CC BY
10
RUDN JOURNAL OF LAW
http://journals.rudn.ru/law
МЕТОДОЛОГИЯ ПРАВОВЫХ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ LEGAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
System-synergetic approach to studying the essence of state power
Abstract. This article is devoted to the problem of cognition and understanding of the essence of state power. Actualization is carried out by searching for a new paradigm approach in order to determine the fundamental principles that are correlated with the idea to optimize and increase the efficiency of the corresponding sphere of public relations. Acting as an alternative to the substantial and relativ-istic approach to the study of state power, the system-synergetic approach analyzes the phenomenon of "power" based on the definition of "system", within which the functions of communication and regulation of public relations are assigned to power. As a result, power is seen as a property or function of a social, in particular, political system, the need for which is determined by the presence of society itself and the task of maintaining its integrity. The analysis allows stating that in most modern concepts there is a consistent rejection of the traditional interpretation of power as the result of subject-object relations, where the subject of power is an active, energetic principle, and the object undergoes impact. In contrast to the position of traditionalism, there is a tendency to interpret power as a complex polysystem permeating the entire social structure of society. As a structural and synergistic effect of the system, power is not a property of its individual element, since each element must certainly be correlated with other units of the given system. Power is an intrasystem relatedness of all elements. As a structural principle, power is realized on the basis of equivalent exchange, which means not the equivalence of the exchanged elements, but a situation in which one element is unconceivable without the other, i.e. one element exists in relation to the other, and co-develops with it. Thus, power really fulfills the function of streamlining socio-political ties, making their separation and differentiation expedient. Power, therefore, is the beginning, creating structures, increasing heterogeneities in a continuous social environment and connecting them together. Such a view allows interpreting power as a principle of functioning of the state
© Zyrianov A. V., 2021
@ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
DOI: 10.22363/2313-2337-2021-25-1-248-262
Research Article
Aleksey V. Zyrianov
South Ural State University,
Chelyabinsk, Russian Federation zav-nauka@mail.ru
system: if the state system, with the help of some value proposition, manages to reproduce the corresponding content of consciousness, then it functions quite stably.
Key words: power, state, essence, system, structure, property, subject, object, society, synergetics
Conflicts of interest. The author declared no conflicts of interest.
Article received 12th March 2020
Article accepted 15th January 2021
For citation:
Zyrianov, A.V. (2021) System-synergetic approach to studying the essence of state power. RUDN Journal of Law. 25 (1), 248-262. DOI: 10.22363/2313-2337-2021-25-1-248-262
DOI: 10.22363/2313-2337-2021-25-1-248-262
Научная статья
Системно-синергетический подход к исследованию сущности государственной власти
А.В. Зырянов
Южно-Уральский государственный университет,
г. Челябинск, Российская Федерация zav-nauka@mail.ru
Аннотация. Статья посвящена проблеме познания и понимания сущности государственной власти. Актуализация осуществляется посредством поиска нового парадигмального подхода с целью определения фундаментальных принципов, соотносимых с идеей оптимизации и повышения эффективности соответствующей сферы общественных отношений. Выступая альтернативой субстанциональному и релятивистскому подходу к исследованию государственной власти, си-стемно-синергетический подход анализирует феномен «власти» исходя из определения «системы», в рамках которой на власть возлагаются функции связи и регулирования общественных отношений. В результате власть рассматривается как свойство или функция социальной, в частности государственно-политической системы, необходимость существования которой обусловлена наличием самого общества и задачей поддержания его целостности. Проведенный анализ дает основание констатировать, что в большинстве современных концепций осуществляется последовательный отказ от традиционного истолкования власти как результата субъект-объектных отношений, где субъект власти — это активное, деятельностное начало, а объект — исключительно то, что претерпевает воздействия. В противовес позиции традиционализма сегодня проявляется тенденция трактовать власть как сложную полисистему, пронизывающую всю социальную структуру жизни общества. В качестве структурно-синергетического эффекта системы власть не является свойством ее отдельного элемента, так как каждый элемент должен непременно соотноситься с другими единицами данной системы. Власть представляет собой внутрисистемную соотнесенность всех элементов. Как структурный принцип власть реализуется на основе эквивалентного обмена, означающего не равноценность обмениваемых элементов, а ситуацию, в которой один элемент немыслим без другого, т.е. одно существует относительно другого, соразвивается с ним. Власть, таким образом, действительно выполняет функцию упорядочения социально-политических связей, делает целесообразным их разделение и дифференциацию. Власть, стало быть, это начало, созидающее структуры, наращивающее неоднородности в сплошной общественной среде и связывающее их между
собой. Подобное представление позволяет трактовать власть как принцип функционирования государственной системы: если государственной системе при помощи некоторого ценностного полагания удается воспроизвести соответствующее ей содержание сознания, то она функционирует вполне стабильно.
