces a global political sociology emphasizing the dynamics of power relations Provides a critical analysis of the role of politics and the state within the world-historical process Describes classical and contemporary theories of politics and the state Explains the origins and development of the state, discussing the nature of the state, its class basis, and contradictions in different types of societies Considers the dynamics of the capitalist state and traces its development in Europe and the United States from the 18th century to the present Details the role of the advanced capitalist state in the global political economy at the current, advanced stage of late capitalism Discusses the social movements that have been actively struggling against the capitalist state from earlier times to the present, including the Arab Spring, focusing on recent developments in both advanced capitalist and less-developed capitalist societies where mobilization of the masses has led to struggles against the capitalist state on a global scale Offers an original analysis of global capitalism and places it in the context of the current crisis of the global capitalist system

Chapter 1 Conventional Theories of the State

DOI: 10.4324/9781315632773-1

Conventional social and political theories have always served to justify and rationalize the legitimacy of the existing social, economic, and political order. In so doing, they have invariably promoted the interests of the dominant ruling class. This has been the case with the early conservative theorists of the state, such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes, who advocated the absolute power of the state, arguing that any means utilized by the state to achieve or maintain power is legitimate. ¹ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Baron Montesquieu, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Emile Durkheim, and other classical conventional theorists have played a similarly conservative role in defending the existing social conditions and the legitimacy of the prevailing social order by providing a host of theoretical rationalizations that have served to maintain the rule of the dominant class in society. ² Hegel’s theory of the state is a prime example of this mode of theorizing.

Classical elite theory, which has viewed the masses as apathetic, incompetent, and unable to govern themselves—and for whom, therefore, elite rule is claimed to be both necessary and desirable—has served the same purpose as its Hegelian counterpart in rationalizing elite rule in no uncertain terms. Moreover, downgrading the intelligence and ability of the masses, classical elite theorists have claimed that not only does the incompetence of the masses prevent them from taking part in the political process, but in instances when they do rise up in revolution and take control of the state, their leadership becomes corrupted, and a new ruling class, in turn, comes to dictate its terms over society.

This chapter consists of two parts. The first part examines classical conventional theories of the state, focusing on Hegel’s theory and classical elite theory of politics and the state. It provides a critical analysis of both the substance and ideological bases of classical conservative theories of the state and their reactionary political implications. The second part focuses on contemporary variants of conventional theories of the state, which include pluralism, functionalism, and their neo-Weberian variants.

Classical Conventional Theories of the State

We begin our survey of classical conventional theories of the state with a brief look at Hegel’s theory—one that will serve as a basis for an analysis of the classical elite theory of politics and the state that we will examine later in this section.

Hegel's Theory of the State

Hegel’s views on politics and the state were heavily shaped by his idealist philosophy of history and society. In a typical idealist formulation of the problem, Hegel’s concept of the state is based not on any existing state, but on the “idea of the state.” ³

In his rational construction of the concept, Hegel viewed the state as having the task of achieving universality (i.e., as caretaker of the “general will”). In this sense, he counterposed the state’s public mission to the private sphere within which civil society functioned. With the state representing the universal community, Hegel assigned to the state the responsibility of combating the harmful effects of civil society based on the individual will. In so doing, he set out to find a moment of mediation between the public and the private spheres to achieve the desired unity.

The essence of the modern state is that the universal be bound up with the complete freedom of its particular members and with private well being. … The universal must be furthered, but subjectivity on the other hand must attain its full and living development. It is only when both of these moments subsist in their strength that the state can be regarded as articulated and genuinely organized. ⁴

To obtain this equilibrium and thus to maintain social order and stability in society, the process requires the functional integration of the individual into the prevailing sociopolitical order led by the state.

The state is absolutely rational inasmuch as it is the actuality of the substantial will which it possesses in the particular self-consciousness once that consciousness has been raised to consciousness of its universality. This substantial unity is an absolute unmoved end in itself, in which freedom comes into its supreme right. On the other hand, this final end has a supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the state. ⁵

In this context, Frederick Copleston points out that for Hegel “the State represents the unity of the universal and the particular” such that “in the State selfconsciousness has risen to the level of universal self-consciousness.” ⁶ In this sense, Copleston continues, “The individual is conscious of himself as being a member of the totality in such a way that his selfhood is not annulled but fulfilled.” ⁷ And the State precisely in this way becomes the instrument for the expression of collective identity. Thus, for Hegel, Copleston writes,

