Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
R. J. JOHNSTON
Macmillan Education
ISBN 978-0-333-28970-9 ISBN 978-1-349-16967-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16967-2
R.J.Johnston 1982
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1982 978-0-333-28969-3
ISBN 978-0-312-32172-7
Preface ix
Sovereignty
between the two main levels- county and district. (For a full
list of the services, see Richards, 1973.)
The geographer's interests in state activity are manifold,
because many of the spending and regulatory functions just
described vary over space. The economic geography of a
country, for example, may be influenced by state activity in a
variety of ways. First, the geography of state purchases is
spatially differentiated, reflecting the location of its prime
suppliers. In the United States in the early 1960s, for
example, over 25 per cent of the exogenously derived income
of the States of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado,
Hawaii, Maryland and Virginia came from prime military
contracts, and in eight of the forty-eight conterminous States
(Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, New
Hampshire, New Mexico, and Utah) over 20 per cent of
economic growth during the decade 1952-62 reflected
defence expenditures (Bolton, 1966; Hewings, 1977).
Second, many governments (central and local) seek to
influence the location of economic activity, notably through
regional and area development policies, which include
investment in infrastructure and research. And finally, the
recipients of certain government payments are spatially
concentrated - such as the retired in certain resort and rural
areas, and the farmers in certain regions - so that the state
makes a greater contribution to incomes and to employment
generation there than elsewhere.
A second reason for the spatially variable effect of state
activity is the nature of the goods and services provided, by
the central state itself and by its subsidiary bodies. With
some, spatial variation in provision is intended; with others,
spatial variations are the consequences of aspatial policies
(Glickman, 1980). A classification of services provided by
governments (often termed 'public goods'), for example,
suggests three main types, two of which have substantial
geographical components (Johnston, 198lc):
(1) Pure public goods. These are equally available to all
residents of the relevant territory, wherever they live.
Nobody is excluded and nobody can reject the good
(Bennett, 1980); the clearest example is national defence.
(2) Impure public goods. These are goods and services
8 Geography and the State
Conclusions
There is a great deal of writing on the state, its nature and its
functions. Some of this is by academics; some is by those
active within the state - notably politicians; some is by
political commentators. Much of it is positive, describing
what the state is and what it does; some is normative,
outlining what the author believes the state should and
should not do. Chapter 1 of this book falls into the former
12 Geography and the State
State actions
In summary
A note on terminology
The pre-state
but the initial step has been taken to distance the ruler from
the ruled, to set up a bureaucracy to protect the former and
to ensure the continued extraction of tribute.
What brings about this change? According to Engels there
is 'a definite stage of economic development, which
necessarily involved the cleavage of society into classes,
[and] the state became a necessity because of this cleavage'
(Engels, 1972: 232); the state, he argued (1972: 231), 'arose
from the need to keep class antagonisms in check ... it is
normally the state of the most powerful, economically
dominant class, which by its means becomes the politically
dominant class and so acquires new means of holding down
and exploiting the oppressed class'. The state is the mediator
between oppressor and exploited, 'a power, apparently
standing above society, . . . necessary to moderate the
conflict and keep it within the bounds of "order" ' (1972:
229).
In the chiefdoms, therefore, the emergence of the early
state involved the establishment of permanent political
hegemony on behalf of the ruling group. In this way, it was
hoped to combat the potential of the fissiparious elements
The Development of the State 33
once the chief starts down the road to more central control
one of two structural consequences occurs. Either chiefs
fail to enhance centralization and the chiefship breaks up,
or they succeed . . . This moves the system towards a
centrally-appointed bureaucracy whose only means to
success and position is the loyalty and obedience of its
member-officials to the central ruler. Kinsmen are never
fully subordinate, since they are, potentially, rivals for
chiefly power. When chiefs with the requisite political
skills . . . succeed in changing the rules of recruitment,
then the system begins to evolve towards statehood.
(Cohen, 1978: 55-6)
The main feature differentiating the early state from the pre-
state, therefore, is the greater stratification of society, with
which is associated the development of an administrative
class linking the demands of the ruling class to the
production of the labouring class. Other common
characteristics of the early state included (Claessen, 1978):
trade and markets; an hereditary upper class but a system of
appointment of paid functionaries to the administrative
class, from the hereditary families; limited private ownership
of land outside the upper class; a system of laws and a
judiciary to operate it; and the payment of tribute to the
ruler, in either kind or, increasingly, money. As the early
state passed through its three stages - inchoate, typical, and
transitional - so these characteristics were altered somewhat.
Trade and markets became increasingly important to the
economy; salaried functionaries became more common, with
the hereditary process of succeeding to office diminishing in
importance and its replacement by the development of a
separate governmental apparatus; laws were codified and
judges permanently appointed; and taxation was developed
as the major source of income for the ruling class, replacing
The Development of the State 41
Colonialism
Late capitalism
Conclusion
those paid to the labour force which services the tourists plus
the producers of 'souvenirs' (Britton, 1980).
