Politics, statehood and international

governance

Dr Sarah Bracking

Lecture 1

1st February 2011

Objectives
 This lecture introduces the module and
the subject sub-discipline of politics and
development in the context of post-war
politics and international governance.

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Outline
1 What is politics and development?
2 Political science
3 Theories of power
4 What are nation-states and how do
they work politically in terms of
delivering wellbeing to citizens?
5 What is international governance?

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1 Politics
 Definitions are more or less material
 Material: who gets what and how, versus politics
as a discourse of power
 And discursive, non-material

 Reflects wider schism in philosophy of social

science knowledge:
“Social theory is, in turn, divided between modern and post-
modern social perspectives. At the most general level, modernists are
those thinkers who still hold with the Enlightenment idea that reason
can deliver knowledge which is true until proven false whereas
postmodernists view all knowledge as strategic” (Haugaard, 2002: 3)

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1.1 Politics and development: complex genealogy
 Political science (circa 1960s): institutional focus,
generally uses quantitative methodology, studies political
institutions, parties, voting systems.
 Political sociology: from Weber or earlier, particularly
strong from the post-structuralist and ‘cultural turn’ in
the social sciences. Focus on discourse, ideology and
power, Gramsci, Foucault, Bourdieu. Uses qualitative
methodology.
 Political liberalism: resonates with the tradition of
English classical liberalism and political economy
(Hobbes and Locke). Uses normative, but historical
methodology. [next week]
 In ‘development’, political liberalism is dominant and
‘political development’ advocates liberal
democratisation.

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2 Political science
 Political science generally concerned with
the processes, principles, and structure of
government and of political institutions.
 Quantitative, comparative and normative
political science methodologies are most
effective when evaluating broad regime
types and long-run institutional changes.
 Techniques used around polling and
predictive public opinion sampling also
have a utility to planners and political
representatives.

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2.1 Political science research
 Is outcome oriented, based in measuring
institutional features such as numbers
and types of representatives, rather than
about social processes that underpin and
influence these outcomes.
 The standardisation of politics into
categories of regime types, electoral
systems, political parties does not
address the specific and local in the
research process.
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2.2 Political research in development
 Traditional political science has categorised
poor people as living in environments which
lack democratic norms of representation and
accountability, such as in Freedom House
terms, societies which are ‘partly free’ or
‘unfree’ (Freedom House, 2003 see also
Human Rights Watch, 2003).
 Arguments can quickly become circular: a
lack of power leads to poverty, poor people
have a lack of power, and a consequence of
being poor is to, again, have little power.
 Few signposts to the policy maker in terms
of when to intervene, and what to do, in
development.
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2.3 Has found…
 Two broad trends relevant to the
politics of development. Poor people

have very few positive relationships with

formal political institutions measured by their
representation and likelihood of participating
in voting processes (Beetham et al, 2002).

Are likely to have weak means to hold

political and economic elites to account and
with which to claim rights to resources
(International IDEA, 2000).
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2.4 Within the modernist tradition
 Political science is about the application of science,
normally using quantitative methods, to understanding
political processes and procedures, for example, in studies
of voters and voting
 Power is understood as instrumental and about outcomes
in decision-making processes
 An agency-centred, measureable, objective contest of
plural interests
 For example, Dahl, classic definition of power:
 A has power over B to the extent that s/he can ‘get B to do
something that B would not do otherwise’ (1957, p.201)
 See Colin Hay, (1997)
 Political science still tends to maintain a pluralist view of
power
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3 But sociological concept of power
expands discipline of ‘politics’
 Bachrach and Baratz, 1962, 1970, introduced ‘non-
decision-making’ where
 “A devotes his (sic) energies to creating or reinforcing social
and political values and institutional practices that limit the
scope of the political process to public consideration of only
those issues which are comparatively innocuous to B” (1962,
p.948)
 Contentious issues removed from chamber
 An ‘agenda-setting’ dimension added [to the agency-
centred approach]
 classical pluralism undermined
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3.1 Power
 But what if there is no conflict/apparent
consensus, and actors do not perceive
themselves to have an interest, or judge it
‘wrongly’ [cf. false consciousness]?
 Enter Lukes, who discusses when A can
influence or shape B’s preferences
 …is it not the most insidious exercise of power to
prevent people…from having grievances by shaping their
perceptions, cognitions, and preferences in such a way
that they accept their role in the existing order of things,
either because they can see or imagine no alternative to
it, or because they see it as natural or unchangeable, or
because they value it as divinely ordained and
beneficial? (Lukes, 1974, p.24)
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3.2 Hay’s solution
 Colin Hay (1997), if power is decision-making, agenda-
setting and preference-shaping, can we go beyond
behaviouralism [and idea of ‘real’ and ‘perceived’
interests, which invites ‘elite’ judgement?]
[in Politics 17(1) ps. 45-52]
 Distinguish between identifying where power exists, or
its analysis, from its critique.
 Definition can be three dimensional, power is about
how contexts are shaped and about the capacity to
define what is possible for others [cf Habermas and
Foucault], ability of A to ‘have an effect’ over the
possibilities of B (Hay, 1995: 191)
 This definition allows power to have a positive effect,
‘power of/to’ , and also can lay the basis for judging a
negative effect, ‘power over’ 13
4. The state
 In modern governance power is exercised through
the state.
 Max Weber:

“An administrative and legal order subject to

change by legislation….[claiming] binding authority…
over all action taking place in the area of its
jurisdiction,…a compulsory organisation with a
territorial basis…[and where] the use of force is
regarded as legitimate only so far as it is permitted by
the state or prescribed by it”

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4.1 State cont:
At least three general perspectives are found:
 the narrow concept: the state as a set of
institutions or system of authority
 the sloppy concept: the state as the government
of the day
 the broad concept: the state as the configuration
of power in society, i.e. defined in terms of the
social interests, class character, of the society
over which it presides and which it defends.

