The Psychology of the State - OOC Food for Thought

by **Jenrak** » Tue Nov 10, 2009 9:00 pm

The Psychology of the State
The study of statecraft and the world of the nation state

The study of the state is complex, at the least. At the least. The focus is that a state is multitude of things, but at the base, can be defined to be only one thing. But realistically, the idea of a nation state is a young entity that has only come into existence relatively early compared to Unions, Federations and Empires. It is a post-modernistic idea, still young and misunderstood. What I hope to entail, detail and describe to you, the reader, is the complexity of the state; it is not an empire. It cannot be an empire, otherwise it would be called one. But what makes a state a state? And if we're going to play a game called 'NationStates', then perhaps it would be good to define, explain and introduce those who may be uncertain to the study of the state.

The Psychology of the State is an important and real life branch of political study, and it encompasses one of the most staggering and unexpected political occurrences in the modern world. The Nationstate is a odd thing, really. It's a fiendish entity that has transpired again and again to prove dominant against its imperial cousin, the empire, and its fractured neighbors, the Federations. But how does it work? How is it built, what are the conditions, and what makes a good state and what does not? What is the society of states?

I hope that in this short article, you come from reading this a little more versed in how your nation runs. I want you to understand a bit more about the complex nature of the real world and just how difficult it can be to manage a country. Try the ideals and notions to your nation, and hopefully, you will benefit and gain some insight or understanding and hopefully this article will help those who may be new to understand the idea of statecraft. In fact, I hope that both veterans and newer players alike will come to understand and appreciate the work of states, and just how complex they truly are. I understand that many may not agree with what I say or what I will write, and I understand and respect those opinions. However, I would advise that you do not dismiss my article so quickly; the truth to the study of states in the international field is much more complex than one may think.

The State is three things.

Power is the ability to coerce with the threat to hurt

The World is anarchic. There is no single power. The only cohesion that keeps the state in line with another state is the threat of hard and soft power. It is the balance of power that keeps the cohesion of states.

But a stagnant balance of power can also lead to an imbalance. Here we are talking about alliances, multi-national organizations and empires. When states join together to combat or personify a singular entity, the balance of power becomes cyclically destructive. As alliances form to combat stronger opponents, the disparity in strength disappears, and so the question falls to the paradox again: who is the strongest? And in this situation, where both sides are seemingly equal, will there be the most likelihood of inter-state warfare. A small nation can rally those to aid it, for nationalism is the strongest political structure - it maintains cohesion within the state, for cohesion is its ideology. A small nation can turn the anarchic world of states against its aggressor.

A larger nation cannot. The balance of power means that any actions of the bystander is not because they wish to help the larger nation, but rather because if it was a larger nation, the bystander is simply a bystander until they need to do something. For, like said before, the state is a rational actor.

It is rational to free-ride. The state will do such a thing, and because the world is anarchic in the society of states, multi-state organizationals, whose personnel are loyal to only the states themselves, carry no power if the state gives it none. Alliances are not above a nationstate - they include it.

must prevent the mingling of the branches of its organization.

And so it is tragic. Tragic that the cohesion of the state can be undone by its inefficiency, for now that the left hand cannot see what the right hand is doing. So the strength of the state can be tied to nationalism.

But states are made different than empires.

They carry a monopoly of violence. They are monopolists. The language of the state is dominance.

War does not even enter the equation subconsciously.

The boundaries of a state are not determined by themselves. They are determined by other states. There are two types of states:

Those who boundaries push out until they reach the borders of another state;
And those whose boundaries are set and cloistered inwards

Of which the second is the byproduct of empires, and many are doomed to fail. For it harms one of the basic requirements of the state: its nature as a monopolist. The monopoly is controls is violence. A monopoly of violence.

That is the beginning and end of states.

"Political power flows from the barrel of a gun."

Few people will acknowledge just how right he is; it is not the capacity to inflict, but to simply threaten it is what makes the state the dominant actor. At will, it has the ability to put the control back under control. It may change its power at will. When it cannot, the state cannot sustain itself.

War is hell. It is rational to make an opponent think so, no matter the cost to many states.

To say something has caused war is a misappropriation. One needs to study where it has caused peace.

I hope that little on-screen text lecture helped you understand a bit more of the world of states. The information is basic, general and overarching, but much of it is the foundation of political scientific theory in the study of international relations and the study of nation states. If you're curious, you may also check out The Politician, which is in the stickies.

Questions and Comments are welcome, and this is my area of expertise, so do not be shy to ask. Healthy discussion is welcomed.

by **LINTYLAND** » Tue Nov 10, 2009 9:38 pm

you sir just blew my mind

by **Arumdaum** » Tue Nov 10, 2009 9:39 pm

LINTYLAND wrote:you sir just blew my mind

mine too

by **Jenrak** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 6:48 am

What I have explained is the foundation of advanced international political scientific thought. However, I have been able to hopefully explain it in a manner that people can understand as a whole. I hope you guys understood much of it and got something out of that.

by **Jenrak** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 6:57 am

I hope you enjoyed it and learned something from it. Any questions or anything that might seem confusing?

by **The Fanboyists** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 6:38 pm

Very interesting. Recommending this for stickying.

The concept of state as rational actor is one that I've always based my nation's actions on; simply put, (and please tell me if you think I am misinterpreting, as I'd like to debate this) as opportunistic and seeking to ensure the survival of the government and nation, regardless of who it must crawl to as an ally, what unscrupulous diplomatic means it must take, and, ultimately, when war comes, to protect the nation first, then convince the other side that victory is not worth the cost.

However, I'd like to argue that, while states largely take on a life of their own, they are still human creations, more or less run by humans, and as such ethics, morals, emotional clouding, what-have-you, are far from absent in the behavior of the nation. While on the whole, the nation will act rationally, the ethics of those that create and maintain it will affect its function and action because the state is does not fully control those that make it up, but in many cases, the other way around; because of this fact of human creation and control (to an extent), the state may exist simply as a tool of ambition to a person; perhaps this is a misunderstanding, and at that point, the state becomes an empire, perhaps. But if it does not, then the state is no longer functioning solely rationally, but as a human would.

Let me know if that actually made sense, or if that was incoherent.

Beyond that, I don't really understand the concept of the state as monopolist. Not fully. I understand that, for instance, in the war scenario, the goal is to establish the monopoly on violence (and by extension, power) in an area and convince the opponent that war is hell and that they cannot project their power into a territory, but I do not really understand beyond that basic concept of it.

by **The Warmaster** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:13 am

Damn it, the forum ate my intended post because I was typing it for so long that it logged me out. I'm going to try to recreate it in a faster way. So sorry if this sounds brusque/rude, it's just because I'm typing it as fast as I can.

For if a state is to survive by itself, the only way it can is to defeat the chances of success of another state. That is the only rational decision. Rousseau's stag hunt describes a scenario of five men who hunt in the forest. It takes the work of all five men to take down a stag. One man sees a hare go by; he catches it, and dooms the entire group but himself to starvation - that is the state. The man who takes the hare.

He is the rational actor, for if he does not, he risks another hunter taking that hare. It is him, or that hare. And thus the state lives in a state of perpetual uneasiness, fueled by the illogical devices of rationality. It does not think like a human being. A state is not a human being; it does not feel, it does not concern emotion - it a rational thing. But that is what makes the state all the more tragic. For now, mass murders and genocides, the families lost in the brink of war, the destruction of entire blocks and the downfall of entire economies - those, when enacted, are rational, but on the ground level, it is painful.

States do cooperate. Alliances, international organizations, foreign aid, and other such regimes prove it. In other words, states do not necessarily take the hare, or at least not every single time. Also, states regularly survive without "defeat[ing] the chances of success" of other states. Switzerland is a great example of this. If international competition were as cutthroat as your claims suggest, neutrals like Switzerland would get trampled on, and yet this isn't the case.

A state will prefer to go to war against an isolated state. A state that must battle with a non-isolated state will always go for the state that will be the closest to itself in power. This is Simmel's paradox. Those equal in power, will have the strongest incentive to fight - when there is no determining outcome to who would win, then there is the threat of force. Power is the ability to coerce with the threat to hurt; it is not the ability to actually do harm. When harm is done, then all power is lost. War is the symbol that a state's power has deteriorated. A situation of two states with equal might will have no power. Without power there is nothing more than war. War is the absence of power - to convince another state to do something without exercising might is power of coercion. When War is enacted, the state has failed to exert its power.

These claims are shaky at best. For one, you're operating on a very unusual definition of power. The ability to actually do harm is crucial in determining power; after all, threats are meaningless by definition if they can't be backed up with force. Also, this definition of power completely discounts the usefulness of hard power; hard power is very useful indeed, and at times it's the only way of exercising power at all. Also, war is not a sign that a state has lost its power, nor is all power lost, to use your words, when harm is done. For instance, did the United States lose all power when it went to war with Iraq in 1991? Of course not. War can be caused by a state's desire to prevent another state from overtaking it in terms of power, but this is not necessarily true; states overtake each other peacefully all the time, even at very high levels, such as the United States's inheritance of Britain's role as the most powerful nation on earth. Nor, of course, are all wars caused by such tensions.

