Political and legal concept of modern democratic state

The paper proposes a political and legal approach to conceptualizing modern democratic state as law-governed, social and secular. It defines legal, institutional, and socio-political characteristics of law-governed, social, and secular state. Law-governed state is generally acknowledged to be the basic politico-jurid ical form of democrat ic state in the 21th century. It seems feasib le to define the essence of the law-governed state in the follo wing manner. In a law -governed, it is law, impart ial and tolerant to different world -views and convictions, that is a universal regulator of social relat ions, whose purpose is stabilizat ion of the entire social space. Law also has a definit ive influence on such a specific sphere of social life as politics, wh ich, along with law, is a universal regulator o f that segment o f social relations which is concerned with competit ive relat ions and interactions among individuals and groups in order to obtain, keep, and utilize state power. It is law that defines the system of values and regulations of the representative poliarchy as a modern fo rm of polit ical and governmental organizat ion and its basic, according to Robert Dah l(1), "polit ical institutions ". Dissemination of social rights as a type of human rights in the 20 th century fostered democratic state of law to transform into social state. Social state can be defined in general terms as such an organization of state order which is aimed at guaranteeing the population its social rights and compels the state to protect those rights. Furthermore, the secular character of the state is one of the basic principles of the law-governed state functioning and development within national models. In the judicial context, secular state is such an organization of state order that is specifically aimed at observance and protection of freedom o f t houg ht , co nscience, and religi on as well as other convict ions, includ ing non-relig ious ones, as stated in a binding form by article 18 of the General Pact of Civil and Political Rights, i.e. at an actualization of the principle of state's non intervent ion and to leran ce towards different


Introduction
La w-governed state is generally acknowledged to be the basic politico-jurid ical form of democrat ic state in the 21th century. It seems feasib le to define the essence of the law-governed state in the follo wing manner. In a law -governed, it is law, impart ial and tolerant to different world -views and convictions, that is a universal regulator of social relat ions, whose purpose is stabilizat ion of the entire social space. Law also has a definit ive influence on such a specific sphere of social life as politics, wh ich, along with law, is a universal regulator o f that segment o f social relations which is concerned with competit ive relat ions and interactions among individuals and groups in order to obtain, keep, and utilize state power. It is law that defines the system of values and regulations of the representative poliarchy as a modern fo rm of polit ical and governmental organizat ion and its basic, according to Robert Dah l [1], "polit ical institutions ".
Dissemination of social rights as a type of human rights in the 20 th century fostered democratic state of law to transform into social state. Social state can be defined in general terms as such an organization of state order which is aimed at guaranteeing the population its social rights and compels the state to protect those rights.
Furthermore, the secular character of the state is one of the basic principles of the law-governed state functioning and development within national models. In the judicial context, secular state is such an organization of state order that is specifically aimed at observance and protection of freedom o f t houg ht , co nscience, an d relig ion as well as other convict ions, includ ing non-relig ious ones, as stated in a binding form by article 18 of the General Pact of Civil and Political Rights, i.e. at an actualization of the principle of state's non intervent ion and to leran ce to wards d ifferent

Objectives
Objectives of the present research consist in political and legal interpretation and conceptualization of modern democratic state as law-governed, social and secular. As there is no general consensus about a corresponding politico-juridical form of the state, this will be described with a set of basic polit ical institutions, key social relations and values.

Methods
Methodologically the research is based on the new institutional approach which emphasizes institutional environment, fundamental polit ical, social and juridical institutions, norms, relations and values. The basic tool of institutional analysis is politico-law analysis [2], wh ich is a result of the development of the classical institutional method in contemporary wo rld. Furthermore, behavioral analysis based on historical-cu ltural and contextual analysis used to identify social relations and values crucial for the modern democratic state.

Law-Governed State
The key indication of a law-governed state is the acknowledgement of human being, their rights and freedoms as basically defined by the Un iversal Declaration of Hu man Rights, as a superior social value. Fro m formal and legal standpoint, the only states that can lay claim to the status of law-governed state are the sovereign UN member states that participate in international pacts pertaining to civil, polit ical, economic, social, and cultural rights. That is to say, these are the states that have taken upon themselves the responsibility of implementing the standards of international law as defined by those International acts. Such states constitute a vast majority among the sovereign UN members (more than 85%). It must be stated, however, that nominal and legal participation in the international pacts does not necessarily mean that in all those states human and civil rights are in fact observed and defended or that the state really aspires to be a law-governed one.
Several principles are fundamental for the whole system of human rights and freedoms. They are the principle of equality as equality of rights and freedo ms for every individual exp ressed also in his/her suprastate (exterritorial) status; the principle of interconditionality of hu man rights and freedoms in society; the principle of state's nonintervention into the individual's internal world and of tolerance towards different opinions and convictions.
