Toward Post-modern State:State-building Of Modern State And It’s Future

Modern state is not only the political structure generally built worldwide, but also the main body of activities in international society. Where does modern state come from? What does it mean for China? This is what Chinese political scholars need to answer when studying the nation’s history and concerning state’s development. Universal among temporary world, modern state, as a structure of political community, is not a political form that inherited from the distant past, but is a structure of purposeful and conscious during practices of human politics in the past six to seven hundred years. This is called state-building. The course of history in modern state construction dates back to Western Europe in14-15th century A.D. The war and pressure of preparing war prompted European kings to strengthen the centralization system. Also, they built up specialized and professional bureaucracy to collect tax revenue as well as to manage domestic affairs. Therefore, powers that scattered around in feudal lords are centralized to the central government. What’s more, citizens’national consciousness and national identity were shaped with the help of war and centralization. Absolutist state is the form of politics built in Western Europe from14to18century, while in the mid-19th century, a democratic system with mass involvement was built by reform with the social movement of common people, among whom the body was proletariat and with the expansion of political protests. The birth of modern state was ultimately driven by it. In the20th century, especially after WW Ⅱ, the form of modern state built by Western Europe, widely imitated accompanying the independence of colonies and national emancipation movements, has finally become the modern state system in today’s world.As an outcome of state-building at the beginning of14th and15th century, modern state was the first to appear in Western Europe and got the extensive universality in20th Century. In the process of state-building, coercion, capital and identity makes up the basic three elements. Their combination develops eight models of state construction. Different countries in different periods of state construction result in various results, which lie in dissimilar state construction and political systems. Modern state is made up of nation state, bureaucrat nation and democratic country. Among them, nation state and bureaucrat nation is the outcome of state construction from14th to mid-19th century, which represents absolutism of modern state. Democratic country is, on the other hand, the outcome of people’s democracy development pushed by social movement and political protests started from the second half of19th century. And this becomes the essential feature which distinguishes modern state from absolute state. In fact, nation-state, bureaucratic state and democratic state are continuously innovating and developing during the modern state construction, which promotes transition from modern state to post-modern state. Post-modern state is a kind of state format, in which to protect human rights rather than maintain sovereignty is a nation’s essential responsibility and ultimate goal. The existence of post-modern state means that some values and principles have universality in the development of human civilization. Also, only by international cooperation that surmounts sovereignty can dilemma and challenges met during human civilization be overcome.Compared to Western Europe, China’s state-building process is earlier while modern state is belated. From the behavior of political foundation and state-building from the beginning, different feudal nations have started the process of state construction under the pressure of war and domination as early as Eastern Zhou and Warring States Period. Among them, Qin was the most successful one. Pushed by Shang Yang Reform, the State of Qin not only built a powerful and efficient political system governed directly by centralized government through a more thorough self-strengthening reform, but also established autocratic monarchy in China after unifying the other six states. This political system was strengthened during the Tang and Song Dynasties and it peaked during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. However, since the modern times, centralized and directly-ruled feudal autocracy started to decline and collapsed because of the1911Revolution, which resulted in the absolutist state’s disintegration in ancient China. After1927Revolution, China restarted the modern state construction and in1949, the preliminary modern state construction was pushed to finish thanks to the establishment of the new China. But very soon, the process of construction suffered setbacks. Ultimately, during the Cultural Revolution, democracy and rule of law were severely damaged and basic human rights were extremely abused, showing that during the former30years, what new China had successfully shaped was just nation state and bureaucratic nation rather than a modern state. Only after the reform and openness in1978, China has really started down a path to modern state with the gradual development of democratic politics, the restoration and reconstruction of the rule of law and also, the respect and protection of basic rights as humans. It’s undeniable that there are still great gaps between level of development of China’s modern state and that of well-developed European countries. Besides, China hasn’t finished the construction of modern state yet. What’s more, China is currently under the double pressure to transform into the post-modern state as well as to construct a more mature modern state. Under such situation, severe challenges and tests are posed no matter to Chinese political development and social progress or to governing party’s ability in governance.Modern state is a powerful public power and sovereign authority based on legitimacy of democratic politics. The core of the modern state-building is to continuously improve national power and democratic politics through state construction process, so as to realize the system equilibrium between democracy and authority. Therefore, organic combination of strong state and strong society has been achieved in different degrees. Constitutionalism is a political system that maintains the democratic and authoritative system equilibrium. Not only limits the public power to a reasonable and proper range in order to protect basic the fundamental rights of citizens, but it also prevents totalitarianism democracy and populism democracy from breeding so as to impel democratic politics’ benign and orderly development. With international community’s consensus on what value principle healthy politics and good society should obey coming to an agreement and the widespread of overcoming global risks effectively as well as dealing with the public problems faced in human civilization advancement, modern state’s supremacy of sovereignty has been surpassed gradually. The post-modern state’s era of respecting and protecting fundamental human rights as universal values and of dealing with international affairs democratically through consultation is coming. The direction of future modern state construction will provide tailwind to transformation from modern state to post-modern state.