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Lynda Balloni
GEO 3302: Political Geography
Dr. Ross
21 October 2014
History and Theories of the Emergence of Modern States
Currently, virtually the entire world is divided up into political entities referred to as
states, which Glassner and Fohrer describe as “an independent country consisting of a specific
territory and citizens bound by their government that demands (but does not always obtain) their
loyalty” (31). States today are more specifically referred to as modern sovereign territorial
states, which according to Glassner and Fohrer require the existence of land territory, a
permanent population, some governing body, an organized economy, a circulation system for
their currency as well as sovereignty over their land and recognition by other states (31-32). The
State, Theories and Issues provides a more concise definition for current states, stating that “the
modern state is (…) an institution claiming sovereignty for itself as the supreme political
authority within a defined territory for whose governance it is responsible” (“Introduction:
Theories of the State” 5). The last term that will be explored within this paper, albeit in less
detail than that of the state, is the concept of nation, which Glassner and Faher define in the most
general terms as “a group of people” but that holds the implications of some sort of binding
cultural factor for said group, whether it be ethnicity, language, religion, etc. Despite the specific
explanations that abound to describe states, the current international political system which relies
almost solely on the existence of these precise political entities has only been in place since the
virtual end of official colonialism within the last 50 years. As articulated in The State, Theories
and Issues, “whilst the term has been used retrospectively to refer to mechanisms and processes
of political governance arising in Mesopotamia as early as 3,000 BC, it is only since the
seventeenth century that human history has been graced by the concept of the state” (4-5). Since

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the political entity of the modern state now completely encompasses the world, a plethora of
theories as to how and why this particular governing body emerged have appeared over the past
several decades. Both historical fact and speculative ideas abound on the topic. After providing
some historical background on the formation of the modern state, this paper will explore three
theories as to why and how the state emerged of Richard Hartshorne, Stephen B. Jones and Karl
Deutsch, which argue for the significance of binding and dividing forces within a state, a chain
of concepts leading to a state’s formation, and a cyclical process of the state, respectively, as
these theories are encompassed by easily contrastable basic models.
The idea of the modern state did not come about until the signing of the Treaty of
Westphalia, putting an end to both the Thirty and Eighty Years Wars thus creating a new
political system for Europe, in 1648 or emerge as the world’s overwhelmingly dominant political
entity until the twentieth century. However, the initial seed for this type of governing body was
planted thousands of years beforehand, when the Agricultural Revolution fostered the transition
from societies reliant on hunting and gathering to the much more stagnant ones of the
modernizing world. When societies began to rely on agriculture for their survival, their
dependence on and protectiveness over territory, one of the indispensable qualities of the modern
state, started to blossom. The advent of religion, which began to develop as a product of
agrarianism, also helped foster the basis for states as it provided a form of legitimization for
rulers. Now potential leaders of communities could, and would, use the supposed blessing from
their respective deities as their purpose for taking power over their territory (“Introduction:
Theories of the State” 4-5). Still, millenniums of empires, tribes and other political systems
would occur before the modern state system finally emerged.

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Jumping ahead a few years, the fall of the Roman Empire would eventually lead to the
advent of modern states in Europe and later throughout the rest of the world, but only after a few
centuries of feudalism occurred first. An important factor in the transition from the feudal
system to the modern states system was feudalism’s switch from the ownership of land holdings
by lords and vassals dying with each individual person to permanent assets that could be passed
on to the next generation. While initially the feudal system was based on personal bonds rather
than territorial holdings, eventually kings and the nobility below him started to rule over land
instead of individuals (Schulze and Yuille 7-8). Religion continued to play a roll in the
development of the state throughout this time period as it provided the bureaucratic basis as
characteristic of states today. In the words and Schulze and Yuille, “the modern bureaucracy
was already in place, it merely had to be duplicated by the secular authorities” (16). The
absolutist states of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ie, Bourbon France, Hapsburg Spain,
and Tudor England, were the predecessors to states today as they had the aforementioned
centralized bureaucracies with the ability to tax their population, standing armies, defined
boarders, and diplomatic relationships with other “states” (for lack of a better word)
(“Introduction: Theories of the State” 6). Eventually (more specifically, upon the end of the
Colonial Era) the overwhelming majority of the world’s territory would fit into the category of
the modern sovereign territorial state whose functions were rooted in those that developed in the
absolutist states mentioned in the former sentence.
Freidrich Ratzel was a pioneer in writing on the topic of political geography. His concept
of Environmental Determinism, which attributes the majority of a territory’s individual functions
to the type of environment it exists in, is frequently looked down upon as over-simplistic and
essentially wrong upon the dawn of more complex theories which provide more substantial