Power is hard and soft. Hard is the application of overt muscle and economic strength.

Soft is the coercion of positive attitude and allegiances. Both are imperial in nature.

And the state thrives off imperial nature, for if we are to take the state as a rational actor, then the only viable means to survive is to control the other state into a position where they cannot threaten us.

Types of power are not "imperial" in nature; power doesn't have a nature, because it's a means rather than an end. I realize that this can be debated, so here's another point: claiming that a type of power is "imperial in nature" suggests that simply having such power causes states to act in a certain way. This is not true. States without much power sometimes try to be imperialistic (like Italy in the 30s or Argentina in the 80s); on the flip side, some powerful states don't act in an imperialistic fashion, such as modern-day Britain. Your claim is akin to claiming that if I have a gun, I will use it to subjugate and control others. This is not necessarily true; it depends on me, just as a state's use of power depends on the state, not the the fact that it has power or the type it has.

Also, the claim that the only way for a state to survive is to control its rivals is not true; countless examples disprove this. Neutrals such as Sweden survive without controlling their rivals, for instance. Even aggressive states, ones liable to try to control their rivals, don't have their very existence dependent on whether or not they can successfully do so.

The World is anarchic. There is no single power. The only cohesion that keeps the state in line with another state is the threat of hard and soft power. It is the balance of power that keeps the cohesion of states.

But a stagnant balance of power can also lead to an imbalance. Here we are talking about alliances, multi-national organizations and empires. When states join together to combat or personify a singular entity, the balance of power becomes cyclically destructive. As alliances form to combat stronger opponents, the disparity in strength disappears, and so the question falls to the paradox again: who is the strongest? And in this situation, where both sides are seemingly equal, will there be the most likelihood of inter-state warfare. A small nation can rally those to aid it, for nationalism is the strongest political structure - it maintains cohesion within the state, for cohesion is its ideology. A small nation can turn the anarchic world of states against its aggressor.

A larger nation cannot. The balance of power means that any actions of the bystander is not because they wish to help the larger nation, but rather because if it was a larger nation, the bystander is simply a bystander until they need to do something. For, like said before, the state is a rational actor.

In the first paragraph, you suggest that only the power distribution persuades states to cooperate. This is a realist perspective, which is ironic, because it ignores the fact that, as stated above, nations can and frequently do cooperate without having to be persuaded by the threat of destruction. Then, in your second paragraph, you suggest that a bipolar distribution of power is most likely to lead to war; oddly, given your advocation of realist points up till now, this flies in the face of neorealist theory, which argues that bipolarity is the most stable international system, since there are no "third parties" that can tip the balance of power (making war more likely) or whose capabilities or loyalties could be misjudged by one of the two major powers (also a common cause of war). The Cold War is the classic example of bipolarity, and not once did the Great Powers actually fight each other. Finally, you seem to suggest that small nations can rally the support of other small nations to tip the balance of power. I cannot think of a single example of this, historically; in fact, the opposite seems to be true. For instance, the Arab world can huff and puff all it wants, but it has repeatedly failed to conquer Israel, a lone but powerful nation. Nor are there now, or have there ever been, any alliances of small nations that either aim to tip or are capable of tipping the balance of power.

The state is a complex organization. As it grows in strength, the bureaucracy grows to combat human incompetence and the exploitation of the organisation's labour. If a man can delegate work to others because of his position, he will do so. If those he has delegated can do so, they will do so. And such becomes the chain of command, where much of the work is not because it increases productivity, but minimizes work on each worker. Though this is the destructive nature of states that must be warned.

An organization too large will invert the effort meant with its size - management becomes a form of work that produces nothing more than more management. Too much is a plague on the productivity of a large organization, and swallows up its time. A state, one of the largest and most complex of all organizations, is not immune to this; as military might grows, so does its inefficiency. As civil management grows, so does its inefficiency. As political organizations grow, so do their inefficiencies. But it has to grow.

It needs to grow. A state is a complex organization, for if it were a rational being, as a state should be, it must prevent the mingling of the branches of its organization. It cannot allow all three to mix, for that hampers the cohesion of a state. So there is a balance that must be attributed to the state - a cohesion of its identity in the form of checks and balances, but also a watch on its inefficiencies. Many times states will incorrectly address inefficiency with more inefficiency - too often do states attempt to 'correct' problems by adding more management.

This is domestic politics, not international politics. Furthermore, it makes a lot of claims that are pretty bold and not well backed-up, such as that governments "need" to grow, or that addressing problems with government oversight is necessarily an "incorrect" response.

And so it is tragic. Tragic that the cohesion of the state can be undone by its inefficiency, for now that the left hand cannot see what the right hand is doing. So the strength of the state can be tied to nationalism.

Where did nationalism come from here?

But war is not always prevalent. There is peace, and pure peace. The concept where war is not subconsciously considered. Goods that flow from one border to another every single day without a second thought of two states ever going to war with each other - that is pure peace. War does not even enter the equation subconsciously.

Where did this claim come from? It seems to have very little to do with the language about dominance that immediately precedes it. And here of all places, evidence and examples are desperately needed. Where is there "pure peace"? Why? What causes war to not even be subconsciously considered? That last is a very bold assumption to be making about what's going on in a decisionmaker's head. Are you claiming that globalization and international trade creates pure peace? If this is your point, it has already been proven wrong. Norman Angell made a similar claim not long before WWI, asserting that globalization would make a war so costly that no state would choose the costs of war over the profits of peace. He was very wrong.

The boundaries of a state are not determined by themselves. They are determined by other states. There are two types of states:

Those who boundaries push out until they reach the borders of another state;
And those whose boundaries are set and cloistered inwards

Of which the second is the byproduct of empires, and many are doomed to fail. For it harms one of the basic requirements of the state: its nature as a monopolist. The monopoly is controls is violence. A monopoly of violence.

That is the beginning and end of states.

What do these categories have to do with empires, or the success and failure of states? How do set boundaries harm the ability of the state to maintain the monopoly of power within its own borders? The opposite is true. If borders are fluctuating, whether because of war or refugee movements or any such upheaval, it is much more difficult for a state to establish order and prevent illegitimate violence such as looting and rape. Such upheavals not only weaken the instruments of the state that maintain the monopoly of force (military, police), but by making borders fluctuate, they make it difficult for a state to understand which areas it should be able to maintain a monopoly of force over. By contrast, if boundaries are set, a state knows exactly where it should and should not exercise such a monopoly.

Sustain the identity, and you sustain the state. The identity is sustained through whoever carries the most power. And power, earlier explained, is the threat to harm without actually harming. The threat to harm - the monopoly of violence. The state controls the capacity to control conflict within its own borders. Without it, it is no longer a state - a political shell for appearance only. Mao Tse-tung was once attributed to quoting:

"Political power flows from the barrel of a gun."

Few people will acknowledge just how right he is; it is not the capacity to inflict, but to simply threaten it is what makes the state the dominant actor. At will, it has the ability to put the control back under control. It may change its power at will. When it cannot, the state cannot sustain itself.

Where did all this about national identity come from? This assumes that the state aligns well with a national identity, which is not necessarily true, as Austria-Hungary or Yugoslavia or Afghanistan proves. Furthermore, as I said above, power requires the ability to actually harm someone. If a state cannot actually exercise force against lawbreakers, but merely threaten, it has no power to maintain order and will collapse. We know Somalia is a failed state, for instance, because its government exercises almost no control over the vast majority of the area that is marked 'Somalia' on a map. In short, it is the capacity to inflict harm, not threaten it, that not only makes the state the primary actor in domestic politics but actually enables the state to exist. You say this yourself: " The state controls the capacity to control conflict within its own borders. Without it, it is no longer a state - a political shell for appearance only." Where you go wrong is claiming that threats are what allow the state to control conflict, rather than actual capability.

And war breaks out. War is defined as an agreement between two or more actors. It is passion, logic and luck, the trinity of conflict. It is a rubbing of ideologies that conflict, or an upset of the power paradigms or an imbalance of power from the pursuit of a balance of power - it is many things. But at the basics, it is two or more states, and therein lies the problem. A state carries a monopoly of violence over a given territory; this means it cannot be challenged in its power. There is no other state sharing that territory. There are two territories. Thus, war becomes not only the desire to harm, but to destroy the enemy's territory. To convince them war is no longer rational.

War does not imply the desire to destroy the enemy's territory, or to convince the enemy that war is no longer rational. Those are simply two options available to resolve a war: conquest or forcing a surrender. As Germany proved in WWI, you can lose a war without losing control over your own territory. And as Germany proved in WWII, you can also lose a war even though you fight to the end and never surrender (even when it is rational to do so).

War is hell. It is rational to make an opponent think so, no matter the cost to many states.

