Throughout the history of human society, the political knowledge and culture of each individual and the mass political literacy and education of individual human groups and communities are significant factors protecting society as a whole from despotism and tyranny, negative and economically ineffective forms of existence and social organization. Therefore, the conscious formation of political culture as the art of joint civilized living of people is the concern of the entire modern society. As the head of the Academy of Political Education of the Federal Republic of Germany T. Mayer notes, “where political education is distinguished by constancy, continuity and covers all social strata, it does not always attract great attention social influence. it will never be unnecessary." (1).
The ability of citizens to make rational decisions and participate in politics is not formed spontaneously, but is acquired through the systematic acquisition of relevant knowledge and experience, in particular, through the study of political science, which systematizes all previous experience of human society in the field of political and social activities.
One of the most important practical categories, defined and analyzed by the methods and tools of political science, is the state, which is the central institution of the political system of society. The main content of the policy B is fully and demonstrably concentrated in his activities
In a broad sense, a “state” is understood as a territorially stable community of people, represented and organized by a supreme authority. It is almost always identical to the concept of “country” and a politically organized people. And in this sense they say, for example, the Russian, American, German state. It should be noted that the existence of a developed state structure is known even 3...5 thousand years BC. (state of the Incas, Aztecs, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Urartu, Greece, etc.). Until about the middle of the 17th century. The state was usually interpreted broadly and was not separated from society. To designate the state, a wide range of specific terms were used: “polity”, “principality”, kingdom, “empire”, “republic”, “despotism”), etc. One of the first to depart from this tradition was Machiavelli, who introduced the designation of any supreme power over a person, be it a monarchy or a republic. special term"stati". Subsequently, on the basis of specific studies of faktic material, a clear distinction between state and society was substantiated in specific theories of the state by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau. They share concepts not only meaningfully, but also historically, since it is argued that individuals who originally existed in a free and unorganized state as a result of economic and other interactions, they first organized a society, and then, to protect their security and natural rights, they created a special body by contract, which became an organ and instrument of public power and the most important institution of the political system of society.
In modern political science, the state in the narrow sense is understood as an organization, a system of institutions that have supreme power in a certain territory. It exists along with other political organizations: parties, trade unions, etc.
States of various historical eras and peoples are very similar to each other. However, a careful analysis allows us to identify a number of common and significant features.
1. Difference from a tribal organization based on self-government. The separation of public authority from society, the discrepancy with the organization of the entire population, the emergence of a layer of professional managers.
2. Construction is not based on consanguinity or religion, but on the basis of territorial and ethnic community of people. Availability of laws and powers that apply to the population of enterprises.
3. Sovereignty, i.e. supreme power in a certain territory, which distinguishes it from production, party, and family power.
4. Monopoly on the legal use of force, physical coercion, the ability to deprive citizens of the highest values: life and freedom. This feature (as well as the one given below) makes the state itself an instrument of public power. At the same time, to directly perform the function of coercion, there are usually public bodies - the army, police, security service, court, prosecutor's office.
5. The right to collect taxes and fees from the population to provide for employees and services of state policy: defense, economic and social, etc.
6. Mandatory membership in the state, which distinguishes this form of organization from others (for example, parties where membership is voluntary).
7. Claims to full representation of society as a whole and protection of common interests and the common good.
The characteristics noted above distinguish the state from any other organizations and associations, but do not fully reveal its connection with society, as well as the factors underlying its formation and development.
At the same time, the above general features in one form or another show the functional tasks implemented by the state. The nature and set of functions of the state changed during the historical development of the institution of statehood. from the point of view of the peculiarities of the relationship between the state and the individual, two global stages are distinguished: traditional and state.
The traditional stage is associated with institutionally unlimited power over subjects, lack of equality, and non-recognition of the individual as a source of state power. A typical embodiment of such a state was a monarchy. Based on the typical form of government of this period, the following functions should be highlighted as the main functions: protection of the political system and the sovereign personally; levying taxes, protecting external borders, etc.
The later constitutional stage seems more interesting from the point of view of the tasks and functions of the state. This stage is associated with the subordination of statehood to society and citizens, with the legal delineation of powers and areas of government intervention, with the legal regulation of state activities and is ultimately associated with the emergence of a constitution. The term “constitution” in science is used in two meanings. The first of them, introduced by Aristotle, is designated as the “real constitution”. It represents a stable model of state activity, determined by one or another value-normative code. This code does not necessarily take the form of a code of laws, but may have the character, for example, of religious-political commandments or unwritten centuries-old traditions.
In the second meaning, the constitution is a set of laws, which are stable rules legally recorded in special documents that define the foundations, goals, structure, principles of organization and functioning of the state. That is, the constitution regulates the activities of the state. The completeness of the process of formation of a constitutional state is characterized by the concept of a “rule of law state.”
