Introduction
For many years, people have lived in conditions of state-legal reality. During the mankind evaluation process, dozens of theories and doctrines were created, and hundreds or even thousands assumptions expressed. Presently, arguments considering the nature of the State and its role are numerous.
However, there is nothing surprising in that. It is entirely understandable as each of the theories examines different views and perceptions of various groups, classes, nations and others social communities on that process. The aim of this work is to examine some of the basic theories to consider the causes of their diversity.
Historical studies of State formation have shown that when states were formed, many of the institutional properties (although they were later to be taken for granted) were objects of conscious choice and objects of struggle hence eliciting debate. Just like any other period that was characterized by rapid transformation, the structural properties of institutional forms are likely to be objects of debate and disagreements (Stephen 1982).
While considering the problems of state evaluation one should take into account that the process of state formation itself is ambiguous. In the past, evaluation of the state was described within one or a couple primitive causes. Nowadays, it is thought that state is evaluated mostly because of a mixture of complex factors.
It is very important to distinguish two absolutely different types in a formation process that include historical and time frameworks, causes and conditions of state evaluation. It is also important that one should look at the initial process of state formation on a public arena, when there were no such entities as states at all.
It is a process of state-legal, institutional and organizational occurrence based on relationships which were developed before state and legal formation came to be (Woods 1981). On the other hand, the process of evaluation of the new states on a basis of previously existed ones also should be taken into consideration.
Essentially, evaluation of new states is still in progress. Quite common is the emergence of 15 new countries as a consequence of the Soviet Union collapse in 90‘s. More recent is South Sudan gain of independence from Sudan by means of a referendum in 2011. There are more examples of nations that have proclaimed independence, despite the fact that they are not recognized internationally (Abkhazia, South Ossetia).
It can be noted that different factors play an important role in a state formation process. For example, in the case of USSR, it resulted from economic factors which finally led to instability. In the case of South Sudan, it is political infighting, but generally it is a mixture of various factors that come together in a certain point.
Despite the various factors and causes that are essential to state evaluation in different regions, authors tried to express their opinions which were further expounded in state theories. Currently there are several theories of state evaluation.
The most recognized theories are: Weberian theory, theological theory (Foma Acvinsky), materialistic/class theory (Marx, Engels, and Lenin), theory of social agreement (Hobs, Locke, and Jan Jack Rousseau), theory of force (Eugen Karl Dühring, Gumplowicz), patriarchal theory (Aristotle), and irrigational theory (August Wittfogel).
Diversity in state theories
Pluralism of scientific views is a product of different historical features of development of society, the originalities of particular region (climate, religion), ideological or political views and believes of the authors. Another suggestion that can be helpful to explain the diversity in state theories is that in most cases, the authors who were giving explanation concerning state evaluation issues lived in different historical times and certainly, they were using different volume of knowledge saved by mankind.
Their proposals and dogmas were a reflection of the particular time they lived in. Furthermore, explaining the process of occurrence of the state, the scientists, thinkers and religious figures used as examples the places they knew or where they lived, not taking in to consideration other regions of the world with certain domestic features.
The ideological criteria cannot be ignored. In most occasions ideological and philosophical passion had a strong influence on author’s thoughts. The process of evaluation of the state in every nation was preceded in a unique manner. This perception also contributed to the large variety of standpoints considering state formation. We may not truly understand all the forces and stimuli that contributed to the development of the first true States.
Explanations usually involve factors of soil productivity, opportune location, natural protection against enemies, advantageous climate, and similar assets supposedly possessed by those ancient human agglomerations that managed to forge States out of their habitats. But what is not explained is why, in others places where conditions were the same or even more attractive, States failed to emerge (Woods 1981).
In an attempt to explain this scenario different authors came up with different theories. It should be embraced from the outset that states are not natural neither are they inevitable. In contrast they are the products of specific social processes and political struggles which generate a process of their formation (Joe 1995).
Due to difference in economic orientation, intense forms of involvement of the state in economic processes and partially because of the concerted attack on all forms of economies, very few theorists were prepared to adopt the base-superstructure metaphor in their analyses of the state or anything else. This obviously would lead to emergences of different theories; each author explaining the scenario differently (Cohen 1978).
It is interesting to note that in the past years, the development of the state has revolved around the problem to do with the state managers, state capacities, and state interests and, more generally, the state as such as an actor rather than just as a structure struggle.
This is particularly evident in the debates in the United States, where a number of influential theorists such as Theda Skocpol and Fred Block, for example – have argued regarding the centrality of state-centered interests and capacities in understanding the state and its effects (Peter Evans, Dietich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol 1985).
The major concept of these theorists is that state managers have interests which are irreducible to class interests and state apparatuses have capacities which are at least partially autonomous from class power. This concern comes in weak versions, in which no claim is made that these state centered processes have greater importance than class-centered processes. It is therefore evident that diversity is bound to happen. This of cause explains the existence of many theories of state.
Social contract theory
Social contract theory is nearly as old as philosophy itself. It can be explained as the view that persons’ moral and political obligations depends on a contract or agreement among persons concerned to form the society in which they live in. This theory has a number of proponents. Socrates tried to use a theory closely related to the social contract theory in his attempt to explain why one can stay in prison or worse face a death sentence.
