A Critical Survey of the Modern State, Part 4

By the 19th century, natural rights theory had come under attack from many different angles and fell into disfavor. Providing perhaps the most radical divergence from the natural right, compact theory of statehood was GWF Hegel and his historicism. Hegel placed reason in a primary role infused in history unfolding in time. Right became subservient to the rational will of historical progress. Hegel believed that by his time, history had rationally created the “Germanic Realm” of regimes, the modern state.

Hegel’s strict historicism saw history as a Spirit coming to know itself and unfolding through different stages of consciousness over time. This “absolute” or “universal” Spirit possesses pure rationality because the rational can only be defined in terms of the Spirit itself and its progress. The Spirit progresses through time by working itself out dialectically. Through the conflict of the thesis, as the Spirit presently exists, and the antithesis within it, the Spirit can progress to a new synthesis as the latest expression of history. The Spirit develops rational self-consciousness by knowing itself through the conflict that reveals its next step.

At Hegel’s time, the state represented the fullest expression of the Spirit of that point. The state also thinks and knows itself; it has its own self consciousness (§257). The state has full rationality because it represents actuality of the absolute Spirit in the political realm. Individuals, rather than combining via natural right to create the state, find their rational expression in subjection of their wills to the fully rational will of the state. The state provides objectivity and universality to its individual members as they align with it. Reason is embodied in the state, and rationality comes to the members of the state as its interests are infused into the individual interests (§258). By willing the objective purposes of the state, individuals become reasonable creatures in accordance with the truly rational Spirit of history.

A Critical Survey of the Modern State, Part 3

As the modern state became the reality of modern politics, Hobbes' theory of the naturally sovereign state was enacted in different forms. Many thinkers after Hobbes held that reason also determined natural rights for each man beyond just self-preservation. States developed in combinations and balances of sovereignty and rights. For thinkers, this was the the struggle of nature and reason. The 18th century regime changes in England, France, and the United States show different combinations, birthed in differing conceptions of sovereignty and rights within the modern state. Most importantly, they demonstrate that the modern state reduces the players in the quest for power to two: the state and the individual.

Montesquieu studied closely the development of the British regime in the 18th century. He found it to be the best expression of a free, modern state. Montesquieu thinks that republics best preserve freedom but must adapt to the modern world (or the modern state idea). The state, for Montesquieu, must respect the individual's rights. Montesquieu sees the laws and constitution as the best expression of reason for the state. Laws are not reasonable in themselves as acts of a state. Instead, the laws must preserve the freedom of the individual within them as reason dictates they best can (128). Reason, for Montesquieu, does not belong exclusively to the state, but the state should use it.

In order for republics to survive in modern statehood they must confederate to provide external strength in addition to free institutions (126). Montesquieu follows the natural right theory of government. In external relations, rights belong to the state in terms of natural desire for self-preservation (133). Just war is rooted in natural right and defense of the interest of the state itself. Enlightenment, the development of reason, leads to peace as states respect rights internally and externally. Thus, conquering states owe a debt to human nature (137). States cannot claim an exclusive rationality to overrun the rights of other states or people.

A Critical Survey of the Modern State, Part 2

While Machiavelli was penning his masterpiece, several rulers through Europe are already beginning to practice many of his ideas. These rulers agreed with Machiavelli that effective sovereignty necessitated total centralization of power.

In France under Louis XI, the power of dukes was finally broken in 1472 and the road to the modern state was paved. In Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella did the same. They drove out the Muslims and Jews and instituted the inquisition to root out all dissenters. In England, King Henry the VIII continued the centralization of power begin by his father. He dominated the other nobles and the parliament. He also increased his power by putting the Anglican church fully under his influence and separating from Rome in 1534.

As Machiavelli gathered from his study, the centralization of power was the key. On fact, he wrote the prince as manual for Lorenzo de Medici to do the same in Italy.

By the time Thomas Hobbes came into the scene in the early 1600s, the modern state had become well instituted in many places over a 100 years. Hobbes sought to provide a new explanation and justification for it that went deeper than raw power.

A Critical Survey of the Modern State, Part 1

"By justice a king builds up the land, but he who exacts gifts tears it down."
- A proverb of King Solomon

The modern state has become the standard of acceptable statehood in the 21st century world. The most basic main components of the modern state include a centralized political decision-making and administration that can be projected over a large area. Additionally, modern states have been coextensive with a distinct nation, forming nation-states.

With the ubiquity and permanence of modern state regimes, it may be surprising to some that this predominance has only been the case for the last few hundred years. The modern state has overcome all previous regimes when the have come head to head in wars because no other regime has been able to match the modern state in centralized organization and projecting power.

For those interested in the proper understanding of human right and authority and the implementation of justice, the problem of the modern state should raise some serious questions. Over the next couple weeks, I will be publishing a series of blogs excerpted from papers I have written for a previous study of the modern state up until the end of the 19th century when it really became entrenched in the international political order. Though this study, we will take a critical look at the philosophy and development that undergirds the modern state. We will have the opportunity to reflect on the following (and other) important questions:

1. What is the thought behind the moderns state? Does this thought fit into a Biblical understanding of statehood?

2. Is the modern state inherently at odds with a Biblical conception of states or can the two be reconciled in a reasonable manner?

3. How has the development of the modern state affected its appearance today? Can the modern

4. Does the modern state provide for the ethical ideal of justice? Can it provide justice? Is the modern state a perfect system? A useful but faulty one? An inherently corrupt one?

5. Is the modern state here to stay or will history provide for the development of a new (better or worse) political organization.

After our survey we will be able to come back and touch on these questions directly.

Any survey of the development of the modern state must begin with Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th Century Italian political theorist, and here we will begin as well:

The modern political project developed in response to the feudalistic regime structure of the Middle Ages. States began to assert sovereignty and centralize over against the influence the Catholic Church and feudal lords. But what exactly is sovereignty and how was it being centralized? Early theorists and scholars of the modern state attempted to develop answers to these questions. Power played a major part in answering these questions. The quest for power, its organization, and its use have long been the focal points of regimes. The modern state gives a new perspective on all these fronts.