Ключевые слова: власть, государство, сущность, система, структура, свойство, субъект, объект, общество, синергетика
Конфликт интересов: Автор заявляет об отсутствии у них конфликта интересов.
Дата поступления в редакцию: 12 марта 2020 г.
Дата принятия к печати: 15 января 2021 г.
Для цитирования:
Zyrianov A.V. System-synergetic approach to studying the essence of state power // Вестник Российского университета дружбы народов. Серия: Юридические науки. 2021. Т. 25. № 1. С. 248-262. DOI: 10.22363/2313-2337-2021-25-1-248-262
Introduction
Power is one of the central concepts of state science, social philosophy and political theory. Understanding the essence of state power, the orientation and mechanisms of functioning is the subject of study of the theory of the state. Kratology, the science of power as a social phenomenon and state power as its political embodiment, is an important contribution to the establishment of a special branch of scientific knowledge. The works of domestic scientists, such as Homerov, Kerimov, Khalipov, Leskov, Petrov, Yakovec have also added value to this branch of science.
However, despite its significant relevance and topicality, the scientific term in question is extremely ambiguous. Power, for example, is also understood as the ability to determine the social space of others (Tishkov, 1995:6), as a form, regulation and control, a way of mastering and directing energy (Kubbel, 1988:16), as a means of streamlining social relations with a powerful non-entropic effect (Ilyin, 1993:24), as "the ability of one person or group of people to realize their own will in a joint action" even in spite of the resistance of other people participating in the specified action" (Weber, 1968), as a form of influence that sets norms and goals (Ball, 1993:36), and as communication and cooperation in relationships between people (Ilyin, 1993:40). The number of examples can be significantly expanded.
Despite all the ambiguity and apparent divergence of the above formulations, it logically follows that at least two aspects are inherent in any power relationship, namely, managerial (organizational) and social (the need for power regulation is set by a variety of subjects, varieties of connections and interests, inherent to sociopolitical communities) (Demidov, 2001:30). In this case, power acts as a compulsory form of removing the interests, contradictions and conflicts generated by differences, as a universal mechanism for the unification and structuring of human communities.
The effectiveness of the use of power is largely determined by its social content, i.e. ability to act in harmony or, on the other hand, contrary to the interests of
equally governing and governed (depending on circumstances). Thus, managerial effectiveness is inextricably linked with the social essence of power. Power structures social relations, makes them more focused, effective, and causes mutual mobilization of behavior, both by sovereigns and subordinates, thereby significantly reducing the degree of uncertainty of their practical life. It can be assumed that it is the power that becomes the key factor in ensuring the evolutionary advantages of a particular social organism and reduces the likelihood of all kinds of random deviations from the main development path.
The complexity of an exhaustive definition of the concept of "power" lies in the multidimensionality of the social phenomenon itself, the ambiguity of the views and approaches. Often, power is determined by fixing one of its basic qualities, one or another distinctive feature. If you try to systematize the available representations, we can conditionally distinguish the following basic concepts from which the researchers of power repel: "influence", "will", "normativity", "exchange", "restriction", "attitude", "coercion", "resource", and "communication". It is quite natural that such an ambiguity in definitions requires an analysis of the existing system of views (Noskov, 2011:28).
Based on the above core concepts used in determining power, we distinguish three aspects of research (historically established level of theoretical principles) conducted on this topic:
1) The first aspect of understanding power is the substantial one; here the foundations of power, namely ability, will, personal qualities, are attributed to the subject of action. Power, therefore, appears as the ability of an individual to subordinate someone or something to their express will;
2) The second aspect is relational; the emphasis is on understanding power as a specific relationship between subjects. In this case, power appears in the form of a fully formed and stable social relationship;
3) The third aspect of understanding power (which is the most relevant in the context of our study) is the systemic phenomenon of "power"; it is based on the definition of "system", within which the functions of communication and regulation of public relations are assigned to power. As a result, power is seen as a property or function of a social, in particular, state-political system, the need for which is determined by the society itself and the task of maintaining its integrity.
Let us dwell in more detail on each of the three above-mentioned aspects and consider which basic concepts are laid in their foundation.
Substantial and relative approaches to understanding the essence of power
The classical interpretation of power is as follows: power is the ability and possibility to exercise one's will, exerting a decisive influence on the activities and behavior of other people by the use of any specific means. The initial model here is the relationship model, where A acts on B in order to subordinate this individual's will (or collective will, if it is a collective action) and, ultimately, achieve the desired result.
