The State

Challenges of the modern State

Ian Parales
Francisco Riodique
Patrick Alix
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Outline
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2)
3)
4)

State Power and Social Forces - Migdal, Kohli, and Shue

The Limits of the State: Beyond statist approaches and their critiques - Mitchell
Reorganising Power in Indonesia: The politics of oligarchy in an age of markets Robin and Hadiz
Capacity and Compromise: COMELEC NAMFREL and election fraud Calimbahin

State Power and Social Forces

Migdal, Kohli, and Shue
The key questions on societal transformations and their relations to the state are:
1.
2.
3.
4.

When and how states establish authority?

When have states defined main moral order or the boundaries of social relations?
When and how have states set economic agendas?
When and how social groups mold social behaviours and economic life?

The book goes into explaining these questions using different perspectives that moves
away from extreme state-centred theories.
Central argument: Patterns of domination are determined by key struggles spread
through what I call societys multiple arenas of domination and opposition. Officials at
different levels of the state are key figures in these struggles, interacting -- at times,
conflicting -- with an entire constellation of social forces in disparate arenas.
Integrated domination and Dispersed domination
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The State
Problems of authors in defining State
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2.

Gives emphasis on bureaucratic/rule-enforcing character (formal institutions)

Not much emphasis on formulation and transformation of its goals.

The transformative state - aims to shape moral orders of its citizens

Anthropology of the state:
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2.
3.

Disaggregate state study

Change method of study to participant observation
Thomas Luckmans legitimating universes

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The State (continued)

Breakdown the state into 4 levels, lowest to highest:
1.
2.
3.
4.

The trenches - Directly executed directives

The dispersed field offices - reworks state policies into local policies
The agencys central offices - institutions that create national policies
The commanding heights - top executive leadership

The Society
[Societies] as we know them -- their contours and boundaries, their sense of shared
experience -- have been products of state formation.
Social forces:
1.
2.

Informal or formal organisations, social movements

The ability to exercise power needs internal cohesion which in turn gives influence on
behaviour and belief over others (domination)

Social control in three dimensions to extend social force domination:

1.
2.
3.

Within an arena, social forces can dominate a number of issue areas

Arenas can expand to gather more people and extend territory
Social forces can use resources it gathers in one arena to dominate in another arena.

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The Junctures of State and Societies

The common core ideology of leaders in transformative states is to create hegemonic
presence in multiple arenas in order to penetrate society deep enough that they shape
how individuals identify themselves.
When state and society meets, there are four results:
1.
2.

3.

4.

Total transformation: state penetration leads to destruction, co-optation, or

subjugation of local social forces to states domination. Shapes self identification
State incorporation of existing social forces: injecting new social organisation,
resources, symbols into an arena allows state to seize existing social forces and create
a new pattern of domination
Existing social forces incorporation of the state: organisation and symbols of states
components are controlled by local domination social forces to the extent that it
significantly harms states chance to dominate society
State fails to penetrate society: lack of engagement will result in little transformative
effect
on
society
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States in Society
Looking at the power of the state as the main driving force of to achieve its goals is
not enough to understand the nuances of state-society dynamics.
States conventionally understood as strong and efficacious turn out on closer
examination to have important limitation.
Brazil: It military regime was not as rational and efficacious as it seems at first
glance. It was not able to change the entrenched patron-client ties in the society.

State-Society Interactions in China

The state's declining capacity to govern after the revolution is attributed to the
growing disjuncture between the state and society.
The post-revolutionary society went to the process of cellularization. As a result the
possibilities of linking the state to the various social forces was eroded.
Local politics were restructured along th elines of localistic protection and
personalistic patronage
State and society were separated from each other.

The Crisis of Governability in India

There is a breakdown of established patterns of authority in Indias villages.
The dawn of the modern times undermined the authority of the high castes and
other big men.
As a result there was the emergence of free floating political resources political
groups making demands and has created conditions that attract populist and
personalistic rule.

