Evolution of the State

The evolution of the State has varied significantly due to natural and cultural differences across regions, resulting in diverse forms of government. The article emphasises that understanding these stages of evolution is crucial for comprehending the development of the State.

Evolution of the State:

The State is neither the result of an artificial creation nor can it be said to have originated at a particular period of time. It is, on the other hand, the product of growth, a slow and steady evolution extending over a long period of time and embracing many elements in its development, prominent among which are kinship, religion, property and the need for self-defences from within and without.

The starting point, however, is the family and the germs of governmental organization are found in the family discipline. The transition from’ the family to the State must have been long and chequered. The first distinctively political unit was the tribe In the days of nomadic habit the organization of the tribe was sufficient to satisfy its needs.

But when their travelling days were over, a settled life created new needs of organization. Once the population was territorially integrated with fixed abodes, their common interests developed and the original kinship tie gave way to a new territorial tie.

The original kinship, in fact, never disappeared. What actually occurred was a fusion of the two principles, kinship and common interests emerging out of the life of togetherness in the shape of territorial kinship on a common land.

But the process of the evolution of the State has not been uniform. Natural, environmental and temperamental differences of the people spread over different areas of the universe presented different conditions under which the State emerged at different times and places. As a result of these differences, very different types of States, with various forms and patterns, have co-existed and co-exist even now. It is, however, instructive to mark the following stages through which the State has evolved.

The Oriental Empire:

Roaming tribes generally settled down in regions where nature was bountiful and responsive to the needs of man. The early nomadic tribes in search of pasture lands made the fertile valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Yellow River, and the Yang The their homelands and, as a result of conquest and enslavement of the weaker tribes, established the earliest of States known to history. It was in these valleys that civilization took its birth and kingdoms and empires flourished. These States were manned by hereditary monarchs who combined in themselves political and religious power. Law was what religion sanctioned and the king permitted. The subjects knew nothing about their rights and liberty. They were only recipients of orders and respectful submission to orders was their first and last duty.

Gettell says that the Oriental States

represented to their people only the slave driver and the tax collector.

The earliest States were essentially power and property States, built on wealth and military force. They attracted the jealousy of the nomadic tribes beyond or of each other, and had little stability, the conqueror being conquered in his turn. Sometimes, the breakup came from within through the revolt of some subordinate official, who either made his province into an independent State or actually overthrew and replaced his sovereign lord.

“Expansion by annexation, then disruption and reconstitution, either from within or by conquest from the outside,” remarks Solatu, “were the normal process that marked those early empires.”

It must not, of course, be assumed that those States were primitive and barbarous. Most people know about the scientific knowledge of the Babylonians and Egyptians, their division of time, and their mathematical calculations. The code of Hammurabi regulated every aspect of life and revealed the existence of a highly organized, prosperous society, with a carefully worked out hierarchy of functions. The Sumerians are said to have established the systems of rotation of office, annual appointments and election by secret ballot. The Aryans were familiar with the institutions of constitutional monarchy, bicameralism, the office of the Speaker and various other devices necessary for a representative form of government.

Greek City-State:

The next type of State development was the Greek City-State arising in Greece after 1000 B.C. In fact, the study of Political Science may be said to begin with the Greek City-States. The Greek City-States were the first communities to have given conscious thought to “politics.” Although the Greek political institutions were probably not unique, yet they presented the most fully developed instance of a way of life and” government of which records have come to us.

When the Greeks settled in Europe, they were divided into local communities organized on the primitive model according to clans and tribes. Each clan and tribe occupied distinct valleys and islands into which Greece was broken up by sea and hills. These valleys and islands, over the lapse of time, became centres of political life sharply different from the Oriental Empires. From the history of the Greek City-States, and especially from the history of Athens, we can trace how the tribal administration gradually gave place to the local principle in government, and how the local community was developed into the City-a new political type of governance. The Greek City was a true State in the modern sense of the term in which the political, economic, intellectual, and moral life of the people was focused on the central city.

