LITERATURE REVIEW: THEORIZING STATE-SOCIETY INTERACTION
2.3. Theorizing State-Society relation
Among state theorists, most attention has been devoted to Weber's suggestion that the state is an organisation that claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. The implications of seeing the state as an organisation in the first place have been given less attention. The German term that Weber uses is "ein Verband" (which translates as
"organisation" in the sense of a group or association) rather than, for example, "eine Einteilung" (which translates as "organisation" in the sense of an arrangement or an ordering). At the same time, Weber's reference to the citizens as "members of the state"
shows that he did not conceptualise the state as separate from society.
Another significant theorist who contributed to the study of state-society relations is Joel. S. Migdal. Migdal, in his work, looks at a kind of politics that does not occur within the sovereign state's framework. Various groups in society (e.g., ethnic, cultural, local) and state institutions are the primary actors in Migdal's state. This kind of state- society interaction lies at the root of the little-understood issue of stateness. The failed states can be considered an extreme form of stateness with little control over their territory and people. However, such countries are very far and few in numbers. In other states too, who do not qualify to be failed states, it can be seen that the state exercise partial control over many social institutions. These powerful states with a large military fail to collect taxes regularly, conduct census or implement basic policies at the grassroots level. Overall, these states cannot govern their rural areas, border regions and hinterlands to any substantial degree.
The boundary between "state" and "non-state" is thus blurred. Numerous institutions and practices cross what is conventionally understood as the boundary of the state. Some are explicitly designed to do so: the ostensible purpose of elected legislatures is to translate attitudes, norms, preferences, wishes, needs, and desires from "the general public" into state decision making. In some areas of state activity, there is profound— and perhaps necessary—ambiguity about whether an individual's actions constitute action by the state or not.
A 'State in Society' approach has been put forward by Migdal and similar authors to help address the notion of state-society interaction (Migdal, 1998, 2001). These scholars rejected Marxist and structuralist claims that the state's actions were nothing more than a reflection of social patterns of power, nor did they subscribe to overly statist claims of the state dominating society. For Migdal, the state is a distinct part of society, which plays a unique role that sets it apart from other social groups. It is important to note that neither state nor society can claim a priori precedence over the other. Migdal tries to establish that States may help mould, but they are also continually moulded by the societies within which they are embedded (Migdal and Kohli, 1994). Thus, the State and Society are partly dependent and partly independent aspects of our socio-cultural life.
In the present-day world, the state is seen as the sole accepted model of political order (Mitchel, 1991). This notion, however, represents a normative demand rather than a factual reality. The normative demand requires that the state, as a central political organisation exercising power within a given territory, should be the sole agency to set rules for its citizens (Lambach, 2004). In the last few centuries, the idea of a powerful state has gained much force within Western countries to be almost absolute. Such a proposition was quickly taken up in the newly decolonised nations of Latin America in the 19th century, followed by
Asian and African countries in the 20th century. These countries quickly adopted the state as a tool to achieve economic development and social modernisation (Migdal, 1988).
Both the institution being significant, the individual must decide, considering the incentives and sanctions, whether to submit to the authority of a social organisation or the political body. Usually, everyone being a member of many social organisations are confronted with many rules of such organisations. To accomplish their psychological and ordinary needs, people make up, in Migdal terms, "strategies of survival – blueprints for action and belief" (Migdal, 1988, p. 28). Such a strategy where no organisation can establish an apparent hegemony of rulemaking can be problematic. Thus, Migdal (1988) believes that while making survival strategies, individuals must choose among competing components, which are difficult choices when people also face the possibility of competing sanctions (Migdal, 1988, p. 29).
The state is a social organisation that plays by the same rules but only on a larger scale. Like other social associations, the state seeks social control by making people incorporate its rules into their survival strategies. It at times may seek obedience by monopolising individual strategies of survival. Thus, such a social control involves the successful delegation of people's predispositions of social behaviour or behaviour sought by other social organisations in favour of the behaviour prescribed by state rulers. It forms the crucial argument of his idea of state-society interaction: the social organisations and the state continually compete for social control over the individual. By its very nature, the state claims to be the sole authority that regulates social relations within its territory, thus pitting it against all social organisations that might resist this authority.