The organisational View of the State Peter Burnham

The state i s arguably the most fundamental concept in politics and international rekz- tiom However, much confusion surrouszds the employment of the tern This article emphasizes the importance of adopting an organisational definition of the state. The strength of this amroach I3 that it draws attention to the changing nature of state firms, thereby enabling distinctions to be made between national f irm of the state and the nation-state, and between the state itself and government. 7Be organisational approach opens up a rich jiekd fir the com- parative study of institutional firms which politimlly-organised subjection has taken throughout hktory.

Introduction The first recorded usage of the term ‘the state’ - in its recognisably modem sense as an impersonal centralised complex hierarchy of powers - is around the 1530s (Dowdall 1923; Skinner 1978, p.356). Whilst this ter- minological change is important, drawing attention to the emerging features of the core political apparatus of modem societies, we should not assume that the absence of ‘state discourse’ indlcates the absence of state structures in societies which predate the sixteenth century.’ Nor should it be assumed, once the modern state has arrived, that its formal and institutional character-

istics are immutable or functionally deter- mined. Political turmoil in the post-Cold War world and the consequences of the latest phase of economic globalisation have cast doubt both on the legitimacy and the durability of existing institutional state forms. This is evident in respect of recent struggles against the state (in particular the resur- gence of political nationalism) and in attempts to establish supra-national political structures.

These important challenges to existing state forms also present a challenge to con- temporary state theoly. Approaches to the state which fail to clearly demarcate its institu- tional boundaries, distinguish the state from the government, and the ‘national form of the state’ from the concept of the nation-state are responsible for much confusion in political science.

In this paper I argue that a refined organi- sational approach offers a coherent under- standing of the core political apparatus of modem societies and is capable of generating a strong research programme in political sci- ence. The aim of the article is not to arbitrate between different theories of the state2 but to emphasize the need for a definition of the state in organisational terms.

Firstly, drawing on the work of classical and modem political theorists I outline the central themes of the organisational view. In brief, this approach sees the state as a set of distinct institutions, grounded within parti-

Peter Bumham, University of Warwick.

0 Political Studies Association 1994. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 FIF, UK and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. 1

cular social relations, whose specific concern is with the organisation of domination (in the name of common interest), within a delimited territory. Whilst there are variations on the organisational theme most writers stress the characteristics of institutional differentiation, the socially acknowledged (although not uncontested) capacity to use force in pursuit of administering collectively binding decisions and territ~riality.~

Secondly, the paper highhghts the advan- tages of organisational views drawing on material made available by historians and political anthropologists interested in state formation. In this section I will indicate why the concept of the state is analytically prior to that of the government, the civil service or any of the agencies through which domina- tion is enforced. The final section of the paper suggests how a modified organisational approach can be used to develop research on the ‘international state’.

Organisational definitions of the state Organisational accounts can be contrasted with functionalist and idealist approaches to the state. Functionalist approaches define the state by its consequences (Dunleavy and O’Leary 1987, p.3). Although most functional- ists make reference to state institutions, the efficacy of these institutions is judged in rela- tion to the particular goals, purposes and objectives which, it is said, the state must meet. From Parsons to Poulantzas the goal is invariably the maintenance of social order. The result is that any organisation whose activities overlap with ‘state functions’ auto- matically becomes a component of the state (Dunleavy and O’Leary 1987; Giddens 1981). Gramsci’s writ ings exemplify this position. In his notion of the ‘extended state’ Gramsci conflates political and civil society. The state comprises not merely the machinely of gov- ernment but all aspects of civil society (press, trade unions, church, mass culture) which

stabilise existing power relaticns (Gramsci 1971, p.208; Burnham 1991).

Idealist approaches draw in particular on Hegel and conceive states as diverse embodi- ments of the human spirit. For Hegel the state is an ethical community through which individuals can transcend their particularity and attain freedom. It may include or exclude the police and the universities and although the state usually includes the government as an institution, it can contrast with a particular government - in terms of the interests of the state (Avineri 1972; Inwood 1992, p.277). For the English Idealists the state is synonymous with society encompassing all its institutions. The state, for Jones and Bosanquet, ‘means all that we mean when we speak of ‘our counhy” (Nicholson 1990, p.301). As with functionalist accounts, ideahst approaches are particularly weak on clanfymg the boundaries of the state and as such they are unable to generate strong research programmes in poli- tical science.

