ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 described Third World polities in terms of “strong societies” and “weak states”.1 Whereas in industrially advanced democracies state and society are so entwined as to be almost fused together, and while in newly democratising polities the society’s self-discovery draws it closer and closer to the state, the relationship between state and society in the non-democratic countries of the Third World is characterised by irregular and unequal spurts of power and influence by one over the other. The most frequent scenario in such countries is that of an expansive, authoritarian state governing over a society factionalised along a multitude of ethnic, linguistic, and socio-cultural lines. There is a one-way flow of influence from state to society, buttressed by a plethora of coercive institutions each specialising in maintaining “order” (which means ensuring political obedience), gathering intelligence, legitimising the regime’s carefully tailored political culture, and glorifying the person of the leader or, as the case may be, the ruling party. Politics is raw, brutal, coercive, and conflictual. To be “political” means to either be a complete servant of the system or to demagogically oppose it through rhetoric or other heroic acts of defiance. To every group in society politics has a different meaning. Some see it as defiance, others as compliance, and still others see it as a means for the rich to get richer. Few people see politics as a normal part of everyday life, and still fewer see it as routine and mundane. The vast majority of people see politics as something contrived, a domain for the greedy, the playground of the few; something to either avoid completely or to bitterly oppose, or, alternatively, to take advantage of. Praetorianism prevails, supplanting any and all rules of the game which may have once governed political behaviour. “Each group employs means which reflects its peculiar nature and capabilities. The wealthy bribe; students riot; workers strike; mobs demonstrate; and the military coup. In the absence of accepted procedures, all these forms of direct action are
found on the political scene.”2 Civil society, the democratic political self-organisation of society, is but a distant ideal of a handful of intellectuals, and post-materialism is even further away, having to first contend with the ordeals of economic and industrial underdevelopment.