The best-placed countries for the development of both
'export platform' and tourism functions within the periphery
are those close to core states. A prime example is provided by
Mexico. For a long period that country has prohibited the
ownership of land in its border zones but in 1966 it launched
a Border Industrial Programme to attract American capital
and to provide employment for local residents; ways of
circumventing the law on land ownership were devised
(House, 1982). Under the programme, foreign industrialists
can import all equipment and materials free of duty, but 90
per cent of their labour force must be Mexican. In 1965,
there were only twelve American-owned plants in the Rio
Grande border zone, employing 3087 persons. Eleven years
later there were 455 plants, providing jobs for 76 000, and in
1979 the respective figures were 570 and 120 000; three-
quarters of those employed are female, so that the
programme has been more successful in creating jobs for
those formerly outside the workforce rather than for those in
the large pool of the officially unemployed. A major benefit
to American industrialists has been the chance to exploit
cheap Mexican labour. In 1973, Mexican wage rates were
about one-third of those in the United States for the same
occupations. Since 1976, the devaluation of the peso has
halved labour costs, giving the Mexican border areas a
competitive advantage over other export platforms, notably
in Asia where labour has traditionally been even cheaper.
There are other examples of border industrial areas
established to exploit cheap labour, as in the Bantu
homeland of Bophutatswana in South Africa. And there are
also tourist border areas. The Rio Grande towns of Mexico
offer cheap pleasures for North Americans (House, 1982),
for example, and the hotels of Lesotho, Swaziland, and
Bophutatswana provide gambling and the forbidden
Playboy magazine for the South African neighbours.
The other major route available to the state in peripheral
countries wishing to remain and prosper within the capitalist
world-economy is to try and stimulate local industry whose
growth will become self-generating. The difficulty with this
86 Geography and the State
why major conflicts between the United States and the USSR
are avoided; the socialist bloc has been incorporated into the
world-economy. (It has borrowed heavily from the capitalist
bloc to enable it to buy technology, etc., and when Poland
was unable to meet its payments in 1981 the governments of
creditor countries came to an IMF-type deal with the Polish
government, waiving payments for certain years in return for
Polish agreement to increase exports.)
A state can also promote the interests of local capital
overseas through various aid policies aimed at promoting
economic growth and removing poverty in the periphery and
semi-periphery. According to Hensman (1975: 253):
Conclusions
Internal colonialsim
For the present purpose, the two most important of these are
the post-state and community-conflict forms, in which
nationalism is part of the creation of a state and opposition
to it.
An example of these two types of nationalism is provided
by the British Isles, which for several centuries were all in the
same state. Initially, as described in Chapter 3, there were
several early states. In England, these were fused into a
single nation-state after the Norman Conquest - providing
an example of post-state nationalism. England was created
as a uniform nation-state, with a single language and religion
(later to become a state religion) and a common set of legal
and administrative procedures (with only a few minor
variants). The adjacent states of Wales, Scotland and Ireland
were then acquired, largely through conquest. The British
state then included several separate nations. Attempts were
made to homogenise these and to create a single British
nation-state. These have never been entirely successful,
however, and have been countered at various times, with
varying degrees of success, by community-conflict
nationalism.
The creation of the British state involved a process of what
has been termed 'internal colonialism', in which the
peripheral areas of a state contain a population with separate
ethnic characteristics from that of the core, that act as the
126 Geography and the State
Building states
Webb (1978) tends to agree, arguing that the SNP was well
placed to pick up protest votes in the 1970s that might
otherwise have gone to the Liberals:
for Zanu (PF) and four for PF). The Shona party won an
absolute majority of seats. In an attempt to create a nation-
state, however, a coalition government was formed. There
has been much tension between the two tribal groupings,
however, and rioting in the Bulawayo area in the heart of
Matabeleland.
Similar inter-tribal tensions, occasionally erupting into
conflicts, have characterised most post-colonial African
countries. (Foltz, 1973, suggests that only Liberia has
escaped them in West Africa.) Several attempts to defuse
tribal nationalism and to build new nation-states have
included homogenisation policies with regard to language (as
with the colonial powers beforehand), but these have not
prevented tribal conflicts, as in both Kenya and Uganda in
East Africa (Mazrui, 1973).
As the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria is not
surprisingly one that has been subjected to much strain in the
tensions and occasional conflicts involving the various ethnic
groups. Himmelstrand (1973: 430) argues that:
Pluralist strategies
for the general principles of the Green Party, given the other
issues facing them. In part, this could reflect the nature of
the German electoral system. In France, on the other hand,
the system encourages such expression of support for general
principles. French parliamentary elections involve two
rounds of voting, for single-member constituencies. If no
candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the votes in the
first round, a second round is held a week later, from which
all candidates receiving the support of less than 12.5 per cent
of the voters are excluded, and others may withdraw (Taylor
and Johnston, 1979: 54). Thus at the first round, voters may
vote on principle without destroying their chance to select a
party on self-interest (probably economic) at the second
round. The strength of voting for, say, an ecology party
candidate at the first round may be used as an indication of
voter attitudes by the parties contesting the second round.