This prescriptive aspect is considered to be the most important distinguishing feature of power. It allows considering power as a kind of property intrinsic to the subject, ability, and/or expression of personal qualities. Power itself appears, in this case, exclusively in substantial characteristics, as, for example, in the concepts of T. Hobbes and M. Weber.
According to T. Hobbes, a natural power of a person is provided by his strength and mind. Natural law gives a person the right to use his power at his discretion, which, however, threatens to turn into lawlessness in relation to others. The way out of this contradiction is to endow the state with power and, as a result, conclude a social contract designed to limit people's desire to exercise their individual power.
Power, alienated from the natural person, thereby acquires an independent existence as the absolute supremacy of the sovereign. Such power "... can be erected only in one way, namely by concentrating all power and strength in one person or in an assembly of people that, by a majority of votes, could bring all the wills of citizens into a single will" (Hobbs, 1991:132). The thinker defined power as a means of obtaining some future apparent Good, and therefore put in the first place such a person's inclination as "the eternal and unceasing desire for more and more power, a desire that ceases only with death" (Hobbs, 1991:74).
The Hobbesian idea of a "social contract" was also shared by J.-J. Rousseau. However, unlike his ideological predecessor, he endowed with power not a sole sovereign, but a popular association expressing the common will of the whole people as a kind of resultant of the private will of specific people. The contract, therefore, consists in the alienation of each person and his rights in favor of the entire community. Although J.-J. Rousseau does not include a monarch or government into the supreme power, but a society in its collective legislative capacity, yet its concept can be attributed to the substantive, because society is conceived in it as an independent subject of power (Rousseau, 2018).
The analysis of the views of J.-J. Rousseau and other substantial representations demonstrate that when determining power, they all come from such concepts as "will", "influence", "restriction", "coercion", etc. As a result, within the framework of these representations, mainly two basic types of power relations appear, namely: 1) power based on force or the possibility of its use; 2) influence based on non-violent means of authority.
The insufficiency of such an interpretation of power is revealed in a whole series of relational definitions. In their framework, power is no longer considered as an originally given quality, because without another subject, without regard to it, it, in fact, remains unrealized. In other words, potential power is manifested only in action, in relation. It is impossible to be a sovereign in itself, just as state power cannot possess absolute substantial qualities. In this sense, power in itself as an independent substantial entity does not exist. In reality, there are only specific relations, the inherent property of which is power, or among which you can find relations of power (Noskov, 2011:47).
The common point in relational concepts of power, developed within the framework of the Western political thought, is the interpretation of power relations as relations of two or more partners that have a certain impact on each other in the process of joint social life.
The following theories can be singled out:
1) theory of "resistance" (D. Cartwright, B. Raven, J. French) describes such power relations in which the subject of power suppresses the resistance of its object;
2) theory of "resource exchange" (P. Blau, D. Hickson, C. Hinings), according to which the unequal distribution of wealth between participants in social relations creates an urgent need for them with those who are deprived of them;
3) theory of the "separation of zones of influence" (D. Rong) takes into account the moment of variability of the roles of the participants in the interaction. If in one situation one subject has power in relation to another, then with the transformation of the sphere of influence, the positions of the participants also change. The determining criterion for social relations is, in this case, reciprocity of influence. So, the basis of power in its relational understanding is legitimacy, that is, recognition of the right of one entity to prescribe other options for social behavior to other entities. The latter is based on tradition, on the adoption of a given structure of sociopolitical relations and presupposes the existence of the border which the subject of power is unable to cross.
System approach to understanding the essence of power
In contrast to relational, in systemic definitions, power interaction is revealed in the framework of special social (and, above all, political) systems. Moreover, the emphasis here is on power as a property of the system. At the same time, existence of borderlines between the political system and its immediate environment is recognized. This environment, i.e. what lies outside the political system, exists most of the time; this allows talking about an exchange between the system and its environment.
It is possible to say that the political system as such is a set of interactions carried out by individuals within the framework of their recognized roles and aimed at the distribution of values in society. The ability of the authorities to share values and make common decisions is a prerequisite for the existence and survival of the system. This gives reason to conclude that the function of power, in this case, is reduced to the regulation of conflicts and implementation of communication within the system itself.
Thus, according to N. Luman's definition, power is a symbolic means of social communication, giving its owner certain preferences over partners, for example, in choosing the most profitable way of social action (Luman, 2004). According to C. Deutsch, power represents one of the means of payment used in the political sphere, where influence, habit, or voluntary coordination of actions do not work (Deutsch, 1969). In the concept of T. Parsons, power appears as a peculiar "generalized intermediary" operating in the political system similar to the money used in the economic system (Parsons, 1969).
