SUBJECT: POLITICAL SCIENCE I

COURSE: BA LLB SEMESTER I

TEACHER: MS. DEEPIKA GAHATRAJ

M O D U L E : M O D U L E I I I , C O N C E P T O F S TAT E A N D
GOVERNMENT

ELEMENTS OF THE STATE

(iii) Government

Government is still another essential element of the state. According to J.W. Garner
(Political Science and Government; 1928), 'government is the agency or machinery through
which common policies are determined and by which common affairs are regulated and
common interests promoted'. If the state represents an abstract concept, government is its
concrete form. In other words, authority of the state is exercised by government; functions
of the state are performed by government. Laws of the state are made, declared and enforced
by government; justice is dispensed by the judicial organ of government. Government is
responsible for the maintenance of law and order and for the provision of common services
— defence, issue of currency, foreign relations, roads, bridges, and even transport,
communications, water, electricity, health and education, etc. and it is entitled to levy taxes
for the provision of all such services. Without government, the people are a chaotic mass of
disjointed particles, without common aims, common interests or a common organisation.

A citizen has to deal with government of the state; any transaction between different states,
including war, takes place through the medium of their governments.

However, government and state should not be treated as co-terminous. Governments may
rise and fall without disturbing identity of the state, so long as they are formed and
dissolved according to the established custom, procedure or constitution of the state. But a
state will lose its identity if it is suppressed by an alien power so much so that the
established procedure of forming a government is also suspended. When the people of a
state lose their right to have a government according to the established procedure, i.e. a
legitimate government enjoying customary respect and obedience of the people, the state is
reduced to a colony of the imperial power which suppressed it.

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(iv) Sovereignty

Finally, sovereignty also constitutes an essential element of the state. Sovereignty denotes
the supreme or ultimate power of the state to make laws or take political decisions—
establishing public goals, fixing priorities and resolving conflicts—as also enforcing such
laws and decisions by the use of legitimate force. In fact, sovereignty denotes the final
authority of the state over its population and its territory. This authority may be exercised by
the government of the day, but it essentially belongs to the state from which it is derived by
the government.

It is by virtue of its sovereignty that a state declares—through the agency of the government
—its laws and decisions and issues commands which are binding on all citizens, claims
obedience thereto, and punishes the offenders. It is also by virtue of its sovereignty that a
state similarly deals independently with other states.

Commands of the state are treated as superior to those of any other association or institution,
even to the dictates of social customs or conscience of individual, because sovereignty is the
sole preserve of the state. As Max Weber (1920) points out: The right to use physical force
is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits
it. The state is considered the sole source of the 'right' to use violence.

A state continues to exist so long as it is armed with sovereignty. If a state loses its
sovereignty because of internal revolt or external aggression, the result is anarchy and
disappearance of the state as such. Some writers regard 'international recognition' as an
essential element of the state. This denotes formal recognition of the sovereignty of the state
over a given territory and population by other states. International recognition, however, is
the outcome of the sovereignty of the state, not a condition of its existence. When a new
state, like Bangladesh, comes into existence, it may be recognized by some states
immediately while other states thay withhold their recognition for quite a long time. Much
depends on the foreign policy of a state whether to recognize the new state immediately or
to delay it. USA had withheld recognition of the new states of USSR and People's Republic
of China for decades after they came into existence, but they did exist as states. Hence,
international recognition is only incidental to the sovereignty of the state, not a fundamental
element of the state itself.

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REFERENCES:

- Gauba, O.P. (2010), An Introduction to Political Theory, Macmillan Publishers, Delhi

- https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/55344/8/08_chapter%202.pdf
- https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/difference/9-main-differences-between-state-and-
government/40327