But the mindset of wanting to convince war is hell is also cyclical in that one does not wish to provoke that mindset into one's own state - thus the balance of power, again, is created with the idea of mutually assured destruction. Now, a state is defenseless. There is no monopoly of violence in a nuclear war, no defenses against it.

This implies that the goal of war is to damage an enemy's morale (by convincing them that 'war is hell') to the point where the opposing state surrenders. As stated above, this is not the only option; you can also conquer them outright regardless of how good their morale is, or propose a diplomatic settlement. Nor does a balance of power necessarily imply MAD; MAD really only applies with weapons of mass destruction. And where did the bit about nukes come from? Nuclear weapons and nuclear war are highly complicated subjects, and it's a little surprising to see them tossed out so quickly and casually.

To say something has caused war is a misappropriation. One needs to study where it has caused peace.

But a civil war is different. For it carries two rational actors without a single monopoly of violence over a given territory. Therefore when a foreign power enters into a civil war, the goal is not to destroy. To destroy will only wreck the legitimacy of that state, for the conflict is not a conflict of war, but a transfer of resources and land. It is not an imbalance of power, but appropriation of power within a territory. It is not an agreement for war between two rational actors, two complex organizations with their own monopoly of violence: rather, it is the transfer of power to one. As such, the civil war is the most destructive thing to an outside state; resources must be done by living off of those who it had gained support.

If not, then it is compelled to destroy. And nationalism, the strongest structure that festers in destruction, will wreck a foreign power.

You make a lot of unsubstantiated claims here. Why do we need to study where something causes peace? This implies peace is the exception, not the rule, which is a highly debatable claim. The same goes for all these statements about the nature of civil war. Why are we assuming the unlikely scenario of a foreign power getting involved in someone else's civil war? Why are we assuming that a civil war "is not a conflict of war"? All these claims are just statements, without evidence or examples to back them up.

* * *

In general, you make a lot of claims that honestly I think need to be better substantiated if you're going to state them in the authoritative way that you do. Examples and evidence would help you greatly; you seem to be just stating theories or opinions at many points, and these need to be backed up with solid arguments, rather than just being treated as fact.

by **Kinstantia** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 2:02 am

I was completely blown away, as well, by your article. While the hour here is late (at this moment in time) and I am a bit bleary-eyed from driving the cab all night long, I have to ask you if you think most people play the game in this manner that you have described, or do most players seem to make their nations act human?

I, for one, see my nation as a caring, generous, peace-loving, freedom-defending state, but also see the nation as cold and alarming at the same time. I try to play the nation as one that cares nothing more than the survival of itself, and its place in the world. It accomplishes this goal not by tyrannical rule, or imperialistic ways, but through its "gracious generocity." (i.e. you get free health care, free college, a relatively crime-free nation, so we expect you to volunteer for the military at some point or some other community service endeavor)

by **Jenrak** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:15 am

The Fanboyists wrote:Very interesting. Recommending this for stickying.

However, I'd like to argue that, while states largely take on a life of their own, they are still human creations, more or less run by humans, and as such ethics, morals, emotional clouding, what-have-you, are far from absent in the behavior of the nation. While on the whole, the nation will act rationally, the ethics of those that create and maintain it will affect its function and action because the state is does not fully control those that make it up, but in many cases, the other way around; because of this fact of human creation and control (to an extent), the state may exist simply as a tool of ambition to a person; perhaps this is a misunderstanding, and at that point, the state becomes an empire, perhaps. But if it does not, then the state is no longer functioning solely rationally, but as a human would ... Beyond that, I don't really understand the concept of the state as monopolist. Not fully. I understand that, for instance, in the war scenario, the goal is to establish the monopoly on violence (and by extension, power) in an area and convince the opponent that war is hell and that they cannot project their power into a territory, but I do not really understand beyond that basic concept of it.

That's true; rulers will more than often have an effect on the management of a state, and the nation state is not entirely completely rational. Perhaps that is a mistake on my part, but the majority of the state is a rational being. Much of its actions are very difficult to consider because people approach, even if influenced, from a logical human standpoint. There is an inconsistency between the mentality of those within a regime and those maintaining it. Governments may change over time, and people will certainly die, but regimes will last. The United States have had an extremely long regime since its founding, and transition to another regime would spell its downfall.

And yet, people are disgruntled that it would have to exert its influence. If the United States would be so frightened to falling from a regime change, why are people in the world against it when it attempts to spread democracy? There is an hypocrisy from the States, but the mentality is either 'they are us, or enemies'. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization itself is a large conglomeration of pooled state rationality - what is the purpose for a Soviet land offensive if it building vast nuclear capabilities? Because the image of state control and creating a power paradigm is important. Both of these work on the idea that a state is a rational entity. Of course, if I just made it more complicated, I apologise.
Next, a monopolist is not necessarily an entity that controls everything in society, but seeks to root an unchallenged influence in at least one sector. The state exists as a monopolist because it monopolizes, or attempts to monopolize, two things - one is the means of controlling violence, or monopoly of violence, as many are more familiar with it. The other is regime. A regime within a state is the most difficult means to change. It is the political mentality. The state seeks to maintain this regime by controlling it. The Cold War was a giant clash of two ideological monopolies. It is a message of the mindset of those states - we are in control here, this is our sphere of influence let nobody say otherwise.

That is one of their monopolies.

The Warmaster wrote:Damn it, the forum ate my intended post because I was typing it for so long that it logged me out. I'm going to try to recreate it in a faster way. So sorry if this sounds brusque/rude, it's just because I'm typing it as fast as I can.

No problem. Trust me, you saying sorry at the beginning is alot better than my colleagues.

States do cooperate. Alliances, international organizations, foreign aid, and other such regimes prove it. In other words, states do not necessarily take the hare, or at least not every single time. Also, states regularly survive without "defeat[ing] the chances of success" of other states. Switzerland is a great example of this. If international competition were as cutthroat as your claims suggest, neutrals like Switzerland would get trampled on, and yet this isn't the case.

Indeed, this isn't the case. And if we're to look at Rousseau's stag hunt as the primary example of state theoretical rationality, let's address the question of why. Why? Why is it that the state, with all its supposed rational machinations, have examples that provide contrary evidence? You're a smart person, my friend, and I commend you, for the world of statecraft is not as black and white as it once was.

And the fallacy lies in Rousseau's stag hunt itself. The scenario is five men. One grabs the hare. The others are doomed. The entire scenario is completely cutthroat and self-sufficient. Do states do this nowadays? Some will. But most do not. So why is it? We're missing two very important things. Dependence. Do these men have family? If so, there is a dependence upon these men to enact the stag hunt properly. Next is knowledge. Do they know that if one person leaves the group, the others will fail? Ah, but then it doesn't become a situation of rationality, but curiosity. For the man is curious about the hare, and wishes it, unknowing of the consequences. The theme of dependency and the knowledge of the consequences are two driving factors within state rationality that lead to these organizations, foreign aid, alliances, and so forth.

Though the power remains still in the state. It can choose not to do anything at all. It can choose to procrastinate, for procrastination is extremely rational. If the immediate benefit of an action outweighs the minimal immediate consequence, why should a state commit to it? So perhaps we have organizations, but now we have organizations that nothing without the support of the states it is comprised of. The UN, for example, is such an organization. Perhaps it carries value when it has to, but it requires the acknowledgment of those within it. A veto will destroy its efforts. Destroy it. Troops that follow into a UN-led conflict do not listen to the UN Commander in Charge; they listen to their own leaders. And states may choose to do nothing; if there are so many states participating in a single scenario, why should a state pull more weight than the other? Why should it pull weight at all, if there is so little benefit it will give individually?

So yes, I will say that you are correct in that states are not entirely rational beings, that they are not entirely for a cutthroat world, and that many states do defy the convention of pure rationality. There are organizations, yes, that do defy what I have said. But look at the activities of these organisations and the relation to their size and membership. How many have committed to these organizations within the past three decades? How many members are there? There is a negative correlation that is visible. Some organizations and alliances are simply worthless.

These claims are shaky at best. For one, you're operating on a very unusual definition of power. The ability to actually do harm is crucial in determining power; after all, threats are meaningless by definition if they can't be backed up with force. Also, this definition of power completely discounts the usefulness of hard power; hard power is very useful indeed, and at times it's the only way of exercising power at all. Also, war is not a sign that a state has lost its power, nor is all power lost, to use your words, when harm is done. For instance, did the United States lose all power when it went to war with Iraq in 1991? Of course not. War can be caused by a state's desire to prevent another state from overtaking it in terms of power, but this is not necessarily true; states overtake each other peacefully all the time, even at very high levels, such as the United States's inheritance of Britain's role as the most powerful nation on earth. Nor, of course, are all wars caused by such tensions.

There is a very good man at the University of Maryland, if I am not mistaken, who has written and studied extensively on this subject. His name is Thomas Schelling, and I would like to say that he is one of the very few people who have attempted to define the difference between the power I have defined and the term of diplomacy. One of the most beautiful passages I have ever read in the field of international politics is within Schelling's Diplomacy of Violence:

"...brute force succceeds when it is used, whereas the power to hurt is most successful when held in reserve. It is the threat of damage, or of more damage to come, that can make someone yield or comply."