The central characteristics of the organisa- tional approach are well summarised by Jessop (1990, p.341) who defines the state as ‘a distinct ensemble of institutions and orga- nizations whose socially accepted function is to define and enforce collectively binding decisions on the members of a society in the name of their common interest or general wiu‘. This definition has a number of advan- tages over functionalist and idealist approa- ches. Firstly, it makes clear that the extent of the state is less than that of society and the definiteness of its ends distinguish it from communal life in general (Sabine 1934, p.328). The operations of the state depend on a wide range of micro-political practices dispersed throughout society which emanate from core state institutions. The nature of these institutions and organisations and their articulation to form the ensemble will depend on the character of the social formation (feudal, capitalist, etc) and the trajectory of its historical development (Jessop 1990, p.342). Secondly, by drawing attention to the socially acknowledged character of state action, the

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organisational view brings to the fore the question of legitimacy and the tensions involved in constructing political discourse. Ftnally it is clear that not all large-scale orga- nisations with socially acknowledged roles are statelike. What demarcates state institutions from others is that states are set the task of dehng and enforcing collectively binding decisions upon the members of a territorially defined society in the name of their common interest. Within the organisational view there- fore the notion of imperative decision-making by soclally acknowledged institutions in the name of the common good, is as important as the emphasis usually given to the idea of the legitimate use of force. This is not how- ever to fall prey to the rhetoric of the ‘general interest’ since attempts to define the common good always occur on a strategically selective terrain (Marx 1843; Jessop 1990).

It comes as no surprise that Marx and Engels adopt an organisational view and claim that the existence of the state coincides with the cleavage of society into classes. In dis- cussing the Grecian constitution of the Heroic Age, Engels (1884, p.263) sees the creation of the state bound up with safe-guarding prop- erty against the communistic traditions of the gentile order - ‘an institution that would per- petuate, not only the newly-rising class divi- sion of society, but also the right of the possessing class to exploit the non-posses- sing classes and the rule of the former over the latter’. Marx similarly perceives the state as a form taken by the fundamental class antagonism on which each class-divided society rests. It is the concentrated and orga- nised force of society (Marx 1848; 1867). whilst questioning Marx’s insistence on seeing the state as an aspect of class relations, Weber agrees that the ‘state is a relation of men dominating men’ (1919, p.78), with force being the means (although not the normal or the only means) specific to the state. Without social institutions claiming a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a given territory, Weber argues, a con- dition of anarchy would quickly ensue. In

raising the question of why the dominated obey, Weber identifies a fundamental activity of the state, the attempt to legitimate the structure of domination. Whilst Weber theo- rises ‘traditional’, ‘charismatic’ and ‘legal’ pure types of legitimation of obedience, recent stu- dies drawing on Durkheim and Foucault extend our understanding of legitimacy as state power which ‘works within us’ (Corri- gan and Sayer 1985, p.200).

Abrams (1988, p.63) makes a case for comprehending the ‘state’ as ‘politically orga- nised subjection’. The state, he comments, is first and foremost an exercise in legitimation, ‘a bid to elicit support for or tolerance of the insupportable and intolerable by presenting them as something other than themselves, namely, legitimate, disinterested domination’. The cardinal activity of the institutions of the ‘state system’ is, he argues, to legitimate the illegitimate. An emphasis is thus placed upon the violent establishment and continuous reg- ulation of ‘consent’ orchestrated by that ensemble which has arrugated to itself the ‘right’ to use physical force (and determine conditions under which other institutions/ individuals have that right) in society. For Corrigan and Sayer (1985, p.199) the power of the state does not simply reside in the external repression meted out by ‘special bodies of armed men having prisons, etc., at their command (Lenin 1917 p.268). State forms must also be understood as cultural forms, as cultural revolution and imagery con- tinually and extensively state-regulated, Atten- tion is broadened beyond the usual focus on wbut the state does (defence of property rights, regulation of monopolies etc), to the equally important question of bow the state acts, how it projects certain forms of organi- sation on our daily activity. Studies of the administration of welfare emphasise this point showing how although claimants receive ‘benefits’ this is always bound up with sub- mission to supervision and control. Moreover the processes by which the state fragments society at large find their counterpart within the internal organisation of the state appara-

