Middle Level Management – Sandwich Layer and its Importance to Organizations
In previous articles, at many places, we have discussed how the middle management is in the unique position of actualizing change in organizations. We have talked about how the middle management needs to be brought on board for any meaningful change and how the senior leadership cannot alone get things going in any organization. The […]
Anderson & Anderson’s Change Model
Anderson & Anderson’s model of change provides a comprehensive coverage of the entire process of change and equally explains the whole process of change as a cyclical process (Anderson and Anderson, 2001, p. 13). This model briefly views change from three perspectives: Content: It analyzes the technical as well as the organizational factors which require […]
The Dynamics between the Executive, Legislature, and the Judiciary
The Three Arms of the Modern Nation State It is commonly understood that the political economy in any country actualizes itself through the dynamics of the three principal organs, the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Before we launch into a full-fledged discussion about the interactions between these components, it is useful to define the […]
The Impact of Culture on Group Behavior
Culture and Group Behavior It is a known fact in management theory and practice that culture has a direct impact on group behavior. To elaborate, groups in organizations are comprised of individuals belonging to a common or a different culture. Therefore, it can be expected that the behavior of these individuals would depend a lot […]
Transformational Leadership Theory – Meaning, Criticisms and its Implications
Creating high-performance workforce has become increasingly important and to do so business leaders must be able to inspire organizational members to go beyond their task requirements. As a result, new concepts of leadership have emerged – transformational leadership being one of them. Transformational leadership may be found at all levels of the organization: teams, departments, […]
The previous articles discussed the basic concepts of political science including how the concepts of nation states and sovereignty came into being. This article takes the discussion further by examining how states have formed and developed over the decades as well as the changes occurring in the way states are governed and managed.
The first aspect of state formation relates to the unitary concept of sovereignty wherein nations exist as entities that are autonomous and independent. For instance, the British and French colonial powers ceded independence to their erstwhile client states in the aftermath of the Second World War. Next, many countries came into existence because of historical and geographical realities. Hence, the formation of states has happened either due to fights for independence or because of the redrawing of the maps due to geopolitical considerations. This is the case with Iraq and other countries in the erstwhile Soviet Bloc that were amalgamated with the larger Soviet Union because of contiguities and the need for expansion.
The development of states has happened after these countries gained independence and this was accompanied by a concomitant move to develop their economies and strengthen the institutions of governance. For instance, India adopted a new constitution and embarked on state building, which is now yielding results in terms of improved living conditions for the people when compared with those under British rule.
Further, states like those that became independent after the collapse of the communist regimes are now establishing themselves as strong states with flourishing economies mainly due to concerted efforts at state building and state development.
The third aspect of changes in the ways and means of how the states go about their activities is to do with how the political economy evolves over a period of time. For instance, Pakistan has experimented with both democracy and military rule without success in either whereas Egypt has made the transition from autocratic rule to democratic rule successfully.
The point here is that the key factor for states to change over time is the resilience of the institutions of governance as well as the ability of the people to effect change. Hence, states that have stronger institutions and less internal fissures have changed for the good whereas states that are weak in the center or are pulled apart due to centripetal forces have become failed states. Finally, the processes of state formation, development, and change can happen through revolutions as was seen recently during the Arab Spring of 2011.
Before concluding this article, it needs to be mentioned that this brief introduction is just an overview and the themes introduced in this article would be explored in detail in subsequent articles. The key point to be noted is that we live in an era that is marked by rapid and unprecedented change and hence, those states that have succeeded in establishing structures of governance are the ones that would ultimately succeed and thrive in this environment.
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What is Compassionate Capitalism and Why We Need it in These Times of Planetary Crisis ?
February 12, 2025
