THEORIES OF STATE EMERGENCE
The State Revisited
We begin with the state because we consider the state to be the most important
center of sovereign legitimate authority in the world today, and therefore, the state is
the most natural political structure to begin a study of comparative politics. In 2023,
there are roughly 193 independent states in the world. In 1945, at the end of World
War II, there were only 51. The quick spread of statehood from centuries of feudal and
colonial empires to the entire globe is not something that should be taken for granted.
Today, nearly every piece of land is under the control of a state, and nearly every
person is subject to the rules of a state government, as you can clearly see in the map
in Figure 26. 34 The study of comparative politics reveals the vast differences between
how states govern themselves, but the fact that statehood as a general model has
become the exclusive political institution all over the world is completely remarkable
and not at all inevitable. Therefore, it is extremely important to understand in detail
what we mean by sovereign legitimate authority, and how that is different from previous
forms of political organization. Legitimacy is generally defined as the subjective belief
that a rule or an institution should be obeyed or followed. (Hurd, 1999). It is important
to distinguish a belief in the right of an institution to make rules with believing that the
rules are right or good. In fact, by disagreeing with an institutional rule and demanding
that it change, one inherently accepts, at least to some degree, that the institution has
the right to make rules.
Any social institution requires some sort of legitimacy to exist and to function.
This includes things like families, athletic teams, universities, and religions. Institutions
create and maintain legitimacy in both symbolic and strategic ways. Strategically,
institutions often attempt to be transparent about their rule-making process and allow
for some sort of participation by most members. Symbolically, institutions often have
traditions, songs, and flags that foster a sense of belonging and loyalty among
members. When an institution begins to lose legitimacy, even if it still maintains the
physical elements of the institution such as buildings, money, or members, it will find
it difficult to continue to rule.
Legitimacy is particularly important to states because it is through legitimacy
that states derive their power in a way that their citizens will accept (Gilley, 2006). It is
the reason that the social contract works (see Bozonelos et al., 2022, section 3.1).
People will only give up some of their freedoms and submit to the laws of their state if
they believe the state is legitimate. The Montevideo Convention of 1933 defines the
state as requiring (a) a government; (b) a permanent population; (c) defined territory;
and (d) the capacity to enter into relations with other states. These are the tangible
elements that a state must have at a minimum, but a state will not be able function
without some sort of legitimacy.
Legitimacy is also important to understanding what a state is because of
another important feature of modern states: the monopoly on the use of force. Max
Weber, one of the most important political theorists, defined the state as a political
institution that exerts a “monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given
territory” (Weber, 1948, p. 78). Essentially the state is the only entity (hence, a
monopoly) within a territory that has the right to use physical force (this can include
lethal force such as the death penalty) legally to maintain order and the social contract,
but this use of force must be seen as generally justified by members of the state
(hence, legitimate). This is what distinguishes the state as a legitimate institution from
others within the state. Other institutions can use force but can only do so illegally
without the blessing of the state and will therefore be punished by the state, or legally
with the blessing of the state.35 The concept of legitimacy will also be particularly
important to a comparative analysis of revolution and social movements.
All states call themselves sovereign. This simply means that they claim the
exclusive right to govern themselves. Sovereignty is perhaps the most important
distinguishing factor between modern states and empires. Political scientists trace the
origins of sovereignty to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty
Years’ War in Europe.
Prior to this, the map of Europe consisted of several intersecting territories with
claims by kings and princes as well as the Catholic Church, especially within the Holy
Roman Empire (see Figure 26 above). This treaty recognized the exclusive right of
princes to establish authority within their own territory, while also recognizing equality
among states; essentially that states should respect the right of other states to control
their own territory.
The first concept is known as internal sovereignty while the second is known as
external sovereignty. These two concepts are two sides of the same coin: a state
cannot maintain internal sovereignty without the expectation of external sovereignty
from other states. Furthermore, sovereignty is an integral element of statehood
because it is seen as the source of legitimate authority. (Strayer, 1973). A state cannot
establish or maintain legitimacy without sovereignty. If there are competing sources of
authority within a territory, neither one can easily claim they are the legitimate.
To maintain both internal and external sovereignty, states needed to know
where their territory started and where it ended. Thus, as sovereignty began to slowly
take hold, defined borders began to take shape. This is another important distinction
between states and empires: established versus permeable borders.
