TERM PAPER

TOPIC: THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN STATE

IN EUROPE

FOR THE COURSE: P01418N: COMPARATIVE POLITICS

Submitted to:

Dr. Anupama Roy

CPS/SSS/JNU

Submitted by:

Nurul Alom Mullah

CPS/SSS (M.A. 1st Semester)
Introduction: The concepts of Modern state refers to that type of state which

emerged in the European states system from the sixteenth century onwards. The

concept cannotes and impersonal and privileged legal or constitutional order with

the capacity of administering and controlling a given territory which is a distinct

form of public power, separate from both ruler and ruled and forming the supreme

political authority within certain defined boundaries. The modern state is an

organised territory with definite geographical boundaries that are recognized by

other states. It has a body of law and institutions of government. The modern

nation-state dependent on the loyalty of citizens. The state offers protection, order,

justice, foreign trade, and facilitation of inner state trade for this loyalty. The goal

of modern state is to maintain order and happiness of its citizen’s is only reached

by establishing officials, courts of law and laws to abide by, soldiers to protect the

state and system of money for trade.

The other side of modern state is the civil society. It means those areas of social lie

which comprises domestic world, the economic, cultural activities and political

interactions organised by private or voluntary arrangements between individuals

and groups outside the direct control of the state.

A brief history of development of modern state in Europe.

Sixteen hundred years ago Europe was dominated by the Roman Empire, albeit an

empire divided and disintegrating. Theodosius I was the last ruler of the Roman

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empire which after his death split into the western and Eastern Roman Empires.

The Western empire suffered from repeated attacks and grew weak in comparison

with the rest. In 410, the city of Rome was sacked by the visigoths, a wandering

Germanic people from the North-east. The fall of Rome was completed in 476,

when the last Roman Emperor of the west was deposed.

The Eastern Empire counterpart owing to spice and other exports continue as

Byzantine Empire through the middle ages until it was successfully challenged

and displaced by the Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1453. Those who ruled over the

territories were the emperors, kings, princes, dukes, bishops and others. They did

everything as military victors and conquerors, exacting tribute and rent to support

their endeavours, they were fan from being heads of state governing clearly

demarcated territories according to formal law and procedure. Nothing centralised

state existed anywhere in Europe. It took a long time for national states to

dominate the political map but he era they ushered in was to change fundamentally

the nature and form of political life itself. Since the fall of Rome, it was not the

number of states which has altered dramatically but the forms and types of states

as well. They are five main cluster of state systems which can be arranged

1. Traditional tribute – taking empires,

2. Systems of divided authority, characterized by feudal relations, city states

and urban alliances with the church playing a leading role.

3. The polity of estates

4. Absolutist states

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5. Modern nation-state

Empires have dominated the history of states over the centuries. Empires required

an accumulation and concentration of coercive means of war making ability to

sustain themselves. The deployment of military was uppermost in the creation and

maintenance of territorial boundaries. Territorial boundaries were not yet-fixed

boarders. Empires were ruled but they were not governed. Then came the Feudal

system. It is a political system of overlapping and divided authority which

assumed many forms between eight and fourteenth centuries. Political power

became more local and personal in focus, generating a social world of overlapping

claims and powers. Some of their claims and powers conflicted and war was

frequent. The warriors declared bonds of loyalty and homage to their lords in

return for privileges and protection. Lords were expected to maintain an

autonomous military capability to support their kings. Then came the polity of

estates in which the rulers holds halo of higher majesty. Each Estate represents a

different collective identity. The polity of estates was characterized by a power

dualism. Power was split between ruler and the estates. Then came the absolutist

state.

Absolutist States: From the fifteenth to eighteenth century two different form of

regime can be distinguished in Europe, the absolutist monarchies of France,

Russia, Austria, Spain, Russia and the constitutional monarchies in England and

Holland. Absolutism signalled the emergence of a form of state based open the

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absorption of smaller and weaker political units into larger and stronger political

structures, a strengthened ability to rule over a unified territorial area, a tightened

system of law and order enforcement throughout a territory, the application of a

more unitary, continuous and effective rule by a single sovereign head. The

development of a relatively small number of states engaged in an open-ended,

competitive power struggle. Absolutist rulers claimed that they alone held the

legitimate right of decision over state affairs.

The absolutist monarch claimed to be the ultimate source of human law. The

absolutist monarch was at the apex of new system of rule which was progressively

centralized and anchored on a claim to supreme and indivisible power, sovereign

authority. Six ensuring developments were of great significance in the history of

state during absolutist system of states.

1. The growing coincidence of territorial boundaries with a uniform system of

rule,

2. The creation of new mechanisms of law – making and enforcement,

3. The centralization of administrative power.

4. Alteration and extension of fiscal management

5. The formalization of relations among states through the development of

diplomacy and diplomatic institutions

6. The introduction of a standing army.

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Modern States:

The proximate sources of the modern state were absolution and interstate system it

initiated. In condensing and concentrating political power in its own hand and in

seeking to create a central system of rule, absolutism paved the way for a secular

and national system of power. The transition from the absolutist to the modern

state was marked by dramatic events and process such as the English (1640-88)

and French (1789) Revolutions. All modern state are nation-state-political

apparatuses, distinct from both ruler and ruled, with supreme jurisdiction over a

demarcated territorial area, backed by a claim to a monoply of coercive power and

enjoying a minimum level of support on loyalty from their citizens.

The features of modern state are:-

1. Territory: While all states have made claims to territories but it is only with

the modern state system that exact boarders have been fixed.

2. Control of the means of violence: the claim to hold a monoply on force and

the means of coercion (sustained by a standing army and the police)

became possible only with the pacification of peoples breaking down of

rival centre of power and authority.

3. Impersonal structure of power. The idea of an impersonal and sovereign

political order with supreme jurisdiction over a territory.

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4. Legitimacy: it became possible for human beings as individuals and as

people to be active citizens of a new order not menely dutiful subjects of a

monarch or emperor. The loyalty of citizens became something that had to

be own by modern states, invariably this involved a claim by the state to be

legitimate because it reflected and represented the needs and interests of its

citizens.

Forms of the modern states:

1. Constitutionalism or the constitutional state. Constitutionalism defines the

proper forms and limits of state action, rights and liberties of the citizens. It

represents the rulers and regulations of the state.

2. Liberal state: It became defined in large part by the attempt to create a

private sphere independent of the state. If frees civil society, personal,

family and business life from unnecessary political interference and by

delimiting the state authority.

3. Liberal or representatives democracy: it is a system of rule embracing

elected officers who undertake to represent the interest of citizens within

the framework of the ‘rule of law’. Ex-US, Britain, Germany etc.

4. One party or single party polity: The principle underlying one-party politics

is that a single party can be the legitimate expression of the overall will of

the community or state.

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Conclusion

The formation of the modern state has to be related to at least overarching

phenomena: the structures of political and social groups and classes and the

relations among the states. The modern state became supreme because they won at

war, were economically successful and subsequently achieved a significant degree

of legitimacy in the eyes of their populations and other – states.

References

Held, David, The Development of the Modern State, Cambridge 1982

Internet (www.google.com)