The Weberian definition of the modern state

It is this modern conception of the state that still dominates contemporary state theory. Indeed, the definition of the state most often accorded the status of the definition the state - the Weberian one - displays considerable similarities with that of Hobbes.

Two aspects of this definition are particularly noteworthy, providing as they do the basis, and/or point of departure, for much contemporary reflection on the state. First, the state for Weber is a set of institutions with a dedicated personnel. This observation has been taken up and developed by a diverse group of neo-Weberians, neo-statists and institutionalists working in particular in the USA (see Chapter 4). They argue that the differentiation of the state from civil society allows state managers to develop an array of distinct interests, preferences and capacities which cannot be explained by reference merely to societal factors.

In their efforts to ‘bring the state back in’ as both an actor and an independent force in social causation, the neo-statists have emphasized both the autonomy of the state from society and the power of ‘state-centred’ explanations of political outcomes. More specifically they have concentrated on: the ability of state managers to exercise power independently and autonomously of non-state forces; the ‘infrastructural power’ of the state to infiltrate, control, supervise, police and regulate modern societies; and the ways in which the specific institutional structures of particular states at particular moments in time may enhance or undermine such general capacities.

Second, Weber regards the modern state as wielding a monopoly of authoritative rule-making within a bounded territory. This is in turn backed by a monopoly of the means of physical violence within this same territorial space. Institutionalists and neo-statists, whose indebtedness to Weber is perhaps clearest, have concentrated on the mechanisms by which the state preserves (or at least seeks to preserve) its monopoly of authoritiative rule-making. They have focused in particular on the question of political legitimacy, on the often democratic and/or nationalist strategies and mech­anisms through which it is constructed and sustained, on the processes leading to its withdrawal, on the consequences for the always fragile balance between coercion and consent in modern societies, and on the mechanisms through which legitimacy might be re-established (through changes of regime and, in some instances, revolution). Yet, these too have increasingly become concerns for neo-Marxists (particularly those keen to develop the insights of Gramsci) and neo-pluralists. Other neo-statists, the so-called war-centred state theorists, have focused on the state’s supposed monopoly of the means of violence and in particular on the military dimension of state power. Stimulated perhaps by the intuitive appeal of Charles Tilly’s remark that ‘wars make states and states make war’ (1975), such theorists have considered the war-making capacity of the state, the extent to which the internal organization of the state apparatus reflects military imperatives, and the consequences of war-making and of mobilization for war on the evolution and transformation of the state itself — in short, on the relation­ship between war-making and state-shaping.

As the above discussion would seem to indicate, a substantial and rather disparate literature can trace some lineage from the Weberian conception of the state. Yet despite this seeming diversity, neo-Weberian perspectives do tend to display certain shared characteristics - and indeed weaknesses. First, such theories have tended to concentrate rather one-sidedly on political factors internal to the state. As a consequence they have often relegated political forces outside and beyond the state, such as social movements and pressure groups, to a marginal role. Second, much neo-Weberian theory rests on the rather tenuous distinction between state and societal variables and an explanatory emphasis on the former at the expense the latter. In the context of the attempt to ‘bring the state back into’ American social science in the 1970s and 1980s this tilting of the stick towards the side of the state was entirely appropriate. Yet now that ‘state-centred’ approaches have become as, if not more, dominant than their ‘society-centred’ counterparts ever were, it is crucial that we acknowledge that the casualty of both perspectives has been the attempt to develop an understanding of the complex and ever changing relationship between the state and society, the public and the private. This is the challenge to which contemporary theories of the state must now respond (see Chapter 12).