Perhaps we will disagree on this, but with enough force, a nation can destroy, occupy, or outright eliminate his adversary off the face of the earth. But that is not power. That is violence. The threat of it, is power. The threat to harm is power. It is the coercive means to influence an adversary to do what you want. The reason why you may consider it unusual is because originally very few people have tried to define it. Political realists search for the holy grail of defining power, so definitions may vary slightly, but Schelling's definition is one of the most well held.

Perhaps it would make things clear if I called it the

I would like to note that the United States had supplied arms to both Iraq and Iran during their war, so the demonstrate of the United States' power is still evident, not entirely through some brute exertion of force. The argument of sheer force in determining power is not an entirely sound argument. This is why Hans J. Morgenthau disagreed with the United States and their willingness to go into Vietnam - they brought their supplies with them. The inclusion of a third party in a two party war in one given territory is not a war; it is simply bullying. And bullying, like sheer exertion of power, will simply wreck a nation. It will destroy the bully. For if there is no other discernable motive from those being bullied than that they have to play the victim, they will resist.

The Melos dialogue is a classic in showing the distinction between power and the threat to commit power. Exerting military might is not power. The effectiveness of threatening to use it is.

Types of power are not "imperial" in nature; power doesn't have a nature, because it's a means rather than an end. I realize that this can be debated, so here's another point: claiming that a type of power is "imperial in nature" suggests that simply having such power causes states to act in a certain way. This is not true. States without much power sometimes try to be imperialistic (like Italy in the 30s or Argentina in the 80s); on the flip side, some powerful states don't act in an imperialistic fashion, such as modern-day Britain. Your claim is akin to claiming that if I have a gun, I will use it to subjugate and control others. This is not necessarily true; it depends on me, just as a state's use of power depends on the state, not the the fact that it has power or the type it has.

Also, the claim that the only way for a state to survive is to control its rivals is not true; countless examples disprove this. Neutrals such as Sweden survive without controlling their rivals, for instance. Even aggressive states, ones liable to try to control their rivals, don't have their very existence dependent on whether or not they can successfully do so.

Imperial in Nature is antonymous to Imperial. Imperial, when we are discussing states, is to move one particular culture or influence from one place to a foreign place. That is imperial by nature. Imperial in the hard sense is subjugation of a social, economic or political aspect in favour of one's own. That is what I am saying. Perhaps I should have bolded in nature, since it might seem odd here, but there is a whole study of the effects of empires and their relations between states.

Coca-Cola in Israel is imperial in nature. That is the influence exerted by soft power. A McDonald's in Hanoi square is imperial in nature. That is influence against by soft power. American tanks in West Berlin is imperial in nature. That is hard power.

This is your territory, but we wish to preserve introduce our values or similar values into your society. That is imperial in nature. That is grow power is created.

And with the example of Sweden, I would like to say that while it does not seem to exert power now, it had exerted significant post-War socialist economic influence within the other Scandinavian states, even if there wasn't a Scandinavian empire, so to say.

In the first paragraph, you suggest that only the power distribution persuades states to cooperate. This is a realist perspective, which is ironic, because it ignores the fact that, as stated above, nations can and frequently do cooperate without having to be persuaded by the threat of destruction. Then, in your second paragraph, you suggest that a bipolar distribution of power is most likely to lead to war; oddly, given your advocation of realist points up till now, this flies in the face of neorealist theory, which argues that bipolarity is the most stable international system, since there are no "third parties" that can tip the balance of power (making war more likely) or whose capabilities or loyalties could be misjudged by one of the two major powers (also a common cause of war). The Cold War is the classic example of bipolarity, and not once did the Great Powers actually fight each other. Finally, you seem to suggest that small nations can rally the support of other small nations to tip the balance of power. I cannot think of a single example of this, historically; in fact, the opposite seems to be true. For instance, the Arab world can huff and puff all it wants, but it has repeatedly failed to conquer Israel, a lone but powerful nation. Nor are there now, or have there ever been, any alliances of small nations that either aim to tip or are capable of tipping the balance of power.

Belgium, on the dawn of World War II. An act of self-preservation on the part of France, but largely also influence by the lack of a formidable military defensive capability against the spread of Nazi Germany.

Iceland, Cod Wars, baited British Warships to create the image of the bullied to hamper British sentiment and turn the British Empire into a near pariah-like status in the international community.

Tibet, occupied by China. A nation that has held frequent inconsistencies in its legitimacy as a state, but still has create worldwide anti-Chinese imperialist sentiment.

Perhaps I have mistakenly written the word 'small', but the fact is that a nation will act out of its own interest to assist smaller nations. And I'm glad you brought up the fact of the bystander, really, because that's what determines alot of wars. Bystanders tend to be the most important component to war, diplomacy, or what-have-you, and that's true I didn't really get too much into that. It is a very important subject, and without much explanation it does look like I am somewhat contradicting much realist political theory here, but I assure you the reason why I left out the Bystander arguments is because it's extremely long to explain and the more advanced arguments I can't really explain too well.

So that is a fault on my part, yes.

This is domestic politics, not international politics. Furthermore, it makes a lot of claims that are pretty bold and not well backed-up, such as that governments "need" to grow, or that addressing problems with government oversight is necessarily an "incorrect" response.

Look at the Pentagon. There are color-coded corridors. People within particular branches of the military will go through particular corridors. This means that many people within particular branches will never meet their counterparts, even in the same building. So you have all these branches and organizations that are doing their own thing to prevent power from being placed too much into one spot. So who manages this? Someone has to, because eventually they will meet. So there's this entire system that must be managed now, and who manages this? Who manages them?

When an organization gets too large, many times it will be cut down. I'm assuming most organizations are economically competent to know the effect of too much management and how ridiculously it is. But then it will grow. Then cut down again. These claims are 'bold', but they're the truth. In terms of marginal overall growth, it's in fact somewhat, but organizations do get larger overall, it's just that we aren't very well privy to these changes and they don't seem very significant.

But they do grow. The rate is different. In regards to the claim of domestic politics, no, it also applies to international politics. The UN and NATO (why does this even exist now?) are two such examples.

Where did nationalism come from here?

I have not given nationalism the treatment it deserves. We can talk all night about it and still be nowhere close to finishing, so that's my fault. Nationalism is one of the big making and breaking points for states, so it's good to know the effect it has on international politics.

Where did this claim come from? It seems to have very little to do with the language about dominance that immediately precedes it. And here of all places, evidence and examples are desperately needed. Where is there "pure peace"? Why? What causes war to not even be subconsciously considered? That last is a very bold assumption to be making about what's going on in a decisionmaker's head. Are you claiming that globalization and international trade creates pure peace? If this is your point, it has already been proven wrong. Norman Angell made a similar claim not long before WWI, asserting that globalization would make a war so costly that no state would choose the costs of war over the profits of peace. He was very wrong.

Ahaha, no. Globalization and International does not create peace. In fact, the world within the 1920s was more globalized than it is today. When I talk about pure peace, I mean that within the community of states, there are states that have such strong ties to each other that war no longer enters the equation in terms of diplomacy.

The Canadian-US border, for example, is an example of pure peace. The reason why I made a note of this is because I wanted to say that I do understand that the society of states is not black and white, and that there is a flip side to the entire thing sometimes.

What do these categories have to do with empires, or the success and failure of states? How do set boundaries harm the ability of the state to maintain the monopoly of power within its own borders? The opposite is true. If borders are fluctuating, whether because of war or refugee movements or any such upheaval, it is much more difficult for a state to establish order and prevent illegitimate violence such as looting and rape. Such upheavals not only weaken the instruments of the state that maintain the monopoly of force (military, police), but by making borders fluctuate, they make it difficult for a state to understand which areas it should be able to maintain a monopoly of force over. By contrast, if boundaries are set, a state knows exactly where it should and should not exercise such a monopoly.

Africa is the example that set boundaries by imperial forces do not help. Language is a strong cultural identification for nations. Africa currently has two thousand languages. When you have cultures that may not get together under one state, you are beset with an inability to maintain a monopoly of violence. Again, I have not given nationalism the respect it deserves in this article.

Defined states based on earlier imperial actions will hamper the ability to maintain that monopoly of violence. The opposite is not true at all.

Where did all this about national identity come from? This assumes that the state aligns well with a national identity, which is not necessarily true, as Austria-Hungary or Yugoslavia or Afghanistan proves. Furthermore, as I said above, power requires the ability to actually harm someone. If a state cannot actually exercise force against lawbreakers, but merely threaten, it has no power to maintain order and will collapse. We know Somalia is a failed state, for instance, because its government exercises almost no control over the vast majority of the area that is marked 'Somalia' on a map. In short, it is the capacity to inflict harm, not threaten it, that not only makes the state the primary actor in domestic politics but actually enables the state to exist. You say this yourself: " The state controls the capacity to control conflict within its own borders. Without it, it is no longer a state - a political shell for appearance only." Where you go wrong is claiming that threats are what allow the state to control conflict, rather than actual capability.

