Introduction
Human beings are similar to animals in their feeding, reproduction, respiration and sensitivity. However, the fact that human beings have the ability to govern themselves and govern all other living things in their environment makes them become the most complex living beings on the planet.
Human beings have developed various systems through which they derive their rights and responsibilities while undertaking their daily activities (Duerksen 120). They have advanced ways of ensuring their behavior is regulated and that all human beings enjoy their lives without interference from other people.
Therefore, people have established ways through which they are able to demand their rights and seek justice whenever they feel their freedoms are violated. This essay aims at discussing why people present a threat to their states.
A state is defined as a community of people under a given area of international jurisdiction governed by a given set of political establishments. It should be noted that all states have their sovereignty which makes them independent entities that are subject to non interference from other states. A citizen is any individual that belongs to a certain state and is bound by the rules and privileges offered by it (Sachs 23).
A threat is any statement, word or action that is aimed at expressing an intention to do harm or destruction. The state is in charge of ensuring that all citizens are protected from any external and internal attacks that threaten their well being. In some cases, states come together and form rules that act as their guidelines and ensure that all members governed by these rules are respected and assisted in areas they experience problems.
However, citizens have become the greatest threat to their states in the process of demanding their rights. There are various issues that make this claim very controversial in the modern world as it will be discussed below.
Political Order
Political order is a continuous process that involves several concepts that act as its principles. The first principle is legitimacy that gives the state the power to exercise its authority over its citizens.
This legitimacy is given to the governments of the day through a democratic process that involves voting to elect the citizens’ preferred government. Through these process, citizens exercise their power over legitimacy of any government to run their state and therefore the citizens have higher authority over their governments as far as the state is concerned.
Whenever there are issues that citizens feel the state is ignoring, it becomes their duty to demand them through demonstrations and strikes to ensure the state heeds to their demands. The state has a duty to ensure that all their citizens are protected against any natural disasters regardless of their causes.
The state is mandated to ensure that effective measures are taken during floods, disease outbreaks and drought periods, for example. The state is obligated to listen and act with regard to the needs of their citizens in order to claim their legitimacy. The process through which citizens make claims leads to social conflicts while the ability to make these claims legitimate brings political order in the society.
The states monopoly of violence during riots and strikes in maintaining social and political order is usually a great factor that exposes citizens to various dangers including death and physical damages to human beings and property.
This becomes very challenging given the fact that the same state is entitled to protect lives and properties of its citizens. However, this issue is very debatable due to the fact that these riots stall various activities in the society.
There are also various channels through which citizens may address their grievances apart from causing chaos. In addition, this chaos caused by citizens usually results in great losses forcing the state to make use of its legitimate authority and use force and violence to control demonstrators.
The same criteria are applied whenever communities within a state are at war to ensure that they live in accordance with the democracy and authority that the state struggles to uphold. States face a very big challenge in establishing legitimacy on the use of force and violence within societies on its boundaries as this exposes them to international pressure and ridicule in these processes.
It is further argued that states does not need excess power to create social and political order among their citizens but rather people should find ways to co exist and due to cooperation, respect and fear they will achieve social order by themselves hence this does not need to be a great threat to the state. However, in some situations there is need to have institutions to prevent cases of social disorders in society.
Whenever these institutions fail to bring order in society they are perceived to be illegitimate and this makes the state to lose the monopoly of using force and violence to bring order.
This causes a situation of anarchy as different forces begin to compete to monopolize authority over others and this is evident in Northern Ireland, Somalia and former Yugoslavia. The result is usually violence and citizens will not be in a position to do their daily activities that constitute a great percentage of factors that promotes social order.
Social Order
The society we live in is in constant conflicts as people strive to achieve various objectives in life. These conflicts are not necessarily physical but they involve the forces and tensions that people face in the process of getting their daily needs.
Therefore, the process of maintaining social order by the state becomes very complicated as these tensions are responsible for the smooth running of the society. As discussed in chapter seven, individuals always involve in various duties in the attempt to ensure that all their wants are met.
However, in most cases people do not put into consideration the means through which they used to get what they want. The society is therefore obligated to ensure that these means are legitimate and that they do not interfere with the rights of other citizens.
Authority
Authority is defined as any power or ability to influence others to do or follow a certain way of thinking. In this context, it is evident that citizens are the custodians of the authority that governs them. Many countries do not just select individuals to sit in panels and draw up rules and policies that will govern a country’s citizens. It is very important to note that all laws originate from the citizens of any given country.