In the spirit of this approach, M. Crozier formulates the concept with the emphasis on strengthening the dynamic aspect of power relations. The possession of power, according to M. Crozier, is directly related to the ability of the subject to seize the source of uncertainty. The more an individual can influence a partner's situation due to the freedom in his/her behavior, the less they are vulnerable, and the more power they have over a partner (Crozier & Friedberg, 2000).
In these concepts, power acts as a means of universal communication, used to achieve any specific goals, a kind of symbolic intermediary that ensures the fulfillment of mutual obligations. The latter constitutes a functional understanding of power as such an activity that helps bring the system into optimal condition, maintains and improves its organization. Moreover, the emphasis is laid on the importance of the functional connection of the elements of the system, the generalized property of which is the power. Thus, power, from the point of view of the advocates of a systematic approach, is possessed only by the political system as a whole (Noskov, 2011: 63).
In a special dimension, power appears in the teachings of M. Foucault and the so-called "new philosophers": it is perceived as a kind of impersonal principle, where the subject of power is not regarded as sovereign. It is defined as a subject by a certain "linkage" of linguistic and material signs that exist outside and besides its consciousness. The possible appropriation of power by the subject is declared an illusion and, on the contrary, becoming a subject means accepting the necessary rules of submission (Podoroga, 1989:226).
Such representations allow to interpret power as a special system of relations, however, unlike most system concepts in which power is considered an integral property of the system, in this case, power itself acts as a system with the corresponding principles of functioning and development (self-development).
It is necessary to say that the systemic concepts, for the most part, are based on the concept of a "political system" proposed by D. Easton. He considers the political system to be open and adaptable to environmental changes so decisions on the distribution of values are made within its framework. Responding to the extreme environmental challenges in a similar way, the political system supports change and stability in an equal way. As a result, by adapting to the environment and changing values, the system preserves itself as a whole (Easton, 1965).
In this case, formation of value-purpose settings appears as a necessary process of streamlining society, fixing the regulatory aspects of power. After all, it is values that ultimately determine formation of certain social norms; their observance implies submission, whereas violation inevitably entails punishment. Therefore, a social norm is an obligatory rule of conduct; its observance is ensured by sanction (or incentive) coercion by the existing system of government. All these give grounds to conclude that the concepts of "connection" and "norm" are central in systemic concepts of power.
These concepts, in turn, predetermine the institutionalization of such a phenomenon as the state, expressed in the form of a special metasystem (subsystem of the political system of society) that implements the will of social forces as carriers of political power (functionally dominant elements of the system).
Power as a structural principle of state organization
The analysis above allows stating that in most modern concepts there is a consistent rejection of the traditional interpretation of power as the result of subject-object relations, where the subject of power is an active, energetic principle, and the object is the one that undergoes impact. In contrast to the position of traditionalism, today there is a tendency to interpret power as a complex polysystem permeating the entire social structure of society. With this approach, negative interpretations of power automatically lose their meaning, and revising of power relations in their positive interpretation becomes relevant.
It appears that this approach is methodologically required. It involves studying democratic principles of public administration, understanding the source of people's power and, more importantly, the power of every single person, an individual. In turn, individual is the product of a set of social relations influenced by government regulation.
So, it is generally accepted that the "subject" is vested with power, but within the framework of modern ideas, the question of what exactly the subject is and whether it is the product of power mechanisms is becoming more and more problematic. On the whole, such representations make it possible to interpret power as a system that organizes, and reproduces connections and relationships, thereby fulfilling the reproductive function. Such understanding of power allows to assert that "the nature of state-power relations is revealed more explicitly if we consider them as an element of a wider system of relations, organization of complex social systems, whose evolution is subject to fundamental system rules of functioning" (Demidov, 1995:6).
In real practice, it is possible to imagine any object as a system by describing it in the following terms: 1) as a process 2) as a functional structure 3) as an organization of matter.
So, in a systemological context, the subject does not exist by itself in its isolation; it is always included in the structure of activity. In the interaction of subjects, the manifestation of their multidirectional expressions of will is quite logical. When ordering, the power transfers the will of specific subjects onto a social object. Illustrating this situation, G.P. Shchedrovitsky rightly notes: "... Since the will in the scientific and rational interpretation represents a concentrated expression of needs and interests in the ability to choose the goals of the activity and internal efforts to implement them, when people interact, the manifestation of multidirectional volitional orientations is natural" (Shchedrovitsky, 2000: 27).
