1. The State & Civil Society Democracy and Communications

2. ThemeDatesGeo-PoliticalModel of Democracy Mode of Production Authors Athenian Democracy 5 th Century B.C. City-State Empire Direct Democracy Slavery Empire Aristotle Plato Roman Republic 507 B.C to 27 A.D. City-State Empire Direct Democracy Slavery Empire Cicero Middle Ages 5 th to 15 th Century Absolutism Ecclesiastic God or Church- centred governance FeudalismAugustine Aquinas Machiavelli ‘Renaissance’ Circa. 1450-1500 Absolutism City- Republics RepublicanismFeudalism -> Merchant Capitalism Machiavelli Hobbes Rousseau Bourgeoisie Revolution Late 1700s onwards Nation- states Representative Democracy Feudalism -> Capitalism Burke Paine Wollstonecraft A second draft so still in its development, requiring a ‘communication’ column.

3. Some Questions on the State How do you experience the state in your day to day life? What is the state? What are the main characteristics/role of the state? On what grounds ought the state be defended? On what grounds ought restrictions be put on the state? In a class divided society can the state be neutral? In what way is the state mediated by power relations. What is the distinction between the state and government? Is the state receding or becoming redundant with globalisation? What democratic questions arise in discussing the state?

4. What is civil society? To what extent do you feel part of civil society? How does one become active in civil society? Is partnership between state and civil society good? Is global civil society a viable alternative to the nation-state when it comes to pursuing international questions of economic development, ecological sustainability, international peace and social justice? Is there a danger of privileging civil society over that of the state? Are both not part of a mutual social dynamic? What are the democratic questions vis a vis civil society? Some Questions on Civil Society

5. Introduction The state has a presence in the lives of citizens from birth (registration) to death (certificate) and in between e.g. broadcasting regulation, censorship, census gathering, economic development, policing, detention, rates and taxation. The state has an illusive presence in our lives. Civil society is the non-state part of society (flip side) where people/citizens interact and social solidarity is expressed. Both state and civil society are part of a dynamic societal relationship in which citizens interact, sometimes via social movements and voluntary orgs.

6. Citizen/s….…..State Citizen/s…………Civil Society Citizen/s………………….Social Movements/ Voluntary Organisations State Civil Society –----------------New/Social Movements Volutuntary Orgs. Citizen/s

7. State/s "States are historical phenomena, constructed under particular conditions, and are far from fixed or 'natural' entities" (David Held). The state comprises institutions such as the centralised bureaucracy (civil service), the army, police, courts and prison services. The state an employer. The state is maintained by civil servants and functionaries. The state is not the government, nor is it elected. It can play a conservative or progressive role. It has a role in the regulation of capital.

8. Glasgow public house

9. State/s The illusiveness of the state is compounded by the fact that it is also a geo-political entity, been both territory and a set of institutions (Tovey and Share, 2000). “All modern states are nation-states - political apparatuses, distinct from ruler and ruled, with supreme jurisdiction over a demarcated territorial area, backed by a claim to a monopoly of coercive power, and enjoying a minimum level of support or loyalty from their citizens” (David Held).

10. Origins of the State The state as institution can be traced back to the polis or city-state of Athens, its modern European formulation dated from the period of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. While feudalism was regional and fragmented, capitalism tends to be urban and centralised, thus requiring different organisational forms. The Prince (1532) by Nicolo Machiavelli (1469–1527 ) http://publicliterature.org/books/the_prince/xaa.php ‘What advise you give a ‘Prince’?’ (Beyond Machiavelli by Roger Fisher (1996)

11. Civil Society is the ‘other side’ of the state: ‘those areas of social life…which are organised by private and voluntary arrangements between individuals and groups outside the direct control of the state’. Dating from the 18th century as an idea to encompass that which is not of the state, economy or the domestic sphere. According to Anthony McGrew it includes: ‘households, religious groups, trade unions, private companies, political parties, humanitarian organisations, environmental groups, the women’s movement, Parent- Teacher Associations and so on’. In addition, arts, cultural organisations, so import to re-visit McGrew. Complementary in part and not aways separate from the state.

12. Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679) Hobbes’s Leviathan (written against the background of the English Civil War 0f the 1640s) argued for a strong, overarching and unified state. Believed the state to be the site of sovereignty. Defended a degree of state coercion and believed that the individual ought to surrender his/her rights to it in return for protection, security, etc., in order that the state could act as an effective ruler. Humans beings sought more “intense delight” – i.e. self-seeking.

13. Cover of Hobbes’s Leviathan

14. John Locke Locke (1632 - 1704) believed that the state’s main purpose was the protection of ‘life, liberty and estate’. If it failed in this regard the citizens had the right to remove those who had usurped their trust. Locke’s writings are unclear on the powers of the state re the powers of the people.

15. Locke was the founder of Empiricism rejected superstition and religious dogma as the basis of explanation. Empiricism: an approach to knowledge centred on the sense organs. Empirical facts are those sources of information that are based on how human experience is observed and understood. Believed that the human mind was blank at birth, no innate ideas. The infant mind a tabula rasa, the Latin for erased tablet…or ‘blank slate’. Information accumulated through the senses, all knowledge preceding from experience.

16. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) Rousseau (The Social Contract,1762) believed that the state owed its authority to the ‘general will’ of the people. The state ought not uphold the (divine) right of monarchs or surrender its sovereignty. Regarded the state as a cradle of moral development- education important to citizenship. Common good best served by public dialogue/agreement. The Social Contract was a landmark text. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/r/rousseau/jean_jacques/r864s/index.html

17. Hobbes versus Rousseau For Hobbes sovereignty was pooled in the state. For Rousseau it was pooled in the majority. Neither placed limits on collective power, particularly in terms of the individual.

18. The French Revolution(1789) heralded the modern version of liberal citizenship in the context of the nation-state. Individual rights linked to the nation-state, rather than the feudal nobility.

19. Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the French maths/philosopher, developed a 'positive science' of society which he believed had been neglected as a topic of study. Coined the term 'sociology'. In 1830 Comte introduced the term Positivism- a theory of knowledge based on experiment and investigation of evidence, of analysis of empirical data as opposed to abstract speculation. Comte proposed a theory of history associated with the notion of progress through stages i.e. theological (supernatural explanation), metaphysical (philosophical abstraction), scientific. ('positive truth'). A social or holistic, rather than an individualistic approach. Conscious of social re-organisation following the ‘Terror’ of post- revolutionary France (1792->). influence on the United Irish Movement.

20. ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen’ (1789) http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/w orld_civ_reader_2/rights_of_man.html

21. Edmund Burke(1729-97) Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) [See on-line copies] VERSUS Thomas Paine (1737-1809) The Rights of Man (1791) [See on-line copies] Burke’s attack/critique of the French Revolution. Paine’s defence of the French Revolution

22. Nice, France. Nice, France

23. American Revolution (1789) The Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776) Drafted by Thomas Jefferson. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” Constitution of the United States of America (1787) http://www.law.uchicago.edu/constitution The division between the executive, legislature and judiciary, known as the ‘separation of powers’ is a model of governance introduced by Baron de Montesquieu of the French Enlightenment. Democracy in America (1840) Alexis de Tocqueville Significant influence on Robert Emmet, Thomas Moore et al.

24. The Rhode Constitution was the first to use the term as right to rule: “popular government; that is to say it is to say it is the power of the body of freemen orderly assembled, or major part of them, to make or constitute just Lawes, by which they will be regulated, and to depute from among themselves such ministers as shall see them faithfully executed between man and man” “…freemen orderly assembled, or major part of them…” “…ministers as shall see them faithfully executed…” Not the same as Hamilton’s definition (1777) ‘representative democracy’ …“when the deliberative or judicial powers are vested wholly or partly in the collective body of the people, you must expect error, confusion and instability. But a representative democracy where the right of election is well secured and regulated, and the exercise of the legislative executive and judicial authorities is invested in selected persons…” This is where the “dominant modern sense” of democracy emerged

25. Following on from the previous page, the Hamilton referred to is Alexander Hamilton and if you scroll to the bottom of the following site, which contains his writings, you will find the quote I used on the previous page in context. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1386& chapter=92959&layout=html&Itemid=27 My notes on ‘democracy’ on the previous and next page are taken from Raymond Williams entry on the subject in Keywords

