Saddam Hussein). Are they not states because they are corrupt and violate in all
sorts of ways bureaucratic criteria for recruiting functionaries and the public/private
distinction, as elaborated above?
The danger with the ‘modernist argument’ (as we call it) is twofold. It assumes
that states have to be liberal in character, and that modern states live up to the
forms which are prescribed for them. Yet even liberal states that consider themselves
democratic do not always practise what they preach. They are also plagued with
corruption (think of the role played by money in the election process in the USA)
so that criteria for appointments are violated and the rule of law is breached. Is the
Italian state not a ‘real’ state, for example, because it fails to live up to the ‘ideals’
of the state? If it is not a state, then what is it? It would be much better to identify
states in terms of the supreme force that they exercise (albeit in different ways) over
subjects. Weber’s definition applies to all (post-tribal) polities for roughly the last
5,000 years.The argument against the concept of the state
Three bodies of argument contend that the state is not a suitable concept for political
theory, since it is impossible to define it. The state has been described as one of the
most problematic concepts in politics (Vincent, 1987: 3) and it has been seen as so
problematic as to defy definition at all.The behaviouralist argument
The first group to subscribe to what might be called the ‘indefinability thesis’ was
developed by political scientists who worked in the United States in the 1960s but
whose influence was not confined to the USA. It extended throughout Europe. This
group is generally known as thebehaviouralists.
The founding father of behaviouralism is considered to be Arthur Bentley, who
argued that the state was afflicted with what he called in 1908 ‘soul stuff’ – an
abstract and mystical belief that the state somehow represents the ‘whole’ of a
community. Much better, Bentley argued, to adopt a process view of politics that
contends that the state is no more than one government among many (1967: 263).
The term ‘behaviour’ was intended to capture the fact that humans, like animals,
behave: hence the approach denied that human society is different in kind from
animal society or the activity of other elements in nature. This led to a view that
the study of politics was like a natural science, and behaviouralists argued that, as
a science, it must not make value judgements. Just as biologists would not describe
a queen bee as ‘reactionary’ or ‘autocratic’ so the political scientist must abstain
from judgements in analysing the material they study. Behaviouralists believe that
a science of politics should not defend particular values, and should instead draw
up testable hypotheses by objectively studying political behaviour.16 Part 1 Classical ideas