It is Thomas Hobbes strongly defend social contract theory and more so gives it its full exposition. After Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are the best known proponents of this largely influential theory (Baier 1988). It has been one of the most dominant theories within moral and political divide throughout the history. The aim of this section is to look into this theory and see why it can be considered the most useful.
One of the proponents of social contract theory is Thomas Hobbes. He actually lived during the most crucial period of early modern England’s history. This was the period of the English Civil War which was from 1642-1648. Hobbes rejects the theory of the Divine Right of Kings, although he did not refute it directly. The divine right view held that a king’s authority was invested in him and in some cases on her by God.
King’s authority was absolute and was to be obeyed as one obeys God. According to this view, then, political obligation is equal to religious obligation (Hampton 1986). Hobbes also rejects the early democratic view, taken up by the Parliamentarians, that power ought to be shared between them and the King. Hobbes views are taken to by many as radical and his principles as conservative.
For his time, an argument that political authority and obligation should be founded not on individual interests but on genuine concern for one another is taken to be radical. This includes being invested with any essential authority to rule over the rest. He at the same time maintained his conservative position that the monarch, which he called the Sovereign, must be ceded absolute authority if society is to survive.
Social contract theory is a theory of human nature that would parallel the discoveries being made in the sciences of the inanimate universe. Hobbes psychological theory is therefore strengthened by the general view that everything in the universe is produced by nothing other than matter in motion. According to Hobbes, this is also true of human behavior.
Human macro-behavior can be rightly described as the effect of certain kinds of micro-behavior, even though some of this latter behavior is invisible in real sense. In other words behaviors as walking, talking, and the like are themselves produced by other actions inside of us. From his point of view, Hobbes think human beings are essentially very complicated organic machines, responding to the stimuli of the world mechanistically and in accordance with universal laws of human nature.
The Social contract theory also infers that humans are necessarily and exclusively self-interested. Human being are known to follow only what they find to be good and suit their selfish interests. They respond and are drawn to that which they desire and repelled by that to which they do not desire. This is a universal claim which is actually meant to cover all human actions under all circumstances, be it in society or out of it.
Human being respond in this manner with regard to strangers and friends alike, with regard to small ends and the most generalized of human desires, such as the desire for power and status. In a nutshell, human beings are motivated by the urge to fulfill their personal and pre set desires other than the bigger perspective of the community. Social contract theory, bring to the light the fact that people are largely concerned about meeting their own selfish ends.
Hobbes views the act of adults taking care of small children as one motivated by selfishness and meeting adults’ own goals. He claims that in saving an infant by caring for it, the adult become the recipient of a strong sense of obligation in one who has been helped to survive rather than allowed to die. This is too for self gain. In essence, this theory allows us to understand the behavior of human being to this end.
Despite the fact that human beings are self centered, they are rational. They have inside them, the rational capacity to pursue their desires as efficiently and effectively as they set. Rationality is very instrumental. It can add and subtract, and compare sums to each other, and therefore gives human beings the capacity to formulate the best means to whatever ends we might happen to have.
The Social contract theory is deemed useful in explaining why human beings live in perpetual fear. The theory argues that the justification for political obligation is given by the fact that men are naturally self-interested but equally important they are rational. This means they will choose to submit to the authority of a Sovereign in order to live in a civil society, which is conducive to achievement of their own interests.
Hobbes argues for this by imagining men in their natural state what can be referred to as the State of Nature (Gilligan 1982). In such state, which according to Hobbes is purely hypothetical, men are naturally and exclusively self-interested. There are limited resources, and yet there is no power strong enough to force men to cooperate. Given these conditions in the State of Nature, Hobbes concludes that the State of Nature can possibly be unbearably brutal.
This explains why in real sense every person is always in fear of losing his life to another. No human being has the capacity to ensure the long-term satisfaction of their needs or desires. State of nature is largely viewed as a state of utter mistrust. In this case peacefully interaction is almost impossible.
It is a right assumption that most people first and foremost would like to avert their own deaths. As such the State of Nature is the worst situation in which men can find themselves; it surely delivers what human being dread of. It is the state of perpetual and unavoidable war (Gilligan 1982).
The theory to a large extent allows people understand the laws of nature hence live as they may desire. The laws show them the means by which to escape the State of Nature and create a civil society full of peace. The first law of nature requires that a human being pursue peace as longer as others do the same. This puts reservations and allows that one ceases to pursue peace when others are pursuing war.
When behaving in a reasonable way and attempting to obey natures basic laws of reason, men are therefore, expected to construct a Social Agreement. In this case they are assured of a better life other than that made available to them in the State of Nature. The sovereign still reserves’ the authority and power to issue forth sentences to breaches of the contract which are viewed as worse than not being able to do thing that pleases oneself.
Men in themselves have good, albeit self-interested, reason to adjust to the artifice of morality and justice in particular. Society tends to be easy because, whereas in the State of Nature there was no power able to rule them all now there is an artificially and conventionally superior and very powerful person who can force men to cooperate (Gilligan 1982). In this case, obeying the sovereign and laws is of paramount good to human beings.
