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121JURISPRUDENCE: PRESENTATION OF A TEXTBOOK
STATE
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14420/en.2013.6.9
Svetlana Vladimirovna Boshno, Doctor of Juridical Science, Professor and Head of the Political Science and Law Department of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, e-mail: [email protected].
The essence of a state is the expression of a society's political organization. There are many approaches to the essence of a state: the elite theory, the technocratic theory, the pluralism theory and others. These are distinguished by their correlation between state and society as well as by their view on the origin of the state. Each of the essential attributes of a state is of great importance: sovereignty, territory, enforcement of monopolies, taxes and levies, law-making, structural organization and others. The functions of a state express the main constant areas of activity, and are internal and external, permanent and temporary, economic and social. The form of a state includes the form of the government, the state structure and the political regime.
state, attributes of state, essence of state, sovereignty, elite theory, technocratic theory, pluralism theory, people's sovereignty, nation sovereignty, territory of state, functions of state, economic function of state, social function of state, external functions of state, internal functions of state, ecological function of state.
1. The nature and essence of state
Many legal phenomena are difficult to understand and apply without also understanding the state and its institutions. This explains the need to know the nature of the state, i.e., identify the basis for its functioning and development, its social values and purpose. Moreover, it is important that we understand the state in the unity of all its diverse and contradictory properties, sides, and forms of existence as an independent institution. Disclosure of the essence of the state presupposes the analysis of the state as a political organisation of the society.
The essence of the state is that it should be considered as a definite association, whose members are integrated into a coherent whole by public power structures and relationships. In the state as a political organisation of a special kind, the will of all members of a society is consolidated together and acts
Abstract.
Keywords:
as the will of a single state.
Politico-philosophical and legal thought developed many approaches to the essence of the state. The difference between these ideas becomes apparent when resolving the following fundamental issues: 1) the correlation between state and society; and 2) the artificial or organic, natural origin of the state.
The best-known approaches to the essence of the state are the following: theory of pluralism, technocratic theory, the theory of elites, and the legal approach.
M. Duverger, R. Dahrendorf and other researchers devised pluralism theory. According to this theory, society is a collection of strata - groups of people united by age, gender, occupation and other socially significant properties. Strata may form political alliances to solve a problem or lobby for a particular interest. Such a union is necessary because an individual is not able to independently influence the state power. Stratified interests may influence the state; due to of the diversity of interests of organisations (pluralism) their objectives are carried out in public policy. This form of interaction between society and the state is called pluralistic democracy.
Technocratic theory was formed and devised in works by T Veblen, D. Durkheim, and others. The basis of this theory was the views of A. Saint-Simon: that destruction would threaten civilisation without technicians. Moreover, the disappearance of politicians would not affect the existing socio-economic order.
According to this theory technocrats are persons professionally involved in management. The source of their power is the experience and expertise of management sciences. Bureaucrats, unlike technocrats, have power only in connection with their membership in the state apparatus. Thus, technocratic management activity is necessary for society in order to achieve optimal targeted development.
Elite theory (V. Pareto, G. Mosca, G. Sartori) represents functioning of the state through a power struggle of political elites. Elites includes: 1) successful people; and 2) persons exercising public authority. Elites are composed of a thin layer of people having power, money, and social status. The winning elitist group is able to conduct their interests in the state policy.
Legal approach (G. Jellinek, A. Esmen, H. Kelsen) treats the state as a social formation and legal institution. The legal nature of the state is shown in the functioning of state institutions, publications and applications of the law. The state is regarded as a legal entity, which expresses the interests of the people. Existence of the state as a political organisation is due primarily to the fact that it is a special organisation of political power.
Political power has concentrated force that transforms it into an effective factor of social existence. Such forces are various state institutions, institutionalising power and giving constant functioning and binding characteristics to it. These institutions are state authorities with their specialised structures in the form of the army, the secret police, prisons, courts, and rules of law. In other words, the main feature of political power is rooted in its inseparable connection to the state. This distinguishes it from other kinds of power.