The principle of interconditionality means that hu man rights and freedo ms are inseparable fro m the system of social relations and should be considered only within the framework of those relations. They do not contradict or depreciate requirements of mo rality or public order in a democratic state, in spite of the libelous claims by the opponents of human rights institute who consciously pass over in silence article 29 of the Un iversal Declaration of Hu man Rights and maintain that this institute causes "permissiveness". The possession of human rights and freedoms does not mean that their use or abuse create opportunities for unlimited lawlessness [3]. Each indiv idual only possesses their own rights and freedoms inasmuch as they do not violate those of other people's. The principle of interconditionality defines the necessity to respect and observe other people's rights and freedoms in o rder to possess one's own.
The key rights that define the principle of nonintervention and tolerance are freedo m of thought, conscience and religion and freedo m of convictions and their expression, as stated by Articles 18 and 19 of the Un iversal Declaration of Hu man Rights. Crit ical for those covenants are, on the one hand, the prohibition of coercion to infringe on anyone's freedom of conviction and religion and, on the other hand, the possibility for a legal limitation of the same freedom according to the principle of interconditionality for the sake of protecting rights and freedoms of others.
In a law-governed state, considering irreducib ility of Law to the system of laws, what acts as the system-creating factor in social regulation and political and governmental administration is the principle rule of law, albeit not in its classical, but a modern interpretation.
According to Albert Dicey's classical defin ition, the rule of law is primarily the absolute authority and superiority of existing legislat ion as opposed to arbitrary government prescriptions. This principle excludes not only governmental arbitrariness but also the possibility fo r the govern ment to act at will, as situation requires [4]. According to the modern interpretation, the rule of law is primarily the absolute authority and superiority, in all spheres of life, o f hu man rights and freedoms as vested in the Universal Declaration of Hu man Rights and international statutory acts, as well as in the current state legislation. The very leg itimacy o f the state is legally based on the ensuring of rights and freedoms of its citizens as opposed to arbitrary orders by the authorities. Besides, equality of all in the face of law and justice is inherent in the rule o f law principle.
This princip le defines the hierarchical system of priorities in law and leg islature in the life of society and the state. Firstly, human rights and freedoms have absolute priority and superiority in the regulation of social relations. No national legislation, even passed in a full accordance with democratic procedures, may vio late the freedoms guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Hu man Rights and other international statutory acts, as well as generally accepted principles and rules of international law. Secondly, the state, including all its institutions, agencies, and officials, as well as citizens and their independent associations, must act strictly within the framework o f the Constitution and legislation, which, in turn, must be based on human and civil rights and freedoms.
Fro m the institutional standpoint, the generally acknowle dged indication of law-governed state is separation of judicial, leg islative and executive powers, which fro m the outset has aimed at a prevention of monopolization of power or its usurpation by an individual or a group.
Today, in a postindustrial world, along with the classic principle of separation of powers, what distinguishes law-go verned state is a stable tendency to deepen government decentralization functionally and hierarchically, to separate its powers according to functions and competences, which promotes optimization and increased efficiency of government administration. In 1980's, with the emergence of global approaches to admin istration where a special accent was made on hu manitarian development, such decentralizati on came into the foreground.
In democratic states, separation of powers, competences and responsibilit ies among central, regional and local levels became one of the key trends of decentralization. Such decentralizat ion can be defined as delegation of responsibili ty for p lanning, management and usage of resources from the central government to lower levels of administration. There are three types of this decentralization: polit ical, administrative, and fiscal, and four forms: devolution, deconcentration, delegation and divestment.
In a federative state, decentralization is obligatory and takes form o f power separation between the center and the regions based of the federalism principle. The latter presupposes a constitutionally laid down legal status of the regions, the extent of their rights, the manner of their interaction with the federation and among themselves, and the specific character of separation of competences, including a list of those competences, among the federal and regional authorities. Of course, normat ive, legal, structural, and institutional structures of different states differ according to their historical, cu ltural, geographic, etc. condit ions. Still, the principle o f nonintervention of federal government into the processes of format ion and activity of regional powers is a universally acknowledged political and legal basis for actualizat ion and observance of federalism and for an efficient separation of powers between the federal and regional levels. This principle may only be broken in extraordinary situations according to the subsidiary responsibility of the reg ions before the center.
