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).

State Government and Economic Performance

Abstract: Working from a broadened historical perspective, and employing political and economic analysis, Paul Brace places the states and their economies in a more understandable light."A major work on what has been, until now, an understudied topic among political scientists."--James C. Garand, Editor, American Politics Quarterly."Perhaps the definitive work on state economic development policy to date."--Publius.

Sovereignty in World Ecopolitics

Abstract: Over the last three decades, the number of international environmental agreements into which states have entered has proliferated enormously. In the 1970s it was commonly assumed that the cumulative impact of such agreements would be to undermine the institution of state sovereignty. Recent evidence, however, suggests that the trend toward international cooperation in the face of “the seamless web of nature” has resulted in something more subtle but perhaps equally profound: a shift in the practices and norms of sovereignty. This essay looks at the impact of international environmental problem solving on state sovereignty. As a prelude, it reviews recent literature from international relations theory that substantiates a more differentiated view of sovereignty, separating it into three components: authority, control, and legitimacy. With this more complex notion of sovereignty as a backdrop, the review argues that the proliferation of environmental agreements has in fact led to a complex web of “sovereignty bargains” through which states have increased their sovereignty vis-a-vis certain dimensions even as they have suffered losses of sovereignty vis-a-vis others. Although more research remains to be done, environmental cooperation appears to have indeed altered the nature and practice of sovereignty in the contemporary world.

Sovereignty in Transition

Abstract: Sovereignty in Transition brings together a group of leading scholars from law and cognate disciplines to assess contemporary developments in the framework of ideas and the variety of institutional forms associated with the concept of sovereignty. Sovereignty has been described as the main organising concept of the international society of states - one which is traditionally central to the discipline and practice of both constitutional law and of international law. The volume asks to what extent,and with what implications, this centrality is challenged by contemporary developments that shift authority away from the state to new sub-state, supra-state and non-state forms. A particular focus of attention is the European Union, and the relationship between the sovereignty traditions of various member states on the one hand and the new claims to authority made on behalf of the European Union itself on the other are examined. The collection also includes contributions from international law, legal philosophy, legal history, political theory, political science, international relations and theology that seek to examine the state of the sovereignty debate in these disciplines in ways that throw light on the focal constitutional debate in the European Union.

Unlearning the Colonial Cultures of Planning

Abstract: Colonialization has never failed to provoke discussion and debate over its territorial, economic and political projects, and their ongoing consequences. This work argues that the state-based activity of planning was integral to these projects in conceptualizing, shaping and managing place in settler societies. Planning was used to appropriate and then produce territory for management by the state and in doing so, became central to the colonial invasion of settler states. Moreover, the book demonstrates how the colonial roots of planning endure in complex (post)colonial societies and how such roots, manifest in everyday planning practice, continue to shape land use contests between indigenous people and planning systems in contemporary (post)colonial states.

The State of Globalization Legal Plurality, Overlapping Sovereignties and Ambiguous Alliances between Civil Society and the Cunning State in India

Abstract: The successful global diffusion of formal democracy has gone hand in hand with the hollowing out of its substance. Ever more realms of domestic public policy are removed from the purview of national legislative deliberation and insulated from popular scrutiny. Rhetoric of accountability has accompanied the increasing unaccountability of international financial and trade organizations, transnational corporations as well as of states and NGOs. The new architecture of global governance characterized by legal plurality and overlapping sovereignties has facilitated a game of ‘passing the blame’ among these four actors. There is a curious ambivalence in current debates on globalization about the role of the state, which is conceived of as both central and marginal. Globalization is seen to be marked by the decline of both the external and the internal sovereignty of the state. Contrary to such a view, it will be argued here that the state is both an agent and an object of globalization. Although inadequate, the state remains indispensable as its laws and policies play a key role in transposing neo-liberal agendas to the national and local levels. If in the age of globalization and of economic Empire, political violence has been replaced by legal violence, resistance to it is also articulated in the language of law. This paper focuses on the dynamic of legal politics against impoverishment and dispossession caused by the new global designs of intellectual property protection, biodiversity conservation and privatization of the commons in India. The case studies in this paper point to the emergence of intertwined structures of rule, overlapping sovereignties and complex processes of legal transnationalization that have reconfigured the relations between law, state, and territoriality. If welfare states were concerned with the redistribution of risk and resources, cunning states seek to redistribute responsibility. Sensitivity to the history of colonialism would be an important corrective to the presentism and Westerncentrism of analyses of (legal) globalization.