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evidence to back up their claims. However, certain aspects of his work have still been
incorporated into the writings of some of his predecessors.
In his essay “The Functional Approach of Political Geography”, Richard Hartshorne
takes a different approach on the formation and function of states from most geographers by
approaching his study by using the political functions of a state as its jumping off point rather
than viewing the states’ geography as a primary aspect of how they operate (Hartshorne 100).
Since he published his work while Colonialism was still a prevalent feature in the world’s
political system, he mentioned the role of both sovereign states and, in his words, “dependent”
states but then chose only to go in depth into the emergence and workings of the former. A
central part of Hartshorne’s theory was the presence of forces which worked to bind a state
together (centripetal) and those which divide the state and could potentially tear it apart
(centrifugal). He echoes the work of Ratzel in stating that “the fundamental purpose of any state
is to bring its territorial parts into one organized unit” (104). He then divided this concept into
his centripetal forces, which are conducive to the formation of thus state and thus more relevant
for the purpose of this paper, into the sections “The State Idea”, “The Concept of Nation”, “The
Concept of the ‘Core Area’”, and “Internal Organization”. He refers to “The State Idea” as the
initial and continuing reason for the state’s existence, and argues that this purpose could be as
simple as despotic ruler’s desire for power over a specific territory but unless generally requires
some sort of loyalty by its population to the state for it to last (110-111). As for the “Concept of
Nation”, Hartshorne believed that primarily, national unity within a state often existed because
“all peoples tend to prefer government by those of their own kind, even if inefficient and unjust,
rather than any government over them by foreigners, however beneficient” (113). He
acknowledges that nationality in also significant because people like to identify with their state

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and its population as there is power in solidarity. Despite his description of the importance of
nation, he admits that once a state reaches a certain point in its development, its people’s loyalty
will depend more upon political ideologies than ethnic, linguistic, or other defining
characteristics of a nation (113-114). Although Hartshorne nods to the development of the “Core
Area”, or some city or region within a state that hosts the center of virtually all of its functions,
whether political, economic, or cultural, he admits that it is not essential to the state, merely one
example of a unifying factor, which is one of the things he argues every state does need (116).
The last centripetal force Hartshorne advocated for was the presence of “Internal Organization”,
which he essentially defined as some sort of governing body. The particular organization of a
state would depend on its specific needs, i.e., smaller or more homogenous areas would function
better with a unified government whereas larger, more divers states, particularly those divided
into smaller political entities within its boundaries, would be more conducive to a federal system
(118). Hartshorne’s three particular centrifugal forces that states, excluding a few anomalies
such as microstates, had to fight against included particular areas in their territory separated by
physical or human barriers (i.e., sparsely populated regions or regions populated by unfriendly
people), areas that held ties to other states, and areas that differed in population and/or economic
or political interests from the rest of the state (105). Lastly, Hartshorne acknowledges that
external factors of territorial, economic, political and strategic nature also shape the existence of
the modern state (118).
Stephen B. Jones worked to put together his ideas of the formation of the modern state in
his paper “Unified Field Theory of Geography” in which he argues that state formation occurs in
a chained outlined as “Political Idea – Decision – Movement – Field – Political Area”. The
political areas he refers to must have a recognized limit and his process of movement occurred

