The Power of States - Assignment Example

The Power of States For hundreds of years, sovereign states have played a central role in world affairs; they have been and are powerful actors commanding loyalty and obedience from their citizens, controlling (and patrolling) their borders and using force and violence to pursue their interests, both domestically and internationally. The power of states, however, is neither unchallengeable nor unchangeable. Indeed, one might argue that state power has always been exaggerated and misunderstood. In what ways has state power been exaggerated and misunderstood? How has the tendency to exaggerate and misunderstand state power impacted the world? Chapter One Introduction Karl Marx describes the “state” as an institution by which class rule is upheld. State can also be described as a political institution with a core government that maintains a command of the rightful use of coercion to achieve loyalty within a definite territory. States worldwide have increasingly misused (exaggerated) their power, and this sometimes led to violent protests or revolutions, as witnessed recently in the Arab countries. Dictatorial leadership styles where leaders want to stay in power more than they are required are to be blamed for this. The protests have resulted in countless deaths of innocent citizens and atrocities against humans committed by state machinery such as the army and police. States behave like this because there is no power that holds them accountable. This paper will illustrate how the state operates, the role of the state and its obligations to its citizens, the various instruments that the state uses to obtain allegiance, the role of the media in shaping the image of the state and its representation of situations such as war, and, lastly, the rise of resistance and rebellion against the state. Nation is a term used to refer to people who belong to a shared cultural community with a historical trajectory (Heywood, 2011). Chapter Two Repressive apparatuses of the State Every state, whether capitalist or democratic, uses various forms of coercion. Even under pluralism, where a lot of official democratic liberty exists, the state uses tyranny, sometimes in enormous quantities. A case in point is the penal structure in the United States of America. Approximately two million prisoners, or 60 percent, are black, and this shows that the legal system has been utilized as a tool of repression against the black community. The legal system In every society, there is likely to be a set of regulations which are largely acknowledged by the society. These forbid anti-social actions such as murder, rape, and theft. Through such laws and their enforcement, a country attains its class as an impartial watchdog of the society. Nevertheless, law has been used by the system to control its subjects. An example is labor laws which clamp down on civil liberties. In several ways, these are intended to coerce and put off people taking action on issues relating to things such as public debate and industrial unrest. The police and the military Government law enforcement agencies are state machinery. They are in the forefront of defense against anything which disturbs public tranquility. Abuse of enforcement agencies during periods of crisis is a way in which the state abuses its authority. The state exaggerates its power using the media The fourth estate today is a powerful medium that can be employed by the state to create an impression of itself on its citizens. Nobody has a first-hand access to activities going on outside their specific and immediate context. Information must be gathered, constructed, and sent to the public through various forms of technology, for example television, the internet, the radio, and mobile phones (Lisle, 2006). Some form of media – some technology of representation – is necessary in any communication. We couldn’t know anything in the world without the different forms of the media to convey information. Postman’s argument is that we have allowed the media to set the agenda for political debate and that a person, no matter how persuasive his or her views are, would never be elected president, because he or she does not look good on television (Edkins & Zehfuss, 2009). By the beginning of the Gulf War in 1990, the American government had fully taken on board lessons it had learned during the Vietnam War. It created a new body – the Department of Defense News Media Pool (DoDNMP) that was put in place to effectively control and manage the media’s access to the battlefield (Lisle, 2006). The Afghanistan and Iraq invasions in 2003 followed the intense media scrutiny that surrounded the September 11, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers in America. Once again, the US military sought to re-establish its control over the media by embedding more than 600 US and international reporters, who lived, worked, and travelled with selected military units. It was designed by the state to gate and keep information out of the battlefield (Lisle, 2006, p. 154). There is a view that the fourth estate is a member of the elite group, mainly because of media ownership and influence. The media are effectively a mouthpiece for elite power and any information that does not serve the ruling class values is suppressed. This suppression can be active, direct, and violent. This can be done to silence dissenting voices. The state exaggerates its power through territorial restrictions States exist within territories which are patrolled and controlled by them. Territorial markings are one way of exaggerating state power in the essence that the state controls movement in and out of its territory. State power being challenged The state is an independent body, has an everlasting populace as well as a distinct territory, and is self-supporting. It obtains the power to make and amend legislation. Thus, a state has autonomy over its territory, indicating a substantial economical, political, social and legal power. The state, though, has a duty to tackle the wants of state individuals as well as the society; moreover, legislation is introduced to aid in limiting the power of the state. When the wants of a person come in disparity with the changeable needs of the state, a conflict arises; therefore, it is necessary for the needs of the person and the state to be in balance. Citizens of an independent state are capable of challenging state power in two ways: by informal means and formal means. The primary distinguishing factor between the formal and casual way of challenging state power is that official means are more permanent and reliable as they are established by statutory law whereas unofficial means are pressure on the government through ways of media and social power. According to Edkins and Zehfuss (2009), when individuals unite, their individual power or authority is added together to form a power greater than any of them. The 16th century reform was born and developed in a unification of spiritual and secular forces. One of the prominent personalities is Martin Luther and his ninety-five theses nailed to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg at noon on All Saints Day. On the other hand, the authority of the Pope as the head of Catholic Church had been challenged. References Edkins, J., & Zehfuss, M. (2009). Global politics: A new introduction. London: Routledge. Heywood, A. (2011). Global politics. Houndmills, Basingstoke Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Lisle, D. (2006). The global politics of contemporary travel writing. Cambridge: C Read More