Further, the excluded parties can influence the voting at the
second round; their leaders can suggest to their supporters
how they should vote at the second round, or they may enter
policy agreements with leaders of a party contesting the
second round (in a few cases, this may involve a party
voluntarily withdrawing from the contest).
The 'green parties' in France predated those in West
Germany, contesting many of the municipality elections in
1977 and scoring several notable successes, including over 10
per cent of the poll in Paris (Pilat, 1980). In the first round of
the parliamentary elections, on 12 March 1978, ecology
party candidates stood in 207 of the 474 constituencies in
metropolitan France: the seats that they chose indicated that
the ecology movement's greatest strengths were in the urban
areas (McDonald, 1980). In all, they won 559 398 votes (2.2
per cent of the national total; 4.8 per cent of those cast in the
seats contested), with their greatest success in the Manche 4
district, site of the Flamanville nuclear centre. (The
candidate in Manche 4 won 12.6 per cent of the votes and
thus qualified for the second round: he withdrew.) Their
main electoral support appeared to be drawn from middle-
class, urban, young voters. Their main successes were in
areas of proposed projects opposed by environmental
pressure groups - notably nuclear plants - and in the main
174 Geography and the State
Corporatist strategies
In summary
Conclusions
The theme of this book is that the geography of the state can
only be fully appreciated given an understanding of the
central role of the state in a capitalist society. Support from
both capital and labour is necessary if legitimacy is to be
maintained. If this support is not forthcoming, then
problems for the state (or at least for individual
governments) may arise. Such problems may be exacerbated
if they have spatial foundations, as illustrated here with
regard to economic regional issues and the larger one of
nationalist movements. In other situations, the state may be
faced with either general or localised protest about certain
policies. Examples of these have been provided with regard
to environmental issues. In seeking to resolve such conflicts,
the state must protect its legitimacy. Its managerial actions
are constrained by the necessity to maintain the economic
status quo.
6 The Local State
Federations
The functions that the central state requires the local state to
perform in Britain, according to Saunders (1980: 147-8), are
three:
(1) Providing sustenance for private production and
capital accumulation. This includes: the necessary
infrastructure - a network of local roads and a system of
public utilities; the organisation of land use; the creation of
demand, especially for public works; and investment in
human capital via public education systems.
(2) Providing circumstances for reproduction of labour
power via collective consumption. Labour - or at least
certain segments of it, usually the poorest paid - is unable to
obtain certain of its needs. (Alternatively, capital is not
prepared to meet those needs, at the price labour can afford.)
To ensure a healthy and satisfied labour force, the state must
subsidise capital by providing both material (i.e. housing)
The Local State 195
and cultural (parks, libraries, recreation facilities, etc.)
conditions for existence. These conditions are rarely
absolutes. They are socially defined norms which capital -
reluctantly - is prepared to accept and allow to be
propagated through privately owned channels of
information.
(3) Ensuring the maintenance of social order and
coherence, which involves police activities, social welfare
functions (especially for those unable to provide for
themselves), and legitimation (via public participation).
Of the many support-for-capitalism functions undertaken
by the state, therefore, the local state is less involved with
those directly related to the needs of capital and more with
those related to the demands of labour. Regarding the
former, it provides the local environment and certain basic
facilities, but it is not involved in the manipulation of
demand - via fiscal policies. Regarding the latter, its role is
more crucial - as Taylor's (1982) arguments suggest- even
though increasingly it is dependent on the central state for
finance and is subject to close constraints.
Several reasons can be suggested for the central state
allocating these three sets of functions to a local state system.
(In federal states, the central state is the intermediate tier of
government- the State in the United States and the Province
in Canada, for example.) The first reason is convenience.
Several of the functions, such as providing a transport and
utilities infrastructure and policy, are concerned with local
needs, as is the provision of many items of collective
consumption. By having the details of provision decided and
implemented at the local scale, with the central state keeping
overall control of standards and finance, conflict within the
capitalist system is being deflected. Those with complaints
direct them against the local state rather than the central
state which, if it were the focus of all conflicts, could be in an
embattled situation. Spreading the responsibility for
decision-making diffuses conflict and, at the same time, by
involving the local population as decision-makers, aids
legitimation.
Further, by putting local states in competition with each
other - in providing the infrastructure that will attract
196 Geography and the State
The hope was that this explicit locational strategy would win
general support for the package as a whole. It failed, in that
only one of the proposals ($3.5m. for the fire department)
achieved the needed two-thirds support, but all but two got
majority support, which was much better than in previous
years.
In a number of elections - again notably in the United
States but not exclusively so - principle pressure groups may
participate not by presenting candidates but by offering to
endorse candidates of established parties who are prepared
to support certain policies that the group favours.
Occasionally, such a group may decide to enter the electoral
fray itself. An example of this is provided by The Electors
The Local State 209
Local instrumentalism
Local managerialism
Housing policies
Urban planning
Public education
Local protest
Legal challenges
Conclusions