Force Theory of Origin of the State:
The exponents of this theory hold that wars and aggressions by some powerful
tribe were the principal factors in the creation of the state. The force or might
prevailed over the right in the primitive society. A man physically stronger
established his authority over the less strong persons. The strongest person in
a tribe is, therefore, made the chief or leader of that tribe. After establishing
the state by subjugating the other people in that place the chief used his
authority in maintaining law and order and defending the state from the
aggression from outside. Thus force was responsible not only for the origin of
the state but for development of the state also. According to Edward Jenks:
“Historically speaking, there is not the slightest difficulty in proving that all
political communities of the modern type owe their existence to successful
warfare.” As the state increased in population and size there was a concomitant
improvement in the art of warfare. The small states fought among themselves
and the successful ones made big states. The kingdoms of Norway, Sweden and
Denmark arc historical examples of the creation of states by the use of force.
This theory is based on the well-accepted maxim of survival of the fittest. There
is always a natural struggle for existence by fighting all adversaries among the
animal world. This analogy may be stretched to cover the human beings. This
theory is criticized due to because the element of force is not the only factor in
the origin of the state; religion, politics, family and process of evolution are
behind the foundation of the state. Thus to say that force is the origin of the
state is to commit the same fallacy that one of the causes is responsible for a
thing while all the causes were at work for it.
The Social Contract Theory:
The most famous theory with regard to the origin of the state is the social
contract theory. The theory goes to tell that the state came into existence out
of a contract between the people and the sovereign at some point of time.
According to this theory, there were two divisions in human history – one
period is prior to the establishment of the state called the “state of nature” and
the other period is one subsequent to the foundation of the state called the
“civil society”. The state of nature was bereft of society, government and
political authority. There was no law to regulate the relations of the people in
the state of nature. There were three exponents of this theory. They were
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who differed about
the life in the slate of nature, reason for converting the state of nature to civil
society and the terms of the contract. They all, however, agreed that a stage
came in the history of man when the state of nature was exchanged with civil
society to lead a regulated life under a political authority. The crux of the social
contract theory is that men create government for the purpose of securing
their pre-existing natural rights – that the right come first, that the government
is created to protect these rights. These ideas were based on the concepts of a
state of nature, natural law and natural rights. According to John Locke, prior to
the establishment of society, men lived in a “state of nature”. Thomas Hobbes,
an anti-democratic philosopher, emphasized that in the state of nature there
was no government to make and enforce laws, men made war on each other
and life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. But Locke argued that
even in a state of nature there was a law governing conduct-there was the
“natural law”, comprising universal unvarying principle of right and wrong and
known to men through the use of reason. Thus Locke would have us believe
that if an Englishman was to meet a Frenchman on an uninhabited and
ungoverned island, he would not be free to deprive the Frenchman of his life,
liberty or property. Otherwise, he would violate the natural law and hence was
liable to punishment. Thus according to Locke, the state of nature was not a
lawless condition, but was an inconvenient condition. Each man had to protect
his own right and there was no agreed-upon judge to settle disputes about the
application of the natural law to particular controversies. Realising this, men
decided to make a “compact” with one another in which each would give to
the community the right to create a government equipped to enforce the
natural law. In this way, every man agreed to abide by the decisions made by
the majority and to comply with the laws enacted by the people’s
representative, provided they did not encroach upon his fundamental rights. In
this way, the power of the ruler was curtailed. Plato was the first among the
western thinkers to use the term. Sir Henry Maine attacked the theory as one
of putting the cart before the horse, because contract is not the beginning of
the society, but the end of it. The universally accepted view is that the society
has moved from status to contract and not vice versa. With the growth of age,
status lost its rigour of fixity and its place was taken by contractual obligations.