Hence, if power is considered to be a volitional production of activity order, it is embodied in activities to streamline relations between people, coordinating and directing their actions in a single channel of the resulting, goal-oriented will vector (at-tractor). And this, in turn, means that power is associated with the transfer and imposition of the will of the subject of power on a social object, determined by the relations of other people, as well as organizational fixation (a form of government), within which the subject is given a definite place in the social continuum of time and space (Rozhkov, 1998:81). This level of material organization can be represented in the form of a special force field created by the totality of social relations.
But the subject, and this seems important to note, does not exist as a certain initial entity or fit into social relations; on the contrary, it was initially included in them. That is how it acquired its own subjectivity, and identification of its attributive properties. As an example, we can cite the famous Marx's definition of the human essence as the totality of all social relations. Probably, it was that thesis, which was subsequently developed by M. Foucault; it launched the discussion on the universal nature of power relations, the power that generates the subject itself. Like K. Marx, in his interpretation of power M. Foucault does not move from subject to social relations, but from social relations to subject. At the same time, he does not speak about subject as a certain sovereign entity, but only as the point of application of various techniques, and/or regulatory rules of "producing" the subject.
Once in this world, a person immediately falls into a specific social structure and, before they develop self-awareness, they are involved in it, occupying a certain place. At a certain level of system analysis, this allows describing power as a functional structure. Taking a certain place in the life of society, the subject is endowed with property-functions that arise from the system elements and their various connections, as well as the power potentials of the subject gaining attribute-properties (Noskov, 2011:82).
Thus, the power as the functional structure is a configuration of relations that outline its internal structure and the structure of society; it tends to undergo changes and transform the existing state system.
Such reality structuring, based on the need for a new unification after separation and disintegration or, in other words, restructuring, seems to be the target reason for power existence. As for the process (action), the subjects realize their functional properties and/or exchange resources.
However, power is not the process itself or the result of some changes; it is rather a condition that allows it/them to come about. In this sense, power is not a variable in the potentials of the subjects, otherwise it could be reduced to the sum of the elements (power potentials of the subjects) of the system, but the condition allowing one element relate to another. As a structural and synergistic effect of the system, power is not a property of its individual elements, since each element must certainly be correlated with other units of the given system. Power is an intrasystem relatedness of all elements. With the structural principle in view, power is realized on the basis of equivalent exchange, which means not the equivalence of the exchanged elements, but a situation in which one element is unthinkable without the other, i.e. one exists in relation to the other, and co-develops with it.
Thus, power fulfills the function of streamlining socio-political relations, making their separation and differentiation expedient. Power, therefore, is the beginning in creating structures; it increases heterogeneities in a continuous social environment and connects them together.
In view of the foregoing, state power can be defined as a structural principle, in accordance with which the elements of the system are interrelated depending on their functional purpose. The significance of the latter directly depends on a particular value system, whereas the functional value itself is determined, ultimately, by the place it occupies in social relations of a society.
Synergetic bases of the evolution of state power
From the point of view of a systemic-synergetic understanding of power, the process of power relations engages all participants in social interaction, which quite naturally excludes some autonomous source of action and therefore is identified with an exclusive subject of power. In this regard, it would be more logical to talk about the multisubjective nature of power relations.
It must be emphasized that with the advent of new qualitative properties of elements, options are possible and even necessary for a different structure of social reality. So, if the structure of the socio-political system is not in harmony with its elements, a set of new possible (alternative) structures arises, and various social ideals begin struggling. So, the choice of structure and its embodiment is carried out according to the system principle, i.e. the interaction of the elements of the system with each other in accordance with the law of stability of the system as a whole. As a result, power appears as a process of an increasingly complex streamlining of relationships in interactions and, at the same time, as a process of forming self-regulation and self-development of society.
In addition, state power acts as the basis for the processes of evolution of soci-ocultural reality, evidence of their irreversibility. It is the power that sets the vector of changes, i.e. the vector of historical development of society, which is based on the genesis of the mechanism of power. The process of self-organization in the state legal system realizes through accumulation, selection and transformation of information and its structuring. Based on this process, new structures are emerging. Power, therefore, is associated with the internal self-organization of the system. The latter tends in some cases to stability, in others to volatility and revision of the existing world order and, as a result, to restructuring the entire system, carried out, for example, by reassessing values.
Power not only preserves the stability of the system, but also develops and enhances its organization; at the same time, it may be the onset of structural instability in society, that turns it into an open and nonequilibrium system. The accumulated information, experience, and knowledge are shaped into certain structures raising the level of organization of the state system. As a result of certain activities and exchange of information and energy, emerges a differentiated and hierarchically organized new structure of state-public relations, as well as the new values. In this regard, it would be logical to agree with the following statement by F. Fedier: "By power we mean the specific structure that prevails in human society irrespective of its specific appearance (democracy, monarchy, oligarchy, tyranny, etc.), i.e. the order through which human society is constituted as an association of uniting individuals" (Vesen, & Fedier, 2002:120).
