The interest of State Power Exercise
Introduction
The political power of states across the world poses a significant influence on so many facets of jurisdictions. The sovereign power exercised by democratic states influences how its operations run, especially in its political fronts. The phenomenon will endeavor to define politics and power and how they both influence specific countries in the contemporary world. Later, the study will examine the interest behind states’ execution of power witnesses by different types of regimes in the world today, with justification from specific Liberal democratic, Developmental, and Illiberal states.
Politics and Power in State Influence
Politics and power are intertwined in the sense that they play an integral role in influencing most government’s sovereignty. Generally, politics is characterized by individuals, nations, and organizations whose interest is to pursue and exercise power over a given geographical location known as the State (Hoffman and Graham, 2015). A state is regarded as one of the oldest facets of politics. Many scholars have alluded to the fact that there exist significant variations in trying to establish the definition of the word State. However, according to Hoffman and Graham (2015), “States is a political association that establishes sovereign jurisdiction within defined territorial borders and exercises authority through a set of permanent institutions.” Therefore, for it to fully meet the threshold and become functional, it ought to have certain elements. For example, the United States of America is composed of a legitimate government with the presence of both economic and military power. Besides, it has institutions that have vested in the maintenance of law and order such as police, courts, and prisons. Also, it has had a milestone in its bureaucracy systems and public services like healthcare.
Power and its International Relations
In the spirit of remaining authoritative and legitimate in international fonts, every nation desires to attain power, maintain and utilize it effectively. Over time, power has been used as a tool for achieving the government’s interest. The ability of a country to stamp its authority is not found in its geographical proximity or wealth capacity. In essence, it is not only composed of the amount of raw material, the sum of the total population, and quantitative factors. Instead, it’s the ability to influence others’ behavior geared towards its benefit. States such as the USA and USSR perfectly enjoy this sovereignty over other nations because of its military strength (Hey putnum and Robert, 2017). Power comes with the capacity to rule. Therefore, rulers do not earn acceptance from their counterparts through exercising coercion and intimidation. It is in the understanding that such states recognize the right of rulers to use power over them.
The political effect on the sovereignty of nations globally tends to draw a lot of concern about their independence as regards to relationships with other states. When exercising its power, the State should have the capability to act autonomously and independently on the international fronts. Ideally, it should have a defined government and territory that is not porous, a permanent population, and the capacity to enter into relations with other counties. For example, the State should have a strict regime. Liberal and democratic countries such as Japan, France, Canada, Spain, and the UK have a joint power exercise. Similarly, Theories of these states revolve around concepts such as authority, legitimacy, and sovereignty.
The interest of State in the Execution of Power
Every State enjoys and possesses power in a different unique way, but to whose benefit is this power exercised? Power enables sovereign states to have the capacity and strength jealously protect their resources while they achieve national’s interests. Therefore, it acts as a symbol that influences how it interacts with the international community in terms of varied opinions, behavior, and direction of events. Within the global systems of authority, many states have a significant amount of power. Subsequently, they are categorized as small, middle, regional, vast, or superpowers. The G7, G20 , NATO Quint, and the BRICS nations are classified as states with considerable influence within the international community. Furthermore, individuals driving these political agendas are grouped as pluralism, Elitism, Marxism (Hague, Harrop, and McCormick 2016).
Pluralism– contemporary society is made up of different kinds of competing groups whose interests vary significantly. The concept is characterized by groups of people who believe to be equal. Thus they are capable of making their voices heard since they have no dominant social interests. Therefore, the interest of the government is to act as a neutral arbiter whenever there is a dispute. In the 19th century, the United States acted as a prominent example of this kind of authority (Ferdinand, Oostindie & Veenendaal, 2019). The dominant group of cultures believed to have a strong sporting culture, nationalism, and vibrant artistic culture incorporated with small groups of individuals. Despite its unique cultural norms and diversity, the small group is also recognized by the government of the day.
