Society is a modern idea: The ideas of 'the state' and of 'society' are modern ideas; they did not become pertinent to inquiry before the seventeenth century. I say, 'pertinent to inquiry', because it would be wrong to say that either of them acquired their modern senses as early as that. This required a further shift, in the nineteenth century, with the emergence of the idea of a 'nation' in its modern sense. It was only then that the idea of 'a society' as 'a community, nation or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions and collective activities and interests' came into use. And with that, the idea of a nation-state, in its modern sense, also became possible. While it is clear that these ideas were constructions, the question of whether they are sustainable constructions may be passed over here. At this point we need only notice that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the 'unity' of 'society' was constructed otherwise.1
Three characteristics of emerging states in the 16th Century
States became increasingly capable of exercising control over their populace.
States became concerned with power, and competed with others. Monopoly over legitimized violence within, and concern with offense and defense against other states became a primary concern (Machiavelli)
Separation of government from civil society, and the search for legitimacy arose.
Differentiate between society and community: societas is agents with loyalty to one another, agreeing to honor the same set of rules for dealing with one another - not united in purpose, as in a community. societas versus polis
Discussion of Hobbes: methodological individualism creates equality, and blindness to power of small groups. It is also epistemological individualism, fails to account for social constructs.
, it is of some importance, as we shall see, that after Machiavelli, no theorist in the 'liberal tradition' of social science put war at the center of his analysis. Once 'the state' and 'society' have been discovered, it is as if nothing that happens in 'society' is affected either by war or by mobilization for war.
, societas remains, unspoken, in the background of much contemporary social science. Unacknowledged influence of Hobbes
Once society is conceived of as a natural entity, then government becomes a separate problem, and politics becomes possible in its modern shape.