State crisis: concepts and classification
Authors: Taldykin Oleksandr 
Published: February 2021

The article deals with the concept and signs of state crisis. The classification of state crises according to different criteria is presented. The state, as a political and territorial organization of society, is a complex system of various elements that function in interrelationship and interdependence and must serve the interests of civil society. Of course, if such a state is ideally related to it, society, it functions to meet its needs. The failure of one part of a complex multilevel State mechanism will inevitably have negative and sometimes irreversible consequences for other elements, which in itself will already be an indicator of certain crisis phenomena. What is a crisis of the State and what is its classification, in our view, these very issues are extremely relevant to the theory of the State and are the subject of our consideration. The crisis of the state is a destructive state of the state mechanism, due to the improper functioning of which antagonistic contradictions in the society aggravate, conflicts are formed, which the state can overcome or solve without a positive transformation, which in turn can threaten the state sovereignty and territorial integrity, and eventually can lead to its destruction. The main signs of the state crisis are: – destructive effects on the State itself and society as a whole; – the exacerbation of numerous conflict situations in various areas of society; – the failure of quality public administration; – contradiction between the state and society, between the ruling elite and the people, between different segments of the population; – a real threat to State sovereignty and territorial integrity; – the rebirth, transformation or destruction of statehood. By temporal criterion, a state crisis can be divided into: short-term (acute), prolonged (long-term), permanent (chronic). By the scale of coverage of certain state institutions and spheres of state regulation it is necessary to determine: microcrisis, mesocrisis, macrocrisis, mega-crisis. By subjects of coverage, these are a crisis of the state mechanism, a crisis of the state apparatus, a crisis of individual state organisations, a crisis of state resources, a crisis of individual branches of power. According to the political aspects of coverage, the crisis of the state is divided into: crisis of ruling elites, crisis of opposition forces, which in its turn can be divided into: crisis of radical opposition; crisis of moderate opposition; crisis of legal opposition and crisis of illegal opposition. Such a feature as legitimacy of the state power gives grounds to speak about: crisis of a legitimate state and crisis of an illegitimate state. The question of legal justification of the state power, its compliance with legal norms, which is a sign of its legitimacy, gives the necessity to determine: crisis of the legal state and crisis of the illegal state. A significant indicator of the definition of crisis phenomena in a State is the degree to which they are predictable. According to such criterion it is possible to define: not an assumed crisis of the State, an assumed crisis of the State, a controlled crisis of the State. According to the expected consequences of a crisis phenomenon in the State, emphasis should be placed on a destructive crisis, a potential crisis and a transformational crisis. Special attention should be paid to the study of classification of the crisis of the state according to the social and economic formation: crisis of the slave state, crisis of the feudal state, crisis of the capitalist state, crisis of the socialist state. Conflicts in society and the formation of conflicts in the state may be connected with the pressing need to change the form of state governance: crisis of monarchies and crisis of republics. Depending on the form of the state (territorial) system, the crisis of simple (unitary) states and the crisis of complex states, primarily empires, can be distinguished. Classification of state crises where the criterion is this or that form of state political regime seems quite justified: the crisis of anti-democratic states, the crisis of democratic states. In the areas of dominant coverage (manifestation) of crisis phenomena: economic crisis, social crisis, political crisis, religious crisis of the state, information crisis of the state.