Sovereignty is also directly related to the monopoly on the use of force and the
social contract. Sovereignty gives states the right to use force within their own territory,
while demanding that they refrain from doing so outside their own territory. When
states do use force outside their own territory, it is often referred to as a violation of
sovereignty. While states do violate each other’s external sovereignty frequently, it is
seen as rule-breaking behavior. Without the concept of sovereignty, it wouldn’t be seen
as breaking any rule.
Sovereignty is also the source of the social contract in that states have an
exclusive right to design the terms of the contract. The balance between freedom and
security will look differently in different states, and that is due to sovereignty. Therefore,
while all modern states have some claim to sovereignty, each one exercises and
defines it differently within their own recognized territory. On the other hand, a rather
consistent feature of most modern states is that they will vehemently defend what they
perceive as their sovereign territory, resulting at times in some awkward
confrontations.
For example, the Spratly Islands make up around 750 atolls and rocks in the
South China Sea. While mostly uninhabited and without much in the way of natural
resources, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei have made
claims to them, mostly as an assertion of sovereignty, an extension of territory, and
access to more sea for fishing. This has led the Philippines to artificially extend one of
the islands in order to fit a small runway. Even more strangely, the People’s Republic
of China has erected a large metal frame with the Chinese flag on top in the Gaven
Reefs, which is merely a six-foot tall sand dune in the middle of the ocean.
Sovereignty Revisited
This is the traditional story of how we went from empires to states: European
leaders were looking for a solution to constant warfare as Europe emerged out of the
dark ages and started to participate in previously established global trade routes by
African, Chinese, and Indian traders. Sovereignty also allowed for kings to rule more
effectively and efficiently, since their independence allowed for the creation of standing
armies, bureaucracies, and a taxation system. All three of these elements are
considered features of almost all modern states today and each can be traced back to
the notion of sovereignty. Yet, it would be too glib to assume that the ingredients of
sovereignty simply came into being in 1648; surely, the seeds that eventually led to
Westphalia were planted long before and outside of Europe, which we will explore a
bit below. The story of how this model of governing spread from Europe to the rest of
the world is told largely through a vast shift in wealth from Asia and the Indian sub-
continent to Europe through conquest, slavery, and colonialism. The implication of this
story is that sovereignty was a privilege only for the Western world until the European
colonial empires were forced to finally give up their overseas territory, a process that
wasn’t complete until at least the 1970’s.
However, it also bears the question of what societies looked like before the
onset of sovereignty, as well as what sovereignty looks like for those states that gained
sovereignty later than the Global North. This section will briefly consider this question
because it can help us understand the problems experienced by many contemporary
states as well as societies within sovereign states.
Case Study Qing Dynasty in modern-day China
Full Country Name : People’s Republic of China
Head of State : President Xi Jinping
Head of Government : Premier Li Qiang
Government : Unitary Single-party state
Official Language : Mandarin, Cantonese
Economic System : State-Oriented Economy
Location : East Asia
Capital : Beijing
Total land size : 9,596,960 sq km; 224,610 sq. miles
Population : 1,413,142,846
GDP : $24.861 trillion
GDP per capita : $17,600
Currency : Chinese Yuan
As a major player in the world today, with a GDP that might surpass the US in
the coming decades, and one of a handful of nuclear-armed states, a consideration of
statehood and sovereignty would be incomplete without a discussion of China and its
understanding of itself as a sovereign state. China can be treated as a representative
case of non-European statehood. China has existed as a political community for many
centuries, long before many of the most prominent European political philosophers
such as Thucydides, Hobbes, and Locke. The philosophical tradition of China is rooted
in the works of Confucius, whose writing in the sixth century BC reflect his experience
living in a chaotic political atmosphere, commonly called the “Warring States Era.” It
was during this time that authority was being challenged and the result was a breakup
of the Chou dynasty into smaller feudal states like city-states in what is now Italy. While
Confucius’ political philosophy is quite different than many of the founding
philosophers of the European tradition, emphasizing harmony and rule by moral
example, the map of China during his lifetime was not unlike the map of pre-
Westphalian Europe (see Figure 26 on page 112) (Bloodworth & Bloodworth, 2004).
The feeling of being part of an ancient and culturally consistent society informs much
of current Chinese state behavior today, viewing many Western states as newcomers
in the world without the knowledge and experience of a more established society.