Actually, the threat of violence is in fact power. Committing violence itself is not. The threat of violence is sometimes given legitimacy only by showing that it has the capability to control violence.

But there is a problem here. We are under the idea that internal state management is the same as state-to-state management. That is not the case. State-to-state management carries no overruling power. In internal state management the state is the overruling power. So I believe that you may know more about internal state management than me, so on this argument I will concede until I can find something contrary.

War does not imply the desire to destroy the enemy's territory, or to convince the enemy that war is no longer rational. Those are simply two options available to resolve a war: conquest or forcing a surrender. As Germany proved in WWI, you can lose a war without losing control over your own territory. And as Germany proved in WWII, you can also lose a war even though you fight to the end and never surrender (even when it is rational to do so).

Ah, but was surrender for Germany in World War II a rational decision? Perhaps we may have no considered that the Germans believed that the long-term benefit for maintaining German nationalism could only be acquired by creating the idea of a 'fought-till-the-end' image of the German military force? Perhaps this is synonymous to the Russian belief that destroying their own countryside will eventually yield a large enough benefit to their immediate losses?

This is the problem, now. The problem with rationality is that we need to define it first, which I am no burgeoning philosopher, and when talking about economic rationality, it makes no sense to anything outside of the dismal science much of the time because most of its variable are well-defined.

War is the agreed act of conflict between two or more parties. Without an agreement, it is a takeover or a surrender, simple as that.

War can be done through one or more party's territory. Now, when I talk about war in the control and destruction of another's territory, I mean their capability for continuing war. I attribute Sherman's method of complete annihilation to be an extreme but very progenitor-like explanation of the entire 'War is Hell' mentality. Certainly, he practised such a thing.

This implies that the goal of war is to damage an enemy's morale (by convincing them that 'war is hell') to the point where the opposing state surrenders. As stated above, this is not the only option; you can also conquer them outright regardless of how good their morale is, or propose a diplomatic settlement. Nor does a balance of power necessarily imply MAD; MAD really only applies with weapons of mass destruction. And where did the bit about nukes come from? Nuclear weapons and nuclear war are highly complicated subjects, and it's a little surprising to see them tossed out so quickly and casually.

Jarvis' Four Worlds are modified for the sake of nuclear armaments, which destroyed the idea of conventional warfare. Despite what anyone may say, conventional warfare is not inclusive of nuclear weapons. Objective points cannot be captured with large quantities of destructive fission.

The reason why I have not included Nuclear Weapons in this in more detail is because this is not entirely important to the article in relation to International Incidents as a whole. Like nationalism, we can talk about nuclear weapons and their effects on them all day. We can range from Nuclear deterrence to the Eight Nuclear States to Nuclear terrorism to the focus of national sovereignty and image control versus open trade agreements and border policing in regards to the effect of nuclear weaponry. But I choose not to do that because this isn't too relevant to II's nuclear policies, which are generally 'don't use it'.

You make a lot of unsubstantiated claims here. Why do we need to study where something causes peace? This implies peace is the exception, not the rule, which is a highly debatable claim. The same goes for all these statements about the nature of civil war. Why are we assuming the unlikely scenario of a foreign power getting involved in someone else's civil war? Why are we assuming that a civil war "is not a conflict of war"? All these claims are just statements, without evidence or examples to back them up.

Perhaps you have made the implication, but I have not. You have answered your question of 'why do we need to study peace' by debating with me this entire time. If we are to understand the causes of war and how it affects other states around it more carefully, it would be foolhardy to study only one aspect. Can states create peace in an anarchic society? Of course they can, but how is it done? What variables come into play? Are these synonymous to the variables that cause war? Why does it happen here and not there? Studying peace is extremely important, and I cannot stress it enough, especially when studying war. We must ALWAYS look at the opposite side.

Unlikely scenario of a foreign power in someone else's civil war? Vietnam. The Japanese Empire in Nationalist China. Kosovo. Bolivia. Kampuchea.

In general, you make a lot of claims that honestly I think need to be better substantiated if you're going to state them in the authoritative way that you do. Examples and evidence would help you greatly; you seem to be just stating theories or opinions at many points, and these need to be backed up with solid arguments, rather than just being treated as fact.

I am predominantly from the Hans J. Morgenthau line of thought, which has gotten alot of distaste in the political community since his outspokenness in the early 70's (or was it 60's? I apologise, I don't remember that one very well), so I am not surprised that within a more liberal community (classical liberal, not Anglo-Saxon liberal) this is not neccessarily a well received mention.

Of course, I will admit part of my argumentative fallacy revolves in not providing real world examples, but hopefully with my discussion with you it clarifies things. I am not treating them as simply facts - I am giving everyone and anyone a chance to speak open their mind. But of course, as I stated earlier, try not to dismiss it so quickly. I hope my explanations clear things up or at least allow you to see my point of view from all this, and if there any complications or questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

Though, I am curious - do you enjoy Rousseau?

Kinstantia wrote:I was completely blown away, as well, by your article. While the hour here is late (at this moment in time) and I am a bit bleary-eyed from driving the cab all night long, I have to ask you if you think most people play the game in this manner that you have described, or do most players seem to make their nations act human?

I, for one, see my nation as a caring, generous, peace-loving, freedom-defending state, but also see the nation as cold and alarming at the same time. I try to play the nation as one that cares nothing more than the survival of itself, and its place in the world. It accomplishes this goal not by tyrannical rule, or imperialistic ways, but through its "gracious generocity." (i.e. you get free health care, free college, a relatively crime-free nation, so we expect you to volunteer for the military at some point or some other community service endeavor)

So it's somewhat like a paternalistic state?

by **The Fanboyists** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:19 pm

I'd like to suggest another definition of power; you have stated that it is the control and the threat of violence; the threat of economic ruin, or improvishment, or, simply, economic muscle, is often a source of power as well; this works with the control of a resource crucial to a people's well-being as well.

Consider, for instance, Russia's defacto hegemony over, say, Ukraine. Whilst the threat of violence is certainly there (Russia, like Germany, has, in the not-too-distant past, shown a lack of hesitation in invading non-compliant neighbors), the main control Russia seems to exert over the Ukraine is its control over the nation's oil supply; if the Ukraine begins to pose a threat to Russia's security and interests, the oil gets turned off, and the Ukraine, with its infrastructure fairly integrated to Russia's, suffers heavily from not having oil to cook, heat, power transportation, and create plastics.

Coal, if I'm not mistaken, also allowed a similar type of hegemony between certain states as well, and, speaking as one that has played the Civilization games (which may not be the best mode for learning international political mechanics), is one that has served me fairly well (in some situations). If I'm not mistaken, other resources have also been used in the is manner.

And with sheer economic muscle...well, China seems to dominate most of Asia by this point in that sense, now, don't they? Even being able to pull strings with the American government because of their economic power and strength.

by **New Manth** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:38 pm

When we speak of the State as a rational actor, we must remember that a rational actor is antonymous to a logical actor. A State is very rarely a logical actor. Logic implies a line of thought appropriated by our society to a predictable conclusion; many states are vapid, inconclusive, unpredictable, unstable, unreliable, destructive and incomprehensible. But a state, if to exist, is rational. It cannot be hindered by emotion, by human convention or mechanics. It must be unfeeling and utilitarian in nature to progress and succeed.

To what extent does this describe the actual workings of government? I'd guess that it doesn't do so very accurately.

Even disregarding the large role that emotional concerns play in underpinning the concept of the state itself (romantic nationalism being, as the name suggests, a more emotionally than rationally appealing concept), do you really think a state's decision-making process isn't colored (or 'hindered') by emotion?

I'm not sure I could agree with that at all. To my mind, the emotional concerns of both society at large and individuals in a state's government will exert a vast influence over the course that that state as a singular entity (to the extent that the term can even apply to a state) takes.

by **Kinstantia** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:06 pm

Paternalistic, not exactly. It is more of a "sense of duty to help your fellow Kinstantians, and volunteer your time either through military service or other community service in order to promote what is inherently good about Kinstantia and what she stands for.". It's not manditory, nor is it punishable by law to not volunteer your time to the nation/local community. It is highly encouraged though.

Maybe I have overcomplicated my government, but you have a US-style government saturated with liberals, blended with a constitutional monarchy, combined with a sense of national pride and community awareness that is a cornerstone of Kinstantian life.

Somehow it seems to culminate in a Socialistic American Constitutional Monarchy that stops short of being truly Socialistic and despises communism. Confusing? Definitely.

Couple that with the issues that keep me cemented in the 'left-leaning college state' category. I think, somehow, my nation truly is a college fraternity! LOL

by **Jenrak** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:23 pm

The Fanboyists wrote:I'd like to suggest another definition of power; you have stated that it is the control and the threat of violence; the threat of economic ruin, or improvishment, or, simply, economic muscle, is often a source of power as well; this works with the control of a resource crucial to a people's well-being as well.

