The Boundaries of the Political: State, Society, and the International Community

The Boundaries of the Political: State, Society, and the International Community.

We have seen that politics is presaged on differences that human beings have, and how these differences, in interests and values, can be managed in a world where scarcity is inevitable. However, this only takes us so far in a definitional sense, because it does not touch upon boundary problems. Much of the definitional controversy surrounding politics relates to these boundary problems. Where does politics begin and end? For Leftwich, this is the 'single most important factor involved in influencing the way people implicitly or explicitly conceive of polities'.

For some, politics ought to be defined narrowly. According to this view, politics is associated with the activities of the state and the public realm, or with a particular type of decision-making based on building compromise and consensus. As a result, institutions other than the state, and dispute-resolving through violence or suppression, although important in their own right, are beyond the scope of politics. For others, as we shall see below, this narrow drawing of the boundary is to miss much of importance that might fairly be described as political.

Politics has traditionally been associated with the activities of the state. This narrow definition certainly helps to distinguish politics, however artificially, from other social sciences such as sociology and economics. As a result, subfields of politics such as political sociology and political economy, focus on the relationship between the state and society and the economy respectively. The state has traditionally been the centre of much political analysis because it has been regarded as the highest form of authority in a society. Put another way, in the words of the great German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920), the state has a 'monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in enforcing its order within a given territorial area'.

Such authority is tantamount to sovereignty. The state is sovereign in the sense that it is the supreme law-making body within a particular territory. Ultimately, it has the power of life and death over individuals. It can decide to put people to death for crimes they have committed and it can demand that individuals fight for their country in wars with other states. Defined in such a way, the state can be distinguished from the government in the sense that it is a much larger entity, containing not just political offices but also bureaucratic institutions, the judiciary, military and police and security services. The state can also be distinguished from civil society which consists of those non-governmental institutions-such as pressure groups, business organizations, and trade unions—to which individuals belong. It is these institutions that provide linkages between the individual and the state. (See Box 0.2.)

Without doubt, to include the activities of the state in a study of politics is necessary, albeit not  necessarily sufficient. As we will see further, the study of government- its legislative, executive, and judicial functions*occupies a great deal of the political analyst’s time. Moreover,  the question of state power is central to the study of politics. Since the sixteenth century, political theory has been associated with—and has helped shape the character of—the nation-state, the varying types of which are described by political scientists. As Barbara Goodwin  points out political  theory may be defined as the discipline which aims to explain, justify or criticize the disposition of power in society. Political theory is therefore intrinsically linked to a study of political obligation. Why should we, it is asked, obey the state? Is there any particular form of the state that we can obey rather than others? Can we obey any state?   

Box 0.2

Key concept 

Civil society

A term that is usually taken to refer to a range of private institutions existing between the individual and the state. This would include what are now referred to as interest groups representing things that people have in common, such as business, trade, unions, religion, ethnicity, and so on. Hegel, the eighteenth- and early nineteenth century German philosopher, distinguished between the family, civil society, and the state, each offering increasing degrees of social integration. Others would want to include the family as an institution within civil society.