The Qing Empire was established around the same time as Westphalia, around
1636 and lasted until 1912, when the Republic of China was established, which will
eventually lead to the Chinese state we know today. The formation of the modern
Chinese state also happens to be a moment of crisis in the European experiment with
sovereignty as World War I was on the horizon. The Qing Empire is considered an
empire because it did not have fixed territorial borders, as one can see in Figure 29:
Qing Empire circa 1820 but it can hardly be said that European state borders remained
fixed after 1648. It contained many features of modern states such as a hierarchical
governing structure in which the empire was the highest legitimate authority, a formal
education system, a sort of taxation system in the form of “tribute” to the emperor, a
state army, and a social contract in which the empire provided military protection to its
subjects (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006).
A possibly unique feature of the Qing Empire, which is still central to China’s
view of itself today, is its belief that the Empire was the “Middle Kingdom,” and the
emperor was the king of the universe. This is distinctive in the sense that it is contrary
to a more horizontal political community in which all sovereign states are legally equal.
Yet, it cannot be denied that while this may have been the way European sovereignty
was supposed to work in theory, the practice was rather different. European people
and leaders often thought of themselves as morally and politically superior to others,
resulting in many wars after 1648, as well as vast colonial empires built on a belief that
non-European people needed “civilizing” (Yancy, 2008).
Indeed, it was the colonial expansion of European powers that ultimately led to
the end of Chinese dynasties. While China is famous for the Silk Road, which
connected Asia, the Middle East and Europe, it also followed a fairly isolationist foreign
policy until European and American expansion forced them to change course in the
1830’s. The British brought opium and when China tried to outlaw it due to widespread
addiction, this triggered two wars, both of which led to China’s defeat. It was here that
Hong Kong was ceded to the British, which remained a crown colony until 1997.
The final blow was the Boxer Rebellion, which was a series of anti-colonial
uprisings, resulting in the invasion of China by an international force of European,
American, and Japanese soldiers that suppressed the protestors and led to the
overthrow of the Qing dynasty. The series of unequal treaties and attempts at
colonization are central in the collective memory of Chinese citizens and policymakers,
and avoiding and rectifying these series of events is an important goal of contemporary
Chinese foreign policy. For example, the Belt and Road Initiative is a massive foreign
investment project in over 150 countries which is not only meant to develop the target
economies, but to increase China’s power in the world as a counter to Western
hegemony. (Yan, 2019). At the same time, China takes great pride in the fact that
colonial efforts largely failed in the Chinese mainland, as do several other states that
weren’t fully colonized. (See Student Feature: Ethiopia as a deviant case of post-
colonial state-building, page 157).
This brief study of China reveals an important addendum to the traditional story
of the origins of sovereignty: elements of modern statehood predate the consolidation
of European sovereignty and took place far from the European continent. Furthermore,
we can learn some important lessons about the origins of statehood outside in the
Global South. This includes the role of colonialism and anti-colonial movements,
subsequent suspicion of Western powers and the need for counterweights to Northern
hegemony, and the birth of a multilayered identity including an ancient civilization, a
precolonial culture, as well as the continuing legacy of contact with colonial empires
and how best to assert one’s sovereignty in a post-colonial environment. This general
experience is a pattern that applies to many ex-colonies, as we will see throughout
this text. The next case study also demonstrates that certain features of the sovereign
state existed not just in China, but also in the Americas.
Study Feature Study: Sovereignty in the Iroquois Confederacy
Full Name : Iroquois Confederacy or the Haudensaunee
Government : Participatory Democracy
Official Languages : Oneida, Cayuga, Mohawk, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora
Location : Upstate New York, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Eastern Canada
The Iroquois Confederacy challenges the traditional notions of sovereignty
having emerged out of Europe and also demonstrates a form of government that is
rare in today’s world: a confederacy. This was defined in Federal, Unitary, and
Confederate States on page 89. The Iroquois Confederacy was composed of five
different nations originally: the Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, Mohawk, and Onondaga.
The Tuscarora joined in the 18th century (Graymont, 1993). Today, the confederacy is
still composed of the six different nations, all located between Upstate New York,
Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and in parts of Ontario, Canada.