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NS itself (IEWRG 1980, p.57). Organisational approaches are also

favoured by a number of political anthro- pologists interested in the origins of the state. Focusing on state formation in Mesopotamian society, Fried is led to a wide definition of the state as ‘the complex of institutions by means of which the power of the society is orga- nised on a basis superior to kinship’ (Fried 1967 p.229; 1978 p.36). Central to this is the notion of stratification. Fried identifies the rationale for the state as a distinct form of organisation - ‘the state comprises the formal marshalling of the repressive sanctioning forces of society for the purpose of support- ing an otherwise vulnerable system of strati& cation’ (1978, p.38). Trlly realXrms Fried’s emphasis, defining states as ‘coercion-wielding organisations that are distinct from house- holds and kinship groups and exercise clear priority in some respects over all other orga- nisations within substantial territories’ (1930, p.1). Archaeological remains, he argues, signal the existence of states from 6OOO BC, with mitten or pictorial records tesafylng to their presence from 4000 BC.

Historical forms of the state The main strength of the organisational view is that it breaks away from the formal, static definitions which too often characterise dis- cussions of the state in politics and interna- tional relations, and shifts attention to the changing institutional forms which politically organised subjection has taken throughout

In the slave-economies of antiquity founded on forced labour, the state was the instru- ment of the collective property-owners. It existed either in the shape of ‘a Hellenstic king and his henchmen or a Roman emperor and the imperial aristocracy’ (De.Ste.Croix 1981, p.206). In addition to the direct indivi- dual exploitation involved in the master-slave relationship the state exacted from the com- munity (a village, for instance) taxation (in

history.

money or kind), military conscription, and compulsory menial setvices such as an@*.

The dissolution of the Roman Empire saw the fragmentation of the imperial state and the unification of political and economic power in the hands of private lords whose political, juridical and military roles were at the same time the instruments of private appropriation and the organisation of pro- duction (Meiksins Wood 1981). In early med- ieval Western Europe state power was not only parcellised but also privatised, through local private proprietors whose property - gained from oaths of fealty, and which served as the basic economic unit of society - simul- taneously endowed them with political authority. In these conditions, as Manr puts it tersely, ‘their estate was their state’ (1843, p.72). The feudal ‘state-system’ was an unstable amalgam of suzerains and anointed kings. A monarch, formally at the head of a hierarchy of sovereignties, could not impose decrees at will. Relations between lords and monarch are best seen in terms of mutual dependence, with the monarch an orches- trator rather than an absolute power. The lapse of universal taxation (central to the Roman Empire) aptly illustrates the degree to which each ruler needed to obtain the ‘con- sent’ of each Estate of the realm (Anderson 1974, p.44). The legal assumptions under- pinning the feudal organisation of society and the Church’s claim to act as a law-making power coeval with rather than subordinate to the secular authorities (Skinner 1978, p.351), indicate that the feudal state differed sub- stantially in form from the core political appa- ratus of modern societies. Within capitalism the appropriation of surplus labour takes place in the economic ‘sphere’ by economic means rather than through direct extra-eco- nomic coercion - whether kin, customary, religious, legal or political. It is for this reason that Marx claims, ‘the abstraction of the state as such belongs only to modern times, because the abstraction of private life belongs only to modern times. The abstraction of the political state is a modem product’ (1834,

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p.32). A crucial presupposition of modem contract is that both parties are deprived of the right to act violently in defence of their own interests, with the consequence that, ‘in a society of equivalents relating to each other through contract, politics is abstracted out of the relations of production, and order becomes the task of a specialised body - the state’ (Kay and Mott 1982, p.83). In this way the state as the particularised embodiment of rule, and the replacement of privilege by equivalence, are part of the same process, since ‘citizens’ only face each other through the medium of the state which is ‘equidistant’ from them. The modern state form is thereby differentiated from the medieval feudal state by its particularisation from the direct process of production; that is, its institutional separa- tion from the circuit of capital which permits the state to exercise impersonal domination through its constitutionalised claim on the monopoly of violence.

In charting the transition to the modern state the organisationd approach facilitates detailed comparative analysis of the growth of ‘public’ institutions and their relation to the emergence of the market (Greengrass 1991; Genet 1992; O’Brien and Hunt 1993). The strength of the approach lies in its flexibility. It enables us to understand historical devel- opment without re@ng present institutional forms, and drects our focus to the organisa- tion claiming the right of political domination in all societies.