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Mutual Empowerment of State and Society

The condition of state authority and social demand supporting and reinforcing one
another depends on the viability of institutions that can link state power with social
forces.
In the case of the competitive democracy of India, this must mean political parties,
well-organized, disciplined parties that can generate alternative social goals
embodied in coherent state programs.

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Strengthening State-Society Interactions in

China
The process of deepening societal fragmentation along intensifying state
powerlessness under Mao resonates the account of Indian political trajectory.
Any process of mutual reempowerment would as in India depend primarily on the
development of viable mechanisms linking social demand to state power.
This can be seen in the building of corporatist-style civil associations.
The power resources of a society tend to vary with such conditions as the states
capacity to penetrate and centrally coordinate the activities of the society, the levels
of consciousness and organization of groups, and most important, whether the goals
of state elites and of organized social groups tend to converge and diverge.
State-society relations approach the formations and transformations of states and
societies as reciprocal, rather than autonomous processes.
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The Limits of the State: Beyond statist

approaches and their critiques
Mitchell

Boundaries of the state:

1.
2.
3.

As boundaries of political system

Bringing back the state (Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985)
The elusiveness of state-society boundaries needs to be taken seriously.

Total Science (Loewenstein) - The expansion of political science into other areas of study
The return of the state - The state shares subjective beliefs and cultural forms, not a
subjective structure with cultural phenomenon. Having this distinction between
conceptual and empirical realms must be questioned in order to understand the state in its
entirety.
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The return of the state - The state shares subjective beliefs and cultural forms, not a
subjective structure with cultural phenomenon.
Beginning at the subjective level
1.
2.
3.

Nordlinger: Are policies based on personal preferences then transformed for public
use?
Krasner: State forms goals autonomously through two executive offices, the
presidency, and the Department of State (foreign minister equivalent).
Skocpol: state has fundamental organisations inside a broader political system. State
autonomy is based on states independent desire or interest.

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Alternative approach
The reason as to why the boundary between state and society is so elusive is because of
the interconnected relationships between the two. Studying this blurred line is essential in
creating an alternative statist approach e.g. relationships of different banks shows
interconnecting relationships that cannot be simply divided into private or public, or state
or society. There is only an appearance or separation, a way to maintain order.
5 propositions on statist approach

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Reorganizing Power in Indonesia: The

Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets

1966: Suharto came into power

New regime opened the door to new foreign investments

1970: state capitalism re-established itself in a more vigorous form

1980: powerful political and economic oligarchies emerged
1997: Financial crisis swept away the system of authoritarian state power
Rise of power politico-business families and the harnessing of the state to the
unconstrained interests of this privileged league of oligarchies
After the fall of Suharto:

Freeing up of previous constraints in forming new political parties

Formulation and passage of new political laws that would govern the holding of fresh parliament
elections
Actual holding of parliamentary elections: to elect a President

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Reorganizing Power in Indonesia: The

Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets

Major parties are constituted by different concentrations of old politicobureaucratic, military and business forces, secular nationalist or Islamic
populist interest and reformist liberals
Old powerful elites managed to reorganize and sustain their ascendancy in the
new democratic environment

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Capacity and Compromise: COMELEC,

NAMFREL and Election Fraud
1.

Clientelistic Relationship
Externally motivated clientelistic relationship
Ties between Marcos and top-level COMELEC officials (1986)
President Arroyo - Commissioner Garciliano phone conversation
(2004)
Internal clientelistic relationship
COMELEC top officials forge ties or relationship with its staff to
ensure cooperation
Commissioner Garcilliano - staff members (2004)

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Capacity and Compromise: COMELEC,

NAMFREL and Election Fraud
2.

Election Fraud
Before elections
Number of listed voters is greater than its population (1949 elections,
Lanao)
Vote buying
During elections
Intimidation, coercion, and abuses of all kinds
After elections
Ballots with similar handwriting
Ballot boxes without election materials were submitted

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Capacity and Compromise: COMELEC,

NAMFREL and Election Fraud
3.

Credibility Deficit
Presidential appointees
Ensuring or manipulating favorable election result
Allegations of wholesale fraud with complicitly at the commissioner level
eroded the publics confidence in the electoral processes

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