Political power, in fact, materialises in the state and legal institutions and becomes the state power. This is why these two concepts are substantially identical.
Political (state) power differs from the social power in that the first expresses
the needs, interests and a will of not simply different groups in society, but such social groups that occupy a dominant position. Expression of the interests of the dominant social group gives power, and with it, the state becomes political by nature. Politics is primarily a sphere of relations between social groups.
The essence of the state as a political organisation is particularly evident in its comparison with a civil society, which includes public relations outside the state: economic, social, ideological, moral, religious, cultural, family and others. Civil society is the real social basis of the state. The state and civil society do not merge and are not identified.
Thus, the state and civil society are the unity of form and content, where the form is represented by a political state, and the content - by a civil society.
An important characteristic of the state is that it represents itself as a structural organisation. This is reflected in the existence in the state of the special apparatus in the face of people with public authority and who are professionally engaged in performing functions of management and governance, the protection of economic, and social and political structure of society, including through coercion. It is this characteristic of the state as an organization of public authority that makes it a special political organisation. The state is not the only instrument of practicing political power. Along with the state, there are other, non-governmental, effective means of enforcing power. Among them are political parties and movements, trade unions, and labour groups. The state differs from them as it is a structured system of special state bodies exercising its numerous internal and external functions.
Thus, the essence of the state expresses its social nature and purpose. The essence of the state is changed with the development of society, influenced by the political regime, and the form of governance. Modern democratic states see their mission in warranty of rights of citizens as part of the general world order.
In the history of socio-political and legal thought, there are several trends of understanding of the social purpose of the state. One is the theory of liberty rights of an individual and obligations of the state to ensure freedom from someone else's perspective (A. Smith S. Mill, B. Constant, G. Locke). In this theory, the main idea is the availability of economic and personal freedom; the negative effect is profound inequalities of citizens.
According to the theory developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, all, including those in power, whose mission it is to ensure equality, must be subordinated to the principle of equality. This trend was devised in works by P. Novgorodtsev who believed that it was necessary to develop the principle of equality towards equalisation of social conditions of life.
With the development of society, an approach that focuses on strengthening the social purpose of the state, which is expressed in the smoothing of injustice, inequality dominates. The state should carry out its activities in the area of defence of human rights. The social purpose of the state consists of the redistribution of income between segments of society through the system of taxes, the state budget, special social programs, the need for public funding of scientific research and cultural projects.
2. Features of the State
The state is a complicated instrument of the political-legal organisation of
a society. Attempts to define the concept of “state” have long been known, and continue today. The concept of “state” was preceded by such definitions as a country, the empire, the policy, and the republic. Actually the concept of “state” has been used since the XVI Century. In different contexts, the state was understood as a community, union, mechanism, machine, and as the apparatus. To more completely understand the concept of the state, we should consider the main features of the state.
The state is a highly developed form of an organisation of people living together in a certain area. It is a special organisation of political power, with apparatuses in place, carrying out, in respect to the population living in a certain area, the power based on the law and supported by the coercive force.
The state has a monopoly on coercive power against the people. No other organisation of society has the right to use force without the sanction of the state.
The state controls the enactment of laws and regulations, which are mandatory for all citizens of the state. The state has a monopoly on one type of a form of law - a normative legal act.
Collection of taxes and duties is carried out for the maintenance of the state apparatus, and the formation of the national budget. Obligatory fees are generally a binding attribute of state power. Taxes and fees are the financial base of the state power. Taxes are mandatory payments collected from individuals and legal entities; their size and kind depends on the type of state, and its political and economic nature. The calculation and payment of taxes are established by the legislation. Taxes and fees must have an economic basis and cannot be arbitrary. Taxes and fees are inadmissible, meaning citizens are prevented from exercising their constitutional rights (Clause 3 of Article 3 of the Tax Code of the RF, Part One).
The state is a structural organisation, which is reflected in the presence of its special apparatus in the face of people who have public authority and are professionally engaged in performing functions of management and governance, protection of economic, social and political structure of society, including through coercion.
