CHAPTER FOUR

STATE, GOVERNMENT AND

CITIZENSHIP

By: Tariku.T
 1. Understanding State
what is state?
 State is a sovereign politically organized unit.
 When society is politically organized, it forms the state.
 It is more explained and visible via its attributes such as
population, territory, sovereignty and gov’t.
 Simply the state is also defined as a political entity that
possesses population, government, sovereignty and
territory.
 A state can be understood as
a collection of institutions,
a territorial unit,
a philosophical idea,
an instrument of coercion or oppression, and so on
 Perspectives to understand state
• The state has been understood in four quite different ways.
These include:
1. Idealist perspective,
2. A functionalist perspective,
3. An organizational perspective and an
4. International perspective
1. Idealist Perspective
 State is an ethical/moral institution. Though there are
many ethical institutions in a society like church, family,
…etc. State is the most important among them.
 It describes the state as an omnipotent, infallible, and
divine in its features.
 In other words, state is considered as
the source of all freedoms and rights
only the state protects the rights of individuals.
The state is supreme and all individuals have to
obey the state.
2. Functionalist perspective
 View the state from the function/role/purpose they
perform.
 Focuses on the role or purpose of state institutions.
 The central function of the state is invariably the
maintenance of social order.
 The state being defined as set of institutions that
uphold order and deliver social stability.
3. Organizational perspective
 State is set of institutions that are recognizably
‘public`: (responsible for social existence and
are funded at the public‘s expense)
• The state comprises the various institutions of government:
– the bureaucracy, the military, the police, the courts, and the
social security system …etc.
4. International Perspective
The state primarily is an actor on the world stage.
State viewed as the basic ‘unit’ of international politics.
The international view deals with the state‘s outward-
looking face but not inward (domestic).
Focuses on ones state relations with other states and its
ability to provide protection against external attack.
 Elements of state
The state consists of the following main elements and qualities
1.Population
 Population refers to peoples who are living
permanently in a defined territory of a state.
 A state is an organization of human beings living
together as a community.
 The population of a state comprises all individuals
who, in principle, inhabit the territory in a
permanent way.
 The existence of a state is not determined by the size
of its population.
 No exact number is fixed to constitute a state.
2.Defined Territory:
 Territory is a geographical area that is owned and controlled
by a government or country to exercise state‘s sovereignty.
 The territory of a state includes
– land, water, and airspace;
 The territorial authority of a state also extends
• To ships on high seas under its flag.
• Its embassies and legations/diplomat‘s residence in foreign
lands.
 The size of a state‘s territory also cannot be fixed.
3. Sovereignty
 sovereignty implies the final authority of the state over all
matters.
 Sovereignty means independence from any higher
authority and legal equality among states.
 It is absolute and unrestricted power over its internal
and external affairs. Independence is the central element
of sovereignty
 It has two dimensions: internal and external aspects of
sovereignty.
• Internal Sovereignty implies that inside the state there can
be no other authority that may claim equality with it.
• External sovereignty implies that the state should be free
from foreign control of any kind.
4. Government
The people living with in a territory must have some
sort of administrative system to perform functions
needed or desired by the people. Without a political
organization, there can be no state.
 In other words, government is the executive agent that
acts in the name of the state and its people.
 The state uses government to dictate and control the
other elements.
THE RIVAL THEORIES OF STATE
 There are various rival theories of the state, each of which
offers a different account of its origins, development and
impact on society.
 Andrew Heywood (2013) classified the rival theories
of state into four:
• The pluralist state,
• The capitalist state,
• The leviathan state and
• The patriarchal state.
• 1. Pluralist State:
 It beliefs that the state acts as an ‘umpire’ or
‘referee’ in society.
 In liberal theory, the state is thus seen as a neutral
arbiter amongst the competing groups and
individuals in society .
 It is an ‘umpire ‘or ‘referee‘ that is capable of