With the Greek City-State two ideas were integral. Each City was a politically organized State independent of others and proud of its independence. The Greeks never thought, and perhaps it was foreign to their nature, to merge their identity in any other City and to make a large unit of political administration. Secondly, the Greek City-State was deliberately limited in size and population.

According to Greek political philosophy, the concentration of political, social and intellectual life at one central city was possible only when the State was small. Aristotle put definite limitations on the population and size of the State, He held that neither ten nor a hundred thousand could make a good State, because both these numbers were extremes. He laid down the general principle that the number should be neither too large nor too small. It should be large enough to be seif sufficing and small enough to be well governed.

The Greek City State developed to the stage of a conscious effort directed to the realization of liberty and equal laws. It was a great experiment not only in the art of self government, but also in quest of virtue. To be a citizen of the State did not merely imply, in the Greek view, the payment of taxes and the casting of a vote. It implied a direct and active cooperation in all the functions of civil and military life.

A citizen was normally a soldier, a judge and a member of the governing assembly; and all his public duties he performed not through a deputy but in person; the gods of\the city were his gods, and he must attend festivals. The State was, thus, identified with society. The Greek City was at once a State, church and school and it embraced the whole life of man.

Since the object of the State was to secure a good life for all citizens, all forms of State control calculated to secure that end were considered proper and justified, and no line was drawn between matters political, moral, religious and economic.

Burke’s description of the State as

a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection

was the real life of the Greek City-State, and Athens at the height of her fame may be regarded as the embodiment of all that was most advanced in Greek political ideas.

The City-States of Greece were typical examples of direct democracy in the modem sense of the term. All citizens were directly associated with the governance of the State and it really meant the power of the people. But forms of government, according to Greek philosophers, were subject to cyclic changes. Monarchy was the first and in time it gave way to aristocracy. Aristocracy was succeeded by oligarchy. Then came polity and, finally, democracy. Democracy was held to be rule by the mob, an intolerable confusion which was succeeded, again, by monarchy and, thus, ran the course of cyclical political changes

The Greek City-States fundamentally differed from the Oriental Empires. But there were snags, too, in the Greek political life. Their love of independence verging on separatism ultimately resulted in their collapse, when a powerful state arose in the north under Philip of Macedon. They were also wanting in what may be called the submissive virtues patience, self-denial, and the spirit of compromise and tolerance.

Their self-will and lack of disciplined life embittered the faction fight in their Cities between the rich and the poor, nobles and commons, friends of Athens and friends of Sparta. The works of the Greek historians and political thinkers clearly show that the Greek society of their time was not in a sound state.

The philosophers were constantly returning to the question, what was virtue, and how it might be taught. And they looked on this question as one of immediate and even urgent importance to society. They felt that their countrymen were thinking too much of liberty, and far too little of discipline. And they foresaw that a people in this state of mind must fall before that power whose people were better disciplined than the Greeks: The Macedonians, and after them the Romans, proved the truth of this forecast.

The Greeks were also wanting in humanity. They made liberty the exclusive right of + superior people and denied to others what they valued for themselves the most. Even the wisest of the Greeks regarded slavery as a natural institution and they never dreamt that civilized life was possible without slavery. Athens, for example, had only about 20,000 citizens who obtained leisure for their public duties by turning over all the rough work to a much larger body of slaves. Slavery is incompatible with civilization and, as such, with democracy. A democratic society is one in which all enjoy equal rights and privileges without any barriers of class distinction. The brotherhood of man is its basis ‘and all its members stand equal in the common fraternity. This means faith in man as a man and his personality.

