미국의 국가 - 국가성(stateness)의 문제와 국가성의 충족체로서 혁신주의 국가

The American State: the Stateness of the United States and the Progressive State as an Embodiment of Stateness

  The United States, as we know it today, is characterized by the absence of a strong sense of "stateness." If we define the stateness as the institutionalization of a modern bureaucracy on the part of central government, the American state has been historically far behind the European states. This has been the case, because the United States lacked the absolutist monarchy and adhered to a strong ethos of liberalism and republicanism. In addition, the United States enshrined federalism and a system of separation of powers in its Constitution, thus keeping the visibility of concentrated power at a low level. Futhermore, the American party system has been decentralized, and the federal legislature is filled with representatives of local interests, making a strong, responsible party system of the European-style hard to come by. All these factors hindered a strong American state from developing into a mature form from the start. Despite these deficiencies, the United States fulfilled the necessary requirements for the stateness in the Progressive era. The Progressive state, which was initiated by reformed oriented presidents and intellectuals and emerged as a response to the industrialization and scientific movement around the end of the 19th century, can be regarded as the first American state which makes it possible to compare it to the European modem states. In the sense that the Progressive state was national in its jurisdiction and that its federal executive was strengthened by the institutionalization of modem bureaucracy, the Progressive state was the first modem American state. The rampant economic problems caused by the newly emerging corporate order and by the societal demands brought up due to rapid industrialization, urbanization, and immigration all paved the way for the new intellectuals of scientific orientation and the progressive presidents committed to administrative reform to reshuffle the American state. The Progressive state, thus built, contributed to the establishment of an independent executive free from the patronage pressure of central and local party bosses. One final notice is that, however strong it is, the American state can never be statist, in the sense that it cannot encroach upon the principle of separation of powers and upon the self-fulfilling operation of market economy.