Statecraft in seven dimensions

Seven dimensions

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.

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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?

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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 21st century generally seek to influence far larger areas of social activity than they did a century or so earlier. In particular regulatory scope now affects far broader areas of society. The recent pandemic broadened scope still further in most states, especially in all four ‘tools’ areas (see below). Many states have been criticised for trying to do too much, or sometimes too little.

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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 – the UK, the US, Germany, and Japan, for example. 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 the state. One approach is to use four ‘tools of government’ – finance; authority; organisation; and informational.

Size can be measured using ‘tools of government’ 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.

Staff and 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 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)  around one in five employees work for the state. Every aspect of how these people are recruited, paid, disciplined and motivated is crucial to achieving government strategies.

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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 style and cultures. As an example, in the UK, the styles of the last three Conservative prime ministers 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 three decades, including under previous Conservative administrations.

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 US following the 2020 presidential election. What these shared values can be are many and various but without their being accepted by a high majority, states can fail. And do.