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What is a State?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
A state is a set of institutions that possess the authority to make the rules that govern a society, having internal and external sovereignty over a definite territory. Following Max Weber's influential definition, a state has a 'monopoly on legitimate violence'. Hence the state includes such institutions as the armed forces, civil service or state bureaucracy, courts, and police. For theorists of international relations, recognition of the state's claim to independence by other states, enabling it to enter into international engagements, is key to the establishment of its sovereignty.
Although the term often refers broadly to all institutions of government or rule—ancient and modern—the modern state system bears a number of characteristics that were first consolidated in western Europe, beginning in earnest in the 15th century.
In the late 20th century, the globalization of the world economy, the mobility of people and capital, and the rise of many international institutions all combined to circumscribe the freedom of action of states. However, the state remains the basic political unit of the world, as it has been since the 16th century. The state is therefore considered the most central concept in the study of politics, and its definition is the subject of intense scholarly debate. Political sociologists in the tradition of both Karl Marx and Max Weber usually favor a broad definition that draws attention to the role of coercive apparatus.
Since the late 19th century, the entirety of the world's inhabitable land has been parceled up into states; earlier, quite large land areas had been either unclaimed or uninhabited, or inhabited by nomadic peoples who were not organized as states. Currently more than 200 states compromise the international community, with the vast majority of them represented in the United Nations.
Within a federal system, the term state also refers to political units, not sovereign themselves, but subject to the authority of the larger state, or federal union, such as the "states" in the United States and the Länder.
In casual usage, the terms "country," "nation," and "state" are often used as if they were synonymous; but in a more strict usage they are distinguished:
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country is the geographical area
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nation designates a people, however national and international both confusingly refer as well to matters pertaining to what are strictly states, as in national capital, international law
- state refers to set of governing institutions with sovereignty over a definite territory
The state and supranationalism
International relations theorists have traditionally posited the existence of an international system, where states stake into the account the behavior of other states when making their own calculations. From this point of view, states embedded in an international system face internal and external security and legitmation dilemmas. Recently the notion of an 'international community' has been developed to refer to a group of states who have established rules, procedures, and institutions for the conduct of their relations. In this way the foundation has been laid for international law, diplomacy, formal regimes, and organizations.
In the late 20th century, gloabalization generated a debate as to whether the state can retain any of the freedom of action formerly associated with sovereignty. These constraints on the state's freedom of action are accompanied in some areas, notably Western Europe, with projects for interstate integration such as the European Union.
The state and international law
The legal criteria for statehood are not obvious. Often, the laws are surpassed by political circumstances. However, one of the documents often quoted on the matter is the Montevideo Convention from 1933, the first article of which states:
"The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states".
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