Consider, for instance, Russia's defacto hegemony over, say, Ukraine. Whilst the threat of violence is certainly there (Russia, like Germany, has, in the not-too-distant past, shown a lack of hesitation in invading non-compliant neighbors), the main control Russia seems to exert over the Ukraine is its control over the nation's oil supply; if the Ukraine begins to pose a threat to Russia's security and interests, the oil gets turned off, and the Ukraine, with its infrastructure fairly integrated to Russia's, suffers heavily from not having oil to cook, heat, power transportation, and create plastics.

Coal, if I'm not mistaken, also allowed a similar type of hegemony between certain states as well, and, speaking as one that has played the Civilization games (which may not be the best mode for learning international political mechanics), is one that has served me fairly well (in some situations). If I'm not mistaken, other resources have also been used in the is manner.

And with sheer economic muscle...well, China seems to dominate most of Asia by this point in that sense, now, don't they? Even being able to pull strings with the American government because of their economic power and strength.

Very much so. Of course, power stretches into that as well. Very astute observation. East Asian politics is an area I would very much like to study a bit more myself in, but the current economic situation within the development of the Asian Tigers is absolutely fantastic, though my biggest weakness is the difficulty in studying ground-level economics when getting into hard maths: asymptotic economics is definitely not something I am capable of doing, sadly, so I have to put much of my view on macro-level economics and foreign policy.

New Manth wrote:To what extent does this describe the actual workings of government? I'd guess that it doesn't do so very accurately.

Even disregarding the large role that emotional concerns play in underpinning the concept of the state itself (romantic nationalism being, as the name suggests, a more emotionally than rationally appealing concept), do you really think a state's decision-making process isn't colored (or 'hindered') by emotion?

I'm not sure I could agree with that at all. To my mind, the emotional concerns of both society at large and individuals in a state's government will exert a vast influence over the course that that state as a singular entity (to the extent that the term can even apply to a state) takes.

Let's go back to beautiful early 1990's. Resolution 1514 of the United Nations, one of the great articles of the 20th century, absolutely phenomenal article, is considered a modern Westphalia. What is it? To eliminate the subjugation of alien aggressors and bodies on native soil. Sounds wonderful, isn't it? Of course, part of Resolution 1514 is that the internal effects of a state, by recognizing its sovereignty, are its own business. Its own business.

Colonialism is the new evil. It is the big, bad enemy to the free world. The Soviet Union has fallen. The Spheres of Influence of the Great powers are waning. We are going into a new age, and Francis Fukuyama's End of History seems near. But in 1993, Interhamwe forces commit to an unbelievable action, leading to an unfathomable atrocity. I can hope you can infer to what happened within 1994 in a little state in Africa.

And what has the UN done? Little. Romeo Delaire's Shake Hands with the Devil show just how brutish a world can be. Is a state as black and white as I have said it? Of course not, no. But I am beginning from the basics, so take my words as what value you wish, but it is the foundation, not the be all and end all. And nationalism, as wonderful as it is, is a very emotional ideology, yes, indeed. In fact, it is a highly emotional ideology. But the interaction between a state, not within a state, is rational. And what gives it power is what is recognised by another state.

And I'm glad you brought this up, because I may have not made a strong enough distinction between the workings of within the state, and the workings between states, which is the focus of the psychology of states. The state, between others, will help when it is within their best interests. Rwanda, sadly, has shown the rationality of states still prevalent, though waning, but prevalent nonetheless. It is not rational to help a state, so poor in resources and strategic value, so far away from the world that it is without doubt that surely, such a state could never have influence with an actually important state! And that ties into the effect of the tragedy of these rational inclinations of states between other states.

Yes, we may say we are committing forces. But do we actually commit them? Are they doing their job? Are they listening to proper instructions? Wonderful question and query brought up, Manth.

Kinstantia wrote:Paternalistic, not exactly. It is more of a "sense of duty to help your fellow Kinstantians, and volunteer your time either through military service or other community service in order to promote what is inherently good about Kinstantia and what she stands for.". It's not manditory, nor is it punishable by law to not volunteer your time to the nation/local community. It is highly encouraged though.

Maybe I have overcomplicated my government, but you have a US-style government saturated with liberals, blended with a constitutional monarchy, combined with a sense of national pride and community awareness that is a cornerstone of Kinstantian life.

Somehow it seems to culminate in a Socialistic American Constitutional Monarchy that stops short of being truly Socialistic and despises communism. Confusing? Definitely.

Couple that with the issues that keep me cemented in the 'left-leaning college state' category. I think, somehow, my nation truly is a college fraternity! LOL

Sounds like a Scandinavian Social Democratic state. I'm quite fond of those particular states, really. Is there much solidarity?

by **Kinstantia** » Fri Nov 13, 2009 4:53 am

I have to admit that I am a little unclear to the answer becuase when I think of solidarity, I think of the trade union or the ideal classless society.

by **The Rich Port** » Mon May 17, 2010 4:25 pm

Kinstantia wrote:I have to admit that I am a little unclear to the answer becuase when I think of solidarity, I think of the trade union or the ideal classless society.

So did I, ^.^

And perhaps what China has is not so much "power" as "authority". Just a little terminology to throw out there.

Interesting article. I particularly like your observations on war. Lots of people I meet I try to explain that it would be senseless to fight a war over land and resources. However, your observances of power are a bit cynical. But, then again, I guess I'm too much of an optimist.

I'm doing a little something like this as well, though it is more IC than OOC, but I still wanted to ask: considering cultural, linguistic, geographical, and ideological factors of the constituency and the government, do you think there is such a thing as an unperishable state, a government that cannot be dismantled? It is the basis of existence for my "S3", and it'd be nice to have a second opinion.

by **The State of Monavia** » Mon May 17, 2010 5:19 pm

Some observations which may be of merit to this discussion have been made about the above arguments.

The question of defining what "power" and "authority" are in simple terms can perhaps be viewed from a different angle. Rather than become entangled in a Gordian's Knot of intellectual tie-ups and complicated legalese tongue-twisters in order to grapple with this question, I shall go about providing a more simplified, but still accurate definition. Power is the ability top control or influence something or someone. It describes what subject A can do to subject B. The "ability to cause harm" or make threats to do the same is the means by which power is exercised, and in some cases, the means by which it is acquired. Authority is the term which refers to the legal ability to exercise power. A judge may have the power to lock away a thief for life because he is friends with the sheriff and the prison warden, and can leverage his way into securing a harsher sentence, but if the law says he can only pronounce a maximum sentence of twelve months in prison as a punishment, he does not have the authority to do so. The law does not vest him with this power, other means vest him with it.

The leaders of nations are individuals, not just public figures. They also possess thoughts, emotions, families, desires for influence, and other things that any individual would naturally be inclined to want. They will (in the majority of cases) act rationally to preserve these things, or secure vested interests. If those vested interests include popular approval, the security of their country, economic gain for their people, honor and glory for their troops, and so forth, they will accordingly act to ensure that these vested interests are fulfilled, because even though others benefit from their actions, they have a motivation for having those other people benefit.

The "monopoly of violence" is made operable by the theory that a government possesses power and authority over a defined area of territory and its population because it has the capacity to do damage to those who do not submit. The social contract theory contradicts this, because it is based off of the concept that if a group of people need greater security and wish to avoid a state of nature, which is inherently anarchic, they will offer their consent to be governed to a government, because this government, provided with their support and funding, will be able to fight off the state of nature and protect its constituents from it. In effect, the government exercises power through popular support, often rendered by offering services (working for the government), paying taxes to fund it, supplying it by other means, and so on, so that it becomes sufficiently powerful to maintain a monopoly of nonviolence that assures all of its citizens protection and stability.

Now, what of those governments that grow and expand by force, and enlarge the states they govern (since government is merely an institution that exists to administer a country) through force? For some time, they have a monopoly of violence, or at least they can exert military power more effectively than their neighbors in order to bring about expansion. Numbers mean little in many cases, as it was proved by Alexander the Great that a small army that is commanded by the brightest and best-educated officers can outmaneuver and outfight a larger army. Superior organization and logistics can make it possible for a small, seemingly weak state to outperform their larger, wealthier rivals. It is not necessarily how many actors that collaborate in the process of exerting force that matters, it is how much force can be exerted in terms of an overall measurement.

In specific terms, a monopoly of power is what really provides a government with the strength it needs to control and administer its territory and population. An absolute monarchy will derive this by citing law and precedent, and then pointing out that the law decrees that the new person on the throne is going to rule, and that they are rightfully in charge. Because many people respect those laws, the give their consent (albeit begrudgingly in cases) to the new government because it has the force of law, which they choose to respect and obey, supporting the new regime. In addition, that new monarch may choose to placate the people by keeping taxes low, rely on an all-volunteer military, and avoid costly wars. When everyone is fed, housed, has a job, and is free enough to do as they please within reason, they will not protest what that government does, so long as their vested interests are protected and maintained, thus the entire populace, or at least segments thereof, consent, perhaps even subconciously, to be governed by this monarch , even though there was no formal statement of recognition and approval, such as an election.