The State is not an abstract universal standing over against its members: it exists in and through them. At the same time, by participation in the life of the State the members are elevated above their sheer particularity. In other words, the State is an organic unity. It is a concrete universal, existing in and through particulars which are distinct and one at the same time. ⁸

Moreover, according to Copleston’s further rendering of the Hegelian state, one that highlights its spiritual content, for Hegel, “The State is the actuality of the rational will when this has been raised to the plane of universal self-consciousness. It is thus the highest expression of objective Spirit. And the preceding moments of this sphere are resumed and synthesized in it.” ⁹

Rationalizing the primacy of the state, Hegel assigned to the state a supreme, all-powerful position that has clearly religious and metaphysical connotations: Referring to it as “this actual God,” ¹⁰ he viewed the existence of the state as part of a divine plan, one that “embodies the true, the eternal wisdom of the Spirit—of God.” ¹¹ His statement along these lines—written in the original German as “Es ist der Gang Gottes in der Welt, dass der Staat ist,” and variously translated into English as “The State is the march of God through the world,” “The existence of the State is the presence of God on earth,” “The march of God in the world, that is what the state is,” or “It is the course of God through the world that constitutes the state,” ¹² —does, despite the controversy surrounding its precise meaning, convey a link between the state and divine authority that reveals not only its religious or ethically driven character, but also its absolute nature, as some critics have accused Hegel to be promoting. ¹³

This sacred, religiously defined idealist conceptualization of the state and society is similar to Emile Durkheim’s functionalist definition of society as the supreme entity (conceived in similarly religious terms) to which the individual must submit and conform, if the harmony between the individual and the state is to be achieved into a unity—the ideal state.

But for Hegel, the state’s role and mission is more than that mandated by God; it is sacred not so much because the state represents God’s will but because it involved first and foremost the maintenance of order and harmony in the prevailing feudal society threatened by the rise of private capital (i.e., civil society). “Hegel explains the breakdown of the German state by contrasting the feudal system with the new order of individualist society that succeeded it,” ¹⁴ writes Marcuse. “The rise of the latter social order,” he adds, “is explained in terms of the development of private property.” ¹⁵ According to Hegel, “The feudal system proper,” Marcuse continues, “integrated the particular interests of the different estates into a true community. The freedom of the group or of the individual was not essentially opposed to the freedom of the whole.” ¹⁶ But, “in modern times,” he writes, Hegel believed “exclusive property has completely isolated the particular needs from each other” ¹⁷ such that the parts have no relation to the whole. Thus, for Hegel, the only institution that serves to hold society together is the state.

The rationalization and legitimization of the state in these terms, however, serve to justify the continued exploitation of the masses by the dominant ruling class through the harmonizing role of the state over society, notwithstanding the claim that this was done under a divine plan devised by God. In reality this took place within the context of a feudal social order in which the state was ruled by the landowning class, and the Church was among the largest landowners, under the pretext of lifting the people to a higher, spiritual level that would usher in true freedom—one based on the unity of the public and private spheres, through their mutual communion.

Suffice it to say, the Hegelian theory of the state, based, in essence, on an idealist, metaphysical conceptualization, provides us no better than the official propaganda of the dominant classes to legitimize their rule and, in the process, to rationalize the reign of a supreme authority exerting its power over the oppressed and exploited laboring masses.

Moving beyond mythical philosophical statements and rationalizations of the state, an analysis of the class nature of the Hegelian ideal state and its role in society reveals its true nature—a utopian ideal that cannot be achieved in its purest form as projected, on the one hand, and an unconditional support for the state that, however “bad” or “sick” it may be, does represent the entire society, on the other hand. It is this authoritative role that Hegel assigns the state, explained in the abstract and divorced from any fruitful understanding of the class nature of society, ¹⁸ which, in the final analysis, reinforces his conservative theory of the state as one that rationalizes and legitimizes the exploitation of the laboring masses and their overall place in society in favor of conformity and law and order, rather than helping them liberate themselves from their misery.

In this context, Hegel did not shy away from making his views known on the affinity between his thinking and that of Machiavelli, when he wrote:

Profoundly moved by the situation of general distress, hatred, disorder, and blindness, an Italian statesman grasped with cool circumspection the necessary idea of the salvation of Italy through its unification on one state. …

Machiavelli’s fundamental aim of erecting Italy into a state was misunder...