POL 211: Introduction to

Political Theory

The Philosophical Foundations of

the State
8 December 2014
 Critique of Individual theories
 Classical theorists focused on how people come
to share common understandings of a situation
 In other words, how people come to know the rules of
the game
 People’s behavior will reflect this understanding
 Once they know the rules, they will follow them
 But this approach ignores the possibility of self-
interest
 Even people who know the rules might be tempted to
cheat
 Common language and concepts may be necessary to
produce cooperation, but they are insufficient
Question
 How then do we get people to follow
the rules? How do we get people to
cooperate even when doing so is
counter to their self-interest?

 Answer: the State

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
 How is social order possible?
Hobbes
 People have the capacity to reason
 They weigh the costs and benefits
 They consider the consequences of their actions
 People are self-interested
 They seek to attain what they desire
 Security (avoid death and injury)
 Reputation (status)
 Gain (possessions)
 Their ability to attain what they desire depends on their
power
 Because men want a happy life, they seek sufficient power to
ensure that life
 All men have a “restless desire for power”
 Hobbes Assumptions, cont’d
 But men are equal in body and mind
 Everyone is pulled into a constant
competitive conflict for a struggle for power
 Or at least to resist his powers being
commanded by others
 Without a power that is able to enforce
rules, people don’t enjoy their interactions
with each other
Implications
 The natural state of man is a war of all
against all (‘the state of nature’)

 People who want the same things will be enemies

 They will use all means (including ‘force and fraud’) to
attain their ends
 Characteristics of the ‘state of
nature’

 People are insecure, and live in a constant fear of injury

and death
 There is no place for industry, because the fruit of it is
uncertain
 Hence, no agriculture, navigation, building, culture, science
 Life is short and unpleasant:
 “…during the time men live without a common power to keep them all
in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war
as is of every man against every man…. Whatsoever therefore is
consequent to a time or war where every man is enemy to every
man…no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is
worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of
man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Leviathan, Chapter XIII
Characteristics of the ‘state of
nature’
 Nothing can be unjust
 The notions of right and wrong, justice and
injustice have no place
Hobbes’ defense of his assumptions

 The fact that people lock their doors at

night (even in the 21st century!)
provides support for Hobbes’ view that
people are naturally inclined to use
‘force and fraud’
 People don’t like the state of nature
 They therefore have a desire for social
order
Summary of the problem of
social order

 Man is a rational egoist who fears death

 His egoism competition and war with
all others
 He is engaged in a zero-sum game
 His fear of death and desire for
‘commodious living’  demand for
social order
Hobbes’ solution
 Under these conditions, how can social order
be attained?
 In the state of nature, people have liberty
 Since man is rational, he will never use his
power to harm himself
 Man will try to attain peace only if he is
convinced that everyone else will do the
same
 How to make sure that everyone
would seek peace?

 No use for everyone to merely agree to give up their

individual sovereignty
 because men would still be rational egoists and would
renege whenever it was to their advantage
 They would have to transfer them to some person or
body who could make the agreement stick
 By having the authority to use the combined force

of all the contractors to hold everyone to it

 Agreements alone don’t have any force without some
coercive power to back them up
 The solution: surrender of
sovereignty
 The only way to provide social order is for
everyone to acknowledge a perpetual
sovereign power (the state, or Leviathan)
against which each of them would be
powerless
 This represents a coercive solution to the problem
of social order. Due to rational egoism, the only
means of providing order is by establishing a state
that would punish would-be miscreants.
 Hobbes: Draw the theory
War of all Formation Social order
against all of the state

Unhappy Individuals Costs of Individual

life give up disobedience compliance
rights
Hobbes
 How do we know if the theory has
merit?
 Look at the empirical world
 For example, do societies without government
have more violence than societies with
governments? (Cooney 1997)
Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
Engels on the state

 Like Hobbes, Engels views the state as

necessary for social order
 However, the origin of the state is
different
 Hobbes: a world of equal individuals
 Engels/Marx: a world of unequal classes
 Classes
 Defined by their relation to the means of production
 Owners
 Non-owners
 Are important because production determines
consciousness (Marx)
 The interests of the dominant and subordinate classes
conflict
 Their behavior reflects their conflicting interests
 So, societies are prone to conflict
 The class with the most economic power becomes the
political power
Engels/ Marx
 The state will eventually wither away as the
ultimate stage of social development
 How do we know if the theory has
merit?
 Look at the empirical world
 E.g. Do governments protect the interests of
the wealthy?
 Do religion, education, and so forth benefit the
wealthy?
 Engels/Marx: How the state
encourages compliance
 It represents the interests of the ruling class against the
class made up of non-owners
“The executive of the modern state is nothing but a
committee for managing the common affairs for the whole
bourgeoisie”
 Mechanism: coercion, supplemented by ideology/religion
 Coercion

 Fines
 Prison
 Ideology/religion
 Makes dominance by the ruling class seem natural
Engels/Marx : Draw the theory

Dominance
Class by Powerful Social
Conflict = State Order

Costs of
Compliance
deviance, view
of what’s
appropriate
 Critique of coercive theories of social
order
 Hobbes cannot explain social order
 Why should rational egoists in the state of nature ever
be willing to lay down their arms and surrender their
liberty to a coercive ruler?
 Hobbes’ solution to the problem of order stretches the
conception of rationality beyond its scope in the rest of the
theory, to a point where the actors come to be concerned
about the social interest rather than their individual interests
(Parsons 1937)
 In the absence of normative limits on the use of force and fraud
there will be an unlimited struggle for power
 But there are no normative elements in Hobbes (nor are
these central in Marx-Engels)
Critique of coercive solutions
 Very high levels of coercion would be
required to produce social order. But,
 Coercion is expensive
 Need a cop on every corner
 A telescreen in every room (1984)
 Coercion is ethically unappealing
 Max Weber’s contributions
(1864-1920)

