State (polity)

About: State (polity) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 36954 publications have been published within this topic receiving 719822 citations. The topic is also known as: state (polity).

Building "State" Autonomy in Brazil, 1930-1964

Abstract: It no longer seems controversial to say that governments can sometimes and do sometimes act to carry out the autonomous preferences of officials. Analysts have observed that government leaders at times initiate major policy shifts without regard for the demands of important political and economic groups, that they follow their own economic ideologies, and that they build coalitions to support their preferred policies and ideologies.' In the absence of any developed theory to account for these observations, the ability of officials independently to formulate and execute policy has acquired the label state autonomy. Discussions of the causes of state autonomy have tended to focus on macro-level conditions that might lead officials to form independent preferences or that reduce the ability of societal groups to exert influence. Authors writing from the dependency perspective, for example, link the emergence of an autonomous state to the failure of the national bourgeoisie to achieve hegemony.2 Theda Skocpol and Ellen Kay Trimberger argue that states will act autonomously in order to mobilize national defense against external military threats when traditional rulers have failed to do so.3 The shortcoming of these macro-level explanations is that they describe virtually all developing countries. The hegemonic bourgeoisie has always been a rare and fragile creature; it has not so far found a congenial niche anywhere in the contemporary developing world. Scarcely any part of the earth has escaped the international threats of colonialism, war, and economic imperialism during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and few traditional rulers have proved able to mount an effective defense. Thus, if the macro-level speculations about the causes of state autonomy are correct, virtually all states in developing countries should be autonomous. These theories thus fail to explain the vastly differing degrees of autonomy actually observed in developing countries. Nevertheless, they offer a starting point for an explanation. In the face of persistent military and economic threats to sovereignty and well-being, elites committed to change-that is, elites who have preferences at variance with the interests of groups favored by the status quo-do come to power with some frequency in developing countries, as the macrolevel theories would predict. Autonomous actions by these elites, however, occur only infrequently because the efforts of such elites to act on their own preferences often fail. If elites with independent preferences reach power but often fail in their attempts to implement their preferences, explanations of state autonomy need to give some attention to the development of the capacity to carry out these preferences. "State" autonomy implies that the officials who constitute the state not only have preferences which are more than simple reflections of the preferences of powerful societal groups, but also that they have the capacity, in terms of organizational cohesion, expertise, and extractive and coercive ability, to carry out decisions based on their preferences. Such capacity may depend either on characteristics of the organizations to which officials belong or on attributes of the government itself. In countries governed by Communist parties

Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity

Abstract: This exciting new study provides an original and provocative expose of the crisis of global capitalism in its multiple dimensions - economic, political, social, ecological, military, and cultural. Building on his earlier works on globalization, William I. Robinson discusses the nature of the new global capitalism, the rise of a globalized production and financial system, a transnational capitalist class, and a transnational state and warns of the rise of a global police state to contain the explosive contradictions of a global capitalist system that is crisis-ridden and out of control. Robinson concludes with an exploration of how diverse social and political forces are responding to the crisis and alternative scenarios for the future.

Transformative Military Occupation: Applying the Laws of War and Human Rights

Abstract: Within the existing framework of international law, is it legitimate for an occupying power, in the name of creating the conditions for a more democratic and peaceful state, to introduce fundamental changes in the constitutional, social, economic, and legal order within an occupied territory? This is the central question addressed here. To put it in other ways, is the body of treaty-based international law relating to occupations, some of which is more than a century old, appropriate to conditions sometimes faced today? Is it still relevant to cases of transformative occupation—i.e., those whose stated purpose (whether or not actually achieved) is to change states that have failed, or have been under tyrannical rule? Is the newer body of human rights law applicable to occupations, and can it provide a basis for transformative acts by the occupant? Can the United Nations Security Council modify the application of the law in particular cases? Finally, has the body of treaty-based law been modified by custom?

The challenge of pluralism : church and state in five democracies

Abstract: Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 The United States: Strict Separation Chapter 4 The Netherlands: Principled Pluralism Chapter 5 Australia: Pragmatic Pluralism Chapter 6 England: Partial Establishment Chapter 7 Germany: Partnership and Autonomy Chapter 8 Church and State in Pluralistic Democracies

International Law Immunities and the International Criminal Court

Abstract: The tension between the protection of human rights and the demands of state sovereignty is reflected in the debate on whether state officials should be held responsible in external fora for international crimes committed while in office. This debate involves the interplay between two branches of international law. Firstly, there is the well-established law according immunities to the state and its agents from the jurisdiction of other states (state and diplomatic immunities). This law proceeds from notions of sovereign equality and is aimed at ensuring that states do not unduly interfere with other states and their agents. On the other hand, there are those newer principles of international law that are based on humanitarian values and define certain types of conduct as crimes under international law (international criminal law). One of the challenges in this latter area has been to develop international and national mechanisms by which individuals who commit these crimes may be held responsible. Since states often fail to institute domestic prosecution of their own officials and agents alleged to have committed international crimes, renewed attention has been paid to the possibility of subjecting state agents to prosecution in foreign domestic courts or in international courts. For such prosecution in foreign domestic courts to take place, it will usually have to be shown (1) that those courts have jurisdiction over crimes committed abroad by foreigners against foreigners (i.e..universalorquasi-universal jurisdiction),and (2) that such jurisdiction extends to state agents (i.e., that international law immunities are unavailable). Recent years have seen a significant increase in attempts to institute prosecutions for alleged international crimes in the national courts of states other than that where the acts occurred. However, it has not proved easy to establish the two propositions identified above. Indeed, it has become apparent that the views that states possess universal jurisdiction over international crimes committed abroad and that incumbent and former state officials are subject to foreign domestic prosecution for such crimes are by no means universally held.