In a rule-of-law state, the basis is to protect a person from state terror, violence against conscience, from petty tutelage on the part of authorities, a guarantee of individual freedom, and fundamental individual rights. This state is limited in its actions by the law that protects the freedom, security and dignity of the individual and subordinates power to the will of the sovereign people. An independent court is called upon to protect the primacy of law, which is universal and applies equally to all citizens, state and public institutions.
The establishment of the rule of law was an important stage in expanding the freedom of the individual and society and contributed to the emergence of a social state, the main task of which is to provide every citizen with decent living conditions. social security, participation in production management. The activities of such a state are aimed at the common good and the establishment of social justice in society. The activities of a modern state are multifaceted. This is the redistribution of national income in favor of less affluent segments of the population, ensuring employment and labor protection in production, social insurance, support for motherhood and family, caring for the unemployed, the elderly, disabled, youth, development of education, medicine, culture, etc. The current state of society confronts democratic (social) states with the task of ensuring environmental safety, preventing the nuclear threat.
The quality and completeness of the state's performance of its functions is sufficiently determined by the structure and form of government of the state.
Forms of government are divided according to the method of organizing power and its formal source into monarchies and republics.
In a monarchy, the source of power is one person who receives his post by inheritance, regardless of the voters. A type of monarchy is: absolute monarchy (Qatar, Oman) - the full power of the monarch, constitutional monarchy - a monarchy limited by the constitution. In turn, a constitutional monarchy is divided into a dualist one. in which the monarch has predominantly executive power and only partially legislative (Jordan, Kuwait) and parliamentary, in which the monarch actually has representative power. The vast majority of modern democratic monarchies are parliamentary monarchies.
There are three types of republics in the modern world:
- presidential;
- parliamentary;
- mixed (semi-presidential).
The main distinguishing feature of a parliamentary republic is the formation of a government on a parliamentary basis. At the same time, the parliament performs a number of functions in relation to the government:
- forms and supports it;
- issues laws adopted by the government for execution;
- adopts the budget and establishes the financial framework for government activities;
- exercises control over the government and, if something happens, can give it a vote of no confidence (resign or hold early parliamentary elections);
The government has executive power and partly legislative initiative. He also has the right to petition the president to dissolve parliament, which the president usually grants.
The President actually has only representative functions.
In a parliamentary form of government, the head of government (prime minister, chancellor), although not officially the head of state, is actually the first person. This form state power exists in a number of European countries (Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, etc.).
In a presidential republic, the president is both head of state and head of government. He directs the foreign and domestic policies of the state and is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The president is most often elected by direct popular elections.
Under a presidential republic, the government is stable and has two strictly separated branches - the executive and the legislative.
The relationship between the president and parliament is based on a system of checks, balances and interdependencies. Parliament cannot pass a vote of no confidence in the government, and the president cannot dissolve parliament. And only in the case of very serious unconstitutional actions or crimes on the part of the president can he be impeached - he is removed from power ahead of schedule. But the impeachment process is very cumbersome and convoluted. An example of a presidential form of government is the government system in the USA and Russia, and is also common in countries with long authoritarian traditions ( Latin America, Afika, Asia.
In the mixed republic found in most European countries, strong presidential power is combined with effective parliamentary control of the government. At the same time, it does not have stable traditional features and, as a rule, tends to favor one of the branches of government. The classic example of the semi-presidential form is France. In it, the president and parliament are elected independently. Parliament cannot remove the president, and the president can dissolve parliament only if a date for early presidential elections is set.
The variety of republican and monarchical forms of state do not exhaust all possible mechanisms of government. One of them is the institution of referendums, which have their origins in the Greek Areopagus and Novgorod veche. It provides for the solution of the most pressing and key problems through a popular vote, the results of which have the highest legal status and are mandatory for execution by all government bodies.
According to the territorial structure, there are two main forms: unitary and federal.
A unitary state is a single, politically homogeneous organization consisting of administrative-territorial units (regions, lands, etc.) that do not have their own statehood. All government bodies will form a single system and operate on the basis of uniform regulations.
Unitary states can be centralized (Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden), in which middle and lower government bodies do not have sufficient autonomy and are aimed at implementing the decisions of the central authorities, and decentralized (France, Spain, Italy), granting individual regions the rights of broad autonomy.
The federal form of structure represents a stable union of states, independent to the extent of the competencies distributed between them and the center. The Federation ensures free association and equal coexistence of communities with significant ethnic, historical, cultural, religious, linguistic and other characteristics. Members of the federation are partners in state sovereignty and have the right to unilaterally secede from the federation.
Another form of stable union of independent states is a confederation, which is created to achieve a specific goal. Its members retain their own state sovereignty and delegate to the competence of the union only some powers to resolve a limited range of issues. most often in the field of defense and foreign policy. transport and communications. Confederations existed for a limited time in Germany, Switzerland, and the USA and later either transformed into a federation or disintegrated.