The principal characteristic of the state serves its existence as a territorial organisation, the division of the population on a territorial basis, and territorial integrity of the state.
The features of the state should be separated from its symbolism: name, flag, and coat of arms. Each state is sovereign in establishing its name (proper name of the state), flag and emblem, and in establishing their content and external appearance. International law protects the integrity of the symbols of the state as its honour and dignity. Encroachment on the emblem and flag of the state makes one guilty of an offense. Thus, in the Russian Federation there are federal constitutional laws on state symbols: “On the State Flag of the Russian Federation,” “On the State Emblem of the Russian Federation,” and “On the State Anthem of the Russian Federation.”
3. State Sovereignty
The sovereignty of state power means its supremacy and independence from any other authority, the right and opportunity to carry out domestic and foreign policy on behalf of the whole society inside and outside the country.
State sovereignty is manifested in the general validity of the decisions of
state power to everyone who is present in its territory. The legal manifestation of sovereignty is that the state has the exclusive right to publish the regulations. State sovereignty is also evident in the publication of enabling regulations that reflect the exceptional nature of state power, and its entitlement to coercion against citizens. The apparatus of coercion that belong to the state guarantees decisions of state authorities.
There are several distinct types of sovereignty, including national, and people’s. People's sovereignty is the right of the people to independently decide all questions of its political-state and social development. People have the right to directly participate in determining the main directions of domestic and foreign policy. People’s sovereignty includes the right to control activities of the state and its bodies. The idea of people’s sovereignty is often enshrined in constitutional acts. Thus, in accordance with Article 2 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, a bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power in the Russian Federation shall be its multinational people. The people exercise their power directly and through bodies of state power and local self-government.
Sovereignty of the nation means full power in determining its status, and ability and authority to self-govern. The sovereignty of a nation is its right to secede from the state and create its own state.
4. Territory of the state
The territory of the state is the space within which the state has full power. This includes land territory (land, mineral resources), water areas (rivers, lakes, artificial reservoirs, marine territorial and territorial waters around the territory of the state), the air territory (the airspace over the territory of the land and water), as well as objects equated with territories of the state (ships, aircraft, spaceships and stations operating under the flag of the state and some other facilities owned by the state). In accordance with Article 67 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, a territory of the Russian Federation includes the territories of its subjects, internal waters and territorial sea, and the airspace above them.
The Russian Federation has sovereign rights and exercises jurisdiction on the continental shelf and in the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation in the manner established by federal law and provisions of the international law. The borders between the subjects of the Russian Federation may be changed by their mutual consent.
As non-governmental organisations are able to bring people together by ideology, political aspirations, or occupation regardless of the boundaries of various states, the specific feature of the state organisation consists of the population of the certain territory with the subsequent division of this territory into administrative and territorial units. In other words, this feature consists of a strong limitation of the territory by the state. This territory is subject to the power, and rules of law of the state (i.e., its jurisdiction).
The state has the right to defend its territory, guided by the principles of integrity and inviolability.
Territorial structure of the state assumes division of the territory into administrative units (districts, regions, counties, territories, and other names). The purpose of this division is to ensure sound governance policy throughout the territory of the country.
5. Functions of the State
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Functions of the state are activities of the state corresponding to the main objectives of a particular historical period, showing its essence and thereby giving it a certain socio-political characterisation.
Functions of the state are composed of the main directions of its activities that express the essence and social purpose, goals and objectives of the state to manage a society in its inherent forms and by inherent methods.
Since the main tasks of the state, due to the economic basis and social structure of society, do not depend on the subjective discretion of the state power, and thus far the main directions of activity of the state are permanent, they are objective. The basic direction of activity of the state is exercised throughout the historical period in conditions of which the main task is solved.
Thus, the function of the state is not arbitrary, but namely a basic, mainstream of its activity, without which the state, at the given historical stage or throughout its existence, cannot manage. Basic activity is a stable, developed objective activity of the state in this or that area: economy, politics, nature protection, etc. Most profound and sustainable in the state, its essence is objectively expressed in its functions, therefore, through them it is possible to know the state as such, its multilateral relations with a society. Carrying out its functions, the state thereby addresses the challenges for governance of the society, and its activities acquire a practical orientation. The functions of the state are managerial concepts. They specify purposes of the state governance at each historical stage of societal development. However, functions of the state are implemented in certain (mostly legal) forms and special methods featured for state power.
