Tradition

State (polity)

Overview

A state is a political entity that regulates society and the population within a definite territory, or in other words, it is referred to as the country itself with various administrative divisions. Governments are considered as an apparatus, representative, or instrument of states as such the term is used as a metonym for them in governmental topics.

A state may be a unitary state or some type of federal union; in the latter type, the term "state" is sometimes used to refer to the federated polities that make up the federation, and they may have some of the attributes of a sovereign state, except being under their federation and without the same capacity to act internationally. (Other terms that are used in such federal systems may include "province", "region" or other terms.)

For most of prehistory, people lived in stateless societies. The earliest forms of states arose about 5,500 years ago. Over time societies became more stratified and developed institutions leading to centralised governments. These gained state capacity in conjunction with the growth of cities, which was often dependent on climate and economic development, with centralisation often spurred on by insecurity and territorial competition.

Over time, varied forms of states developed that used many different justifications for their existence (such as divine right, the theory of the social contract, etc.). Today, the modern nation state is the predominant form of state to which people are subject. Sovereign states have sovereignty; any ingroup's claim to have a state faces some practical limits via the degree to which other states recognize them as such. Satellite states are states that have de facto sovereignty but are often indirectly controlled by another state.

Definitions of a state are disputed. According to sociologist Max Weber, a "state" is a polity that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, although other definitions are common. Absence of a state does not preclude the existence of a society, such as stateless societies like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy that "do not have either purely or even primarily political institutions or roles". The degree and extent of governance of a state is used to determine whether it has failed.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where State (polity) is discussed.

Apart from war, the modern great State is harmful from its vastness and the resulting sense of individual helplessness. The citizen who is out of sympathy with the aims of the State, unless he is a man of very rare gifts, cannot hope to persuade the State to adopt purposes which seem to him better. Even in a democracy, all questions except a very few are decided by a small number of officials and eminent men; and…
Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
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On the basis of empirical consequences, it is just the sort of thing which should occur. There are empires due to conquest where political rule exists only in forced levies of taxes and soldiers, and in which, though the word state may be used, the characteristic signs of a public are notable for their absence. There are political communities like the city-states of ancient Greece in which the fiction of common…
John Dewey, The public and its problems
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Whether such a state is governed by Gods or sons of Gods, one, or more than one, happy are the men who, living after this manner, dwell there; and therefore to this we are to look for the pattern of the state, and to cling to this, and to seek with all our might for one which is like this. The state which we have now in hand, when created, will be nearest to immortality and the only one which takes the second place…
Plato, Laws
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The power of the State is partly legal, partly economic: acts of a kind which the State dislikes can be punished by the criminal law, and individuals who incur the displeasure of the State may find it hard to earn a livelihood. The views of Marx on the State are not very clear.
Bertrand Russell, Proposed Roads to Freedom
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Moreover, there are some other states which are called by the same name, that differ both from oligarchies and free states, wherein not only the rich but also the virtuous have a share in the administration; and have therefore acquired the name of aristocracies; for in those governments wherein virtue is not their common care, there are still men of worth and approved goodness. Whatever state, then, like the…
Aristotle, Politics
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State (polity)

Overview

In the original texts

Philosophers who discussed State (polity)

Related ideas

Place in the tradition