When defining power as a structural principle, it should be borne in mind that structure determines a system of differentiated relations and elements. Power, in turn, reproduces this differentiation, i.e. those functional links, the significance of which corresponds to certain values of the system, and connects them into a single whole. The indicated values are not imported from outside as they are the product of the system itself; they reveal the corresponding self-organization mechanism (Noskov, 2011:94).
It is no coincidence that power is recognized as the mechanism of self-regulation of the political system; behaviorists trace its analogue in the system of market relations. Thus, entering into a market exchange relationship, individuals always rely on their personal scale of values and needs, building their own preferences according to their importance. As a result, society is looked at as a network of closely intertwined private interests. The end of many individual scales' interaction is the unplanned spontaneous order, which is expressed in the establishment of an equilibrium price. In the final analysis, the market price is determined by subjective evaluations of the market value of a particular product.
Of course, within the framework of a certain system of social relations, there are also discrepancies between the individual goals and actions of specific individuals and their results that arise at a supra-individual level, inherent to the system itself. This allows considering the existing laws and values as a result of self-organization of the corresponding socio-political integrity. Objectified, values influence consciousness and construction of images and the way of perception adequate to the existing system of relations in society. Obviously, such view allows interpreting power as a principle of state system functioning: if the state system, with the help of some value proposition, manages to reproduce the corresponding content of consciousness, then it functions quite steadily.
The sign of political system transition to the regime of unstable existence signals about the appearance of critical views on the prevailing value system. Power, in this case, appears as an outcome of objectively established relations and is an attempt to consolidate and organize structures, which, in turn, determine the content of subjective ideas.
So, power can indeed be represented as a structural principle, according to which the elements of the system are related to each other depending on their functional value within the framework of this structure. If we accept the F. Nietzsche's well-known thesis that power is the assumption of values, thus eliminating the gap between the existing values and power, then the circle actually closes: power produces functional positions whose significance is determined by the values of the system that correspond to this power order (Noskov, 2011:128).
Thus, in functioning power reproduces itself without actually having its direct referent. That is why there is every reason to look at power as an abstract category; its real functioning is carried out only through modified forms of power, wealth, knowledge, desire, etc. These forms represent such values of the system that contribute to its structuring. As a result, society and the state appear as an open nonequilibri-um system, the necessary condition for the existence and functioning of which are changes and instability.
Conflict as a condition of state power development
As the most important factor in social life, instability is manifested on a personal level through conflict of socialization. In fact, according to the majority of modern conflictologists, no social group and relationship can be completely harmonized be-
cause of the presence of conflict as a necessary component of the process of social formation and its sustainable existence. On the one hand, the conflict sets the boundaries between groups within the social system, which occurs due to the strengthening of self-consciousness of groups and their ideas about their own individuality and specificity; this is how self-identification of groups within the system is carried out. On the other hand, mutual "repulsion" allows maintaining the integrity of the social system, establishing a balance between its various groups (Simmel, 1996:53).
The conflict underlying the development of social relations, their restructuring and stabilization, is the basis for the formation and correction of legal norms: it creates and modifies the norms necessary for the restructuring of relations. "An intra-group conflict often helps to update the already accepted norms or contributes to the emergence of new ones. In this sense, social conflict is a mechanism for adapting norms to new conditions. A flexible society benefits from conflict situations, because such behavior, helping to create and change norms, guarantees its survival in changing conditions. In rigid systems, such a mechanism is absent; suppressing the conflict, they suppress a useful alarm, thus increasing the danger of a catastrophic split" (Simmel, 1996:182).
Since the beginning of the conflict automatically means the abandonment of the once achieved equilibrium, and the conflict itself allows the competing parties to demonstrate their own strengths, this opens up the possibility of achieving a new equilibrium, and in the future relations develop on this new basis. It can be concluded that the political and legal structure that leaves room for conflict has such important means that it helps to avoid imbalance or, if it does happen, restore it by changing the balance of power. Thus, social conflict helps to structure society, fixing the positions of various subgroups within the state system and helping to determine power relations between them.
Power, in this context, appears as any relationship of forces, as an action that generates an action, where not only the subject and object of power are important, but also the force passing through all the power centers.
Such a relationship of forces, which forms the internal political structure of the state organization of society, develops into a certain disposition. This disposition as an internal organization of specific interactions forms a system that instructs the subject to follow its provisions, carrying out specific actions in response to other actions according to a specific model. That is why power is not a definite relationship between subjects, but a set of behaviors that produce and transform the behavior of other individuals.
