WHY (AND WHAT) IS STATECRAFT?

‘Statecraft’, according to the “Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations”, is very much about managing relations between states to the advantage of one’s own country.

This is exemplified in Margaret Thatcher’s 2002 book “Statecraft” – a reflection on her time in power that focusses on “the state’s role in the maintenance of international security”. And this is probably the most common current usage. But there are several others.

A much older tradition stems from Machiavelli and focuses more on how ‘the prince’ is to remain in power and defend his (it was usually ‘his’) state against enemies internally and externally. Machiavelli famously and controversially defended the right of ‘princes’ to use whatever means were necessary for ‘reasons of state’. Much of Machiavelli’s seminal work, The Prince, however is focussed more on the internal maintenance of power.

Charles Anderson, in his 1977 book on ‘Statecraft’ points out that in fact statecraft is an old north European word for ‘the science of government’ in the broadest sense. This is very similar to the approach adopted by Alasdair Roberts in his recent (2019) book ‘Strategies for Governing’, which also encompasses all aspects of the creation, maintenance, and adaptation of the state and political order – internal and external - at a macro level.

Studies of and theories about the state have become extremely fragmented in recent decades. Numerous disciplines, schools of thought and communities of interest focus on many different aspects of states and governments.

In the early 20^th century such studies were dominated by ‘public administration’, and although this still persists there are many parallel approaches: public policy; public management; state and nation building; development administration; etc.

Some political economists and political scientists even began, mainly in the 1990s, to doubt the viability of the state as an important institution. Discussions of ‘government’ were displaced by talk about ‘governance’ – the idea that the state was but one amongst many domestic and international actors and increasingly powerless. Books with titles like ‘The End of the Nation State’ (1993), ‘The Retreat of the State’ (1996) and ‘The Hollow Crown’ (1997) turned out to be somewhat premature.

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007/8 and the Covid Pandemic of 2020-2022(?) showed just how powerful states can still be. Whilst the collapse of several ‘failed states’ has showed what can happen without strong states.

The term ‘Statecraft’ as used here as an all-embracing one for the study of states and governments and how to successfully build, run and adapt them, internally and externally.

It has the advantage of being both old and novel (in this proposed use) at the same time. It does not try to revive older approaches and make them dominant, for example ‘public administration’. And the ‘craft’ part of the term emphasises that Statecraft is a work of both science and art, combined.

STATECRAFT IN SEVEN DIMENSIONS?

What follows is a first attempt to develop a framework for the study of Statecraft that is itself a strategic, or macro-level, approach but which can also integrate meso and micro levels of analysis (Roberts, 2019, discusses these different levels).

This “7S” model suggests that all 7 of these elements of Statecraft can be shaped by, and in turn shape, the way in which Statecraft can be exercised by any Government.

STRATEGY is the overall purpose, direction and intent of the Government and leaders of a state. The Strategy may entail changes in any of the other six elements of Statecraft. But it may also be shaped by them and the constraints they impose on what is possible. And Strategy can be the subject of unforeseen events, of opposition and of changes of purpose by the Government itself. It can be ‘deliberate’ or ‘emergent’ or a mixture of both?

STRUCTURE is about the overall shape of the state and its governing elements. Is it a representative democracy, or something else? Is there a separation of powers? Is it unified or federated? Is it (or some parts of it) resilient or fragile? How many layers of Government are there? How are Government and public services and agencies organised?

SCOPE is about the range of areas of society the State seeks to influence and to what degree and using what instruments? States in the 21^st century generally seeks to influence far larger areas of social activity than they did a century or so earlier b. In particular regulatory Scope now affects far broader areas of society. The recent pandemic broadened Scope still further in most states, especially in all 4 ‘tools’ areas.. Many states have been criticised for trying to do too much, or sometimes too little.

(And it is crucial to understand that SCOPE and SIZE are not the same things – e.g. “small’ governments can try to do many things.)

SIZE has been a long debated issue for the past century, and especially in the past half-century. The 1970s and 80s saw the emergence of governments in many advanced countries who wanted to shrink their states – e.g. UK, USA, Germany, Japan. And global institutions like the IMF sought to impose “structural adjustment” (state shrinkage) on many developing countries. One critical issue is how to measure the size of state. One approach is to use four “tools of government” – finance; authority; organisation and informational.

(Size can be measured using ‘Tools of Government’ – see box)

STAFF & SKILLS are the critical resource for any State to function. Without sufficient and competent people working on its behalf the State itself is powerless. So how the State – Government and public services and agencies – is STAFFED and SKILLED are a crucial set of issues. Across OECD countries around 1 in 5 employees work for the State. Every aspect of how these people are recruited, paid, disciplined, motivated, is crucial to achieving government Strategies.

STYLE is about how the Government - political and ‘permanent’-  public leaders conduct themselves and seek to guide the Government and its organisations, as well as society itself. At the extremes their STYLE can be authoritarian and dictatorial, or democratic and representative. Even in representative democracies, Styles can vary between majoritarian (winner takes all) and more consensus building approaches. Even within the same Party of Government, leaders can have very different Styles. (AKA ‘cultures’)

As an example, the Styles of the last three Tory PMs and some of their Ministers seem to have marked a major departure from Ministerial standards that have operated in British Government for a long time and have been codified for about 3 decades?

SHARED VALUES are the core of a functioning State and Governmental system. Without some Shared Values that bind a state, and its society, together the fragility of the State increases. In democracies, for example, “losers consent” is one important value – which we see being undermined in the USA at the moment. What these Shared Values can be are many and various but without their being accepted by a high majority, states can fail. And do.

This is very much a ‘kite flying exercise’ so I very much welcome comments about the overall definition of ‘statecraft’. Does using as an ‘umbrella term’ work? And on the specifics of this 7S framework, which I will try and ‘operationalise’ by comparing the statecraft of the existing Conservative and possible future Labour governments in the UK. Watch this space.