IN last years in the territory former USSR An attempt was made to create the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a union of sovereign states. coordinating their actions in various areas.
Knowledge by every member of modern society of the above information from political science guarantees that he will receive orientation skills in modern turbulent life. Such political knowledge is especially necessary for the modern younger generation, which is distinguished by increased radicalism of judgments and actions, increased susceptibility to various kinds of utopian ideologies and demagogic appeals.
Literature:
1. Meyer T. Wie entbehrlich ist politisce Bildung?//Friedrich-Eben-Info, 1994. No. 1;
2.Aristotle.Politics.M., 1865. P.8;
3. Pugachev V.P., Solovyov A.I.. Introduction to political science. "Aspect-Press". M., 2002
The system is the state. Moreover, this is told in a categorical tone, and many do not think about why everything is exactly like this. So let's look at why the state is considered the main institution of the political system.
general information
The state is a historical phenomenon. didn't have it. At that time there was no such situation. This state of affairs was formed due to the fact that there was no need for it. All emerging contradictions were resolved, as a rule, by authority, public opinion and brute force. But, as society developed, it was necessary to create a certain mechanism that could adequately and unambiguously resolve disputes and conduct common affairs. Implementing this functionality without the presence of appropriate controls was impossible. It was at this stage that it was established that the main institution of the political system is the state. Of course, now it looks clear, but then this understanding was just forming. How did this process take place?
Developing an understanding of the situation
Now they confidently say that the main institution is the state. But how did humanity come to this conclusion? Initially, structure processes occurred. They accelerated significantly when new, previously non-existent social groups (later called layers and classes) emerged. Each of them had its own specific needs and interests. Private property was allocated. There was a need to create an effective mechanism for relationships between different social groups, and also to formulate principles for the protection and preservation of private and collective property among their owners. These circumstances (as well as a number of others) led to the emergence of such a regulatory and protective structure of society.
That is why the state is the main institution of the political system that unites society. There are a number of aspects and nuances that must be taken into account when making such statements. What are they?
Let's understand the nuances
Why is the status of the main institution in the political system assigned to the state, and not to the church, political party or public organizations? After all, religions existed back in the days of the primitive system. This can be explained by a number of reasons.
The very first is that society delegates basic powers and functions to a certain state. Thus, he has the main levers (political, economic, military) of influence on society. The state is the owner of all power in a certain territory. He also has the exclusive right to issue laws and other regulations, which are mandatory for the entire population. In addition, only the state has the right to use force. Do you see how many possibilities it has? Therefore, it is believed that the main institution of the political system is the state. That is, it's not Subjective opinion an individual person, but the conclusion of many people, which is based on real facts. After all, for example, churchmen can persuade individual people to do something, but to act with such success within the framework of the entire state is beyond their capabilities. No, of course, we can also remember the city-state of the Vatican, but it exists solely because Italy allowed it.
Functions
What does the state do? What role does it play in modern society? For this purpose, there is a division into types of government functions:
- Internal. These include economic, social, cultural, educational and legal functions. It should be noted that in various literature In addition to those listed, you can find a number of others. As an example, we can cite the protection of the constitutional order, environmental function, and so on.
- External. This includes protecting society from external enemies and building civilized relations with other states.
Functions are performed through the organ system. It is also called. For greater specialization and efficiency of activity, a system of division of power operates. The most popular is the separation of legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Although some people talk about another component - the media. Legally this is not true. One can speak about their power functions only in a figurative sense. They are not directly part of the power structure. They cannot make decisions, laws and regulations that will be binding on all citizens. But the media can have a strong psychological and moral impact on society and people's consciousness.
Process of evolution
We know that the main institution of the political system is the state. But it did not appear in its modern form immediately, but developed gradually. But what interests us is not only and not so much the past as the future. You can come across fabrications that over time the state will “wither away” as unnecessary. Despite the fact that such forecasts are made from century to century, humanity has not yet reached this point. Attempts to organize something similar (Marxism and the USSR) were unsuccessful. On the contrary, now we can only say that society is becoming increasingly differentiated (stratified), the number of tasks to which the state is involved is growing, and so on. Various problems also arise that require solutions. Therefore, even now the main institution of the political system is the state.
Conclusion
It should be noted that there is no unanimous opinion about the role of the state in the process of social development. It is also difficult to reach a single point of view about exactly when it first became a major political institution. As an argument, various researchers provide a wide variety of information, ranging from simple and small states of antiquity to the situation already formed in the Middle Ages - the division into countries.