 1. Introduces
the concept of
legitimacy
 2. Three types
of social order
 Patrimonial
 Bureaucratic
 Charismatic
Legitimacy
 In every social order, commands will be
obeyed by a given group of individuals
 To ensure this, there must be some
voluntary compliance
 people must have an interest in obeying the
rules/laws
 Thus, every type of social order
cultivates the belief in its legitimacy
 Three ‘ideal types’ of social order

 Abstract models of social conditions

 Patrimonial (‘Traditional order’)
 Rests on the belief in the sanctity of traditions, and
the legitimacy of the rulers selected thereby
 Bureaucratic (‘Legal order’)
 Rests on the belief in the legality of enacted rules,
and the right of those elevated in authority under
such rules to issue commands
 Charismatic
 Rests on devotion to the exceptional sanctity,
heroism, or exemplary character of an individual
person
How are these types arrived
at?
 By assuming what instrumental, self-
interested actors would do, if they
found themselves in the given social
conditions
 Weber imagines how rational egoists would
behave in these conditions
Charismatic order
 There are no fixed rules
 Leaders make their own rules (said to come from
a higher power)
 Kamuzu, Nkhrumah,Gandhim etc
 Order does not depend on a continuous
source of income
 Wealth not pursued in a methodical manner
 Regards as undignified all rational economic
conduct
 Master and disciples must be free of ordinary
worldly attachments
 Charismatic order, cont’d

 Followers are not materially compensated

 They often share in the goods the leader
receives as donations
 Ability of leader to provide goods sets a limit
on charismatic authority
 Leader’s mission must prove itself by fulfilling the
values of faithful followers (and providing some
subsistence to them)
 Patrimonial order
 Rests on the sanctity of age-old rules and powers
 Masters chosen according to these rules, obeyed
because of their traditional status
 Motivational basis
 Personal loyalty
 When exercising power, the master must consider how
far he can go without inciting resistance
 When resistance occurs, directed against the master
personally, not against the system as such
 Recruitment to staff
 People are recruited to a patrimonial staff
either via
 Traditional ties of loyalty
 Kinsmen, slaves, dependents, clients, etc.
 Example: Bingu wa Mutharika recruits from Mulhako
 Voluntarily
 People who willingly enter into a relation of loyalty
to the leader
 (Thoko Banda)
Factors absent from
patrimonial orders
 Clearly defined spheres of competence
subject to impersonal rules
 Rationally established hierarchies
 An orderly promotion system
 Technical training as a requirement
 Fixed monetary salaries
How are patrimonial staff
compensated?
 By living from the lord’s table
 By allowances in kind
 By rights of land use in exchange for
services
 By the appropriation of property
income, fees, or taxes
 By fiefs
 The bureaucratic order
 Based on the rule of law
 Abstract rules established intentionally
 Law applies these general rules to specific cases, so as
to rationally pursue the organization’s interests
 Office holders themselves subject to an impersonal
order
 Members owe obedience to superiors not as
individuals, but only to the impersonal order
 Incumbents obliged to obey only within the scope of
their job description
 Members owe obedience to superiors not as individuals,
but only to the impersonal order.
 Fundamental characteristics of
bureaucracy
 Official business conducted according to formal
rules
 Hierarchy
 Each lower office is under the control and supervision
of a higher one
 Each office has a distinct sphere of competence
 Candidates for office selected according to technical
qualifications
 tested by exams, guaranteed by diplomas
 Incumbents cannot buy their offices
 Instead, staff are paid by fixed money salaries, usually
with pensions
Bureaucracy, cont’d
 The office regarded as the primary
occupation of the incumbent
 It constitutes a career, with a system of
promotion based on seniority, merit or both
 Officials accountable to superiors for
their conduct in office
 Administrative acts, decisions and rules
formulated and recorded in writing
 Meetings with minutes
Bureaucracy, cont’d
 Rights of individuals are protected
 This prevents the arbitrary use of power by
superiors in the service of extra-
organizational goals
 Procedural justice
 The right to appeal decisions and statements of
grievances
Types of bureaucratic
organizations

 Governments
 Armies
 Profit-making firms
 Including professional sports teams
 Universities
 Charitable organizations
The rationale of bureaucracy
 It is the most efficient form of
administration
 It is the most stable and disciplined
 Its activities are the most predictable
 It can be used to accomplish a variety of tasks.
Bureaucracy = the modern
system of authority

 Modern organizations are types of

bureaucracies
 Bureaucracy -- by far the most efficient
means of administration
 The advantages of
bureaucracy
Takes advantage of the division of labor
 Based on technical knowledge
 greater precision, speed and objectivity in
administrative organization
 Ensures that the best people are selected for each
position
 Recruitment according to expertise
 Provides a basis for individual accountability
 Superiors grade performance of their subordinates
 Promotion in the career contingent on good
performance
Advantages, cont’d
 Contributes to social levelling
 Meritocratic rather than particularistic
recruitment
 Affinities with democracy
 High stability
 Sometimes, too stable: bureaucratic inertia
 Democratic decision-making can be inefficient
Some disadvantages of
bureaucracy
 Concentrates power in the hands of a
small number of people
 Those at the top of the various hierarchies
 Slow to adapt to environmental changes
 Akin to turning around a large oil tanker
 Discourages individualism, creativity,
and risk-taking
 An ‘iron cage’
A key question
 Bureaucracy is a modern invention;
dates from the late 18th century, at the
earliest
 Yet if it is such an efficient system of
administration, then why isn’t it found
everywhere in space and time?
 Answer: bureaucracy has certain
preconditions that were not able to be
met until modern times