A trans-disciplinary approach towards understanding the state in the information society era

Abstract

Despite strong demands for specialisation, it is more and more obvious that modern research interests cannot be addressed in isolation—one could argue that even in research, the world is facing a kind of globalisation. The same is valid also for the understanding of the state, which is often reduced to certain components close to the individual researchers’ interests. In this chapter, we shall try to understand the modern state from the perspectives of different approaches and shall try to establish a more complex view on the modern state, which is trying to perform its duties, but fails in doing so due to a lack of ability to synchronise different fields, or due to its inability to step out of the elitist approach to the role of government. In this manner, this chapter tries to provide multiple and interconnected arguments for reform of the state on the level of political and societal reality while understanding the technological development as a framework and not the primary factor of the social change. The final argument is that the information and communication technologies are providing the possibilities for the changes, but changes themselves happen predominantly in the direction and extent allowed by the elites.