protecting each citizen from the encroachments of
fellow citizens.
 The neutrality of the state reflects the fact that the
state acts in the interests of all citizens, and
 Therefore, it represents the common good or
public interest.
2. Capitalist State :
 Marxists have argued that the state cannot be understood
separately from the economic structure of society.
 The state is nothing but an instrument of class oppression.
 The state emerges out of and reflect the class system.
 The state is an instrument through which the dominant
class could repress and subdue other classes.
3. Leviathan State
 State is an independent and autonomous entity that
pursues its own interests.
 The central feature of this view is that : states pursues
interests that are separate from those of society, and that
those interests demand an unrelenting growth in the role
or responsibilities of the state itself.
4. Patriarchal State:
 View state relying on the relationship between male and female.
 View state in a context of gender inequality.
 Radical feminists argues that state power reflects a deeper
structure of oppression in the form of patriarchy.
 They insists that “state is essentially an institution of male
power”.
 State is run by men and for men.
The Role of States
1. Minimal state:
 The minimal state is the ideal of classical liberals (aimed
on individual freedoms)
 The state is merely a protective body, its core function
being to provide a framework of peace and social order
 Its institutional apparatus limited to a police force, a court system and a military.
 Economic, social, cultural, moral and other responsibilities belong to the individual
(E.g. UK, USA in 19th c.
2. Developmental state:
Is one that intervenes in economic life with the specific
purpose of promoting industrial growth and economic
development.
The state seeks to be strong player of the economy of a
nation with a view to enhance economic development.
3. Social Democratic (Welfare)state:
It intervenes with a view to bringing about broader social
restructuring.
This is in accordance with principles such as fairness, equality and
social justice.
It focuses less upon the generation of wealth and more upon what is seen
as the equitable or just distribution of wealth.
Attempts to eradicate poverty and reduce social inequality.
4. Totalitarian State:
 The most extreme and extensive form of interventionism is
found in totalitarian states.
 The state brings not only the economy, but also education,
culture, religion, family life and so on under direct state
control.
 Totalitarian states effectively extinguish civil society and
abolish the private sphere of life altogether.
5. Religious State:
• The religious fundamentalism tends to reject the public or
private divide and to view religion as the basis of politics
since 1980s.
 This kind of state is a state with an official religion.
 A state whose ruler have both secular and spiritual power .
6. Collectivized States:
 Collectivized states bring the entirety of
economic life under state control.
 However, collectivized states abolish private
enterprise altogether, and
 Set up centrally planned economies
administered by a network of economic
ministries and planning committees.
 It is like, ‘command economies` directives are
ultimately controlled by highest organs of the
communist party.
 2. UNDERSTANDING GOVERNMENT
 The people living with in a territory must have some sort of
administrative system to perform functions needed or desired by
the people. Without a political organization, there can be no
state.
 It is a system of administration in which the policies and
intentions of a state is realized.
 In other words, government is the executive agent that acts in
the name of the state and its people.
 Government is a group of individuals and institutions
authorized to formulate public policies, conduct the affairs of
the state and implement its policies and strategies.
 Government is an agency through which the will of the state is
formulated, expressed and realized.
 The sovereign power is exercised by the government. The
government dictates and controls the other elements of the state.
Purpose and function of gov’t
A. Maintenance of Law and Order
B. Provides Protection and Security to Citizens
/Protection of Rights of Citizens
C. Provides Services and Welfare to
Citizens/Fulfilments of Social or Group Aspirations.
D. Setting Goals for Public Policies
E. Self-Preservation
F. Management of Conflicts
G. Protection of Property
H.Implementations of Moral Conditions
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STATE AND
GOVERNMENT
 Relatively, the state is a wide/ broader entity including
all citizen of the country while the government is a
smaller unit covering only those that are employed to
perform its functions.