Central Institute political power is the state. State power is exercised through the establishment of laws, administration, and courts. Even in Politics, Aristotle distinguished between legislative, executive and judicial activities of institutions. Today, the democratic political system is based on the mechanism of separation of powers, the mechanism of balancing interests and political counterbalances. The combination of powers is not permissible. Thus, the combination of legislative and executive powers undermines the rule of law. If judges not only judge, but also legislate, then people’s very lives will become victims of arbitrariness. The combination of three powers means despotism.
In our country, until recently, it was difficult to distinguish the components of the legislative, executive and judicial powers. All of them were pulled together into one node, where the greatest concentration was on the executive component. The legislative branch had no power. The essence of the laws was distorted by by-laws. The courts were dependent on telephone law and did not enjoy authority. In addition, all the threads of state power were tied to the party apparatus, and the role of laws was played by joint resolutions of the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Today's political reform is designed to ensure the separation of powers and the creation of a system of “checks and balances” that guarantee against abuse of power. But today there is no firm rule of law or stable law and order in the country. In many ways, the political and legal situation remains the same according to Gilyarovsky: “There are two misfortunes in Russia: Below is the power of darkness, and above is the darkness of power!” .
Another major problem is the problem of delegation of power. Since everyone cannot rule, only a part of people, a social stratum of society, a group has this right, so the question of delegation of power arises.
First, let's consider the process of delegation of power "upward", when one subject of power transfers part of the control to another subject who has a greater ability to act than himself. This issue is relevant today in our country in connection with solving the problem of the powers of local administrations of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. A problem arises: is there a risk that delegated power can be turned against the lower echelon of the structure? There is such a danger. The emergence of cults, dictatorships, and totalitarian regimes is an example of this. At one time, M. Bakunin, P. Kropotkin, R. Michels, M. Weber thoroughly developed this problem. Historical example The structure of power that developed in our country after 1917 is similar, when the Bolshevik Party from a political organization actually degenerated into a body of state power that does not tolerate opposition. For decades, the same people stood at the helm of government, pursuing policies that reflected the interests of those to whom power was delegated, and not those who delegated it.
How does the process of delegating power “down” happen? A subject of power at the upper echelon delegates some of his abilities to act “downwards”, while still remaining the holder of greater power. This is beneficial for the central government, but there is also a risk, since the subject of the lower level of power often seeks to get out of the tutelage of the center and dictate its own rules of behavior. The holder of central power in this situation becomes dependent on the decisions and judgments of the lower echelons of power and gradually loses the ability to govern. What is the way out? Delegation of the volume of powers “downwards” must always have a certain limit, beyond which there may be a danger of not only the loss of power by the subject, but also the disruption of all government affairs, the loss of independence and unity of the country. State power is not something frozen, unchangeable. With the development of society, it acquires more developed forms.
How is power exercised? There are usually two aspects to the exercise of political power:
the process of making political decisions and b) the process of implementing the adopted political decisions. These two aspects of the process of realizing political power are interconnected, since when implementing decisions made there is a need for adjustments, clarification of the political course, and adoption of additional decisions. It should be borne in mind that the implementation of the decisions made is subject to the fulfillment of a number of conditions:
The political leadership must consistently ensure that decisions are implemented. If a law, decree, or resolution is adopted, then they must be implemented so that there is no doubt about the firmness of political power;
the ability of the political leadership to mobilize the necessary material and human resources to implement the decisions made;
provide support for those groups of society that can contribute to the implementation of decisions made;
the ability of the political leadership to neutralize the actions of political forces that oppose the decisions made.
One of the most important means of influencing the process of making and implementing political decisions are pressure groups - these are organized groups who set as their task the achievement of any goal, for the implementation of which they must put pressure on political institutions (various economic associations, associations, groups representing the interests of the military-industrial complex, national, religious, mafia groups, etc.). A significant part of them actively cooperates and is in contact with political parties and various departments of foreign states. The goal of pressure groups is to use all available means to induce political subjects to take action that is beneficial to them, to impose the implementation of the political decision they need. At the same time, they use all kinds of means, including criminal ones. A special place in the political process is occupied by such a pressure group as the lobby - a powerful mechanism for influencing government bodies, an informal institution of the political system. The main goal of the lobby is to put pressure on the legislative process by putting pressure on deputies, forcing them to make the bills and political decisions they need.
Discretion is important in the technology of political power - giving a specific performer the authority to interpret, interpret laws and apply them in this interpretation, passing off the living creativity of the masses.
The main criteria for a person’s belonging to a particular social group are his place in the system of ownership-disposal relations and, accordingly, the level of income and quality of life in general. These criteria are relative, since, for example, the “new middle class” in Russia can only be correlated with certain “upper” and “lower” social strata for a given society and under given conditions.