26. For Jeremy Bentham democracy was rule by the majority of the people- distinguishing between ‘direct’ and ‘representative’ democracy. When used in the 20 th century the concept of ‘direct’ democracy could be presented as anti-democratic “since the first principle of democracy is taken to be the rule by elected representatives” (Williams) But who are the ‘people’ because attempts to limit- ‘freemen’, ‘owners of property’ [‘one man, one vote’], ‘the wise’, ‘white men’, ‘men’] If defined as a process of election then “limited constitutions can be claimed to be fully democratic” - mode of representation more important than percentage of ‘the people’ who participated in it (Raymond Williams) (Keywords by Raymond Williams)

27. G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) The leading European philosopher of his day. According to the Hegelian dialectic, each stage of historical development contained the seeds of a transformation to a higher more developed stage. Hegel argued that the development of world spirit/idea represented a movement towards perfection embodied in the state. Problematic re Nazis- the notion that ‘spirit’ embodied in the fascist state.

28. Max Weber (1864 - 1920) Weber disagreed that the state could be solely explained in class terms and instead highlighted its territoriality, its monopoly of violence and its legitimacy. Distinguished between power and authority. Weber believed that power is about getting things done by threats of force or sanction, while authority is about getting things done because the order is seen as justified or legitimate.

29. In modern society authority is of a rational-legal type, based on formal, written rules which have the force of law. Authority is justified by legal right. Before his death Weber expressed concern that this form of rational-legal authority would lead to a deadening and dictatorial ‘iron cage’ of bureaucracy. Weber believed that charismatic political leadership (a concept inspired by Frederick Nietzsche) and democratic politics was required to resist the growth of bureaucracy- Clinton, Obama etc. but Hitler might also be in that list.

30. The corporate state assumes power onto itself and is mirrored by a significant weakening of civil society. In corporate and fascist states the lateral bonds of civil society are dismantled and individuals become atomised especially when living outside state prescribed organisations. During the 1940s some German intellectuals (Frankfurt School) raised fundamental concerns about the danger of individuals becoming atomised (isolated- separate, rather that linked atoms within a wider structure) and that their relationship to corporate or fascist states was unmediated by organisations of civil society. Corporate or Totalitarian State

31. The Welfare State The Welfare State was established in Britain after WW2 when the Labour Party was returned to Government. Envisioned by William Beveridge (director of the London School of Economics). A social democratic construction within the constraints of capitalism. Health, education, and social housing issues at its core. Public service broadcasting also within its frame. Allied to a Keynesian understanding of economic life.

32. Michel Foucault : Discourse, Power and the State According to Foucault, discourse and power are inseparable. For him student struggles in Paris ‘68 had challenged the aims and methods of various disciplines which in turn directed attention to the: ".. full range of hidden mechanisms through which a society conveys its knowledge and ensures its survival under the mask of knowledge: newspapers, television, technical schools, and the lycee (even more than the university)”. Asked how power was exercised & enquired about its effects.

33. Jeremy Bentham’s panoptican. In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison Foucault identifies the panoptican as a mechanism of power.

34. Power for Foucault is always a relationship: e.g. Master-Slave, Slave-Master So in terms of the state, power cannot be “acquired, seized, or shared” – Foucault breaks from binary oppositions. Power actually ubiquitous, present in all human relations, but not apparent as such; masked by alternative categorisation of such relations as sexual, familial, work etc. Power always accompanied by resistance.

35. The State and Third Way Classical and New or Neo-Liberalism see a diminished role for the state as do some proponents of globalisation. “The neoliberals want to shrink the state; the social democrats, historically have been keen to expand it” Anthony Giddens The Third Way (1998), a significant influence of the birth of New Labour. Worth a read re the state and other themes important to CM515. Giddens on Democracy from Runaway World http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_99/reith.htmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_99/reith.htm [audio- 1999]

36. What is Globalisation? Defined as “those processes, operating on a global scale, which cut across national boundaries, integrating and connecting communities and organisations in new space-time combination, making the world in reality and in experience more interconnected ” (Modernity & its Futures Ed. S Hall et al. p.299). Due to reduced cost of transport/communication ‘goods, services, capital, knowledge’ and people move more freely. Globalisation finds expression in the new communication conglomerates (e.g. Rupert Murdock’s News Corporation) whose limbs are the global (digitised) cable and satellite networks. 24 hours global news coverage. Railways ->satellites.

