If we admit this definition,
we can clearly find the relationship
between state building
and overcoming the feudal order,
solving the political crisis
emerging from the medieval social disorder.
And that’s why I will insist
on a very important point,
the more feudal society was fragmented,
the more centralization was strong as a solution
to the deadlock of this fragmentation,
that’s to say, nowadays, those societies,
which were strongly and deeply feudalized
are now affected by a strong tradition
of a strong state.
That’s why for instance France
was considered and is still considered
as the motherland of states,
where state is developed,
where there is a strong culture of the state,
a strong separation between public and private,
and this culture of the state
which is at the very center of the French culture
is explained by the deep crisis
of a very fragmented social order
which took place in France
at the end of the Middle Age.
Now, if we consider other kinds of societies,
of European societies,
like for instance England,
England was not strongly feudalized,
and that’s why the state was never very strong
and the civil society
played a more important role
than a state, a classical state order.
And now if we move to US,
which didn’t meet the history of feudality,
we cannot find for this reason
a strong tradition of state.
I will add another point,
which is connected to this one:
that’s to say, the more a civil society
is able to be govern by itself,
the more, of course,
it will escape from the state tradition,
and the less developed the state is.