In Soviet society, as an administrative society, the key criterion for stratification was the level of work performed by representatives of various social groups administrative and administrative functions. In modern Russia, the indicator “size of property” has also been added to this criterion. The income system based on distribution has been replaced by a system of “absolute income”, which involves receiving, in exchange for monetary resources, any goods and products at real market value, and not from state bins - through “pull”, position or at reduced privileged prices . The level of income and standard of living of people thus become the key criteria for their social well-being and membership in a particular social group.
In the totality of old and new social groups, one can distinguish two main "macrogroups" associated with the disposal or ownership of two main types of resources - administrative-political and actually material, economic.
The dynamics of the development of these two groups in Russia over the past 10 years is such that the administrative-political groups are gradually weakening, as administrative functions are becoming less and less significant, the “old political class” (administrators) 2 partly it is eroded and comes to naught, partly it is transformed and flows into the “new political class”, and administrative methods of managing the economy and society as a whole are gradually giving way to market ones, primarily financial and fiscal methods of management.
Accordingly, the role of economic groups and, especially, groups of the new economy is currently, on the contrary, increasing. Moreover: development of new economic structures ahead of the formation of new political corporations. The thesis is based on a well-known pattern: people first become aware of their material, economic interests, and only as society develops do they grow to translate these interests into political language.
The main factor in the development of the political process in modern Russia (from 1991 to approximately 2010-2015) is the emerging MARKET in the country: privatization, development of the credit and stock markets, the struggle for influence and the establishment of certain rules in the securities markets , real estate, land and natural resources. Taking this into account, as well as the pattern we formulated above of “the accelerated development of new economic structures in comparison with the development of new political corporations,” we can assert that in the time period indicated above, “interest groups” are dominant in the aggregate, and
This means that in the political system as a whole there will be groups that have the greatest material resources. Of course, these are not yet purely economic, but rather administrative and economic groups. So, integral part"interest groups" of the country's fuel and energy complex are the relevant departments of the federal government and departments of local administrations;
new financial groups are integrated into the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, into committees and departments for managing state property and finance at all levels; and the leading Moscow “interest groups” could not develop the financial, construction and other sectors of the capital’s economy if they did not form a single whole with the Moscow government.
So, speaking about groups that own or control material resources, we can distinguish two main subgroups:
A) "new economic groups" - primarily financial, financial-trading and financial-industrial groups;
b) "old economic groups" - first of all, industry groupings, groups of leaders of post-Soviet monopolies (including “natural”) and the largest not only state-owned, but also privatized or already privatized industrial concerns and companies.
The central institution of the political system is the state. It concentrates the highest powers of power and has the ability to manage and purposefully regulate social relations. The term “state” itself is usually used in two meanings. In a broad sense, a state is understood as a community of people living in a certain territory, represented and organized by a supreme authority. It is identical to the country and the politically organized people. In this meaning they speak, for example, about the Russian, French, Italian state, meaning the entire society it represents.
Around the 11th century. the state was usually interpreted broadly and was not separated from society. A clear distinction between state and society was justified in the theories of the state by B. Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and other thinkers. In them, these concepts are separated not only substantively and historically, since it is argued that individuals who initially existed in a free and unorganized state, as a result of economic and other interactions, first formed a society, and then, to protect their security and natural rights, by contract they created a special body - state. In modern science, the state in the narrow sense is understood as an organization, a system of institutions that have supreme power in a certain territory.
The state arose when the reproduction of man himself and the material foundations of his life outgrew the framework of a self-contained community. The origin of the state is not a one-time act, but a long process of disintegration of primitive self-government.
There are various theories of the origin, development and essence of the state. These are: a) theocratic, which interprets the state as a creation of God; b) patriarchal, which removes the state from the family, clan, tribe and interprets its power as tutelary, paternal; c) contractual, which interprets the state as the result of a social contract between citizens and rulers; d) violence, conquest, which explains the emergence of the state by the conquest of some groups and tribes by others; d) idealistic,
For example, for Hegel, the state is a spiritual idea that manifests itself in the form of human will and freedom; f) socio-economic - the emergence during the development of production of private property, classes and exploitation (Marxism).
The state is a product of the internal evolution of society, which objectively needs organizational design. IN different eras, in various conditions it acts as an organization for managing society, as a mechanism of power. The state does not have an eternal nature; it did not exist in primitive society. Thus, the state is a historically established organization of political power and management of social processes in society, the main institution of the political system.
The state is a political institution that organizes the joint life of the population in a certain territory and ensures proper social order there, maintaining the appropriate norms and rules of human coexistence.
In general, the state was formed as an institution for organizing common life. It is for these purposes that it forms and supports the norms and rules of social life, controls their implementation by the authorities and subjects. In this sense, the state is a unique value, without whose power-organizing role it is impossible to preserve human coexistence in the modern world.
As a specific institution of political power, the state has a number of characteristics that allow it to be distinguished from other political institutions and organizations.