The Greek City-State was an all-inclusive partnership in every aspect of human existence, But this broad inclusiveness made the Greeks neglect one of the, most essential of political problems, that of clearly defining the functions of the State and separating it from various other associations which composed society. The failure to distinguish the State from the community,

Says MacIver,

left Athenian liberty itself a monument broken and defaced. The all-inclusive State, whether it dimensions are those of the city or nation, cannot draw the line between law and custom between enforcement and spontaneity, between the conditions of order and those of culture. So long as the theory is accepted that the State is omnicompetent the e will be confusion and suppression….Under such a theory no form of life is safe religion, no opinion, unless its adherents control the government. So the very diversity which enriches a civilization when recognized as existing of right, creates under tie principle of the universal partnership those violent and factious oppositions which on the contrary destroy it.

The Roman Empire:

Rome was originally just one of the numerus little States which had been born in Italy, in much the same was and for the same geographical reasons as Greece. But after 500 B.C. The Italian City States were united with Rome at the head. As there were fewer geographically barriers in Italy than in Greece, unification was more easily attained.

There are three definite periods which mark the growth of the Roman State. First, There was the monarchic City-State. The royal period lasted from the foundation of Rome about 753 B.C. to 510 B.C. At the head of the state was the king who was at once the hereditary and patriarchal chief of the people, the chief priest of the community, and the elected ruler of the State.

On the death of the king, the sovereignty of the state reverted to the Council of Elders. The Elders actually named the new king subject to the approval of the assembled people. The vote of the people was ratified by the approval of gods, as given in the ceremony of inauguration.

The powers of the king were described as “imperium” and were technically unlimited, both in times of peace and war.  But there were two customary limitation to the powers. First ,the King was expected to consult the Council of Elders and to follow there advice, Secondly, all cases involving , capital punishment were submitted to the people for there final decision.

During the monarchical period only the nabbing called the patricians, had a share in political authority. The landless, propertyless common people, known as the plebians, had no share in the governance of the country and the enjoyed no political rights. But later on they acquired some privileges.

Monarchy in Rome came to an end in 510 B.C. in the same way as when the Greeks expelled their “tyrants.” It was substituted by a Republic. Civil and military powers were vested in two officers called the Consuls, elected annually. But it did not mean political rights for all citizens. The plebians were subject to political, economic ang social disabilities. They could not hold any public office.

The patricians had entire control of the administration of law. The public land and pastures were allotted only to them. The plebians were also legally prohibited from marrying among the patricians. The former struggled for the removal of their disabilities and they eventually succeeded in getting all the three disabilities removed one by one.

The constitution of the Republican Rome rested on four principles: divided authority; a short tenure Of office for magistrates, the people were the final authority on all important matters; and the military authority of all magistrates was limited. But by the middle of the second century these principles were very often violated and the Republic came into disrepute.

Division of authority disappeared and despotism began to reign. By this time Rome had extended her dominions over vast and distant lands. The Republic gave way to an Empire and the form of government adapted to a City-State was found incongruous with the administrative needs of the time.

The Roman Empire at one stage extended over England, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, the Balkans, Grece, Asia Minor, the whole of the Mediterranean coast and its hinterland. The governors sent to rule the distant parts of the Empire enjoyed wide discretionary powers and were practically independent of the Home Government. The only check on their authority was the possibility of impeachment at home on retirement. But it was just a nominal check.

In Rome itself a despotism of the extreme type was established. The Emperor became all-powerful and his word was law. The popular assemblies eased to function and the old political maxim that the-ruler received his power from the people gave place to the Divine Origin Theory. The authority of the Emperor was interpreted to have divinely originated and for a time he was worshipped as God.

When Christianity was accepted as State religion, the Divine Origin Theory was explained to mean that the Emperor was the deputy of God on earth and unflinching obedience to his authority was obedience to God. In this way, the Republican Roman City-State became the centralized autocratic world empire, thereby shifting the emphasis from the Greek ideals of liberty, democracy, and local independence to the Romans’ ideals of unity, order, universal law, and cosmopolitanism.

The World Roman Empire at the height of its political glory made some very important: contributions to political institutions. The Romans were not a brilliant people. They did but little work in art and philosophy, but they possessed in full measure the practical qualities in which the Greeks were deficient. They were patient, methodical, skilful arranging compromises and in devising legal forms. The Greeks pursued their ideal of “liberty and equal laws” disregarding authority and discipline.