 The state is an abstract entity, but the government has

its existence in a concrete form because it includes all
persons in the legislative, executive and judiciary
departments

 The other crucial point is that membership to the state

is something compulsory where as that of government
is an optional matter.
 State is regarded as permanent and
independent institution. State survives and is
always there unless its sovereignty is destroyed
by the invasion of some other states. But
government is changeable or dynamic; it
always comes and goes.
 All state across the world is made up of their
four essential elements, But governments are of
different forms such as monarchy, aristocracy,
oligarchy, democracy, dictatorship …etc
 Power, Legitimacy and Authority
 Power :
 The ability to control people or things.
 The right/ability of a person or group to do something.
 The ability to influence people toward organizational objectives.
However, you have limits on your authority and power.
 Power as legal authority
 When the term power is used with reference to governmental
institutions, it usually means the legal authority of the state.
 This type of authority refers to the state’s capacity to make law,
implement and enforce the law.
 Power as personal authority
 It is the ability to inspire trust and confidence in one’s leadership or
to command the respect of those one wishes to lead.
 Authority:
 is the right to use public power deemed to be
legitimate.
 It is a form of power in which people obey not
because they have been rationally or emotionally
persuaded or because
 they fear the consequences of discipline, but simply
because they respect the source of the command.
 Authority is therefore , based on an acknowledged
duty to obey rather than on any form of coercion or
manipulation.
 Thus, authority is the legitimacy, justification and
right to exercise that power.
 Legitimacy:
 Legitimacy is the popular acceptance of a governing
regime or law as an authority.
 Legitimacy is gained through the acquisition of power
in accordance with recognized or accepted standards
or principles.
 Thus, as long as legitimacy stays at a certain level,
stability is maintained, if it falls below this level it is
endangered.
 That is to say that a legitimate government will ‘the
right thing’ and therefore deserves to be respected
and obeyed.
 Legality or lawfulness or rightfulness.
3. UNDERSATNDING CITIZENSHIP
Definition of Citizenship
 It refers to the official recognition of an individual
integration into a given political system.
 It represents a relationship between the individual
and the state.
 A person can only be a citizen if they have citizenship.
 Citizen is a person ,whereas citizenship is that person
status or relationship to a nation, state or other body.
 Although differences may exist, there are common
elements in the definition of citizenship such as
rights, duties, belonging, identity and participation.
1. Citizenship as a Status of Rights:
 The mere fact of being a citizen makes the person a
creditor of a series of rights.
 In this sense, current political discourse often tends to
identify citizenship with rights.
 rights and obligations lie at the heart of the language of
citizenship(Jones and Gaventa (2002) .
 Hohfeld (1978), for instance, discovered four components
of rights known as “the Hohfeldian incidents” namely,
liberty (privilege), claim, power and immunity.
A. Liberty Right: is a freedom given for the right-holder to
do something and there are no obligations on other
parties to do or not to do anything to aid the bearer to
enjoy such rights.
 For instance, every citizen has the right to movement.
B. Claim Rights: are the inverse of liberty rights since it
entails responsibility upon another person or body.
 There must be somebody who is there to do or refrain
from doing something to/for the claim holder, i.e., claim
rights are rights enjoyed by individuals when others
discharge their obligations.
C. Power rights: the holder of a power, be it a government or
a citizen, can change or cancel other people and his/her own
entitlements.
 A government has the power to modify legal rights
through imposing to or removing duties from citizens.
 Article 33(3) the FDRE constitution, every Ethiopian citizen
has the right to renounce his/her Ethiopian
citizenship/nationality which shows the power rights of the
citizens.
D. Immunity Rights: allow bearers escape from controls
and thus they are the opposite of power rights.
 Immunity rights entail the absence of a power in other
party to alter the right-holder‘s normative situation in
some way.
 For instance, civil servants have a right not to be
dismissed from their job after a new government comes to
power
2. C/ship as membership and identity
 Citizenship is associated with membership of a
political community, which implies
 integration into that community with a specific identity
that is common to all members who belongs to it.
3. Participation: Participation occupies a key position in
citizenship.
 Individuals differ in what approaches they find
important – some people focus on their private affairs
while others actively participate in the life of the
society, including politics.
 There are two approaches in this regard; minimalists
and maximalists.
4. Inclusion and Exclusion: All individuals living in a
particular state do not necessary mean that all are
citizens.
 For instance, there are non-citizens visiting, working
and living in Ethiopia branded as foreigners/aliens
 Theorizing Citizenship/ Theories of c/ship
 There are different approaches to citizenship, most contemporary works that
address the issue of citizenship speak of the following four approaches:
 Liberal,
 Communitarian,
 Republican and
 Multicultural citizenship.
1. Citizenship in Liberal Thought
 Underlines on individual freedoms and rights.
 Individual interests, voices, and values need to be protected by state.
 Disproportional allocation of rights and duties for any group of
among citizens would mean discrimination.
 State needs to have limited role in socio-economic domains of society.
 Individuals are the only actors who deserve c/ship status.
2. Citizenship in Communitarian Thought
 Communitarianism is as an approach emphasizes on the
importance of society in articulating the good.
No individual is entirely self-created; instead the
citizen and his/her identity is deeply constructed by
the society where he/she is a member.
 Argue that the identity of citizens cannot be understood
outside the territory in which they live, their culture and
traditions, arguing that the basis of its rules and procedures
and legal policy is the shared common good.
 Communitarians often deny that the interests of communities
can be reduced to the interests of their individual members.
 The good of the community is much above individual
rights and citizenship comes from the community identity,
enabling people to participate.
3. Citizenship in Republican Thought
 Republican citizenship theory put emphasis on both
individual and group rights.
 Republican though attempts to
 incorporate the liberal notion of the self-interested
individual within the communitarian framework of
egalitarian and community belonging.
 Citizenship should be understood as a common civic identity,
shaped by a common public culture.
 It encourages people to look for the common ground on
which they stand, despite their differences, as citizens.
 The republicans argue that
 don‘t pressurize individuals to surrender their particular
identities like the communitarian thought.
4. Multicultural Citizenship
 The conception of citizenship in a modern State should be
expanded to include cultural rights and group rights within
a democratic framework.
 There is a need to move towards a new type of
multicultural citizenship appropriate to highly diverse
societies and contemporary economic trends.
 They are four principles of multicultural citizenship, namely :
 Taking equality of citizenship rights as a starting point.
 Establishing mechanisms for group representation and
participation.
 Differential treatment for people with different characteristics,
needs and wants.
 Recognizing that Formal equality of rights does not necessarily
lead to equality of respect, resources, opportunities or welfare.
• Modes/Ways of Acquiring Citizenship
1. Modes of acquiring citizenship;
i). Citizenship from birth/of Origin
A. Principles of Jus sanguineous (the right to blood)
 Based on the decent or blood relation of the child with
its parents.
 For instance “any person shall be an Ethiopian national
by descent where both or either of his parent is
Ethiopian.
B. Principles of Jus soli (the right to soil)
 It refers to citizenship by the birth place of the child .
 Only individual born on the soil of the state is regarded
as citizens of the state.
 The place of birth is sufficient to be citizens.
ii).Citizenship by law(naturalization:
 It is a process by which citizenship status is given to a
foreigner by the state when he/she should satisfy the
required criteria.
 To bring the process of naturalization in to effect, the
person to be naturalized should satisfy the specific
criteria, usually legal, set by the particular state in to
which he/she wishes to be a citizen.
A. Marriage
B. Acquisition of domicile
C. Appointment as gov’t official
D. Grant on application