Classification of functions of the state can be conducted in a variety of ways (criteria).
Depending on the duration of their existence, functions are divided into permanent and temporary. Permanent functions are unchanged, while temporary functions reflect the modern needs of the state. For modern states, the fight against terrorism is a temporary function. The eradication of this destructive phenomenon will lead to the disappearance of the corresponding function of the state.
Depending upon spheres of application and implementation, functions of the state are divided into political, ideological, social and economic. Depending on the forms of realisation, functions can be lawmaking, law protection and law enforcement.
Classification of the functions of the state can also be carried out in the basis of the form of the state arrangement within which they are implemented. In a federal state these are functions of the federation and the subjects. In a unitary state these are functions carried out within the territory of a single state, only in an administrative-territorial plan, divided into regions. Division of functions to the internal and external ones is traditional. In this classification, the basis is a place or a territory in which activities of the state are implemented.
Internal functions are the main directions of various activities of the state, due to the need to address the challenges of its domestic tasks. A state carries out its tasks in the three spheres of public life: economics, politics, and spiritual (ideology, social psychology, culture, morality, etc.). In accordance with this, the following main internal functions of the state include: 1) protection of the constitutional system (political area); 2) regulation of property relations
and economic activities (economic area); and 3) formation of the ideological foundations of the state (the spiritual domain).
The internal functions also include the following: the protection of property rights; establishment and protection of law and order in society; protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens; ensuring democracy; cultural and educational work; environmental (ecological) activity; financial control; and other functions determined by the nature of the state and its form.
The external functions of the state represent the basic directions of the activity of the state and are directly related to decisions of tasks and objectives of the international field. These functions depend on the type of political regime, type of state, stages of its development, the developing situation in the world, and the nature of the relationship between states. Goals and objectives, as well as some of the functions of the state, depend crucially on its essence and type.
Modern Russian policy promotes and carries out the following external functions: integration of Russia into the world economy; maintaining world order; foreign economic cooperation and attraction of foreign investment; and joint decision with other states of global energy, economic, demographic and other contemporary challenges.
Economic function is manifested in state participation in economic processes, and the nature and level of its impact on the economy.
A state, by virtue of its status and position, inevitably participates in the economic life of society. It defines the main directions of activities of the whole through the establishment of common institutions, including legislation. A state forms tax and foreign economic policies, and defines the rights and responsibilities of all participants of economic relations. A state in legislation establishes forms of ownership and subsequently protects them.
Degree of state intervention in economic relations is significantly different depending on the type of state and political regime, and other factors. A distribution economy is combined with a centralised management state system. The state has the leading form of ownership, i.e., the state one. The economy has a planned character. A state distributes material and financial resources; it possesses monopoly power in economic relations.
A market economy assumes a variety of forms of property, freedom of entrepreneurship, absence of administrative and other barriers to the movement of goods, works and services. Participants in economic relations interact on the basis of fair competition and do not involve abuse of the law. The state defines the legal boundaries of participants of economic relations, and guarantees the legal order in the economy. The state has significant property and control levers, but in business relations it should operate equally with other economic entities.
The tax system is an essential factor of state participation in economic life.
Political function is manifested in the formation of public authorities, the state apparatus, and the distribution of powers between the bodies and institutions. The state exercises lawmaking. Through the publication of legal acts, the state authorities exercise their powers, and create the legal conditions for the implementation of public services.
Within the framework defined by the state, all other elements of the political system operate, i.e. political parties, local self-governments, and others.
The cultural and educational function of the state is shown in purposeful
activity on the formation of aesthetic and moral models, and systems of value for a society. The state has a number of specialised bodies, intended to promote public interest in the field of library and archives, theatres and cinemas, and the other arts. The state should create favourable conditions for the development of cultural institutions, and provide for the satisfaction of spiritual needs of the citizens.