Actually, no matter how much people may object to how poorly a Sovereign manages the affairs of the state and regulates their lives, there is no justification in resisting his power because it is the only thing which stands between them and what must be avoided, the State of Nature.
This theory is useful in understanding that morality, politics, society, and everything that comes along with it, all of which Hobbes calls commodious living are truly conventional. As long as there is no contract in place, to guide human being about good and wrong, there is nothing wrong and no act immoral.
Everyone is right in their own judgment. However, when the contracts are put in place, the world becomes a place and the society obviously becomes possible. People live in peace and they are expected to keep their promises, cooperate with one another, and the list of goods is endless.
The Social Contract is thus taken as a major source of what is good and that which we depend upon for peaceful coexistence. This leaves human beings with a choice of either following the terms of the social contract, or risk a return to the State of Nature, which no reasonable person could possibly prefer.
Although viewed as conservative, Hobbes greatly succeeds in bringing forth a theory that makes civil society, together with all its advantages, possible place to dwell. This theory advocates for a continuation of the traditional form of authority that his society had long since enjoyed, while nonetheless placing it on what he saw as a far more acceptable foundation.
John Locke is the other proponent of the Social contract theory. For Locke the State of Nature is a very different type of place, similarly his argument concerning the social contract and the nature of men’s relationship to authority are consequently quite different (Locke 2003). His arguments for the social agreement and his idea that people can rebel against a bad ruler, where of paramount Importance.This actually triggered a democratic revolution soon after.
According to Locke, the Nature provides true liberty, where human being can conduct their lives with no interference. It should however not be taken to mean that, people are free to do anything that pleases them, or even anything that one judges to be in one’s interest. The State of Nature, although it does not require any civil authority or government to punish people for transgressions against laws, it is a state with morality and absolute good.
The State of Nature is actually pre-political, but should not be taken to be pre-moral. Everybody is equal to each other and, hence capable of discovering and being bound by the Law of Nature in equal measure (Held 1993). The Law of Nature is the basis of all morality. It strictly forbids anyone to harm others with regards to their life, health, liberty, or possessions.
In Locke’s view, we all belong to God. In the same breath, we can not take away what is His and hence we are prohibited from harming one another. Because of the restrictions imposed by nature the world becomes relatively peaceful.
Social contract theory gives room for private ownership of property. Property is a major driver in Locke’s argument for establishment of civil government and the contract that establishes it. According to Locke, private property is a product of an interaction of individual labor and raw materials of nature. A good example is, the activities leading to food production; an individual prepares a piece of land and makes a farmland, which produces food.
The individual can rightfully claim to own that piece of land and the food produced upon it. This argument made Locke to conclude that America didn’t really belong to the natives who lived there, because they were not to utilizing the basic material of nature. By the fact that they didn’t farm it, shown that they had no legitimate claim to it, and others could therefore justifiably appropriate it. Given the restriction of the Law of Nature, there are limits as to how much property one can own.
The theory suggests ways in which social differences can be resolved. Locke suggests that a men end up uniting into common- wealth.This is so in preservation of their wealth, and preserving their lives, liberty, and well-being in general. Locke can easily think of the conditions under which the compact with government is no more, and men are justified in resisting the authority of a civil government, such as a King (Baier 1988).
In essence, the only way to justify the authority of the executive component of government is the protection of the people’s property and well-being, so when such protection is no longer present, or when the king becomes a tyrant and acts against the interests of the people, they then have a right, if not an outright obligation, to resist his authority (Locke 2003).
The social compact can be dissolved and the process of creating political society afresh. This theory scrutinizes possible conditions under which one would be better off rejecting a particular civil government in preference of the State of Nature.
Lastly, from Rousseau’s view, social agreement theories in a systematic mode, tends to form a single and consistent view of our moral and political situation. We are endowed with freedom and equality by nature. This nature has been corrupted by our contingent social history. We can, however, overcome this corruption, by invoking our free will to reconstitute ourselves politically, along strongly democratic principles, which is good for us, both individually and collectively (Rousseau 1987).
With this information, it would be difficult to underestimate the effect that social contract theory has had, both within philosophy, and on the wider culture. Social contract theory is undoubtedly with us for the foreseeable future. There are so many criticism in relation to these theories.
This obviously compels scholars to think and rethink about the nature of both ourselves and our relations with one another. A contract between people who do not know each other and who do not give their consent is no contract at all. Further, there can be, in fact, no social contract because nobody knows with whom he would be contracting, who would benefit from the contract, and who would bear the cost.
References
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Evans, P, Dietich, R and Theda, S 1985, On the road to a more adequate understanding of the state, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Gilligan, C 1982, In a different voice: psychological theory and women’s development, Harvard University Press, Harvard.
Hampton, J 1986, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Held, V 1993, Feminist morality: transforming culture, society, and politics, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Joe, P 1995, Politics, geography and political geography, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Locke, J 2003, Two treatises of government and a letter concerning toleration, Yale University Press, Yale.
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Woods, E 1981, “The separation of the economic and the political in capitalism,” New Left Review, pp. 127.