So, power is a kind of process in the struggle, multiplicity, and contradictions, ordering the emerging diversity, and performing the function of its consolidation. Power manifests itself at the time of collapse (destruction and degradation) as the force able to compensate the loss of unity and self-identity and establish order in diversity. Therefore, one can speak of power as an ontological structure that reproduces a new unity arising after separation and decay; the process when a new assembly of reality is being formed. The above reasoning allows stating that power is an integral synergetic property of succession, realized in the process of creating new conditions for the unity of the plural and divided (Noskov, 2011:131).
All this, in turn, allows characterizing state power as the function of "gathering" and establishing the integrity of the disconnected, which is immanent to society. In this regard, power appears as a form organizing the substance of society. Registration of reality becomes possible through organization of disciplinary measures, which allows talking about the constitution of sociocultural reality and generation of certain types of behavior or social functions in the human community. Thus, order and discipline as mechanisms of power establish a certain normative system of thinking and behavior called law.
Conclusion
So, together with social relations flowing from a social community, power relations arise as their integral and necessary element. They give the society integrity, controllability, and serve as the most important factor in organization and order. In other words, it is a systematizing element that provides society with vitality. Under the influence of power, public relations become focused, acquire the character of managed and controlled relationships, and the joint life of people becomes organized.
In turn, the concepts of "state power" and "power relations" reflect the most important aspects of human civilization, including the harsh logic of the struggle of classes, social groups, nations, peoples, political parties, and movements. Being a kind of social power, state power possesses all the attributes of the latter. However, it has many qualitative features as well. The most important feature of state power lies in its political nature. The founders of Marxism characterized state (political) power as "organized violence of one class to suppress another." However, it is hardly acceptable to reduce any state power, especially democratic, to "organized violence". The truly popular power that functions on a legal basis within the framework of a sociocultural community is a great creative force that has the real ability to control people's actions and behavior, resolve social contradictions, coordinate individual or group interests, and subordinate them to a single powerful will.
Most notably, in a democratic society there is a tendency of legal rapprochement of the subject and object of power, leading to their interdependence. The dialectic of this coincidence is that each citizen is not only subservient (allowing the imposition of the will of officials and state bodies); as a member of a democratic society, a citizen has the right to be (and, in fact, is) an individual source and source of power (meanwhile, regarding all second-order concepts: people, nation, state).
At the same time, it should be noted that the application of a system-synergetic approach to the analysis of state power makes it possible to objectify studies concerning, inter alia, the problems of social generation of anti-democratic political regimes that can be understood as a no less natural, evolutionarily arriving system of hierarchical ties providing a public compromise regarding organizational means of achieving a (historically volatile) value proposition.
Summing up all of the above, we can say that state power, as an essential property of the state, a systematic principle of organization of society, being the fundamental category of state science, is a multifaceted subject of scientific study. Understanding
the disclosure of properties and functions of state power seems appropriate through a system-synergetic methodology and socio-synergetic approach. Focusing on the evolutionary properties of social phenomena that subordinate their internal processes with certain regulatory development parameters can become the basis of modern cratology. From the position of post-non-classical rationality investigating power relations and their subject-object relations, such aspects of power as social will and the state mechanism, crises (entropy impacts), and the possibility of strategic forecasting within a certain historical period can be central in the cross-disciplinary studies.
The analysis of goal-setting of power influence aimed at avoiding movement along the dead-end pattern of social development, overcoming mono-causal holism, should include phenomena correlated with state power. Such phenomena are democracy, human culture, struggle of political forces, creative activity of members of society, their spiritual potential, etc. This will ultimately contribute to the formation of objective understanding of the essence of state power and conditions for its effective functioning.
References / Библиографический список
Ball, T. (1993) Power. Polis. Political Studies. (5), 36-42. (in Russian).
Болл Т. Власть // Полис. Политические исследования. 1993. № 5. С. 36-42. Crozier, M. & Friedberg, E. (2000) L'acteur et le système. Paris, Edition du Seuil. (in French). Demidov, A. I. (1995) Power in unity and variety of its dimensions. State and law. (11), 3-11. (in Russian).
Демидов А. И. Власть в единстве и многообразии ее измерений // Государство и право. 1995. № 11. С. 3-11. Demidov, A.I. (2001) Teaching about politics: philosophical foundations. Moscow, Norma Publ. (in Russian).
ДемидовА.И. Учение о политике: философские основания. М.: Норма, 2001. 283 с. Deutsch, К. (1969) The nerves of government: Models of political communication and control.