1. The presence of special public power, which, embodied in state bodies, acts as state power. It is carried out by a special layer of people performing the functions of management and coercion, constituting the state apparatus, which is endowed with state powers, i.e. the ability to issue binding acts and resort to government influence when necessary.
2. Territorial organization of the population. State power is exercised within a certain territory and extends to all people living on it.
3. State sovereignty, i.e. independence of state power from any other power within the country and outside. Sovereignty gives the state the right to independently and freely decide its affairs, distinguishes it, along with other characteristics, from other organizations of society (for example, from parties, movements, etc.).
4. The state is the only organization that is engaged in lawmaking, i.e. makes laws and other legal acts, mandatory for the entire population. The state cannot exist without law, since the latter legally formalizes state power and thereby makes it legitimate.
5. A state organization necessarily involves collecting taxes from the population.
The state represents the entire society as a whole; it and on its behalf make all government decisions without exception that concern all members of society and are binding on everyone. It is the bearer of power, the jurisdiction of which extends to all members of society and the entire territory of the country. The coercive nature of the state's power, its monopoly on the use of violence, fundamentally distinguishes it from other political institutions and makes it the basis of the political system.
It is impossible to imagine a state without power, domination and subordination. It differs from other forms of human organization in that it has military force and a judicial apparatus. Although violence is not the only means of the state, it is a specific means for it. However, the forms, means, and conditions for his use of violence or threats of violence are strictly defined and regulated by law. That is why they talk about legitimacy or legalized violence on the part of the state.
In modern society, the state concentrates enormous strength. Firstly, it has a monopoly on the adoption of generally binding rules of behavior and the ability to ensure their application through the use of the repressive apparatus (army and police). Secondly, its strength is due to its intervention in the economic life of society. Thirdly, in a certain way it is also the guardian of society, since it performs the functions of social protection. Fourthly, senior government officials independently make decisions on everything more or less important issues development of society.
The mechanism of a modern state is distinguished by a high degree of complexity and the diversity of its constituent parts, blocks, and subsystems. The structure of the state mechanism includes government bodies, government agencies and enterprises, civil servants, organizational and financial resources, as well as coercive force. All this is necessary to ensure the functioning of the state apparatus.
The social purpose of the state, the nature and content of its activities are expressed in functions that are associated with the main areas of activity.
The classification of functions is based on the spheres of activity of the state, i.e. those areas public relations, which it affects. Depending on this, the functions of the state can be divided into internal and external.
Internal functions are the main directions of state activity within a given country, characterizing domestic policy states. These include protective and regulatory functions.
The implementation of protective functions presupposes the activities of the state to ensure and protect all social relations established and regulated by law.
Regulatory functions characterize the role of the state in the organization social production, development of the country's economy, in creating the necessary conditions for the formation of personality. Regulatory functions include economic, social functions, as well as taxation and collection of taxes, environmental, cultural, etc.
External functions are manifested in the foreign policy activities of the state, in its relations with other countries.
The external and internal functions of the state are closely interconnected and interdependent.
Depending on the duration of action, the functions of the state are classified into permanent (carried out at all stages of the development of the state) and temporary (they cease to operate with the solution of a certain task, usually having emergency); depending on the meaning - into basic and non-basic.
The most important and initial characteristic of a democratic state
This is democracy. This means that the actual source of state power and its original social subject is the people and only the people.
A democratic state is a state in which strict observance and guaranteed implementation of personal, political and other rights and freedoms of man and citizen are ensured, broad participation of every member and all social strata of society in the management of state and public affairs in order to achieve public harmony, socio-political stability and the common good. The political regime of a democratic state will be discussed specifically in one of the chapters of the textbook.
A rule-of-law state is a state that, in all its organization, functioning and activities, is based on subordination to the law, on strict compliance with its norms that enshrine universal human rights and freedoms. It is based on the desire to protect a person from state terror, violence against conscience, petty tutelage on the part of authorities, to guarantee individual freedom and fundamental individual rights. It is a state limited in its actions by the law that protects the freedom, security and dignity of the individual and subordinates power to the will of the sovereign people. The relationship between the individual and the government will be determined by the constitution, which asserts the priority of human rights, which cannot be violated by the laws of the state and its actions. In order for the people to control the state, there is a separation of powers: legislative, executive and judicial. An independent court is called upon to protect the primacy of law, which is universal and applies equally to all citizens, state and public institutions. The concept of the rule of law in its fundamental terms developed in the 11th - 19th centuries. in the works of Locke, Montesquieu, Kant, Jefferson and other theorists. Various theories of the rule of law are based on the concept of civil society.