E. Substitution and Citizenship by Political Cas

 Ethiopian nationality law
 Before the 1930, there wasn‘t officially inscribed legal document that deals with
citizenship.
 But in 1930 Ethiopia adopted a legal document named as ―Ethiopian Nationality
Law.
 Recently, this nationality law has replaced by another legal document called
―Ethiopian Nationality Proclamation NO. 378/2003 which was adopted in 2003
by the HPR.
 Modes of Acquiring Ethiopian Citizenship
Acquisition by Descent
Acquisition by Law (Naturalization)
A)Grant on Application (registration)
B) Cases of Marriage
C) Cases of Adoption (Legitimating)
D) Citizenship by Special Cases
E) Re-Admission to Ethiopian Nationality
(Reintegration/Restoration
Article 3: Acquisition by Descent: any person of either sex
shall be an Ethiopian national where both or either parent
is Ethiopian.
Art. 4:Acquisition By Law
 Any foreigner may acquire Ethiopian nationality by law in
accordance with the provisions of Articles 5-12 of this
Proclamation.
Art. 5: Conditions To Be Fulfilled
 A foreigner who applies to acquire Ethiopian nationality By law
shall:
1) have attained the age of majority and be legally capable under the
Ethiopian law;

2) have established his domicile in Ethiopia and have lived in Ethiopia

for a total of at least four years preceding the submission of his
application;
3) be able to communicate in anyone of the
languages of the nations/nationalities of the Country;
4) have sufficient and lawful source of income to
maintain himself and his family;
5) be a person of good character;
6) have no record of criminal conviction;
7) be able to show that he has been released from his
previous nationality or the possibility of obtaining
such a release upon the acquisition of Ethiopian
nationality or that he is a stateless person; and
8) be required to take the oath of allegiance stated
under Article 12 of this Proclamation.
Art. 6 : Cases of Marriage
A foreigner who is married to an Ethiopian national
may acquire Ethiopian nationality by law if:
1) the marriage is concluded in accordance with the
Ethiopian laws or in accordance with the laws of any
other country where the marriage is contracted;
2) there is a lapse of at least two years since the
conclusion of the marriage;
3) he has lived in Ethiopia for at least one year
preceding the submission of his application; and
4) he fulfilled the conditions stated under Sub-Articles
(1), (7) and (8) of Article 5 of this Proclamation
Art. 7: Cases of Adoption
 An child adopted by Ethiopian. national may
acquire Ethiopian nationality by law if:
1) he has not attained the age of majority;
2) he lives in Ethiopia together with his adopting
parent;
3) Where one of his adopting parents is a foreigner,
such parent has expressed his consent in writing;
and
4) the condition stated under Article 5(7) of this
Proclamation has been fulfilled.
 Dual Citizenship
 Having citizenship status of two countries at the
same time.
 It arises because there is no common international
law relating to citizenship.
 The most common reasons for dual citizenship
are these:
 Marriage to a citizen of another country.
 Adoption by parents who are citizens of
another country.
Modes of losing citizenship:
A. Renunciation:-
 it is the right given to every body to give up his/her previous
nationality based on his/her interest.
 This is more of a legal way
 Has got an international recognition by UN
B. Deprivation:-
 carried out when citizens commit certain serious crime against the
national interest or the regime.
C. Substitution
 When the people on the area leave their former state they are losing
their c/ship.
D. Lapse:-
 way of losing citizenship when a person stays outside for a long and
continuous period of time.
 Statelessness
Individuals could also become stateless persons
because of deprivation and when renouncing their
citizenship without gaining nationality in another
State.
Some people become stateless as a result of
government action.
To settle such conditions, the UN has adopted a
convention on the protection and reduction of
stateless persons.

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