Why should the state be respected and its laws obeyed? Answer to this question can vary if one looks from different perspectives. For some, it is because the authority of the state is divinely ordained (Divine rights) but for some others, it is because there is transcendental purpose in the journey of the state (teleos of the Idealists). Yet, for some others, it is because the State draws its authority from contract of the individuals for their own safety and protection of rights (Contractualists). Utilitarian would argue that the State should be obeyed because it maximizes happiness for the maximum numbers. Positive liberals and welfare theorists may support it because it gives scope for moral, personal and self-development and positive condition of welfare.
There can be arguments that the state and its laws are utter coercive instruments and must go. Individuals are better off without political obligation. Anarchists and Marxists argue that the state is coercive and its laws are organs of exploitation and view the issue of political obligation from the perspective of presence or absence of private property. Political obligation in a capitalists system, Marxists would argue, is a slogan for subjugation of the working class to the power of the bourgeoisie. Pluralists, libertarians, feminists and communitarians convey different levels of support and political obligation.
Pluralists, Laski, Barker, MacIver, Figgis, and Follett do not denounce political obligation altogether and recognize the authority of the state. However, they do not give primacy to the state as the sole organ of individual loyalty. They, in a way, advocate limited political obligation. This is due to loyalty of the individuals to the State is mediated by various groups representing different interest. Laski, for example, has identified interests of individuals in terms of member of the State, member of a church, a trade unionist, a free mason, a pacifist, etc.6 As a result, allegiance to the State is neither unconditional nor unmediated. Political obligation to the State cannot be unlimited or unconditional, as it is not the repository of all the interests of the individuals.
Libertarians, such as Nozick, would support limited political obligation to the State because his state is a minimalist state, which is supposed to perform bare minimum functions. While pluralists advocate a limited role for the State because they consider other groups in economic, political and social life equally significant; libertarians, on the other hand, advocate a limited state because they argue for individual liberty and freedom.
Notwithstanding the variations in the perspective of different strands of feminism, at times it looks at the State as an extension of patriarchy, and some other as neutral arbiter. While the first treats the State in terms of monopoly of power and reflection of male domination in society and represents a radical feminist view, the second views the State as accessible to all groups including women and represents a liberal feminist view.7 Empirically, extension of voting rights to women and their representation in legislature and decision-making is less favourable and as such their exclusion from the authority of the State is visible. In the Indian context, for the local-self government (Panchayati Raj), safeguard in terms of designating 33 per cent of seats as women seats has been provided to ensure their fair representation. However, it is true that in many cases women candidates become, or really are, proxy of their male family members.
Communitarian ideas are based on the premise that individuals are not detached, rational or a stand-alone self. An individual’s self is shaped and groomed by the community and its values. This means individuals are carriers of social and collective values and community is the main source of rights and duties of the individual. This, in turn, requires addressing the issues involved in rights of communities. From the communitarians’ perspective, political obligation is to be seen in terms of the rights of communities and not the individual. It invokes community-based political obligation.
Political obligation has been supported or opposed by the advocates of different perspectives based on how legitimate the State or its authority is. Various grounds have been invoked to attribute legitimacy to the State. In support of unlimited political obligation, various bases and criteria have been invoked. They include divine rights of rulers; state as realization of certain higher purpose (idealists); political stability and continuity of institutions (conservatives); obligation to community as a source of self (communitarian); supreme strength and irresistible power of the state (Force Majuere); reason of the state or the end and interest of the state being supreme (raison d’etat). Limited legitimacy of the State and its sovereign authority is pleaded based on either consent of the people forming the State and government (social contract), or happiness of the people (utility), welfare and benefit of the people (positive liberals) or autonomy and freedom of groups (pluralists) or individuals (libertarians). On the other hand, equally forceful arguments have been put forward to deny legitimacy to the authority of the state. Those who reject the very idea of political obligation such as the anarchists, Marxian thinkers, feminists and anti-colonialists, do so because they find the State and its authority, laws and prevailing property and political relations as exploitative and discriminatory. For example, Anarchists detest authority or force in any form; Marxian and Neo-Marxian thinkers find the state, its authority and law as reflection of the interest of the private property; Feminists find state as a reflection of patriarchal and discriminatory relations; anti-colonial and civil right and equality movement activists oppose the discriminatory and dominating nature of the state power.
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