The social function of the state is evident in the maintenance of a proper standard of living of the population, and citizens' interests in the social security sphere. The content of this function is diverse: the state protects labour and health; guarantees minimum wage; provides state support for families, motherhood, fatherhood and childhood, disabled persons and older persons; develops a system of social services; and establishes state pensions, etc.
The social function of the Russian state is enshrined in Article 7 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, according to which the Russian Federation is the social state whose policy is aimed at creating conditions for a dignified life and free development of the individual. The Constitution provides that the Russian Federation secures the labour and health, a guaranteed minimum wage, provides state support for families, motherhood, fatherhood and childhood, the disabled and the elderly, the system of social services, state pensions, benefits and other social guarantees protection.
The social function of the state is aimed at alleviating and overcoming such phenomena as poverty, the income gap, inequality and unemployment. It should contribute to the stabilisation of the standard of living and a more equitable distribution of the burden of economic hardship among the various population groups.
In the statehood of a society, the continuity of functions is preserved, but at the same time, there is a mechanism to update them. Self-organisational, subjective and even random processes affect the emergence of new functions. Changes of state forms, including political regime, have an influence on exercising functions of the state. For example, in a democratic and liberal state the social function of the state is understood, and carried out completely differently.
General social contents of functions of the state is the least volatile and, therefore, the most stable, and are formed to address the key social, political, including geopolitical, economic and other challenges affecting the entire society on the long historical path of its life.
General key social functions provide existence, well-being, and sometimes the survival of society itself. It is in this sense that the state organisation of society is becoming of more social value. The earliest city-states took upon themselves valid, social functions, especially the function of providing a production economy (agriculture, cattle breeding, metallurgy, ceramics, etc.).
The general social content of functions, which persisted throughout the history of the statehood, gave a great national value to the state, although it sometimes acquired bizarre forms. In some cultures, the general social content included, for example, the maintenance of navigation, maritime commerce (island states), and protection and reproduction of fish resources (some northern and Pacific countries). In other nations, only the conservation of their linguistic identity became the general social content of activity of the state, regardless of what type of state it was or what forms of an arrangement existed and functioned.
Foundations of the existence of certain nations in specific conditions
of residing in a particular area, with certain geographical, climatic and other characteristics developed into “eternal questions,” and are the constant subject of the state activity. They filled general functions with specific content, which had to be implemented over the centuries, at any stage of the statehood in order to ensure the vitality and survival of this or that society or people.
General social functions include security, disaster management, and environmental disasters, implementation of social programs of health care support, social security of disabled individuals, and protection of citizens' rights and freedoms.
In the modern world, environmental situations get into planetary problems. In this context, the ecological function becomes a priority, a feature of which is that it cannot be fully implemented by the state on its own territory. Any significant environmental incident impacts many states and requires collaborative (including legal) action.
6. The Form of the State
The doctrine of the forms of the state has come a long way to reach its current development. Forms of the state were studied in ancient times. According to the philosophers of Greece, Rome and the Eastern countries, the issue of classification of state forms is one of the most important in science. The distinctive feature of the studies about forms of the state of that period is that philosophers generally did not see the differences between the essence and the form of the state; moreover, the very nature of the state power was considered a form of the state.
During the Middle Ages, in the studies about the form of the state, in one way or another, the divine source of political power was substantiated. In their political studies, the thinkers of the Enlightenment (Sh. Montesquieu, J. J. Rousseau, etc.) sought to explain forms of the state on the basis, not of the will of God, but of the activities of the human mind. Their theories exposed the injustice of power of tyrants, and developed forms of the state that were consistent with the principles of natural law.
Thus, Sh. Montesquieu divided forms of the state into a republic (the basis of power is virtue, equality), monarchy (the basis of the power is an honour), and aristocracy (the principle of power is moderation). He believed that forms of the state depended on the size, climate and other geographical environments. Sh. Montesquieu considered a constitutional monarchy of the English sample as ideal.