A monopoly of authority can thus lead to a monopoly of power, which equals control. Maintain control, and you maintain your nation as you see fit. Force need only be used when challenges exist, which is why peacetime militaries are alert, but otherwise inactive, merely carrying out the mundane tasks of maintenance and training new recruits to replace retiring veterans and producing new technology and weaponry to maintain its position relative to neighboring nations. Maintaining the status quo is not very active, and may even appear passive in certain circumstances. It is no surprise that a monopoly of military power is part of a monopoly of power as a whole (because control of the troops, the laws, and the money supply effectively equal a general condition of control and thus a monopoly over power, which is the ability to control).

Violence is merely a manifestation of the ability to assert control through means other than traditional diplomacy. War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means, according to one historian and tactician, but because violence is "other means," it is not manifested unless certain circumstances exist. This being as it may, violence generally happens when the order and its power is threatened and challenged. Without any threats and challenges, there is no need or motivation for leaders to "demonstrate" their power and capacity to do damage by carrying our aggressive actions. War games and exercises are generally ways of keeping troops active, training them, and fostering cooperation among allies (there are other reasons as well to have these, but the aforementioned reasons are what is currently relevant here).

The conclusion to be drawn from this discourse on the matter of a monopoly of violence is that the theory is imperfect (not that any is), and that alternative theories can also explain the function of the state in logical terms.

by **Jenrak** » Mon May 17, 2010 7:08 pm

The Rich Port wrote:I'm doing a little something like this as well, though it is more IC than OOC, but I still wanted to ask: considering cultural, linguistic, geographical, and ideological factors of the constituency and the government, do you think there is such a thing as an unperishable state, a government that cannot be dismantled? It is the basis of existence for my "S3", and it'd be nice to have a second opinion.

A form of governance that cannot be taken apart? It would depend on its relation outside of the state, actually. If states around it are likely to be dangerous, then it is possible that for the sake of security people will opt to have more power to the state and less to the individual. If a constant state of anarchy is prevalent between countries, then it could be possible to believe that a state would retain its method of governance almost indefinitely.

This is, of course, not entirely proven, but facets of this idea is touched upon in Francis Fukuyama's The End of History, where it carries underlying themes of the fact that people, as we are and in our natural flaws, have chosen advanced liberal democratic means of governance as the 'best' form, and thereby places such a form of governance as possible in not being taken apart due to it being the 'best' stage. Of course, this presumes a paradigm that people naturally want to fight for democratic and individual rights, so I would believe that personally, in a realistic environment, it would not be the case, actually, that there is a government that can be impossible to dismantle.

The State of Monavia wrote:snip

There are five dominant theories as to how power is defined, and you have definitely defined one of them. The ideas you posit seem to fit more into the theme of rhetoric in regards to defining power rather than giving a definition of power, but it is still a definition of power in the first place. It seems you pertain a lot more to the Hannah Arendt school more than I am (since I am a subscriber to Schelling's theory of violence and diplomacy).

Your notes on the monopoly of authority leading to a monopoly of power is definitely an interesting thing to keep into consideration, and I would like to place an addendum into this. The case of Somalian Warlords splintering both the area around Mogadishu and the rural areas show a definite anomaly to all traditional definitions and theories in terms of how people can come together to form or accept a state. Monopoly of Violence is a term we're still wrestling with, and to compensate in the meantime we're introducing the concept of failed, feral, soft and hard states, so we're definitely blurring the large conceptual definition a bit.

Social contract theory, however, is a problem in that it explains the western state of the growth of the state. Modern African states, and in particular the Apartheid South African government for example, do have a lot of issues with the idea of a monopoly of nonviolence. Social contract theory only works when people within a particular zeitgeist carry it similar to every one else - where the ultimate goals are the same. Ethno-nationalism is slowly becoming a more visible opponent to the theories that are dominant (Liberal, Marxist, Realist, etc.) in world politics, since they're governance that are defined on simply a person existing in a particular fashion (birth, language and geo-political culture) rather than their capability of arms and support or their willingness to work together out of mutual benefits.

I do, however, believe that it is important that you have posited the fact that no theory is without their own flaws, and that together they try to patch up the areas that others do not or do not do so sufficiently.

by **The Rich Port** » Mon May 17, 2010 7:53 pm

Jenrak wrote:A form of governance that cannot be taken apart? It would depend on its relation outside of the state, actually. If states around it are likely to be dangerous, then it is possible that for the sake of security people will opt to have more power to the state and less to the individual. If a constant state of anarchy is prevalent between countries, then it could be possible to believe that a state would retain its method of governance almost indefinitely.

This is, of course, not entirely proven, but facets of this idea is touched upon in Francis Fukuyama's The End of History, where it carries underlying themes of the fact that people, as we are and in our natural flaws, have chosen advanced liberal democratic means of governance as the 'best' form, and thereby places such a form of governance as possible in not being taken apart due to it being the 'best' stage. Of course, this presumes a paradigm that people naturally want to fight for democratic and individual rights, so I would believe that personally, in a realistic environment, it would not be the case, actually, that there is a government that can be impossible to dismantle.

Aww, democracy has been considered the "best" form? This gives me a happy.

And you may take that into consideration of how power is defined. Popular sovereignty (within and outside the state) can be a powerful influence on how politics manifest. To better fit, however, I've decided to apply an amalgamated theory between the democratic state and the digitization plan. At first, I thought that merely safeguarding the leadership was enough to preserve the state. It is up to you whether to refute this or not, but I now feel that constituency is the only thing maintaining regular government in power. If used correctly, propaganda can influence the thoughts and the emotions of the people in the favor of the distributor, correct? But within regular laws, the distribution of slander is criminal, even for a totalitarian government; if the statement is proven false in the end, it still looks bad. And if it looks bad enough, the government shall loose popular support. I have always pondered what the words I was told meant: "it is not about destroying content, but creating context".

You see it everyday, in the U.S. media. They put a "spin" to the news. They omit tiny details. And in this, our age, where wars are fought with sabotage and information, as described by your current situations. It's not about having the best guns, because, in the end, the arms race will always end in a tie due to nuclear weapons. It is about making the other guy look bad. As digitization and communications improve between countries and cultural gaps close, the whole of the world will have access to information, one way or another. It is a global community, a global constituency... and, as such, a global battleground of opinions. If enough countries get pissed at the other enough to make the other's constituency get pissed itself, then the state can be forced to abdicate.

However, the next factor in the equation comes when other nationstates begin to control information as well. It has already proven possible to censor the Net...

by **Jenrak** » Mon May 17, 2010 8:02 pm

The Rich Port wrote:However, the next factor in the equation comes when other nationstates begin to control information as well. It has already proven possible to censor the Net...

Ah, but is it? The cell-phone revolution in Iran has shown that technology can be pervasive in transmitting information regardless of barriers. So now the question comes out to - how do we define the limits of technology in its role in the nation state? How much does it erode actual sovereignty, of the nation state and its ability to implement its decision-making without interference from others through Twitter, Facebook, television media, etc.?

Furthermore, a question that I want you to consider is the possibly of the local paradigms - for example, America has a huge melting pot system that dictates that freedom is the American way. Goodwill, opportunity, all of those - these are modes of appeal and tools used by media which further inflame the paradigm in a single direction. Now, what I want you to finally consider is, do many NSers implement these ideals into their RPing?

Do you see a media's influence in there? Because that's a definitely an important thing if you're interested in local politics.

by **The Rich Port** » Mon May 17, 2010 8:22 pm

Jenrak wrote:
Ah, but is it? The cell-phone revolution in Iran has shown that technology can be pervasive in transmitting information regardless of barriers. So now the question comes out to - how do we define the limits of technology in its role in the nation state? How much does it erode actual sovereignty, of the nation state and its ability to implement its decision-making without interference from others through Twitter, Facebook, television media, etc.?

Furthermore, a question that I want you to consider is the possibly of the local paradigms - for example, America has a huge melting pot system that dictates that freedom is the American way. Goodwill, opportunity, all of those - these are modes of appeal and tools used by media which further inflame the paradigm in a single direction. Now, what I want you to finally consider is, do many NSers implement these ideals into their RPing?

Do you see a media's influence in there? Because that's a definitely an important thing if you're interested in local politics.

In more totalitarian states, due to the programming limitations of NS, no. But it does have an influence on the leaders, the users. I have been threatened with violence more than once because the hammer and sickle on my flag is a "Communist" symbol (I've been meaning to get rid of, but that is another matter). And then there's the countries that are discriminated against due to their associations with Nazism and hunted down mercilessly. The flow of information on the Net is the most accessible and most durable by far, despite it's physical attachments (The Internet is a bunch of cables that can be cut). And, once again, it isn't about altering information, which can be easily detected, but rather to influencing opinions. I'm not that good of a spinster; remember, this is all theory at the moment. I'll make it the subject of my doctorate or something in the future. You and I can thank Kojima for the ideas.