The Romans held fast to authority, in the family and in the State. At the same time, they were ready to concede rights to all kinds of subject persons by extending to them the right of full Roman citizenship, While they were reducing one country after another to subjection and order, they were also developing their law on rational principles.

The Romans studied the institutions and customs of the heterogeneous people over whom their authority extended and found a common element of equity and convenience for all. This Law of Nations, as they called it, was a great step forwards which widened the notions of lawyers and statesmen. They also applied the Greek notion of the Law of Nature to their legal system.

But the Roman Empire could not endure long. Among the causes which led to her decline and downfall were the sacrifice of individual liberty for the sake of securing unity, the soulless efficiency which characterized her administration, the moral depravity of the upper classes, devastating pestilence, the unsound economic basis of the empire, failure to make rules for the succession of emperors, religious disintegration, and the invasion of barbarian hordes.

In a word, the weakness of the Roman Imperial system was that it remained too Roman, too centralized, too much dominated by the desires and interests of Rome, too dependent on the personality of the emperor of the day.

Though Rome fell, yet she gave to the world the first well-organized and well-governed State. She also contributed importantly to many systems of law and her influence may be seen the development of international law and world organization like the United Nations. Colonial administration is another contribution of the Roman Empire.

The Feudal State:

It was on the ruins of the Roman Empire that the so-called feudal type of society came to be established. The tottering imperial rule gave rise to-the growth of new principalities headed by the landed aristocracy. There was another factor which gave a fillip to this tendency. The Teutonic barbarians who overran the Roman Empire were wedded to the ideals of individualism, liberty and local self-government. The Roman ideals of administration, on the other hand, were concentration of authority, uniformity of law, and a centralized administration. Feudalism was an admixture of two opposite forces.

Feudalism is the name given to the form of society and government which prevailed in Europe from 476-1500 A.D. According to the feudal theory, the Kings were the vassals of the Emperor who, in his turn, was the vassal of God. They received their dominions _as fiefs to be held on condition of loyalty to their lord.

Each King, then, divided his dominions into sufficiently large parts and granted each part to a noble called the tenant-in-chief, on the condition of loyalty and Service to the King. He continued to hold the land so long as he fulfilled his obligations. After his death the rights and duties of vassalage passed on to the heirs of the lord. The tenants-in-chief divided their respective lands into smaller units and gave them to their vassals on similar conditions.

This process of division and transference continued to many stages. At all stages the vassal owed his lord fidelity which was promised by him at the ceremony of homage: The vassal came before his lord, bare-headed and unarmed, and declared on his knees that he became his man. The lord, then, kissed him and raised him from his knees. Then the vassal swore fidelity (fealty) to his lord.”

The essential characteristics of feudalism may be summarised as :

  1. the grant of land by a lord to a vassal who held it so long as he fulfilled his obligations of loyalty and service.
  2. the existence of close personal ties between the lord and the vassal, and
  3. the lord of an estate exercised the full or partial rights of sovereignty over all inhabitants living thereon.

The estate of the lord, big or small, was called a fief or feud, and, as such, the tern feudalism.

The obligations of the vassal to his lord were military service normally limited to forty days in a year payment of rent to the lord for his land and house: work at the lord’s fields for a certain number of days in a year payment to be made on occasions the knighting of the lord’s eldest son, the marriage of his daughter, the ransoming of his person if the lord was made a prisoner of war relief or payment made when a new heir succeeded to the fief payment of flues when the vassal alienated the land to another party, lodging and hospitality to the lord and his followers on his journeys or hunting expeditions, and attendance at the lord’s court.

The duties of the lord were to protect his vassal and to avenge his wrongs defend his rights and to secure him justice in all matters.

The chief characteristic of feudalism was the dispersal of governing power among hundreds of petty authorities both lay and ecclesiastical, all confined to small areas. But the feudal State was not a State in the real sense of the term. There was neither common citizenship nor common law. There was no central authority in the State and the loyalty of the people was divided at every step.