Local self-govern ment plays a very special ro le in decentralization. On the one hand, local self-government is a form of democracy based on self-organization and decision -making on the part of the local co mmunity, be it d irectly or through agencies it creates, in the wide field of its sustenance. On the other hand, local self-govern ment is a special kind of power that is not related to any branch or level of state power. It is one of the oldest institutions of democracy, one that allo ws citizens to protect their rights and to participate in social affairs. There are different and usually unique forms of the local government, since in order to be efficient they have to correspond to local historical and cultural traditions. Local self-government is an important link between the society and authorities, between social self-organization and d ictatorial regulation of social relat ions by the government.
Socially, law-governed state is based on civil society, whose first and foremost feature and basic social value consist in sovereignty of the individual, of human rights and freedoms. Every indiv idual, at that, may have their own moral values according to their worldviews and convictions.
Civil society performs the indispensable for a democratic and law-governed state function of social self-regulat ion and control of the state power's interventions into such relations that otherwise can be regulated without government institutions. Civil society is a horizontally organized social activity based on free and creative act ivities of individuals and groups.
Civil society is a co mplex social and polit ical phenomenon regulated by law as well as by morality and traditions. Therefore, civil society is not a purely legal notion and cannot be defined as some formal pattern or a fin ite number of specific subjects.
While u ltimately separating the spheres of civil society and state as a political institution which integrates society, it is suggested that it is to the former that all fo rmal and informal institutions, connections, and relations in a society, which are not predetermined by government activity, should be ascribed. According to this interpretation, we might include into civil society, as its constituting units, citizens (whose free personal develop ment and private interests are based on civil rights, polit ical freedoms, private property, and guarantees of pluralis m of ideas, views, opinions, and attitudes) and their self-regulating independent communities (as constituting structures of the society). Such co mmunities include family, public non-governmental associations and groups, informal communities, non-governmental subjects of economic, scientific, educational, cu ltural, and informat i onal activities.
According to the approach proposed here, civ il society includes all fo rms of social activ ity not caused by the governmental structures and representing the level of the society's self-organizat ion. Thus understood, civil society defines the state of social connections and relations and serves as qualitative measure of the population's civil self-organization and as the main criterion of separation of functions between society and state in the social sphere [5].
The existence of alternative information sources is one of the key prerequisites for the format ion of civil society and its institutional structuring and development as a democratic social environment. Freedom of co mmun ication and informat ion exchange is important because interactions between individuals and groups, reliab le informat ion, and social and political activity of the citizens are basic energy sources for civil society.
In a democratic law-governed state, the interaction between civil society and government is built up on the assumption that civil society is a social foundation of state. Civil society not only forms a government according to the principle of democracy but also permanently controls the government institutions' activity, counteracting power abuses by both elected political elite and non-elected government bureaucracy. Civil society itself sets minimally sufficient polit ical limits on government participation in social relations regulation, defines the government competences in social regulation, and grants the government necessary rights and responsibilities.

Social State
The modern democratic world order is based on the assumption that all people are born free and equal in their rights and dignity, as set forth by article 1 of the Un iversal Declaration of Hu man Rights. However, different people have very different possibilit ies for the realizat ion of their rights and dignities due to circu mstances of both their births and their lives, which can change during the person's life. Nature (in the widest sense of the notion) does not give people equal intellectual and physical abilit ies. Init ial economic and social conditions differ and depend on every individual's personal and family history. Every person's life is influenced by natural, anthropogenic, social, and economic factors and cataclysms which can radically change their physical, social, and economic conditions and which may happen due to reasons beyond a person's control as well as due to their personal circu mstances. Moreover, what is vitally important and utterly painfu l, it also impedes their social rights or sometimes even makes it just impossible for them to enjoy adequate life conditions without external support. Hence one of the burning social and political problems -that of social justice, wh ich is always present in every democratic state's political agenda.
It is worth noticing that the rather popular point of v iew professing the fundamental o r even antagonistic contradicti ons between individual freedo m and social justice seems untenable. It is a purposefully constructed political mythologem aimed at disparagement of the liberal values and not an objective political reality. Such a mythologem is used both by left politicians dreaming of a utopia of total equality as the supreme fo rm of social justice and by right polit icians propagating social Darwin ism as an uncondition al and unambiguous extension onto the human society of the law of natural selection and struggle for existence found in the wild nature.
Within the framework of postindustrial develop ment, social state is a state aimed at a practical harmonizing of individual rights and social justice in everyday life. The principal task of such a state is to provide every cit izen with governmental guarantees of appro ximately equal opportunit ies for self-realization. Social state should also guarantee every citizen minimally adequate life conditions and sufficient level of social security. Social security here means protection fro m natural, anthropogenic, social, and economic changes and cataclysms as well as the possibility to participate in governance of state and society regardless of people's material conditions and social status. It should be stressed that the latter task is of no less importance for the social state than the former two, since that possibility is an integral part of social justice in its modern political and legal interpretation.