States without nations and governments within states Once the organisational view is adopted it becomes evident that for most of human his- tory national states have not existed. Medieval Europe was never composed of clearly demar- cated national states, but rather consisted of an intricate maze of tangled alliances and overlapping sovereignties. Furthermore the concept of national state does not necessarily mean nation-state. Even in the most ethnically

‘homogenous’ societies there is necessarily a mismatch between the state and the nation - hence the active role undertaken by the state to create national identity through an empha- sis on shared symbols and representations of reahty. Nations, as Anderson (1983) stresses, are always imagined communities. National identity is an attempt to construct homo- geneity from diversity whether it be regional, generational, ethnic, gender or class based (Smith 1991). Understanding the state in orga- nisational terms opens up a rich field for the comparative study of the role of state institu- tions in the creation of nationalism.

The organisational view also enables a clear distinction to be drawn between the state and the government. Although the ‘going concern’ (Commons 1923, p.150) of the state - the orgarusation of domination - is easy to iden- tify, the state itself should not be fetishised. To paraphrase Radcliffe-Brown (1940, p.xxiii), the state as an entity with a will, over and above human indviduals does not exist. What does exist is an organisation, a collection of individual human beings connected by a complex system of relations. Within the or@- nisation of the state-system individuals have different roles, powers and immunities which h i t or liberate their behaviour towards each other and towards those deemed to be pri- vate citizens. The exercise of domination within modern capitabsm is thereby frag- mented amongst the speciahsed organisations which constitute the state-system. Those who codate state and government confuse the ‘going concern’ of the state, with the daily transactions which constitute its ‘going busi- ness’ (government). As b k i put it when cor- recting G.D.H. Cole’s codation of the terms, ‘it is by the government that the authority of the state is brought into operation’(l935, p.198). Laski’s correction however does not go far enough. It is the concept of the state- system as being prior to the government, the civil service, the military, judiciav, and other civil organisational forms taken by the state (even though the state has no existence inde- pendently of these forms) that makes it pos-

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The Organisational View of the State 0 Peter Bumham politics (1994) 14(1) pp. 1-7

sible to understand the complexity and possi- ble disjunctures which may arise between these forms. Conceptualising the modern state in this fashion allows us to consider resistance and conflict between the elements which comprise the state-system (govern- ment/military relations or more topically in Britain, government/judiciary).

Towards the international state In the postwar period we have seen the devel- opment of a variety of international arrange- ments between states ranging from multi- lateral organisations and treaty arrangements to an array of informal transnational networks (Picciotto 1991). McGrew (1992, p.12) accu- rately describes the density of current global politics commenting that it ‘encompasses not just political relations between states, and relations between states and international organisations, but also a vast array of transna- tional interactions which cut across national societies, as well as transgovernmental rela- tions which permeate the institutional struc- tures of the state itself’. In the late 1960s political commentators saw a conflict develop- ing between the state and the process of glo- balisation (Kindleberger 1969 Murray 1971; Warren 1971). Events have shown this view to be oversimplified. A major task for political science in the 1990s is to chart how changes in state form are related to intensified globali- sation. Although this research is in its infancy, it is evident that the corporatisation of public institutions, alongside deregulation and priva tisation, has transformed the character of many state enterprises (Rosewarne 1993). In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and other Stalinist regimes, states around the world are offering a range of support services previously reserved for their own territories. For example, Australia’s Department of Social Security is actively competing in global mar- kets to promote its distinctive social security system whilst French water authorities expand

into Britain following privatisation (Rosewame 1993, pp.7-8). This process has been descri- bed as the ‘hollowing out’ of the national state Oessop 1992). Whilst some state capacities are being transferred to pan-regional or inter- national bodies, others are devolved to local levels within the national state, and yet others are usurped by emerging horizontal networks (local and regional) which by-pass central states and connect localities and regions in several nations. Globalisation has not signalled the end of the state but rather a tendency for a three-way hollowing out of its national insti- tutional form. A refined organisational view of the state is one of the conceptual tools which will enable political science to understand the changes in the global political economy which af€ect all our lives.

Easton (1953; 1981) takes this view arguing that states did not exist before the seventeenth cen- hJv. On state theory see, Clarke (ed) (1990); Jessop (1990); Dunleavy and O’Leary (1987). Jessop (1990); Dunleavy and O’Leary (1987); Poggi (1990). It should be clear from this brief sufnmaty that organisational definitions of the state are to be clearly distinguished from ‘ow- nisational theory‘ in social science. A term referring to forms of compulsory labour performed for the state (De.Ste.Croix 1981, p.14).

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