The individual owed his allegiance to his immediate landlord and only through him to the King. The feudal system, in short, was confusion rough organized. Out of this confusion emerged the superior authority of the Church, resulting in a deep and continuous conflict between the Spiritual and Temporal authorities.

Absence of central authority, division of the loyalty of the people at every step, their religious infatuation, and the inconceivably vast property under the possession of the Church made it possible for the Pope to claim superiority over all the Princes. The Church had, in fact, taken over some function which legitimately belonged to the State. A separate system of law and courts developed for the clergy.

Figgis has aptly observed

In the Middle Ages the Church was not a State, if was the State; the State or rather the civil authority… was merely the police department of the Church.

The Nation-State:

Feudalism was only a temporary scaffolding or framework of order. It gave to the people of Europe some order, but a true national life could not grow on such a system. Many factors contributed to its decline. The general course of events had been that powerful lords subdued less powerful ones, and small kingdoms emerged by successful conquest or lucky marriage, and by the consolidation of an authority that was generally welcomed by the masses, if not by the more important lords, whose powers were gradually limited by the new monarchs.

The Renaissance and the Reformation accelerated the pace of this change. The Tudors in England took advantage of the situation and demonstrated to the European countries how the people could unite and progress under a strong and centralised authority. The ties of unity were further fostered by the sentiments of nationality.

Britain’s insular position helped the British in attaining the full stature of an organized and conscious nationhood. The attempt of the English, in the early fifteenth century, to dominate France roused the national spirit in that country too.

A similar awakening, due to various causes, had come in Spain and Portugal. The sixteenth century ‘saw the Danish and Swedish peoples also similarly organized.

A new type of State, thus, emerged. The old concept of the State was replaced by the State based on bands of nationality strengthened by natural boundaries. A national State, with a distinct and separate territory of its own, gave rise to the modem theories of sovereignty and equality of States, The nation State also helped the growth of international law.

The nation States began their careers as absolute monarchies. When Papal authority was set aside, and feudal rights were giving way, it was natural for the people to cling to the central institution in which their political life was embodied. The growing national consciousness of the people had made them realize the need for consolidation.

But consolidation demanded concentration of authority, Protestantism, too, while limiting the authority to a territorial State, placed the spiritual and civil authority in the hands of the King. The political thought of this period also supported absolutism. Machiavelli freed the ruler even from the limitations imposed by public morality. The theory of Divine Right of Kings championed the cause of absolute monarchy.

But the absolute authority of the Kings could not remain unchallenged for long. The next stage in the development of nation-State was the conflict between the King and the people, The people demanded their rights and privileges. They began to realize that power was ultimately theirs, if they wished to wield it. It was the rise of democracy and the aspirations for a representative system of government. Democracy brought with it three main principles; equality, popular sovereignty and nationality.

The manifestation of the first principle was found in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, drawn up by the French Revolutionaries in 1789, Ever since 1789, this principle has been at work – emancipating and elevating the hitherto unfree and downtrodden orders of society, and removing civil, religious and race disabilities from disqualified classes in the State. The Declaration of the Rights of Man also embraced the concept of popular sovereignty. It means, in simple words, that the people are the source of all authority, and law is the expression of their will.

Finally, the principle of nationality requires that the people, who feel they are one, are free to choose their own form of government and to manage their affairs in their own way. Here, again, it may be stated that the French Revolution w: primarily responsible for the revival of the national: sentiment.

The advance of democracy wrecked absolutism and brought about a great improvement in the political customs of the civilized nations. The selfishness of the ruling families was checked and methods of government became milder and fairer. Laws were made with due consideration of the interests of the people, and opinions were freely brought to the test of discussion. Another characteristic of the democratic State had been the pursuit of the policy of Laissez faire in the field of industry, trade and commerce.

This policy to let people alone had certain obvious results, First, there had been a great expansion in enterprise and invention. Secondly, there had been a movement of diffusion owing to economic freedom. Finally, there had been a marked tendency in concentration both of capital and land.