Within these nations there are clans assigned to each different tribe. A clan is
described as a group of people that are named after an animal or bird, which all have
different responsibilities for taking care of the Iroquois Confederacy throughout their
life. Each clan has their own Clanmother, whose duties are to honor the Iroquois
nations, make decisions that affect each clan, assign individuals their Haudnesuanee
name, and elect and ensure the wellbeing of each clan member. Each nation has
different meanings to describe their responsibilities. The Oneida, The People of the
Standing Stone; the Cayuga, People of the Great Swamp; the Seneca people come
from the People of the Great Hill or Keepers of the Western Door; the Mohawk people
are known as the Keepers of the Flint or sometimes named Keepers of the Eastern
Door; the Onondaga are known as the Keepers of the Flame; and lastly, the nation of
Tuscarora, who are known as People of the Shirt (Smithsonian’s National Museum of
the American Indian, n.d.). This confederation consisted of many features of “modern”
states, such as kinship (what today we refer to as nationalism) within the six nations
due to their military, economic and political power from the 1400s to the 1600s. We
see nationalism in states today through similar processes—people feel united under
a state due to military, economic and political power of their state. The name they call
themselves, before the French gave them the name “Iroquois,” is the Haudenosaune.
This translates in English to the people of the longhouse. This means that all six
nations live with each other and are united with peace. The Longhouses are homes
that are divided by clan within each nation. They are multigenerational as everyone
lives under one roof together. The Iroquois thought of the Longhouses as a symbol of
their territories being one Longhouse from the West to the East of Upstate New York.
The Iroquois Confederacy is one of the first and longest running participatory
democracies (discussed in more detail in Chapter 6: Democracy) (Vecsey, 1986). The
creation of the Iroquois Confederacy can be traced back to 1142, when the
Deganawi:dah, the Peacemaker, brought together the disgruntled nations in order to
create peace between them. This created the longest running democracy in what is
now the United States (Johansen, 1995). Although there were frequent battles
between the five nations, through the Peacemaker teachings, the nations were able
to exist in relative peace (Fenton, 1998).
The Peacemaker symbolically tied together five arrows to resemble the unity
and strength of the original five nations. Each nation governed themselves and had
differences that separated them due to where their location in what is now New York
state. This is the classic model of a confederacy in which the subunits maintain a high
degree of sovereignty but are united under a federal agreement. (Refer to Figure 20
on page 90 for a visual representation of confederate governments). Still to this day
the Iroquois communities use the principles of the Great Law of peace, power, and
righteousness to live and govern their sovereign nations. The Great Law was created
to respect the rights of people within the Iroquois Confederacy. It was an oral
agreement as the Iroquois don’t follow written laws. The only written agreements are
treaties and agreements with Wampum Belts (see Figure 33), which are made from
shell. Agreements were made with Europeans as they arrived in Native territory and
were only made through oral agreements or physically with Wampum Belts.
(Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, n.d.). The Wampum belts
were never worn as clothing. They are purely symbols of agreements between nations
or colonists as a way of holding each side to their end of the agreement.
Comparison to the US Government
The Iroquois Confederacy heavily influenced the creation of US democracy
through the making of the Constitution and the subsequent evolution of the American
political system. The comparison between the Iroquois Confederacy and the modern-
day United States government can be shown through the Grand Council. The
Onondaga Nation was known as the heart of the Confederacy with 14 elected officials
that were appointed by Clanmothers. Clanmothers hold the highest power within the
Iroquois Confederacy because they can appoint men in leadership roles, but also
dismiss them of their role and power. That is how the checks and power system was
created within the Iroquois Confederacy. The Elders Brothers job is to use their
honorable qualities to preserve the Confederacy, and nine Seneca and Mohawk serve
on the Grand Council for life. The representatives from the Oneida and Cayuga are
called the younger brothers of the Confederacy. They have the same job and ethical
concerns as the elder brothers, but there are ten Cayuga and nine Oneida men that
serve and represent their nation on the Grand Council.
The United States Constitution was greatly influenced by the symbolism and
the description of the Great Law of peace. The founding fathers adopted the
representation of the bundle of 13 arrows indicating the newly formed colonies as a
unified government (Hansen, 2018). It wasn’t until 1987 that the United States Senate
formally acknowledged this fact in a special resolution (Johansen, 1995).
In conclusion, a brief case study of the Qing Dynasty in China and the Six
Nations in colonial America demonstrate how elements of modern statehood and
sovereignty existed outside of Europe and prior to the Treaty of Westphalia. These
cases should be juxtaposed against the traditional story of sovereignty being birthed
during the Thirty Year’s War in Europe and demonstrates that comparative politics has
too often focused on Western theories and Western histories. It is the hope that future
generations of comparative politics scholars will continue this line of critique, perhaps
focusing on such case studies as the Islamic Empires and pre-colonial African and
Latin American civilizations. Another useful line of inquiry could be a comparative
analysis of territories and/or communities that do not enjoy statehood or sovereignty,
such as Taiwan, Palestine, or the Kurds.