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4.2 Different definitions
 1) regards the state as being essentially ‘socially
neutral’, above and separate from what is called
civil society, and so capable of being understood in
terms of the operation and development of its
institutional processes.
 3) regards the state as defending, reinforcing,
preserving and shaping a particular social order.

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4.3 What states do, according to 1)
 The nation-state, liberal ideal form assumes
territorial integrity, sovereignty, and legitimacy,
and then (rationally)
 Regulates the domestic economy
 Manages fiscal and monetary policy
 Provides social services and welfare
 Defines and defends a common sense of social order and
purpose
 It arbitrates (or represses) social disputes
 Defends the rule of law, the legal system
 Defends the rule of money, the currency

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4.4 What states do (according to 3)
 The Coercive function: preserving order, ensuring
social control, defending the status quo. There is
most agreement on this function [Weber, Lenin,
Hobbes, etc]
 The Legitimation function: obtaining consent for
authority, ensuring social consensus and cohesion,
representing class power as social power. [Weber,
Gramsci, Habermas, Offe]
 The social reproduction function: ‘reproducing’
nation, state and society, i.e. defending the territory
of the state, ensuring economic growth and progress,
directing economic development and policy,
managing social provision and social investment.
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4.5 But not all states are the same
Post-colonial states (Mick Moore):
 Shaped in unequal, pre-existing system
 Have a disconnect between the state and the citizen

Suffer from:
 Incomplete state formation
 Unnatural birth
 History of external control
 Unearned state income
 Declining cost of military superiority
 International criminal networks
 Competitiveness of aid donors

(See also Moore, M (2001) Understanding Variations in Political Systems in Developing

Countries: A Practical Framework, November, IDS Working Paper)

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 4.6 The State as nation, territory and institution:
a universal framework
Sense of Boundary Practices ‘Others’ Key processes
‘stateness’
State as State as a Discursive: Inclusion/ Women; Citizenship;
nation community; state ‘belonging’; exclusion from ethnic and nationalism;
as a national communal or full citizenship; religious racism; patriarchy;
‘people’ shared national national minorities; incarceration
identity ceremony ‘partial’
citizens
State as Geo-politically Physical: Border controls; Other nation- Geo-politics;
territory bounded area of administrativel customs; states; other diplomacy; war
administrative y policed defence; foreign (hot and cold);
sovereignty political maintenance of offices; defence;
frontier/border a standing army ‘foreign’ immigration
citizens
State as State as an Practical: Mode of Apparatuses of Bureaucracy; legal
institution assemblage of institutional intervention; he private and economic
coordinated reach into the extent of state sphere regulation;
apparatuses, private sphere, regulation, (family); civil surveillance;
institutions and the economy surveillance and society taxation and
practices and civil funding (church, subsidization
society media); and
the economy
(firms)
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Reproduced from Hay, C (1996) Re-stating Social and Political Change, (Open University), p.13
5. Politics becomes governance
 The institutionalist political science tradition is
dominant in ‘politics and development’, and power
is generally occluded
 Governance speaks to positivist, rational and
institutional views of progress
 Governance is also heavily embedded in liberalism
 Well governed societies have democratically
constituted authority and rational public policy
geared to the public good

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5.1 Definitions
 Weber and Talcott Parsons (1997: 80-82) good governance is the
mode under which public goods are distributed on the basis of
ethical universalism
 Good governance also anchored to the rationalist, social welfare
maximisation paradigm and the common good
 Ethical universalism stands opposed to particuliarism
 Such that, a governance mode based on rational-legal authority has
a rough opposite in patromonialism, clientilism, patronage, and
nepotism, all beset by corruption
 Thus high-level corruption most commonly defined as:
 “the misuse of public office, public resources or public
responsibility for private - personal or group – gain”
(Szeftel, 2000: 407) [lecture 5]

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5.2 Governance: definition
“[Governance] resumes older and broader meanings of
government and governing that are not necessarily tied to
the nation-state and, in some ways, have become obscured
by the rise of the liberal national state and its identification
of government with the government, i.e with the body that
claims supreme authority within a given territory and its
various apparatuses. It gives particular emphasis to issues of
the government of human conduct in all contexts, by
various authorities and agencies, invoking particular forms of
truth, and using definite resources, means and techniques”

(Dean, (1999) Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society, Sage p.2-3)

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Tutorial discussion points:
Good governance and the state
Some general discussion questions:

 What is the character of politics in development theory?

 What is governance and how does this differ from
‘politics’?
 What role should states play in development?
 What role does politics play in meeting development
objectives (or not)?
 How well do concepts of governance work in southern
states?
 What role can advocacy and non-governmental
organisations play in improving political outcomes?
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Conclusion: Impasse in politics and
development interventions?
 Is there a widespread failure to think outside
normative expressions of what should be and what
political institutions should look like?

 Is this due to the overwhelming neoliberal

paradigm dominant in political science?
(see Bracking, 2005; Hickey, 2010)

 How would this paradigm be escaped and

empirically informed modelling of politics be
carried out?

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