As a subject of governance, the state is an independent organization that has sovereignty, a specific apparatus and management mechanism. The State is endowed by the population with political power, expressed in the corresponding rights and functions. For their implementation, the state creates public administration bodies, establishes for them areas of management that act as objects, and develops a management mechanism, channels for transmitting control influence, including feedback channels with management objects.

The state has certain common features:

- the state acts as a source of security and sustainable law and order in society, including economic, social, civil and universal meaning;

- the state is endowed with unique management tools, which include legislation, civil servants, public finances and other resources;

- the state acts as an organization that can unite the entire population of the country, regardless of such characteristics as religious beliefs, nationality, and cultural differences.

The main function of the state since its inception is to balance the interests of various social groups, so the goals of state bodies and ways to implement them are ultimately determined by the interests of individuals and are formed in the process of their interaction. Public administration is a mechanism by which the state in practice pursues a policy of mitigating various kinds of contradictions (individual, group, national, territorial, class, etc.) and meeting the interests of society and its various groups.

Relations between society and the State are the most important factor in the development of public administration. The State is both a political and a governing institution^[17].

A rather controversial issue in this topic is the importance of the state for society. In modern science, there are a number of concepts that justify the role of the state in managing society:

- within the framework of the liberal concept, everything comes down to the recognition of the free market as the main regulator of public life;

- the socialist concept advocates centralized state management of the economy and other state processes;

- the mixed concept combines elements of the socialist and neoliberal concepts. This concept is driven by recent changes in the global system. In the political sphere, it is aimed at increasing the importance of regulating, predicting, planning and controlling functions of the state, and in the economic sphere it implies the choice of a socially oriented, market-oriented model of the state.

Speaking about the essence of the state, we should mention several of the most popular scientific approaches to this issue.

Theory of pluralism. A significant contribution to the development of this theory was made by M. Duverger, R. Dahrendorf and other researchers. They believed that society is a collection of strata-groups of people united by age, gender, profession, and other socially significant properties. Strata can form political alliances to solve a particular problem or lobby for a particular interest. Such an association is necessary, because the individual is not able to independently influence the state power. Stratified interests can affect the State. Due to the diversity of interests of organizations (pluralism), their goals in public policy are realized. This form of interaction between society and the state is called pluralistic democracy.

Technocratic theory. This theory was formed and developed in the works of T. Veblen, D. Bariheim and other scientists. The basis of this theory was the views of the French philosopher A. Saint-Simon that without technical specialists, civilization was in danger of destruction. The disappearance of politicians would have no effect on the existing socio-economic order. According to this theory, technocrats are people who are professionally engaged in management. The source of their power is experience and competence, management sciences. Bureaucrats, unlike technocrats, have power only because they belong to the state apparatus. Thus, technocratic management activities are necessary for society for the purpose of optimal purposeful development.

Theory of elites. The founders of this theory, V. Pareto, G. Moscone, andJ. Sartori, represent the functioning of the state through the struggle of political elites for power. In turn, the elite consists of: successful people and persons exercising public power. The elite represents a narrow stratum of people with power, means, and social status. The winning elite group gets the opportunity to pursue its interests in state politics.

Legal approach: G. Jellinek, A. Esmen, G. Kelsen and other representatives of this direction consider the state as a social entity and a legal institution. The legal nature of the state is manifested in the functioning of State institutions, the publication and application of legal norms. At the same time, the state is considered as a legal entity that expresses the interests of the people.

The existence of the state as a political organization is primarily due to the fact that it is a special organization of political power.

Political power has a concentrated power that makes it an effective and important factor in the social sphere. Such a force is represented by various state institutions that formalize power and give it a constantly functioning and generally binding character. These institutions are State authorities with their special structures in the form of the army, punitive bodies, prisons, courts, as well as legal norms.

The main feature of political power isё its indissoluble connection with the state. This distinguishes it from other types of power. Political power, in fact, receives a material embodiment in state-legal institutions, becomes the power of the state.

It is important to understand that the state is a structural organization. This is reflected in the presence of a special state apparatus in the person of people who have public authority and are professionally engaged in performing the functions of management and leadership, protecting the economic, social and political system of society, including through coercion. It is this characteristic of the state as an organization of public power that makes it a special political organization, since the state is not the only instrument of exercising political power. There are other rather effective means of exercising this power, which are of a non-State nature. These are political movements and parties, trade unions, labor collectives, etc. Just the same, the state differs from them by a clearly structured system of special state bodies that perform its numerous internal and external functions.

Thus, it can be stated that the essence of the state expresses its social nature and purpose. The essence of the state changes with the development of society, under the influence of the political regime, the form of government. For example, modern democratic States see their purpose in guaranteeing the rights of their citizens as part of the overall world order.

The main features of the state:

- monopoly on coercive power over the population. No other organization of the society has the right to use force, at least not without state authorization;

- publication of laws and regulations that are binding on all citizens of a given State. The state has a monopoly on the publication of one type of legal form – a normative legal act;

- collection of taxes and fees is carried out for the maintenance of the state apparatus, the formation of the national budget. Mandatory fees are an attribute of state power.

Taxes and fees are the financial foundation of state power. Taxes are mandatory payments levied on individuals and legal entities. Their size and types depend on the type of state, its political and economic nature. The procedure for calculating and paying taxes is established by law. Taxes and fees must have an economic basis and cannot be arbitrary. In a democratic State, taxes and fees that prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional rights are unacceptable.

- structurality of the organization, which implies that the state has a special apparatus in the person of people who have public authority and are professionally engaged in performing the functions of management and leadership, protecting the economic, social and political system of society, including through coercion;

- territory of the state – the space within which the state has full power. It includes land territory (land, mineral resources), water territory (rivers, lakes, artificial reservoirs, marine territorial and territorial waters washing the territory of the state), air territory (airspace over land and water territory), as well as objects equated to the territory of the state (sea and air vessels, spaceships, etc. stations that operate under the flag of this state and some other items that belong to the state). The principal characteristic of a State is its existence as a territorial organization, the division of the population along territorial lines, and the territorial integrity of the State.

- the sovereignty of state power means its supremacy and independence from any other power, the right and ability to carry out domestic and foreign policy on behalf of the entire society inside and outside the country. The sovereignty of the state is manifested in the generally binding decisions of the state authorities for all who are located on its territory. The legal manifestation of sovereignty is that the State has the exclusive right to issue normative legal acts. The sovereignty of the state is also manifested in the issuance of law enforcement acts that reflect the exclusive nature of State power, its power to compel citizens. The decision of state authorities is guaranteed by the apparatus of coercion, which belongs to the State^[18].

Thus, the role of the state as an actor in managing social processes lies in the fact that it exerts a purposeful, organizing and regulating influence (through the system of state bodies, organizations and relevant officials) on social processes. At the present stage, the development of the foundations of democracy is directly related to the creation of a stable society and the development of the welfare state.

---

^[17] Russian Society and State in the Conditions of the Pandemic: Socio-Political Situation and Demographic Development of the Russian Federation in 2020: [Collective Monograph] / G. V. Osipov et al.; edited by G. V. Osipov, S. V. Ryazantsev, V. K. Levashov, T. K. Rostovskaya; responsible editor V. K. Levashov. – Moscow: ITD "PERSPEKTIVA", 2020. – p. 16.

^[18] Boshno S. V. The State // Law and Modern States. – 2013. – p. 68.