Answer the following questions to check how well you have read the text:

a) What does the term “state” imply?

b) What is the difference between the Greek and the Roman ideas of the state?

c) Speak of the modern concept of the state that emerged in the 16th century. Try to compare different points of view.

d) How did the 17th century reformers reexamine the origins and pur­poses of the state?

e) How did Hegel develop the idea of freedom in the state?

f) What changes did the concept of state undergo throughout the 20th century?

g) In which way did Kelsen and Ichazo treat the idea of universal in­ternationalism?

3. Complete the sentences:

1. Aristotle held that	a) from anarchism to the wel­fare state.
2. Hans Kelsen thought that	b) the state was the culmination of moral action, where free­dom of choice had led to the unity of the rational will.
3. Bodin believed that	c) the “natural condition” of man is self-seeking and competitive.
4. Rousseau proposed that	d) rule should comply with mo­rality to be durable.
5. Hobbes states that	e) the state owed its authority to the general will of the gov­erned.
6. Locke said that	f) the city-state was the means of developing morality in the human character.

MODULE VI

TEXT ONE

Read the text and translate it in writing.

Governmental Structures

The study of governmental structures must be approached with great caution, for political systems having the same kind of legal arrangements and using the same type of governmental machinery often function very differently. A parliament, for example, may be an important and effective part of a political system, or it may be no more than an institutional facade of little practical significance. A constitution may provide the framework within which the political life of a state is conducted, or it may be no more than a piece of paper, its provisions bearing almost no relationship to the facts of political life. Political systems must never be classified in terms of their legal structures alone: the fact that two states have similar constitutions with similar institutional provisions and legal requirements should never, by itself, lead to the conclusion that they represent the same type of political system.

To be useful, the study of governmental structures must always proceed hand in hand with an investigation of the actual facts of the political process: the analyst must exercise the greatest care in distinguishing between form and reality and between prescription and practice. Approached in this way, an examination of the organizational arrangements that governments use for making decisions and exercising power can be a valuable tool of political inquiry.

TEXT TWO

Read and review the text.

Monarchy

The ancient distinction among monarchies, tyrannies, oligarchies, and constitutional governments, like other traditional classifications of political systems, is no longer very descriptive of political life. A king may be a ceremonial dignitary in one of the parliamentary democracies of Western Europe, or he may be an absolute ruler in one of the emerging states of North Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. In the first case his duties may be little different from those of an elected president in many republican parliamentary regimes; in the second his role may be much the same as that of countless dictators and strongmen in autocratic regimes throughout the less-developed areas of the world. It may be said of the reigning dynasties of modern Europe that they have survived only because they failed to retain or to acquire effective powers of government. Royal lines have been preserved only in those countries of Europe in which royal rule was severely limited prior to the 20th century or in which royal absolutism had never firmly established itself. More successful dynasties, such as the Hohenzollerns in Germany, the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary, and the Romanovs in Russia, which continued to rule as well as to reign at the opening of the 20th century, have paid with the loss of their thrones.

Today in countries such as Great Britain or the Netherlands or Denmark the monarch is the ceremonial head of state, an indispen­sable figure in all great official occasions and a symbol of national unity and of the authority of the state, but is almost entirely lacking in power. Monarchy in the parliamentary democracies of modern Europe has been reduced to the status of a dignified institutional fa­cade behind which the functioning mechanisms of government – cabinet, parliament, ministers, and parties – go about the tasks of ruling.

The 20th century has also seen the demise of most of the hereditary monarchies of the non-Western world. Thrones have toppled in Turkey, in China, in most of the Arab countries, in the principles of India; in the tribal kingdoms of Africa, and in several countries of Southeast Asia. The kings who maintain their position do so less by the claim of legitimate blood descent than by their appeal as popular leaders responsible for well-publicized programs of national econom­ic and social reform or as national military chieftains. In a sense, these kings are less monarchs than monocrats, and their regimes are little different from several other forms of one-man rule found in the modern world.

TEXT THREE