Modern social problems are caused not only by globalization and demographic situation but also by the inability of the trad itional redistribution mechanism to adapt to the new challenges or to adequately solve the problems. It mainly concerns the princip le of social solidarity that had successfully helped solve social problems in the situation of essential property differentiation but has little capacity and is being rejected by a significant sector of the society in the situation of social ho mogeneity and middle class domination. Social state as exclusively redistribution mechanis m destructively effects not only economy and entrepreneurial milieu but also social well-being. Active and all-embracing governmental paternalism rad ically reduces people's inclination not only for risk but also for independent decision-making that requires their own investments. [6].
Excessive social encu mbrance of the able-bodied citizens and redundant governmental paternalism, even with the social consensus concerning them, lead to loss of quality in the country's human capital. The most active and capable citizens begin to leave the country. Even such socially successful nations as Norway and Sweden now face this problem.
In order to min imize the probability of such problems and situations, governmental social support should be as targeted as possible and be provided only to those who is really in need, who is unable, because of objective reasons beyond their control, to provide for themselves minimally adequate life conditions. Targeted social support promotes more rat ional and efficient spending of the allocated material resources, which are always limited.
The format ion of a favorable social environ ment for self-realizat ion and creative development and the raising of the level o f social security are co mmon aims for both government and society. In the social state, this aim is achieved by uniting efforts and resources of the government, charitable, volunteer and other social organizations, and the non-governmental sector of the economy based on their partnership and mutually beneficial co-operation.
In a social state, the principle of its social responsibility becomes the main principle of governmental activ ity. The governmental principle of social responsibility means that the government commits itself to guaranteeing and providing for appro ximately equal opportunities for all people's self-realization; min imally adequate life conditions for each cit izen; an adequate level of social security seen as protection against natural, anthropogenic, social, and economic changes and cataclysms; possibility for all to participate in governance of state and society regardless of their material conditions and social status. The government is also supposed to carry out such a way of state regulation that aims at the creation of stimuli and favorable conditions for socially oriented activit ies of the non-government sector.
A socially responsible government provides social guarantees not through depersonalized govern mental paternalism, which usually causes social parasitis m and promotes marg inal asocial groups, but through a purposeful governmental policy in the social sphere. Such a policy gives priority to creating the best conditions for personal development as the most effective way to ease out the entire range of social problems. Social support is targeted to the least privileged social groups and citizens through a social consensus in such a way of redistributing government resources as is deemed necessary for providing such support.

Secular State
In the judicial context, secular state is such an organizat ion of state order that is specifically aimed at observance and protection of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion as well as other convictions, including non-relig ious ones, as stated in a binding form by art icle 18 of the General Pact of Civil and Political Rights, i.e. at an actualization o f the principle of state's nonintervention and tolerance towards different relig ious and non-religious worldviews and convictions.
Generally speaking, the term "secular" refers to a constitutional and legal characteristic of a state which means the separation of Church and state and the demarcation of their scopes of activity. Here "Church" is to be understood as any association existing on a relig ious basis, and in this interpretation, proposed by E. Durkheim, "In h istory we do not find religion without Church". [7].
Interrelat ions between secular state and religion are based mainly on the fact that no particular religion may be established as a state relig ion or, what is especially significant, as an obligatory one.
On the institutional level, a state can be characterized as secular if it has neither constitutionally or otherwise legally established institutions by means of which clergy might influence governance, nor government offices specially designated for being filled by clergy. The state, in turn, does not delegate any governmental functions to the religious communit ies. The constitutions of secular states declare religious communit ies as separated fro m state, autonomous and free entities having equal rights. The government does not intervene in the relig ious communities' activ ities as long as the latter are legal. Interactions between the secular state and religious communit ies are based on the principles of separation of scopes and mutual non-intervention and is regulated by laws or agreements. More often than not, such contractual relations are established with a religion which is historically do minating and, as a rule, supranational but never established as a state one.
Institutional separation of religious communit ies fro m state is a necessary but not sufficient condition for liberation not just governmental but the entire political activity fro m religion's control and influence. For such liberation on the procedural level, it is necessary to restrict the participation of religious associations and especially the clergy in politics. Such restrictions, it seems, must mainly concern a prohibition on material, organizational, and propagandist support of political parties by religious associations and clergy, including a prohibition on the format ion of parties on a political princip le. Any restrictions on the believers' political rights are inadmissible for co mmon people but possible for professional clergy.
In a secular state not only relig ious communities or clergy must not participate in political life but the political figures also must have no right to use relig ion for political purposes.