Elitism– the government interest can also be geared towards an elite of a group of people in society. They stamp their authority and dominancy because of the resources they possess. Ideally, elites may come from a political party, religious group, military power, or form part of economic elite individuals. Whereas they can influence the government’s decision-making process, the resources they have do not necessarily help them secure power. However, this kind of influencers is both beneficial and harmful to society. On the positive side, they can boost the government with crucial resources in hence keeping its economy afloat. On the contrary, they might take advantage of the incapability of the State to run some projects; hence in the process finance illicit activities like terrorism. Eventually this might turn into human trafficking and extreme economic downsizing. Garner, Ferdinand, & Lawson (2020) asserts that countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, and Vietnam bared the brand of allowing elitism to take root in their society. The showcasing of ‘charismatic’ authority based on the influence of particular personality in the nineteenth century almost caused these countries an economic recession.
Marxism- it is a system based on the governments leaning towards regulation of capitalism. Hence the states interest in power exercising is essentially protecting it from extreme exploitation from the elite groups while keen in stabilizing economy within the system. The states wealth and administration power is assumed to be equally distributed across the working class. The affairs of the State are kept intact with no interference of culture and religious activities emanating from society. Marxism’s political system is characterized by with a single ideology and political party that runs the all states affairs via its multiple firms. Today, there still exist nations exercising Marxism, such as Cuba, and the People’s Republic of China (Engels, 2020).
Besides using the states theories to influence and exercise power, the following interest also suffice; physical, psychological and economic power.
Physical power-The State can also exhibit interest through physical power in the form of military strength. Within the State, the government may enjoy political power owing to the subordination of the military system to the political commandant. Undoubtedly, states such as USA and USSR enjoy such privilege because of their military superpower worldwide (Engels, 2020). However, in the event the system doesn’t work the military commandant is at liberty to take away this political power. In order to safeguard this power, separation of military wings is vital. For example the three wings in India have not been provided with any unified leadership.
Psychological power-It is phenomenon that that uses propaganda and power over public interest. Propaganda is symbolic since it appeals to men’s emotions. However it could be used for good or evil depending on its motivation and application. On the other hand the morale of people doing psychological research abroad and other government sectors is boosted. The technique is tactfully deployed in India. Other rival nations are soothed in growing their military power as a result of impressive locally made weapons and tanks made by the Republic Day parade. Besides, psychological power technique is used by India in weaken their opponents through spreading hate and disloyalty among its populous therefore becoming unpatriotic to their governments. Also, countries like Russia, China, England, among others, play a host of all Indian external radio services (Hey Putnam and Robert, 2017).
Economic power-Having the ability to control the behavior of people’s consumption rate in other nations is what constitutes economic power. Countries that command high industrialization and trade like India have an economic edge over developing countries such as Bhutan and Nepal (Hague, Harrop and McCormick, 2016). In the Western Europe and japan trade has been made possible thanks to the smooth political ties and good economic trade between them and the US. The trend is seen across all developing countries thus developing not only strong ties but remarkable mutual interest between these governments.
Conclusion
The paper has delved into unearthing the implication of both power and politics in different states. Evidently, the sovereignty of these states are at some point affected significantly by the interests propagated by individuals behind this agendas. The essay has also examined the various avenues whose interests the State exercise its power. It has become apparent that governments have varied interest when it comes to power execution. Elements such as pluralism, elitism and Marxism tend to play an integral role in this context. Besides, external concepts like economic power and state military are bound to affect the State’s political power and sovereignty when not exercised with caution.
References
Engels, F. (2020). On the Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Accessed from: https://readingfromtheleft.com/PDF/EngelsOrigin.pdf (last accessed 30 April 2020).
Ferdinand, M., Oostindie, G., & Veenendaal, W. (2019). A global comparison of non-sovereign island territories: the search for ‘true equality.’ Island Studies Journal (ahead of print).
Garner, R., Ferdinand, P., & Lawson, S. (2020). Introduction to politics. Oxford University Press, USA.
Hague, R., Harrop, M., and McCormick, J. (2016). Comparative Government and Politics: An Introduction. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hey Putnam, Robert D. (2017). The Comparative Study of Political Elites. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Hoffman, J., and Graham, P. (2015). Introduction to Political Theory. London: Routledge.