The adequate social basis of the rule of law is civil society, which is a society of developed social relations, high general and political-legal culture, socio-political activity of its members, separated and independent from the state and building its relations with it on the basis of recognition of the priority of society and the need to serve him state. Recognition of priority by civil society is a source of legitimacy of state power and the legal system, which, in turn, serves as the most important guarantee of respect for law and order in society. The doctrine of the rule of law, at the same time, proceeds from the inadmissibility of opposing them to each other, from the recognition of the need to achieve their harmonious
Interactions on a legal basis.
Civil society has a complex structure, including economic, family, ethnic, religious and legal relations, morality, as well as political relations not mediated by the state between individuals as the primary subjects of power, parties, interest groups, etc.
In civil society, in contrast to state structures, it is not vertical, but horizontal connections that predominate - relations of competition and solidarity between legally free and equal partners.
Summarizing the experience of the emergence and development of various legal states, we can highlight their following common features:
Presence of civil society;
Limiting the scope of state activity to the protection of individual rights and freedoms, public order, and the creation of favorable legal conditions for economic activity;
Worldview individualism, everyone’s responsibility for their own well-being;
Legal equality of all citizens, priority of human rights over state laws;
Universality of law, its extension to all citizens, all organizations and institutions, including government bodies;
Sovereignty of the people, constitutional and legal regulation of state sovereignty. This means that it is the people who are the ultimate source of power, while state sovereignty is representative in nature;
The separation of the legislative, executive and judicial powers of the state, which does not exclude the unity of their actions based on the procedures provided for by the constitution, as well as a certain supremacy of the legislative power;
Priority in state regulation of the method of prohibition over the method of permission. This means that in a rule-of-law state the following principle applies to citizens: “Everything that is not prohibited by law is permitted.” The method of permission is applied here only in relation to the state itself, which is obliged to act within the limits of what is permitted - formally recorded powers;
The rights of other people as the only limiter on individual freedom. The rule of law does not create absolute personal freedom. The freedom of everyone ends where the freedom of others is violated.
The establishment of the rule of law was an important stage in expanding the freedom of the individual and society. Its creators believed that providing everyone with negative liberty (freedom from restrictions) and encouraging competition would benefit everyone, make private property available to everyone, maximize individual responsibility and initiative, and lead ultimately to the welfare of all. However, this did not happen. Individual freedom, equality and non-interference of the state in the affairs of civil society proclaimed in legal states did not prevent the monopolization of the economy and its periodic crises, harsh exploitation, worsening inequality and class struggle. Deep actual inequality devalued the equality of citizens and turned the use of constitutional rights into a privilege of the propertied classes.
A social state is a state that strives to provide each citizen with decent living conditions, social security, participation in production management, and ideally approximately equal life chances, opportunities for personal self-realization in society.
The activities of such a state are aimed at the common good and the establishment of social justice in society. It smooths out property and other social inequality, helps the weak and disadvantaged, takes care of providing everyone with work or another source of livelihood, maintaining peace in society, and creating a living environment favorable to humans.
The activities of a modern welfare state are multifaceted. This is the redistribution of national income in favor of less affluent segments of the population, employment and security policy, employee rights in the enterprise, social insurance, support for family and motherhood, care for the unemployed, the elderly, youth, development of accessible to all
Education, healthcare, culture, etc.
If the essence of the state is like political institution is united, then the forms of the state are diverse. This diversity has fully manifested itself in historical development and takes place in the modern era, when the number of states on our planet has exceeded 200.
States are traditionally characterized through forms of government and forms of territorial (state) structure. They embody the organization of supreme power, the structure and order of relationships between the highest government agencies, officials and citizens. The elements of the form of the state are:
Form of government, which usually refers to the organization of the highest authorities in a particular state;
A form of government that reflects the territorial structure of the state, i.e. how the territory of a given state is structured, what parts it consists of and what their legal status is;
A political regime, which is a system of methods, means and means of exercising state power and characterized by the degree of political freedom in society, the state of the legal status of the individual.
Forms of government are divided according to the method of organizing power and its formal source into monarchies and republics.
In a monarchy, supreme power is fully or partially concentrated in the hands of the sole head of state - the monarch (king, czar, shah, etc.). This supreme power is usually hereditary. At the same time, a distinction is made between an absolute monarchy, in which there are no representative institutions of the people and the power of the monarch is not limited in any way (for example. Saudi Arabia, Brunei, etc.). A limited monarchy is when, along with the head of state (monarch), there is another supreme authority (for example, Parliament). Modern form limited monarchy - parliamentary monarchy. The role of the monarch in it is nominal; the leading role in governing the state is played by the government formed by parliament. The most typical example of a parliamentary monarchy is modern Great Britain, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Norway, etc.
A republic where all the highest authorities are elected or formed for a certain period of time. Depending on who forms the government, to whom it is accountable and controlled, republics are divided into presidential, parliamentary and mixed.