In turn, J. J. Rousseau believed that a sovereign power in the state belonged to the people, which could delegate execution of the power to various persons and bodies. He distinguished between political forms depending on who the people elected as the executive authority: if it was one person, then it was considered a monarchy; if it was a small number of people, it was aristocracy; if all individuals exercised power, it was democracy. J. J. Rousseau considered monarchy, aristocracy and democracy as simple and ideal forms of government i.e., such which existed as an exception. In reality, there is a mixture of these principles of governance.
Theories of forms of the state of the nineteenth century assumed that the main criterion in support of the “form of the state” was the legal status of the Supreme bodies of the state power. The principal question was who exercised
the state power, or in other words, who those people were who conquered the will of all persons living in the boundaries of the territory. Domestic jurisprudence suggested that the form of polity, as it was long recognised, could divide all states, into the monarchy and the republic, but their distinction was not in the number of the ruling individuals but rather in their legal status.
Lawyers of late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also put forward the concept of the form of polity, which included the structure of the state, the organisation of its territory, and the relationship between members of the state,
i.e., territorial, administrative, national, and other units. In this regard, the concept of the state form included: forms of governance (e.g., organisation of supreme, sovereign authority), and forms of government associations. Both of these concepts were used as identical to that of a state, although forms of governance were given a preference.
In the middle of the twentieth century, there was a widespread opinion that the form of government in the broadest sense includes the form of governance and the form of polity; in a narrow sense - only the form of governance.
The most contentious issue of the general concept of the state form is the problem of the political regime, since this element appeared much later than others (in the twentieth century), and not all experts recognise its presence. In the need to allocate the notion of the political regime in the general doctrine about the form of the state, facts from real life are convincing. Yet, in the historical past, there appeared such state forms; in order to understand the nature of which it was not enough to describe their form of governance or form of polity. Features, unique only to these forms, illustrated that they were not only monarchies, but mainly -that they had special ways of exercising monarchical power. The corresponding terms “despotism, tyranny” are used to describe a special regime of political power in the country.
The problem of the political regime became particularly relevant in connection with the victory of fascism in some states. All this demonstrated that under a republican form of governance, gross violations of human rights and democratic ideas are possible.
The form of the state in modern science is seen as a complex concept that includes a number of elements.
The form of the state should be understood as the organisation of the state power, covering a form of governance, and a form of polity and political regime.
The form of governance is a way of organising the state power and features a method of replacement of the head of the state and senior officials.
The order of replacement of a position of the head of the state provides two basic forms of governance: a monarchy and republic. Versions of these forms are defined by a parity of powers of the legislative and executive authority distributed between the head of the state, parliament and the government in the specific country, and the order of their formation following from here.
The political regime is a system of methods and ways of exercising the state power, a certain form of realisation of public dominion. Political regime inherently influences a particular period of life for a country; namely, the order of political relations, the degree of political freedom, and the image of governing. This functional feature of the state, as it reflects the actual exercise of those rights and obligations, are formally enshrined in legislation. The political regime reflects
the relationship between the state and society, and the state and the individual. This concept is important in both the narrowest and broadest sense of the word: it sets the methods of state management on the narrow end and provides a level of guaranteed democratic rights and political freedoms for the individual, a degree of compliance of the formal constitutional legal forms with political reality, and the nature of the relationship of the authorities to the legal framework of the state and public life on the broad end of the spectrum.
7. Unitary and Complex State
Polity is an internal division of the state, the legal status of its components, and their relationships with each other and with the central authorities. Polity is a political and territorial organisation of the state power.
There are two major types of polity: unitary (simple) and federal (complex). A unitary state is a single indivisible state, subdivided only on the administrative-territorial units, with no signs of statehood and does not include any public entities.
In a unitary state, common constitutional principles dominate, there is a system of central authority, and usually a single monetary system, one army, etc. Structural elements of the unitary state mandate that the state does not have their own legislation, judiciary, or citizenship. Nationwide governing bodies have full authority. Apparatuses of the state are the same for the whole country and the local authorities neither legally nor practically limit central authority.
