Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Comparative Politics, Feudalism, Dualism
Document Summary
Lectures 1 and 2: defining and debating the state. State as specific set of institutions: bureaucracy, military, police, courts, etc. After hegel, political scientists rejected the concept as abstract, unnecessary. People - community defined by territorial boundaries. Sovereignty - final and absolute authority within territory. Domination - max weber: monopoly of coercion within a given territory. Legitimacy - makes domination easier to swallow. Protects its people from each other and also from external threats. Borders define what is internal and external in the first place. The universal church (protestant reformation; peace of westphalia [1648]; state controls religion within territory) State from internal society, for which it provides rules and order. State from the international sphere, in which it competes with other states, in the absence of order. Comparative politics: states as units of analysis. Begins with concept of anarchy (absence of order) Examines state interactions in absence of rules and enforcement. Global extension - it"s a world of states.