In a parliamentary republic, the head of state is an elected official. The role of the president in forming the government, as well as in running the country, is purely nominal. The government, headed by the Prime Minister, is formed by parliament, to which it is politically responsible. Currently, parliamentary republics exist in countries such as Italy, Germany, Austria, India and others.
A presidential republic is characterized by the fact that the head of state is the president, who has the powers of head of state and head of government. The government in such a republic is appointed by the president himself and is not responsible to parliament. Such republics are the USA, Russian Federation and others.
In some countries there is a mixed form of government, i.e. combining the features of a presidential republic, where the head of state is elected by the population and appoints the government; and a parliamentary republic, where the government is responsible to parliament, early dissolution of parliament by the president is possible. Such countries with a mixed form of republican government include, for example, France, Finland and others.
The form of the state is the external manifestation of the organization of territorial and class-political power, which includes three elements: territorial structure, form of government and political regime. The territorial structure of the state reflects the connection between central and local government bodies, the relationship of individual parts of the state among themselves and with the state as a whole. On this basis, two main forms are distinguished - a unitary and federal state, as well as a transitional form - a confederation.
A unitary state is a simple, unified state that does not include other state entities with the rights of its members. In such states there is a unified system of supreme bodies and a unified system of legislation. Most states in the world (more than 85%) are unitary. These include states such as Spain, China, Italy and others.
A federal state is a complex, union state, parts of which are state entities and have a certain political independence and other signs of statehood. Unlike a unitary state, a federation has two systems of supreme authorities - federal bodies and the corresponding authorities of members (subjects) of the federation. Along with federal legislation, there is also legislation of the constituent entities of the federation. 24 states are federal in nature. Among them, the largest countries by territory are the USA, Russia, Canada, India, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, as well as Mexico, Pakistan, Nigeria, Switzerland, UAE, Belgium, etc. Accounting for only 3% of total number countries of our planet, federal states cover in total about a third of the population and half of the globe's territory.
A confederation is a temporary union of states formed to achieve political, military, economic and other goals. This is a less durable association of states compared to a federation and has existed for a relatively short time. Confederations either disintegrate or transform into federal states. The Confederation does not have sovereignty, because there is no common territory for the united subjects, a unified system of legislation, and no common citizenship. Confederations existed in the USA (1776 - 1787), Switzerland (until 1848), Germany (1815 -1867) and some other countries. Within the framework of the confederation, union bodies can be created, but only on those problems for the sake of which they united and only of a coordinating nature. Subjects of the confederation have the right to freely secede from the union.
Thus, the union of several states into a confederation (as opposed to a federation) does not lead to the formation of a new state.
There is also a classification of states by type, carried out mainly from the perspective of two approaches: formational and civilizational. Within the first, the main criterion is socio-economic characteristics (socio-economic formation). In accordance with this, the following types of state are distinguished: slave, feudal, bourgeois, socialist. Within the second approach, the main criteria are cultural, religious, national, psychological and other characteristics. Depending on them, the following civilizations are distinguished: Egyptian, Chinese, Western, Byzantine
Concept of state
The central institution of the political system is the state. The main content of politics is concentrated in its activities. The term “state” itself is usually used in two meanings. In a broad sense, the state is understood as a community of people, represented and organized by a supreme authority and living in a certain territory. It is identical to the country and the politically organized people. In this meaning they speak, for example, of the Russian, American, German state, meaning the entire society it provides.
Until about the 17th century, the state was usually interpreted broadly and was not separated from society. Many specific terms were used to designate the state: “polity”, “principality”, “kingdom”, “government” and others. Machiavelli was one of the first to depart from the traditions of the broad significance of the state. A clear distinction between the state and society was justified in the contractual theories of the state by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and other representatives of liberalism. In modern science, the state in the narrow sense is understood as an organization, a system of institutions that has supreme power in certain territory. It exists along with other political organizations: parties, trade unions, etc.
The following features are common to the state:
1. The separation of public power from society, its discrepancy with the organization of the entire population, the emergence of a layer of professional managers.
2. The territory delineating the borders of the state. The laws and powers of the state apply to people living in a certain territory. It itself is not based on consanguinity or religion, but on the basis of the territorial and, usually, ethnic community of people.
3. Sovereignty, i.e. supreme power in a certain territory. In any modern society there are many authorities: family, industrial, party, etc.
4. Monopoly on the legal use of force and physical coercion. The ability to deprive citizens of the highest values, which are life and freedom, determines the special effectiveness of the state; there are special means (weapons, prisons, etc.), as well as bodies - the army, police, security services, courts, prosecutors.
5. The right to collect taxes and fees from the population.
6. Mandatory membership in the state.
7. Claim to represent the whole and protect common interests and the common good. No other organization, except perhaps totalitarian parties-states, claims to represent and protect all citizens and does not have the necessary means for this.
Definition common features state has not only scientific, but also practical political significance, especially for international law. The state is a subject of international relations.