New York, The Free Press. Easton, D. (1965) A Systems Analysis of Political Life. New York, John Wiley and Sons. Hobbs, T. (1991) Works. In 2 Vols. Vol. 2. Sokolov, V.V. (ed.); Per. from lat. and English. Moscow, Thought Publ. (in Russian).
Гоббс Т. Сочинения в 2 т. Т. 2 / Сост., ред., авт. примеч. В. В. Соколов; Пер. с лат. и англ. М.: Мысль, 1991. 731 с. Ilyin, V.V. (1993) Philosophy of Power. Moscow, Moscow State University Publ. (in Russian).
Ильин В. В. Философия власти. М.: Изд-во Моск. ун-та. 1993. 270 с. Kubbel, L.E. (1988) Essays on Political Ethnography. Moscow, Science Publ. (in Russian).
Куббель Л.Е. Очерки потестарно-политической этнографии. М.: Наука, 1988. 197 с. Luman, N.L. (2004) Society as a social system. Translated from German by Antonovsky, A. Moscow, Logos Publ. (in Russian).
Луман Н.Л. Общество как социальная система. Пер. с нем. / А. Антоновский. М: Логос. 2004. 232 с.
Noskov, E.G. (2011) Power Ontology: Total and Symbolic Nature of Power Relations. Diss ... cand. in Philosophy. Samara, Samara State University. (in Russian). Носков Э.Г. Онтология власти: тотальность и символический характер властеотно-шения: дис. ... канд. философ. наук. Самара, Самарский государственный университет, 2011. 311 с.
Parsons, Т. (1969) Politics and Social Structure. New York, Macmillan-The Free Press. Podoroga, V.A. (1989) Power and Knowledge (archaeological search by M. Foucault). Power: sketches of the modern political philosophy of the West. Moscow, Science Publ. (in Russian). Подорога В.А. Власть и познание (археологический поиск М. Фуко). Власть: очерки современной политической философии Запада. М.: Наука, 1989. 253 c. Rousseau, J.-J. (2018) On the social contract or the principles of political law. Moscow, Yurayt Publ. (in Russian).
Руссо Ж. Об общественном договоре или принципы политического права. М: Юрайт, 2018. 146 с.
Rozhkov, V.P. (1998) West and Russia. Philosophical bases of the civilization constant of social consciousness. Diss ... cand. in Philosophy. Saratov, Saratov University Publishing House. (in Russian).
Рожков В.П. Запад и Россия. Философские основания цивилизационной константы общественного сознания: дис. ... канд. философ. наук. Саратов: Изд-во Саратовского университета, 1998. 241 c. Shchedrovitsky, G.P. (2000) Organizational management thinking: ideology, methodology, technology. Course of lectures. From archive of Shchedrovitsky, G.P. V. 4. Moscow, Way Publ. Щедровицкий, Г.П. Оргуправленческое мышление: идеология, методология, технология. Курс лекций. Из архива Г.П. Щедровицкого. Т. 4. М.: Путь, 2000. 480 c. Simmel, G. (1996) Selected. Philosophy of Culture. V. 1. Translated from German. Moscow: Lawyer Publ. (in Russian).
Зиммель Г. Избранное. Философия культуры. Т. 1. Пер. с нем. М.: Юрист, 1996. 671 c. Tishkov, V.A. (1995) What is Russia? (Prospects of nationbuilding). Problems of Philosophy. (2), 6-15. (in Russian).
Тишков В.А. Что есть Россия? (Перспективы нациестроительства) // Вопросы философии. 1995. № 2. С. 6-15. Vesen, F. & Fedier, F. (2002) Philosophy French and German philosophy (F. Vesen). Imaginary. Power (F. Fedier). Per. from French by Bibikhin, V.V. Moscow: Science Publ. (in Russian). Везен Ф., Федье Ф. Философия французская и философия немецкая (Ф. Везен) // Воображаемое. Власть (Ф. Федье). Пер. с фр. Власть. М.: Наука, 2002. 152 c. Weber, M. (1968) On charisma and institutional building. Chicago, London: Univ. of Chicago Press.
About the author:
Aleksey V. Zyrianov — Candidate of Legal Sciences, Associate Professor of the Theory of State and Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law, Law Institute, South Ural State University; 76 Lenina ave., Chelyabinsk, 454080, Russian Federation ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6364-1812 e-mail: zav-nauka@mail.ru
Об авторе:
Зырянов Алексей Викторович — кандидат юридических наук, доцент, доцент кафедры теории государства и права, конституционного и административного права, Юридический институт, Южно-Уральский государственный университет (ЮУрГУ); 454080, Российская Федерация, г. Челябинск, пр. Ленина, д. 76 ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6364-1812 e-mail: zav-nauka@mail.ru