37. Background to Globalisation debate: While globalisation’s genesis can be traced back to the growth in international trade from the 16 th century, its essence was captured by Marx and Engels: “The need of a constantly expanding market of its products chases the bourgeoisie over the surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere” Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Available as text and audio online

38. For Anthony Giddens (On the Edge, 2001) globalisation is: linked to the “world-wide communications revolution” from the 1960s; the arrival of the “weightless economy”; the fall of “Soviet communism”; changes in everyday life (women and men, family). Globalisation represents a reworking of local/global relations with a sense of centre and periphery transformed as borders become more open and the once central role of the nation-state is challenged.

39. Globalisation and Nation-States Widely acknowledged that states played a very significant role in the development of capitalism, but some believe that that with globalisation states are less important. Ellen Meikens Wood argues that the state remains essential to the operation of global capitalism both as facilitator and a regulator. Believes that the state is also a site of opposition to global capital.

40. Ellen Meiksins Wood Raises fundamental questions as to why the separation of state and civil society re the broader concept of ‘society’. Civil society as counter to the power of the state- e.g. the former ‘communist’ societies- popular with democrats. But does it do more to conceal than reveal power relationships within society. Does it hide capitalism? How do we deal with the state/civil society dichotomy when negotiating ways in which democracy can be advanced across all aspects of society? Democracy against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism(2000 )

41. The Irish State According to the Irish Constitution: Ireland is a sovereign, independent, democratic state” (Article 5). The southern Irish nation-state established in 1922. The northern state[let] was established at the same time. The relationship between the state and the nation is particularly problematic in partitioned societies.

42. Eucharistic Congress, Dublin, 1932. Sport and General

43. Ireland and the State’s Economic Function The Sugar Company(1934) Industrial Alcohol Company (1938) Bord Failte (1939) Mianri Teoranta (1940) Irish Shipping Company (1941) Coras Iompar Eireann (1945) Bord na Mona (1946) Shannon Airport (1946) Industrial Development Authority (1949) Bord Iascaigh Mhara (1955). The Irish State and Coercion The Army Emergency Powers Act, 1922. Offences against the State Act, 1939.

44. The States of Europe “Fifteen new states were created in Europe between 1989 and 1999. Of the 48 sovereign states in Europe in 1993, 36 came into being in this century, compared to 12 in the three previous centuries” (Liam O’Dowd, Irish Times, 30/8/1999). The European Union (EU): a pooling of state sovereignty. Is the new EU Constitution a move towards a federal or super state? What are the democratic issues? What about the much discussed ‘democratic deficit’?

45. Irish state and transformation- how has it fared? The modernising (Lemass et al) versus the neo-liberal state? How valid was the Lemass/Whitaker thesis? State and church separation – a republican ideal. What is the nature of state power in contemporary Ireland? Where does power reside in Ireland? How to assess the vibrancy of Irish civil society…. See ‘The Modernising State’ (Chapter 4) in The Sociology of Ireland by Hilary Tovey and Perry Share

46. Seminar Readings The Myth of the Nation-State: Theorizing by Sylvia http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/papers/walby-mythofthenationstate.pdf Useful article on Civil Society http://www.carnegieendowment.org/pdf/CivilSociety.pdf ‘Towards a Social Democratic Theory of the State’ by Philippe Pettit http://www.princeton.edu/~ppettit/papers/1987/Towards%20a%20Social%20D emocratic%20Theory%20of%20the%20State.pdf http://www.princeton.edu/~ppettit/papers/1987/Towards%20a%20Social%20D emocratic%20Theory%20of%20the%20State.pdf Please note that there are additional readings to accompany each lecture available on the CM515 moodle site- also see the resources I have uploaded and feel free to suggest additional texts and on-line resources.

47. Images in this Powerpoint The State public house- Glasgow (Des) Eurcharistic Congress- scanned from souvenir copy. Thomas Hobbes’s The Leviathan (1660) on-line copy. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html