Monday, February 3, 2020
Main dynamics driving the development of the modern state Coursework
Main dynamics driving the development of the modern state - Coursework Example In the current context of globalisation, the concept of State autonomy has been subjected to scrutiny, as regards financial and commercial activities (Cudworth, Hall and McGovern, 2008). Owing to these issues, scholars have started analysing the dynamics behind development and origins of the modern state, in order to comprehend the underlying processes and its future shape. This essay review the various dynamics that played a major role during development of the modern state, including the institutionalist, economic and security approaches, and connects these varied approaches to developing an understanding on the concept of modern statehood. Recent studies have emphasised the necessity of analysing the origin and subsequent development of a modern state, primarily owing to the hypothesis that a contemporary State has reached its peak and hence would start declining henceforth. Increasing powers of multinational organisations like World Trade Organization and supranational bodies suc h as European Union indicate an end to the nations-stateââ¬â¢s authoritative power (Pierson, 2012). From this viewpoint, state sovereignty is shifting to supranational and multilateral levels of authority (Rosenau and Czempiel, 1992). At the same time, there are reports of states breaking apart into small and fragmented entities. A number of states that appeared as logical territorial bodies, have rapidly fallen apart and the centrifugal forces have not remained restricted only to developing nations, where there might be suppositions that ethnic unrest would arise naturally within the arti?cially imposed borders created by their former colonial rulers and post-independence weak economic conditions. However, developed socialist and capitalist states have also fallen prey to the centrifugal forces and broken apart, such as Soviet Union and Canada (where Quebecois lost a mandate or else territorial integrity of the country would have faced a serious challenges). In the post-Cold War era, there seem to be an uneasy co-existence of centrifugal forces and collective dynamics, and it is essential to examine the methods of historical transitions that help one to draw insights into the modern state and its current form. Development of modern state through warfare: an important dynamics that played a major role in development of modern state is the impact of warfare on the capacity of a state. During the fourteenth century, military technology started changing remarkably, where heavy and mounted cavalry (archetype of feudal warfare) were slowly removed, which led to the decline in the superiority of the mounted knight (Contamine, 1984). The widening scope of war also led to the formation of standing armies and various mercenary contingents, which forced the rulers to raise greater taxes for funding such armies. This transformation greatly helped royal administration to expand while causing a sharp rise in taxes levied on the common people (Ames and Rapp, 1977). The F rench Revolution brought in further changes where the government, instead of depending on large mercenary forces, looked at mobilising an entire national population to rise and revolt against ruling authority. Soon, other states such as, Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia, after observing transformations in France, changed their army framework and the Ratchet effects swept all over Europe. The scholars that stress on warfare transformation as a major reason for emergence of modern state primarily focus on the dynamics at macro levels that put pressure at systemic levels (Webber and Wildavsky 1986). Recently, scholars have also analysed this cause at a micro-level, where it was derived that military contexts brought forth
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