Conceptualizing the state taking the path from liberal, right and left ideologies

The concepts of state and ideology are among the most researched issues in the political science literature. Explaining the state at the theoretical level requires focusing on the perspectives of different ideological perspectives. Thus each ideology interprets the state differently and assigns different roles to it. This study consists of a basic research such as what is the state, where it took its foundation from and how it came about, is the state an aim or a intermediary, what is the ideology, how the concepts of right and left emerged, how right ideologies and left ideologies explain the state and what duties are they evaluated. It is problematizes the relation of ideologies with the state, based on his questions. In this context, the study is a theoretical study that categorizes the approaches of right, left and liberal ideologies towards the state. In the study, a comprehensive secondary literature review was made using the basic sources of political theory, and the views of the main ideological orientations towards the state were tried to be explained. From this point of view, in the first part of the study structured in four main sections, the approaches on the origin of the state and how thinkers conceptualize the state according to the ages are examined. The historical development of the state in the First Age, the Middle Ages, the Modern Age and the Near Age has been discussed chronologically. The views of Plato and Aristotle in the First Age, Polybios, Cicero and Seneca in the Roman period, Christian and Islamic thinkers in the Middle Ages are evaluated. In the Modern Age, the philosophical evaluations of Nicola Machiavelli, Thomas More and Jean Bodin towards the state were examined. The second, third and fourth parts of the study are devoted to the theoretical analysis of basic ideologies towards the state. First, in the second part of the study, how the ideology of liberalism, which is seen as the central ideology, conceptualizes the state. In the third part of the study, the approaches of the right ideologies towards the state are analyzed. In this context, right-wing ideologies are grouped as nationalism, conservatism and fascism. In the fourth part, which is the last part, how left ideologies interpret the state are discussed. In this section, left ideologies are classified as socialism, Marxism-Communism, social democracy and anarchism. As a result, the ideology of liberalism is shaped around the minimal understanding of the state. Liberalism, which defends that the state should be given minimum powers, has expanded the jurisdiction of the state from time to time due to economic reasons. Right ideologies generally see the state as a sacred goal. Especially nationalism and fascism want to maintain the self-management of the state with an emphasis on national values. Conservatism emphasizes tradition. Conservatism, which thinks that the society is formed by traditions, wants to carry the values from the past to the future. Left ideologies, on the other hand, generally see the state as a tool. While socialism assigns a revisionist role to the state; Marxism envisions a stateless society based on revolution. Finally, anarchism sees the state as a threat to individual freedom; anarchism wants the state to disappear completely.