Moral and Civics Chapter 4
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Chapter Four: State, Government and Citizenship
4.1. Chapter Introduction
4.2. Chapter Objectives
4.3. Understanding State
4.3.1. Defining State
• state has been understood in four quite different ways.
1. Idealist perspective
▪ Hegel identified three moments of social existence
➢ Family
✓ altruism operates that encourages people to set aside their
own interests for the good of their children or elderly
relatives
➢ Civil society
✓ Seen as a sphere of ‘universal egoism’ in which individuals
place their own interests before those of others
➢ State
✓ ethical community underpinned by mutual sympathy –
‘universal altruism’
▪ drawback of idealism
o it fosters an uncritical reverence for the state
o by defining the state in ethical terms, fails to distinguish clearly
between institutions that are part of the state and those that are
outside the state
2. Functionalist approach/perspective
▪ focus on the role or purpose of state institutions
▪ central function of the state is invariably seen as the maintenance of
social order
▪ state - set of institutions that uphold order and deliver social
stability.
▪ state as a mechanism through which class conflict is ameliorated to
ensure the long-term survival of the capitalist system
▪ weakness of the functionalist
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o tends to associate any institution that maintains order (such as
the family, mass media, trade unions and the church) with the
state itself
3. Organizational view/perspective
▪ State - set of institutions that are recognizably ‘public’, in that
they are responsible for the collective organization of social
existence and are funded at the public’s expense
▪ It distinguishes clearly between the state and civil society
▪ The organizational approach allows us to talk about ‘rolling forward’
or ‘rolling back’ the state, in the sense of expanding or contracting
the responsibilities of the state, and enlarging or diminishing its
institutional machinery
4. International approach/perspective
▪ State - primarily actor on the world stage; indeed, as the basic
‘unit’ of international politics
▪ dualistic structure of the state, its two faces:
➢ state’s inward-looking face
✓ its relations with the individuals and groups that live within
its borders, and its ability to maintain domestic order
➢ state’s outward-looking face
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✓ its relations with other states and, therefore, its ability to
provide protection against external attack
▪ Classic definition of the state in international law is found in the
Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State (1933)
▪ According to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, the state has
four features
A. Population
o without population there can be no state
o states of the world vary in terms of demographic strength
✓ population of greater than 1 billion - China and India
✓ constituency of few thousand people - Vatican and San
Marino
❖ No exact number can be given to how much
people constitute state
o Homogeneity - commonness of religion, or blood, or
language or culture and the like
✓ it makes the task of national integration easy
✓ Homogeneity is not must
B. Defined Territory
o territory of a state includes land, water, and airspace
o territorial authority of a state also extends to
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