Development of Science

Development of science in the field of means of warfare, communication and production has been found to help in strengthening the organized power of state. MacIver also hints that scientific inventions such as gunpowder and the printing press affected distribution of power and strengthened the state. Means of communication has helped the state evolve better ways of regulation and control and also dissemination of its policy. However, development of science has proved to be a double-edged sword—it has helped as well as challenged the state. Information technology, for example, an important component of globalization, challenges the concept of nation-state by making its control amorphous and border porous. In critically evaluating the theory, we may sum up as follows:

• The Historical-Evolutionary theory of the origin of the state offers a multi-causal perspective. It seeks to account for a variety of factors that might have contributed to the emergence of a centralized authority, territorially organized people, rules and regulations and government. It traces origin as well as evolution of the State as a result of many factors—these include sociological/anthropological, economic, political, psychological and scientific factors.
• To this extent, unlike the Force, divine rights and social contract theories, it is less speculative.
• MacIver is considered as an important proponent of the theory; though works of Morgan, McLennan, Maine, Jenks have also contributed to it.
• It gives primacy to society and treats the State as a product of society. To this extent, this theory shares the same assumption as the social contract theory or Marxian theory that the state is a product of society.
• By following the logic as above, MacIver reaches a conclusion, which treats the State as an association in society and supports pluralist view of the state.
• By extending the pluralist logic that the individual has his/her interest reflected through various associations and that the State must be a ‘service state’, MacIver provides a basis for liberal theory of state.
• Engels’s analysis of the origin of the State within the Marxian framework is also historical and evolutionary. However, while MacIver’s approach is multi-causal, the Marxian theory is mono-causal. It attributes origin and evolution of the state and public power to emergence of economic classes and contradiction between the dominant and oppressed classes. While MacIver’s approach leads to a pluralist state, Engels to revolutionary overthrow of the state.
• The Historical–Evolutionary theory does not lead us to explain the nature of state power; as a product of society, is it completely free or autonomous from the dominant interests of the society? In the light of role of the state in protecting and promoting the economic interests of the dominant classes, the Marxian perspective holds that the state is only an instrument of exploitation in the hands of the economically powerful classes and it emerged for this purpose only.