Origin Of The Term State

The ‘State’, as a politically organised community, has existed in /human history since very early times. The ancient Greeks called it “polls”, which means a politically organised city-community or ‘city-State as we now call it. (From ’polis’ is derived the English term ‘politics’). The ancient Romans called the city-State “civitas” from which such English words as ‘city*, ‘citizen’, ‘civilisation’, ‘civic’ are derived. The Romans also used another term, namely Status re publican”. The Latin term ‘status’ became “State” in Italian in the Middle Ages, and adopted different forms in various European languages in the 15th or 16th centuries A.D. In French it became “State”, in English “State”, in German “State”, and so on.

Different meanings of the State:

The tom State is used in different senses. To an ordinary man, it appears as a sort of policeman writ large, and to a learned writer, like Hobbes, it is a “Leviathan” —a giant whose body is composed of the countless bodies of human beings. The ancient Hindus understood it as “Danda”, i.e., power, and so did it appear in the eyes of medieval writers and peoples. To the Muslims in the middle Ages the State was kingly power. Modem writers and philosophers have also described it in various ways. Some describe it as a sort of general joint-stock company and others as a living organism. To die idealist philosophers it is a moral personality, an image of God on earth. To the Marxists it is an instrument of class domination. To the jurists it is a law-making institution; to the racialists it is a symbol of race-superiority. To the Freudian psycho-analysts, it is a man’s “father image” to inhibit his perverted propensities. To an imperialist or colonialist writer, it is an instrument of enslavement and exploitation of backward peoples and countries.

Various Definitions:

A modern jurist, Holland, defines the State as “a numerous assemblage of human beings, generally occupying a certain territory, amongst whom the will of the majority or of an ascertainable class or persons is by the strength of such a majority or class made, to prevail against any of their number who opposes it”. This definition points out three essential characteristics of the State, namely, a numerous assemblage of human beings, a definite territory and a dominant class or majority will.

A writer on International Law, Hall, defines the State from the point of view of the International Law. He says: The marks of an independent State are that the community constituting it is permanently established for a political end, that it possesses a defined territory, and that it is independent of external control”.

Burgess defines it as a “particular portion of mankind viewed as an organised unit”. Bluntschli says: “the State is the politically organised people of a definite territory”. President Woodrow Wilson defines it simply as “a people organised for law within a definite territory”.

A modem sociological writer, Maclver, defines the State as “an association which, acting through law as promulgated by a government, endowed to this end with a coercive power, maintains within a community territorially demarcated the universal external conditions of social order”.

Cole says that the State “is a whole community of its members regarded as an organised social unit”.

Harold J.Laski defines the State as na territorial society divided into government and subjects claiming, within its allotted physical area, supremacy over all other institutions”. Thus Laski also emphasises the four elements constituting the State, viz., (i) society or people, (ii) territory or an allotted physical area, (iii) government and (iv) supremacy or sovereignty.

Marxist definition of the State!—By way of contrast, we also describe here the Marxist definition of the State which will show that the State can be viewed from quite a different standpoint Karl Marx, the founder of scientific socialism and communism, holds that the State is the political organisation of the ruling class which uses its power for the purpose of suppressing, the resistance of its class enemies. The State arose as a result of the division of society into antagonistic classes, and, therefore, for the purpose of curbing the exploited majority in the interest of the exploiting minority.

It shall exist so long as there is the need for class domination and shall then ‘wither away1. Frederick Engel’s, the co-founder of Marxism, defines it briefly thus: “State is a particular power of suppression”. In another place he declares that the modem State is “nothing more than a committee for the administration of the consolidated affairs of the bourgeois class as a whole”. The apparatus of State power, viz., the army, the police, the judiciary, etc., is in the hands of one class to suppress another class or classes. Thus the Marxists explain the State in socio¬economic terms.

Revolt against the term “State”: Since the middle of the twentieth century, an intellectual revolt began against die use of the term “State”. It was led by the political scientists of the functionalist, behaviouralist and other persuasions. They seek to eliminate this term from the dictionary of Political Science. We shall discuss the reasons of their “revolt” at the end of this chapter. However, the study of political Science has to begin with a definition and understanding of the term State.

 

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