Any law that citizens view to be oppressive and discriminatory is usually subjected to grievances that eventually makes it possible for the state to change them or drop them all together. This usually starts with petitions being filed at various institutions that are in charge of passing and implementing them.
These institutions include the ministries of home affairs, internal security and constitutional affairs. In case these petitions are not addressed in time, it causes a lot of anxiety among citizens (Pelosi 34).
These tensions eventually culminate to movements that threaten the government to take immediate measures to ensure that the demands of its citizens are met. Whenever the state fails to act in accordance with the demands of its citizens more drastic and tragic events are inevitable.
One of the main events that may arise is anarchy. Even though, most of these events are politically motivated; their origin is usually a sincere cry from the common man. Unfortunately, such cries are usually hacked along the way by groups that have always opposed the state in various issues.
Legitimacy
This is defined as the degree of acceptance of a certain fact by a group of people. Legitimacy is granted by the existing laws, traditions and practices. In the first place, a state derives its legitimacy through the fact that the rules that govern the behavior and conduct of its citizens are formulated and endorsed by them. This means that the citizens of any given state have the ability to determine the legitimacy of these rules.
In addition, a state is rum by various institutions that ensures its citizens have access to everything they require. These institutions are put in place by these citizens and this means that they have the ability to determine the fate of any institution. The most important factor to note is that these institutions are headed or controlled to a certain degree by the government that is in place (Keynes Audio CD 3).
These governments in turn receive their support from the state’s citizens through a process of voting. This is a very common practice in almost all countries in the world as it reflects the wishes and desires of their citizens.
Voting is usually considered to be free and fair process of selecting political leaders to fill various government leadership positions. Through this process, many states have faced great threats from their citizens a they have a greater authority of determining their next leaders. In addition, some very controversial issues are usually subjected to referendums to decide on whether they should be adopted or not.
A referendum is a voting process which is aimed at establishing whether citizens of a particular country support a given policy, plan, project or law. Most states have changed their constitutions to have a modern approach to issues through this process.
However, a referendum is usually not an appropriate way of assessing whether citizens agree to or reject the subject in question. This is due to the reason that a referendum usually has two options of whether to agree or disagree.
Some issues are very controversial and require minor amendments to make them acceptable by the majority of the citizens. However, referendums do not give many states room to make such changes that are essential to total rejection on the basis of minor changes.
Capacity of the State to Order Lives
The state plays a very important role in ensuring that its citizens behave in an orderly manner. This is made possible through various means including the use of force to ensure that the order is maintained. The society is structured in such a way that all individuals conform to a general guideline that reflects the wishes of the whole population (Gecan 21).
It should be noted that the state has a very high ability to direct the behavior of its citizens regardless of their rights and freedoms.
It is very evident that although citizens have the ability and the right to decide their destinies they do not have anonymity over their actions and whenever it threatens state security the state will automatically act in a manner to bring order to society. This includes the prevention and use of force to control rioters and demonstrators.
Conclusion
It should be noted that while the state faces great risks from their citizens they are not entirely responsible for the occurrence of most issues that subject them to these risks. The state has a major responsibility of ensuring that all the rights and privileges of its citizens are protected and upheld regardless of the costs incurred.
Therefore, it is the right of all citizens to be provided with the correct services from the government as they have all their hopes in them. However, it should be understood that these rights and freedoms come with responsibilities that should be observed.
Works Cited
Duerksen, Christopher. The Citizens Guide to Planning. New York: Planners Press, 2009. Print.
Gecan, Michael. Going Public: An Organizers Guide to Citizen Action. New York: Anchor, 2004. Print.
Keynes, Milton. Citizens and the State. Exploring Social Lives (Audio CD 3). The Open University, 2009. Print.
Pelosi, Alexandria. Citizen U.S.A.: A 50 State Road Trip. New York: N.A.L., 2011. Print.
Sachs, Jeffrey D. The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity. New York: Random House, 2011. Print.
Self Reflection
The analysis of the issues that make citizens become a great threat to the states is a very complex subject of discussion due to the fact that most issues discussed seem to base their arguments on each other. It is very difficult to differentiate between the rights of citizens and their boundaries.
It is very difficult to separate citizens’ rights and the states responsibilities. However, this task has been fascinating, especially due to many similarities between the state’s and citizens’ responsibilities.