Political use of relig ion means public participation of the clergy in official govern mental and polit ical events as well as participation in the relig ious ceremonies and rituals of the officials and politicians in their official status. Certainly all state officers, polit icians and state officials of all ran ks have the right for relig ious convictions and preferences but it should remain their private affair and must not be demonstrated in public.
Public demonstration by the officials, especially those of the highest rank, of their adherence to a particular relig ion, especially the historically do minating one, is just a populist method of power preservation through using protective functions and authoritarian tendency that are inherent to a degree in all relig ions. The protective function of religions is their capacity to resist changes and direct its authority to the preservation of polit ical and social status quo. Authoritarian tendency in religion is concerned with an acknowledgement of an external power which controls a person's life and demands obedience and worship not because of moral qualities of the deity, not out of love and justice but because of the deity's do minance over a person [8]. Such political method is typical for authoritarian political reg imes but is destructive for the constitutional principle of state's secularity as it leads to clericalis m in government processes and provokes in mass consciousness negative attitudes towards citizens devoted to other religions and beliefs and even not religious worldviews.
Such public demonstration of the religious preferences by high rank officials, their participation in religious ceremonies and rituals in their official status promotes not real faith but rather a mass fashion for religion with an apparent political hue, wh ich primarily attracts state bureaucrats of all ranks. Th is seems a profanation destructive for any religion and violat ing religious feelings of sincere and committed believers.
In a secular state, as far as public po licy and the permanent open dialogue between state and society are concerned [9], religious associations should participate in this objectively necessary dialogue on princip les different fro m other public associations. The reason for this is that only religious associations are constitutionally separated from the state and have no right to participate in governance, even by way of official lobbyism.
In a secular state, along with the rejection of a state or obligatory relig ion, any procedural possibility fo r the clergy to influence political and governmental activity directly or indirectly should be excluded and any use of religion for political purposes, forbidden.
While assessing the relation between law and religion in a law-governed state one should proceed fro m the key ro le that in a law-governed state is played by the most important institution of modern law, the institution of human rights and interactions between individual and relig ion in the social sphere.
Interrelat ions between the human rights institution and religion as a social phenomenon have a specific character in that every religion is socially inclusive, i.e. has the capacity and aspiration to penetrate social sphere by means of religious norms and rules established for individual and group behavior both in relations among the people and those between the people and the state. Different religions at different times have had different degrees of correlation and separation of the spiritual and the mundane (i.e. social) and, as a consequence, of the depth and character of regulative penetration into the social sphere.
Every contemporary religion, in order to strengthen its own and its clergy's spiritual influence, seeks to regulate everyday life by way of religious norms and rules, i.e. it aspires not only to spiritual power but also to the role of a regulator of relations in the social sphere. Moreover, out of the vast multitude of the religions, each one presumes itself the only true and universal one and therefore none of them inherently can serve as a social regulator significant fo r all.
The role and place of religion in the modern wo rld and secular state is determined by its being one of the most influential and significant phenomena as far as worldview is concerned. Yet today, people's convictions and worldviews are as diverse and many-faced as hu manity itself. The worldview that defines the individual's values, moral and ethic principles, and notions of good and evil may or may not be religious; e.g. atheism or agnosticism are fairly widespread today. This sphere of being, of spiritual and intellectual act ivity has co mpetit ive and largely uncomprom ising character. The secularity of state objectively helps widen and strengthen competitiveness among different worldviews.
All religions, therefore, should, it seems, to concentrate their activ ity main ly on spiritual and intellectual spheres using different forms and methods of religious education and persuasion without any enforcement. Besides, the humanistic tendency should become the main one in the social role of religion, which has been changing during the historical process of human development. The hu manistic tendency in religion proclaims the unconditional worth iness of a human being as a God's creature, stimulates possibilities for self-realizat ion, orients a person to develop their mind to understanding themselves, their attitudes toward others, and their place in the universe, develops the ability to love others like oneself, and the feeling of unity of all living creatures. [8].
In a secular state, every religion can assume the role of a local social regulator within the relig ious community formed on its base. Yet, that can only be the case if all members of such a co mmunity are ready voluntarily and with no enforcement to restrain their universal rights and freedoms in order to follow in their everyday lives the prescriptions, rules, and norms of the relig ion they adhere to. St ill, any other citizen's rights and freedoms may by no means be violated.

Conclusions
The model o f democrat ic state in which it is law-governed, social and secular is becoming the modern world's most dominant. It's not only realized on a practical level in tru ly democratic states -though not always fully or ideallybut even on a constitutional level in states which today are far fro m democrat ic political ideals.