[MUSIC] Now, let's move to more classical aspects of the world of our present espace mondial. Let's take into account state, power, war, peace, international systems, international organizations and so on. Of course, in a classical, in a traditional vision of the world, the concept of the state appears as a neutral cornerstone. The state was consecrated as the main unit and even as an exclusive unit of international relations, that's to say of interstate relations. This seems to be obvious. But in fact, it's much more complex. Let's try to make an order in this very high complexity. First of all, state is not a concept easy to define. We are inclined to consider state as a political system and no more, but state must be considered as a very special political system with a very precise definition and it would be about middle to consider state as a general political order which can be applied to all the histories, all the culture, all the societies. We must build the concept of state as an historical concept. If we don't do that, we take the risk, we take a double risk. The risk, first to not really understand the specificity of articulation, politics and society in all the histories. The politics and society are not bound in the same way, are not related to each other in the same way. And the second risk, if we have a too much general vision of the state is to consider that state as we know it as it was built. European and Western history, it can be exported very well around the world and we know now that this was a failure. State, if you consider it as an historical fact, appeared in the crisis of Europe and Middle Age. It was invented during the 13th and the 14th century in order to contain the fragmentation of the political, and social, and economical order inside the feudal society. State has to be considered as a political solution to a crisis, a very strong crisis which took place at the end of the feudal era. That's to say, state is constituted by some characteristics that are setting up the definition we currently give to it. States will be considered as a particle system, but a special particle system. That's to say, the centralized political system, the differentiated political system, an institutionalized political system, a sovereign political system and a territorial political system. Center, differentiation, institution, sovereignty and territory are the five components of the nation state model. Center, all the political systems are not centralized. If you take into account the tribal system, the tribal system is not centralized. If you take into account the feudal society, the society was not centralized. That is to say that there is no necessary link between center and politics. State is a way of centralization, which took place when the decentralization of the feudal order went to collapse. Differentiation, this is another main characteristic of the Western state, of the historical Western state. That is to say, separation between private and public, between civil society and state. This differentiation cannot be found in other kinds of political system, neither in empire, nor in traditional monarchy or traditional political order as we find it in the traditional societies. Institution. Institution, that's to say, a separation between the norm and those who are implementing the norms. That's to say, state must be considered as an institutional political system. It's quite different from, for instance, patrimonial monarchy and patrimonial order as it was conceived in the tradition. Sovereignty, that's to say, the state is sovereign. No other power behind the state power. This sovereignty which is as you know, the cornerstone of the observation of the politics is founding the state. And we have in mind the great question, what about globalization in which total sovereign is not possible is state able to survive in this globalized order? And finally, territory. That is to say and it appears very clearly in the definition of the state given by Varbal. State implies a territorial order with very precise border lines and this is also quite different from other kinds of political systems like, for instance, empire. In an empire, there is no clear borderlines, but there are these periphery which cannot be reduced to classical territory drawn by their borderline. If we admit this definition, we can clearly find the relationship between state building and overcoming the futile order. Solving the partial crisis emerging from the medieval social disorder and that's why I will insist on the very important point. The more futile society was fragmented, the more centralization while strong as a solution to the deadlock of this fragmentation. That's to say nowadays, those societies which were strongly and deeply polarized are now effected by a strong tradition of a strong state. That's why, for instance, France was considered and is still considered as the motherland of state where state is developed, where there is a strong culture of the state. A strong separation between public and private, and this culture of the state which was at the very center of the French culture is explained by the deep crisis of a very fragmented social order which took place in France at the end of the Middle Age. Now if we consider other kinds of societies, of European societies like, for instance, England. England was not strongly feel the lies and that's why the state was never very strong, and the civil society plays a more important role than the classical state order. And now if we move to US which didn't meet the history of duality, we can find for this reason, a strong tradition of state. I will add another point which is connected to this one as that is to say, the more civil a society is able to be governed by itself, the more, of course, it will escape from it's tradition and they are less developed the state is. Now we have also to take into account another aspect of this specificity, that's to say, the cultural background of the state. The state in his history is clearly related to the Christian culture. As we mentioned in the last lecture, Christianism is probably bearing the state model. That's to say, this conception of separateness between temporality and spirituality. This vision of secularism, but also this institutional culture. This culture of representation. The way the church, the Roman Catholic church organize itself in an administration, territorial administration, judicial administration, fiscal and tax administration and so on. All these trends were imitated by the kings and the state builders for shaping the new nation state which was in creation from the 13th, and the 14th century. Last point, which was addressed by the great Sociologist Charles Tilly. In that in the European history, that was a very dense interaction into playing between state and war. War making state making as established Charles Tilly. This means that the history of the state building in Europe is clearly connected to the war history and that the main feature of the state are connected to the main features of the war, and that's why also Horps stressed that there is an interaction between state and security. The security function was conceived at the very center of the state institution and it's not possible to have in mind state without having in mind, security as we elaborate later. This is ladies and gentlemen, what we call the Westphalian system which took place in the 17th century and which implied a new international order which is made of the position of these units of these territorial nation states. The question now is what about those political systems, which now are reluctant to this model? This implies empires. We have some surviving empires like China, like Russia which are not really conceived as states and what about those Important states which we are not able to group as new political systems, for instance, in Africa or Asia. [MUSIC]