The modern State is a nation-State and it has become the basic pattern throughout the world, It actualizes the principle of self-determination, or the right of each nation to govern itself. Loyalty in the nation-State is expressed to the nation, or, in other words, to the people.

A nation-State, accordingly, places emphasis on the ethnic, if possible, and geographic unity of the people. It adopts all means at its disposal to preserve the integrity of its natural frontiers and tries to maintain a homogeneous and united people This hag been the course of the development of the State during the past five centuries

Colonial Empires:

Despite the emergence of democratic States In Europe and their emphasis on ethnic unity and natural boundaries, there had been a marked tendency towards the development of overseas empires. It is estimated that about half of the population of the world spread over more than half of the surface of the earth had been under the suzerainty of the imperial powers either as colonics, or protectorates, or spheres of influence.

Imperialism may be described as the most impressive achievement and the most momentous world problem of our age. Competition for these colonial lands was one of the potent factors for the conflicts and wars among States, which charactered the first half of the twentieth century.

Subjugation of independent peoples to the great powers is incompatible with the theory of democracy and self-determination of peoples. Subject peoples, dispossessed of their political privileges and authority and subjected to economic disabilities, made insistent demands for their self-determination and independence. Within the last five decades the British Empire has become a “Commonwealth of Nations.

Most of the rich Dutch Colonial Empire was lost when Indonesia became independent and a Republic. The events in Africa especially have. proved to be the last phase in the history of the Colonial Empires.

Future of the State:

The process of the evolution of the State is not yet complete. With the liquidation of the Colonial Empires, the former narrow ideas of nationalism are also breaking down and are now being replaced by the idea of internationalism. Developments in the means of communication and transport, expansion of international trade and establishment of various international organisations have further given a stimulus to the movement for internationalism.

One may even say that if our fathers thought nationally, we think internationally. Suggestions have also been made for a world-State on the basis of a world federation. The late Professor Laski was a devoted champion of World Federation.

He said that the nation-State was not the final unit of social organisation and that the pressure of world forces had already made, the sovereignty of the State obsolete for any creative purpose. In his recent book, Union Now, C.A. Streit visualised a federal union of the various democratic nation-States. Like Laski, Streit, too, outlines the scheme and method of a world government of the federal type.

Federation may be the solution of the present world politics. It is a device which satisfies the claims of nationalities. As a form of government, it is likely to solve the problems of both nationalism and internationalism. But a World federal union is an impossible ideal unless the States change their political and economic attitudes and the tottering imperial powers voluntarily relinquish their imperial authority. The Anarchists and the Communists, too, shall have to change their attitude towards the State, as both aim to establish a stateless society. The future of the State, under the circumstances, is difficult to predict and time alone will reveal the shape of things to come.

Evolution in State Activity:

We have travelled far from the oriental despotic empires to the democratic modern State. We have also ventured to speculate on the future of the State and concluded that the process of evolution is not yet complete. But the change in the forms and patterns of States has not been confined to outward forms, or to the principles on which they are based. It is no less marked in the functions the State performs, and the nature of its problems.

If we just glance through the work of the government of any modem State, we find that the majority of items in its programme, for example, the education and protection of children, guarantees for workers in industry, cultural activities and elaborate national economic policies, would have been inconceivable to be within the province of mediaeval governments.

The new concept of the Welfare State and the mechanism of planning demolish the old theories and narrow the fine distinction made between the State and society.

The functions of the State now embrace the entire life of the nation and inevitably demand from its members greater rectitude and sacrifice for future prosperity and happiness. The modem State, therefore, depends far more on the sense of individual responsibility of all its members.

We, of course, take for granted the neutrality of the State in matters of religion and expression of opinion. The recent rise of communal fundamentalism is, however, a sad development in the process of the evolution of the State as it is antithesis of secularism which is, generally speaking, the hallmark of the modern State which is plural in character.

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