The Role of State in maintaining social control:

(i) State has a vital role in administering social control. Sociologists have defined the state as "an association designed primarily to maintain order and security, exercising universal jurisdiction within territorial boundaries, by means of law backed by force and recognized as having sovereign authority".

(ii) State functions through the government. Modern nation states strive to be welfare states, i.e., they seek to provide to the citizens a wide range of social services like education, medical care, old age pension and unemployment allowance. These are achieved by means of the co-operation of individuals and through collective efforts of the media, the NGOs and other social institutions. For example, the pulse polio programmes of the government are extensively supported by the use of television, posters, NGOs and educational institutions, all of which try to educate the public on the advantages of the government measures. In the above mentioned context, the state acts as an informal agency of social control, eschewing coercion.

(iii) However, certain functions, like. maintenance of law and order, defence, foreign relations and currency, require the state to intervene in a formal and sometimes in a coercive manner.

(iv) India has a federal polity and government manifests itself at various levels-village, block, district, state and at the national level. At all these levels, its functionaries can enforce rules and laws. In modern societies, the state has become increasingly important as an agent of social control.