Depending on the degree of centralisation, unitary states are divided into centralised and decentralised. In the bureaucratic centralised states, in the chapter of local bodies of the government, the officials are appointed by the centre to whom local self-government institutions are subordinated. The democratic form of centralisation supposes a greater degree of independence of elective local bodies of the state power concerning regional questions.
Federation is a form of the state or national polity, including state formations. A federal state connects the following state formations: territory, region, land, states, cantons, the federation having its own sovereignty, federal state authorities, federal constitution, the army, the system of federal legislation and the federal tax system.
Federations are often the result of a treaty between the states that were independent before entering into an alliance. Another method of formation of the Federation is annexation of territories to the state that retain the element of state sovereignty. Federation may also be the result of the desire for independence and expanding the powers of units of unitary states. Federation has sovereignty rather than its constituents. Subjects of the federal state do not have sovereignty.
Contractual and constitutional federations are known depending on the legal document in which the main principles of the interaction of the subjects of the Federation have been identified.
National-territorial federations are composed of subjects in the territory of which a population of certain ethnic groups live, united by features of culture, language, customs and traditions.
Administrative-territorial division of the federation means that subjects are formed exclusively on a territorial feature.
Mixed federation combines national-territorial and administrative-territorial division.
Depending on the relationship of the subjects of the federation with the
central power, symmetrical (equal rights of all subjects) and asymmetric (rights of subjects vary) federations are allocated. For example, in the Russian Federation, republics have powers that are not found in the other types of subjects (territories, regions, etc.): citizenship, the national language of the state, constitution.
Peculiarity of the federal state consists in the presence of two levels of the state power: national (federal) and the subjects of the federation. Powers are distributed between these levels and form subject matters of exclusive competence of the federation, subject matters under joint jurisdiction of the Federation and the subjects, and subject matters of competence of subjects of the federation.
Federations allow dual citizenship: federal and subjective. Subjects of the federation have legislation that must comply with the national legislation.
8. State and Law
The question of the correlation between law and state, on the primacy of the state over the law or vice versa is traditional for legal doctrine. The defining role of the law is based on the fact that it arose before the state. Indeed, there is a lot of evidence that law arose in the pre-state era, when mankind was in a primitive condition. Then the arisen state would try to take the law under control. However, it was not possible to do so in full as the customs, principles, doctrines, sense of justice, religious teachings and behaviors occur and shall terminate without the participation of the state. This interpretation does not disconnect the relationship between the state and the law, but gives the state the role of one of the other sources and proclaims it as guarantor of law. The connection between the law and the state is obviously only in lawmaking and enforcement. Lawmaking is understood as an activity of the state and its officials for the adoption, amendment and repeal of regulations. In law enforcement, the state demonstrates its imperious nature and opportunity to compel citizens to fulfill requirements. Indeed, regarding punishment and coercion, the state does not have competitors. It has exclusive possession of prisons, army, police, courts and other authorities.
Outside the public sphere, a significant part of the legal phenomena remains, in that the state protects against violations. Such an approach seems to be more tolerant and adequate to democratic values. Moreover, the Constitution of 1993 restated precisely the concept of “law and the state.” Thus, Article 15 stipulates that the generally recognised principles and norms of international law and international treaties are part of the legal system of the Russian Federation, to be exact - the top part of the iceberg. However, these rules are not created by the Russian state or any state at all. It is the law in the highest sense of the word, as supranational human experience. Russia not only recognised that experience, but also pledged to limit the freedom of its own lawmaking with a framework of common human experience.
The law, and the legislation reflecting it, are the effective tools of the state power. The lawmaking function is one of the most important because it is the law that makes it possible to exercise other functions of the state. The legislative body of the state power is created directly for the enactment of laws. The executive branch is also engaged in lawmaking for example, the government issues resolutions. The legislation is a form of consolidation of the state power. Other forms of law, such as a custom, emerge without the participation of the state power. Activity of the state in relation to a custom refers to a prior authorisation (a recognition, acceptance).
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