And quite honestly, an RP setting is a theoretical setting, especially the further technology advances into science-fiction. It isn't just cell phones, Internet memes and "collective unconscious" (emphasis on the quotation marks). With the elimination of identity from the government and the accomplishment of manipulation on the populace, my S3 plan becomes a reality; and hence, the officials within the government become myths, rumors, if not legends, with legislative, judicial, and executive (read: military) power. Hence, the state becomes permanent (popular sov. + safe leaders = impossible to cease to exist...) unless totally annihilated (nuked). And even then, perhaps, through memory and record, or even a single speck of information, (dates, names, etc.), both people and state become one with time ("immortal", until the apocalypse, etc.).

by **The Fanboyists** » Tue May 18, 2010 6:32 am

Jenrak wrote:
The Rich Port wrote:However, the next factor in the equation comes when other nationstates begin to control information as well. It has already proven possible to censor the Net...

Ah, but is it? The cell-phone revolution in Iran has shown that technology can be pervasive in transmitting information regardless of barriers. So now the question comes out to - how do we define the limits of technology in its role in the nation state? How much does it erode actual sovereignty, of the nation state and its ability to implement its decision-making without interference from others through Twitter, Facebook, television media, etc.?

Furthermore, a question that I want you to consider is the possibly of the local paradigms - for example, America has a huge melting pot system that dictates that freedom is the American way. Goodwill, opportunity, all of those - these are modes of appeal and tools used by media which further inflame the paradigm in a single direction. Now, what I want you to finally consider is, do many NSers implement these ideals into their RPing?

Do you see a media's influence in there? Because that's a definitely an important thing if you're interested in local politics.

Insofar as (if I understand correctly) the paradigm to be the nation's integration system and values and such, yes, I personally try to integrate that into how I RP; I represent my nation as being America almost inflated in terms of melting-pot-ness; the saying "Alloys are Stronger" is practically the national motto. The majority 'race' (insofar as it can be called that) is generally represented as being ethnically muddled and so much a mongrel or 'bastard' race that anyone's attempt to 'purify the race' would result in killing 99% of it.

Well, with some exceptions; the constant suspicion of a (relatively) recently conquered ethnic minority causes a shadow on that embrace of diversity, and that minority remains fairly insular, if increasingly prolific. But regardless of which group is represented in the RP, I always take into account the nation's background of almost constant warfare over most of the previous century; as such, things like gender inequalities never became quite as entrenched because of the sheer impracticality of them in such a situation. So I try to represent a society that places a good degree of practicality and rationality over everthing else. Hence that, when directly controlling the government in an RP, it tends to display similar tendencies.

Hence why, even in years of dictatorship, free speech existed; it was impractical to waste money trying to squelch new ideas when they could instead be utilized, and at the same time keep more people happy.

by **The State of Monavia** » Tue May 18, 2010 4:04 pm

A form of governance that cannot be taken apart? It would depend on its relation outside of the state, actually. If states around it are likely to be dangerous, then it is possible that for the sake of security people will opt to have more power to the state and less to the individual. If a constant state of anarchy is prevalent between countries, then it could be possible to believe that a state would retain its method of governance almost indefinitely.

A "form of government" can be thought of as a description of its institutional structure. Remember, government is an administrative institution (thank you to my senior government teacher for making sure we all learned that the first week of school), and can be described through a visual representation (diagram) that shows all of the positions of leaders and their functions. Because of the fact that a government can thus be "assembled" like a machine of sorts, being composed of separate and distinct components which each possess spectfic functions that can be precisely defined (this is a more idealistic model, as real governments often have miscellaneous personnel performing a variety of varying, often vaguely defined functions), it can theoritically be taken apartas needed, much like a machine.

The contention that individuals inhabiting a state will offer more power and freedom to its government in order to obtain protection from another state's designs on them is true to the point that the general populace is able to make that decision. Under a totalitarian regime, the leaders may arbitrarily make that decision immediately in order to protect their populace, either out of a vested interest to preserve it and its ability to produce revenue and products, or for the sake of improved public relations, or some undetermined motive, but regardless of the nature of their motivations, the leaders make the choice of taking more power, rather than having it so that "people will opt to have more power to the state and less to the individual." The form of government and legal structure determined who these "people" are.

This is, of course, not entirely proven, but facets of this idea is touched upon in Francis Fukuyama's The End of History, where it carries underlying themes of the fact that people, as we are and in our natural flaws, have chosen advanced liberal democratic means of governance as the 'best' form, and thereby places such a form of governance as possible in not being taken apart due to it being the 'best' stage. Of course, this presumes a paradigm that people naturally want to fight for democratic and individual rights, so I would believe that personally, in a realistic environment, it would not be the case, actually, that there is a government that can be impossible to dismantle.

The notion that a government is impossible to dismantle can be derived from an extension of my previous comparison. Governments are not inanimate objects, even though an institution is basically a list of office holders and their functions (on paper). In practive, a government is more like an organism, its movements and actions may become unpredictable, however well it is understood. The question of being able to dismantle a government is not one of engineering, even though governments are effectively "constructed" from specific parts and assembled according to specified protocols or directives (laws). Organisms are like machines; they have constituent segments or components, whether you wish to call them molecules, cell, organs, or organ systems. Like machines, they are constructed in such a way they function in a certain manner. The difference between an organism and a machine, on an empirical level, is not only the the former exceeds the latter in terms of complexity by several orders of magnitude, surpassing pipe organs and telephone exchanges with ease in that regard, or that one is alive and the other is not. The basic difference in this context, which applies to governments as well, is that both have a natural resistance or aversion to being taken apart!

There are five dominant theories as to how power is defined, and you have definitely defined one of them. The ideas you posit seem to fit more into the theme of rhetoric in regards to defining power rather than giving a definition of power, but it is still a definition of power in the first place. It seems you pertain a lot more to the Hannah Arendt school more than I am (since I am a subscriber to Schelling's theory of violence and diplomacy).

Your notes on the monopoly of authority leading to a monopoly of power is definitely an interesting thing to keep into consideration, and I would like to place an addendum into this. The case of Somalian Warlords splintering both the area around Mogadishu and the rural areas show a definite anomaly to all traditional definitions and theories in terms of how people can come together to form or accept a state. Monopoly of Violence is a term we're still wrestling with, and to compensate in the meantime we're introducing the concept of failed, feral, soft and hard states, so we're definitely blurring the large conceptual definition a bit.

I would think it most prudent to explain what these five schools are before you spend too much time citing their importance here, otherwise people may have some difficulty understanding what you mean by "the five schools."

In the case of a failed state or "feral state," a term which I have thus far never before encountered in political discourse, a ruler can govern by force. The theory must be examined chronologically, but it is sufficient to say that it operates in the following manner:

If a Somali warlord, with a specified following of armed millitants with better equipment that those they are about to subjugate, and who possess an ulterior motive to support or follow him or her, are able to wrest control of a defined area of territory and its population by force, they have de facto control of that area. When other warlords and governments recognize their rule over that area, and provide them with international legal backing, then they "officially" become a legitimate government. Once that has happened, they now have the legal force required to make laws by which they can administer that territory and its population. Consequently, the monopoly of violence, herein defined as the ability to have more military power than any other faction in play, allows the government, which began as a warlord and their followers, to establish a state by force. A monopoly of violence can in this way lead to a monopoly of authority, and thus legal control in addition to control by the sword.

by **NX401** » Tue May 18, 2010 5:13 pm

Jenrak wrote:What I have explained is the foundation of advanced international political scientific thought. However, I have been able to hopefully explain it in a manner that people can understand as a whole. I hope you guys understood much of it and got something out of that.

I doubt to see any advanced international political thought involved in this article. This seems like a underhanded subversion of actual political validity. Rousseau, Locke, and another (cant remember his name at the time), created such thought during the Renaissance. We, through other explorative means, have stretched these radical ideas into philosophies. yet, we have not advanced anything beyond the means of utilitarian ideology, we are, i admit, too stupid for such to occur in this age and time.

by **The Rich Port** » Tue May 18, 2010 5:15 pm

NX401 wrote:
Jenrak wrote:What I have explained is the foundation of advanced international political scientific thought. However, I have been able to hopefully explain it in a manner that people can understand as a whole. I hope you guys understood much of it and got something out of that.

I doubt to see any advanced international political thought involved in this article. This seems like a underhanded subversion of actual political validity. Rousseau, Locke, and another (cant remember his name at the time), created such thought during the Renaissance. We, through other explorative means, have stretched these radical ideas into philosophies. yet, we have not advanced anything beyond the means of utilitarian ideology, we are, i admit, too stupid for such to occur in this age and time.

"Seems"? Did you even read Jenrak's article?

by **NX401** » Tue May 18, 2010 5:27 pm

yes, i did. Not very good

The Psychology of the State - OOC Food for Thought

The Psychology of the State - OOC Food for Thought

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