- This article discusses states as sovereign political entities. For other meanings, see state (disambiguation).
In international law and international relations, a state is a
political entity possessing sovereignty, i.e. not being subject to any higher
political authority. But, as noted below, the "state" can also be defined in terms of domestic conditions. Of course, different
political philosophies differ in their interpretation of the actual and ideal roles of the state.
The definition of "state" in the meaning of a political subdivisions of some countries, is related as it emphasizes
the intention of a confederation where these state governments are seen
as possessing some powers independently of the federal government. Often these
states existed before their creation of a federal régime.
In casual language, the idea of a "state" and a "country" are usually regarded as synonymous, although some speakers, notably
in the United States, make efforts to use "country" or "nation" for the sovereign entities. Others would primarily understand
"the State" as a synonym for "the Government", or be careful to distinguish
between a territorial "country" and a "nation" of people. Confusingly, the terms "national" and "international" are both used as technical
terms applying to states, see country.
The international point of view
The legal criteria for statehood are not obvious. A document that is often quoted on the matter to is the Montevideo Convention from 1933, whose article 1 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.
Also, in article 3 it very clearly states that statehood is independent of recognition by other states. This is the
declarative theory of statehood. While the Montevideo is a regional American convention and has no legal effect
outside the Americas, some have nonetheless seen it as an accurate statement of customary international law.
On the other hand, article 3 of the convention is attacked by the advocates of the constitutive theory of
statehood, where a state exists only insofar as it is recognized by other states. Which theory is correct is a
controversial issue in international law. An example in practice was the collapse of central government in Somalia in the early 1990s: the Montevideo convention
would imply that the state of Somalia no longer existed, and the subsequently declared republic of Somaliland (comprising part of the so-called "former" Somalia) may meet the criteria for statehood.
However the self-declared republic has not achieved recognition by other states.
The domestic point of view
A further controversy, within political philosophy,
centers on the question of when the state came into being, and what its basic characteristics are, emphasizing the relationship
between the state and its people. The English political philosopher Thomas
Hobbes argued that in order to avoid a multi-sided civil war, in which life was "nasty, brutish, and short," individuals must
surrender many of their rights -- including that of attacking each other -- to the Leviathan, a unified state. In this tradition,
Max Weber and Norbert
Elias defined the state as an organization of people that has a monopoly on
legitimate violence in a particular geographic area. In this tradition, the state differs from the "government": the latter
refers to the group of people who make decisions for the state.
For Weber, this was an "ideal type" or pure case of the state. Many institutions that have been called "states" do not live up
to this definition. For example, a country such as Iraq (in June 2004) would not be seen as truly having a state since the
ability to use violence was shared between the U.S. occupiers and various militias and terrorist groups, while order was not
maintained.(This situation might be called a "failed state.") The official Iraqi government also lacked sovereignty because of
the important role of U.S. domination.
One of the most basic characteristics of a state is regulation of property rights, investment, trade and the commodity markets (in food, fuel, etc.)
typically using its own currency. Although states (by their free will) increasingly
cede these powers to trade bloc entities, e.g. North American Free Trade Agreement,
European Union, it is always controversial to do so, and opens the
question of whether these blocs are in fact simply larger states. The study of political economy which evolved into the modern study of economics studies these specific questions in more detail.
However, although states often are influenced in this way, they are nonetheless much stronger in relation to international
organizations or to other states than lower (substate) political subdivisions normally are. But the trend at the moment is for
the power of superstate levels of governance to increase, and there is no sign of this increase abating. Many (especially those
who favour constitutional theories of international law) therefore reject as outdated the idea of sovereignty, and view the state
as just the chief political subdivision of the planet.
Philosophies of the state
Different political philosophies have different perspectives on the state. In broadly-defined liberal thinking, the role of the state is to express the public interest and to reconcile the
interests of the whole society with those of individuals. (This job seems best performed by a democratically-controlled state,
where different types of liberalism put different meanings on the word "democracy.") The state provides public goods and other kinds of collective consumption, while preventing
individuals from free-riding (taking advantage of collective
consumption without paying) by forcing them to pay taxes.
In Marxian thinking, the main role of the state is to use force
to defend the existing system of social class domination and exploitation. Under such systems as feudalism, the lords used their own military
force to exploit their vassals. Under capitalism, on the other hand, the use of force is centralized in a specialized
organization which protects the capitalists' class monopoly of ownership of the means of production, allowing the exploitation of those without such ownership. In modern Marxian thinking, such
class domination can coincide with others forms of domination such as patriarchy and ethnic hierarchies.
In conservative thinking, the existing structure of
tradition and hierarchies (of class, patriarchy, ethnic dominance, etc.) are seen as benefiting society as a whole. So the
conservatives merge the liberal perspective with that of the Marxists: the state forces people to accept class and other kinds of
domination, but this is seen as being good for them.
In anarchist thinking, the state is nothing but an
unnecessary and exploitative segment of society. Totally rejecting Hobbesian insights, anarchists argue that if the state and its
restrictions on individual freedom were abolished, people could figure out how to work together peacefully while individual
creativity would be unleashed. This vision is vaguely similar to the free-market libertarian (classical liberal) view: the "libertarians" want to minimize the role of the
state, but want to keep its use of force to protect property rights and to enforce contracts (while providing national defense).
In truth, the libertarians are part of the broadly-defined liberal tradition discussed above, putting more limits on the role of
the ideal state than do other liberals.
See also
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