Dear Editor
GUYANA is fortunate to have a politically engaged population. Evidence of this is easily found by perusing the letter sections and columns of the broadsheets, the discussions on TV and radio, and the incensed discussions and debates on social media. The political leadership in the country is also in frequent and direct contact with the citizens through outreaches.

Despite the robustness of engagement, the quality of our political commentary and praxis would be much improved if there is a greater understanding of the differences between the “government” and the “state.”

This is necessary because most contributors to structured debates assume that the government and the state are one and the same. We know from basic political theory that government and state are related, but are conceptually and practically different.

A short but useful article by K.K. Ghai points to several differences between the government and the state.

These are (1) government is only an element of the state; (2) government is an agency or agent of the state; (3) the state is abstract, while the government is concrete; (4) the government is run by only a small portion of the state’s population; (5) membership in the state is compulsory, but not in the government; (6) sovereignty belongs to the state, not the government; (7) territory belongs to the state; (8) the state is permanent but the government is a territory (https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/difference/9-main-differences-between-state-and-government/40327)
Having studied state theory with Professor Ralph Miliband, I can assure you that Ghai, himself a noted specialist on comparative government, is “spot on.”
The simplest way to understand both the difference and the relationship between government and state is this – while governments (I prefer administrations) come and go, the state, which is an amalgam of institutions, remains in place.

Political parties are entities that compete to form (become) the government. If successful, they get access, though not total control, to all of the institutions of the state. The new government in office develops policies and then uses the power of the state to implement those policies. There are real (constitutional) limits on the sitting government in terms of its access to and control of state power.

To illustrate the point with relevance to Guyana, we only need to think of what happened after our recent regional and national elections in 2020. The APNU+AFC lost the election. President Granger and his cabinet had to go. They did. So did senior “political appointees” by the APNU+AFC administration, including some heads of state agencies, regardless of how technically qualified they are. (The situation at the EPA was abnormal, precisely because the head wanted to stay on, even though he was a political appointee).

The great mass of civil servants, medical staff at public health facilities, the military, police, prison authorities, immigration officers, judges, magistrates, and so on, remained in place. The real reason is that they are an integral part of the state (what Ghai in part calls “permanent”). If you follow British politics, they are similar to Whitehall staff.

The PPP/C administration cannot legally, on its own, do all the things many commentators and activists call on it to do. This is because the current administration, or the APNU+AFC administration before it, must follow the laws that govern entities such as the NIS, which are agencies of the “state,” not agencies of the “government.”
Only authoritarian “governments” can ignore the Constitution, to use “state” power for their ends. Without getting too partisan, during the 1970s and 1980s, the PNC collapsed party, government, and state into an all-encompassing apparatus of power. According to Kaieteur News columnist Freddie Kissoon, “…the private organisation named People’s National Congress became a state entity fitted out with funds from the treasury. Burnham merged the state and the PNC under the umbrella of the Ministry of National Development” (KN 28/5/2022).

One important omission from K.K. Ghai’s otherwise comprehensive piece concerns the question of legitimacy. For a “government” to effectively use state power, it must have legitimacy, meaning here that it must fashion consensus around its policies, and accordingly, have broad followership. Strictly speaking, legitimacy is not a necessary component of state power or of governance. Yet, it is central to understanding the difference between different types of government and forms of state.

Authoritarian states are built, maintained, and reproduced by authoritarian governments. These governments usually lack legitimacy in the eyes of those governed within the territory of the state, namely citizens (and residents). It must be noted, however, that authoritarian populists can and often do have large followings as did Getúlio Vargas in Brazil, Juan Perón in Argentina, or Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Authoritarian regimes (governments) capture state power and govern through quasi-constitutional techniques, constitutional innovations, outright repression, or a combination of unsustainable economic policies and repressive political practices.
Democratic administrations (governments) follow the rule of law, govern as per the constitution, and rely on widespread legitimacy. In contradistinction to authoritarian governments, democratic governments access and use state power based on the will of the people, usually through the aggregation of interests expressed in election results.

By definition, a democratic government such as the current PPP/C in Guyana, do not have limitless access to state power. Keep in mind also, that often, critics want governments to do less, rather than more.

To sum up, it is important to keep in mind that there are significant limits to the exercise of state power by democratic governments. This is important to keep in mind when commentators make recommendations, or when they ask why the current PPP/C government can’t do this or that.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Randolph Persaud.