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within what he referred to as a “circulation field”, which could, but did not need, to encompass a
large body of people but would always result in some political decision being made (115). To
illustrate how his concept works, he used the example of the formation of the state of Israel.
Zionism was the political idea that sparked the process, the Balfour Declaration was the decision
that put their idea into action, the movement was the immigration of Jewish people from around
the world into the territory of Palestine (the field), and the political area was the new Israeli
government (117). He also argued that this process could also occur in reverse, but while the
transition from political idea to political area was a process of “controlling or creating”
(specifically the case of state formation, for our purposes), moving from area to idea was a
process of “conditioning”. Conditioning processes essentially form a new nation, or at the very
least a group of people with a shared idea, within a state (116). Jones acknowledged some
exceptions to his chain argument as the establishment of administrative areas often does not
require the “movement” process (118). He also pointed out that political ideas have the capacity
to lead to a variety of political areas and in the reverse process, out of one political area, several
differing political ideas could emerge (119).
In his essay “The Growth of the Nations: Some Recurrent Patterns of Political and Social
Integration”, Deutsch makes a point unlike those Hartshorne and Jones, who articulate the
formation of states as a historical process with a perceived beginning (the manner in which the
state comes together) and end (the resulting state which is still evolving but essentially fully
formed). He instead argues that state formation occurs in a cyclical process, beginning with
people living in relative isolation, then coming together to exist in a universal entity, until this
body breaks down again into localism like that of the feudal system. He reiterates his claim in
what he refers to as the “layer cake patter”, with the top layer consisting of high levels of

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assimilation and social communication, the middle level still exerting these qualities, just to a
lesser degree, and the bottom layer representing virtually no assimilation or communication
within a territory’s population (170). He expands on his argument by pointing out “some
possible specific uniformities” within various societies: the transition from substance agriculture
to exchange economies, mobilization of the population from rural areas to a territory’s core, the
growth of towns and communicative grids such as routes for travel, transport and migration,
accumulation of capital, skills, and institutions having a “lift pump” effect (spreading the wealth
brought on by these resources) on areas outside the territory’s core, rise of the awareness of
personal and collective identity, prominence of ethnic and national symbols, and the merging of
ethnic identity with people’s political inclinations (172-173). He then argued that once these
factors led to the actual formation of something resembling a state, four things would occur. A
group of people with some effective means of communication would form, economic resources
would accumulate and this would result in labor specialization, people would associate their
identity with memories and symbols, and the population would develop a capacity to learn (189-
190). Deutsch also pointed out that once a state with a strong national identity is formed, it can
lead to privileges for certain social groups over others and the exploitation of specific people
(191). This discrimination based on some identifying factor of a group of people within the
territorial entity is often would leads to the eventual breakdown of the universal era back into
localism.
While the theories of Hartshorne, Jones, and Deutsch exist in contrast with one another,
certain binding factors hold steady within each of their ideas. They all rely on the necessity of a
recognized limited territory to the functionality of the modern state and acknowledge the
importance of national identity within a state, whether it be a unifying or dividing factor in its

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existence. While these political geographers each worked on a compelling theory on the
emergence of the modern state, not one of their arguments can be applied universally to why or
how a state must form. To gain a more concrete understanding of the formation of states, it is
better to look at the concept from the most unbiased historical context available rather than look
for one generalized theory that can provide an explanation for the existence of the predominant
modern territorial state today.

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Works Cited
Deutsch, Karl W. "The Growth of Nations: Some Recurrent Patterns of Political and Social
Integration." World Politics 5.2 (1953): 168-95. JSTOR. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
Glassner, Martin Ira, and Chuck Fahrer. Political Geography. 3rd ed. New York, New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 2004. Print.
Hartshorne, Richard. "The Functional Approach in Political Geography." Annals of the
Association of American Geographers (1950). JSTOR. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
"Introduction: Theories of the State." The State: Theories and Issues. Ed. Colin Hay, Michael
Lister, and David Marsh. New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. 5-7. Print.
Jones, Stephen B. "A Unified Field Theory of Political Geography." Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 44.2 (1954). JSTOR. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
Schulze, Hagen, and William E Yuill. "The Advent of the Modern State." States, Nations and
Nationalism: From the Middle Ages to the Present. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell,
1996. 5-16. Print.