Condition

The frontispiece of the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes

A State is a political organization made up of a set of stable bureaucratic institutions, through which it exercises a monopoly on the use of force (sovereignty) applied to a population within territorial limits. established.

Many human societies have been governed by states for millennia; however, most people in prehistory lived in stateless societies. The first states arose around 5,500 years ago along with the rapid growth of cities, the invention of writing, and the codification of new kinds of religion. Over time, a variety of different forms of states developed, employing a variety of justifications for their existence (such as divine right, social contract theory, etc.). Today, however, the modern nation-state is the predominant form of state to which people are subjected.

The word State comes from the Latin status, and this from the verb stare (to be stopped). From there it came to mean something stopped, detained, as in status quo. The verb stare is linked to the Indo-European root *sta-, present in the Greek verb ίσταμαι (histamai, which can be translated as: establish, stand up, stop, stand).

As a polysemic term, it also designates any sovereign country, recognized as such in the international order, as well as the set of powers and government bodies of that country.

Every State is endowed with territory, population and sovereignty.

Definitions

The concept of State differs according to the authors, but some of them define the State as the set of institutions that have the authority and power to establish the norms that regulate a society, having internal and external sovereignty over a determined territory.

The most commonly used definition is that of Max Weber, in 1919, he defines the modern State as an «association of domination with an institutional character that has tried, successfully, to monopolize within a territory the monopoly of legitimate violence as a means of domination and that, to this end, it has gathered all the material means in the hands of its leaders and has expropriated all the human beings who previously had them in their own right, substituting them with their own supreme hierarchies". State are institutions such as the armed forces, administrative bureaucracies, the courts and the police, thus assuming the State the functions of defense, governance, justice, security and others, such as foreign relations.

Probably the most classical definition of the State was the one cited by the German jurist Hermann Heller who defines the State as a «unit of domination, independent externally and internally, which acts continuously, with its own means of power, and clearly delimited in the personal and territorial. In addition, the author defines that one can only speak of the State as a construction of the absolute monarchies (see absolute monarchy) of the century XV, from the Modern Age. "There is no State in the Ancient Age", says the author. Likewise, how the concept of the rule of law has developed, which includes within the state organization those resulting from the rule of law and the division of powers (executive, legislative and judicial) and other functions that emanate directly from the nation, such as the issuance of its own currency.

Another commonly accepted definition of the state is the one given in the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States in 1933. It defined the state as a space that possesses the following: a permanent population, a defined territory, and a government that is capable of maintaining effective control over the corresponding territory and of conducting international relations with other states.

Confusing the definition problem is that "state" and "government" they are often used synonymously in common conversation and even in some academic discourse. According to this definition scheme, states are legal persons under international law, governments are organizations of people. The relationship between a government and its state is one of representation and authorized agency.

Definitions of the classics

• Cicero: It is a multitude of men linked by the community of law and utility for a common well-being.
• St. Augustine: It is a meeting of men with reason and linked by the common participation of the things they love.
• J. Bodino: It is a group of families and their common possessions governed by a commanding power according to reason.
• F. C. von Savigny: It is the material representation of a people.
• I. Kant: It is a variety of men under legal laws.
• F. Oppenheimer: It is the social institution imposed by the victorious group to the defeated, with the purpose of regulating its dominion and of uniting itself against the internal rebellion and the attacks of the outside.
• F. Lasalle: The State is the great association of poor classes.
• T. Hobbes: An institution, whose acts, by covenants made, are assumed by all, so that the strength and means of the community can be used, as appropriate, to ensure peace and common defence.
• L. Duguit: It is a corporation of public services controlled and led by the rulers.
• G. W. F. Hegel: The State is the conscience of a people.
• Hegel, 1986: The State is the reality of the ethical idea; it is the ethical spirit as the patent will, clear by itself, substantial, that is thought and known, and that what you know is fulfilled. In the ethical sense, the State has its immediate existence; and in the individual's consciousness, in his knowledge and activity they have their medium existence, and this consciousness of itself, through feelings, has its substantial freedom in the purposes and results of his activity.
• H. Groceries:The perfect association of free men united to enjoy their rights and to the common usefulness. It is the sovereign political association that has its own territory, with a specific organization and supreme power to create positive law.
• Karl Marx: The State is not the realm of reason, but of force; it is not the kingdom of the common good, but of partial interest; it does not end the well-being of all, but of those who hold power; it is not the departure of the state of nature, but its continuation in another way. On the contrary, the departure of the state of nature will coincide with the end of the state. Hence the tendency to consider every State as a dictatorship and to qualify as relevant only the problem of who governs (bourgeoisie or proletariat) and not just as. (see Marxist State Conception)

Definitions of modern writers

• Jellinek: It is an association of sedentary men with an organized power of original command.

• Bluntschli: It's the personification of a people.

• Spengler: The state is the story considered without movement. History is the state thought of the movement of influence.

• Kelsen: The State is the scope of the law.

The State is the right as a normative activity.

The law is the State as a formed activity.

"In the State it reaches its legal personality."

• Carré de Malberg: It is the political community with its own territory and has an organization.

It is the community of men on its own territory and organized in a higher power of action and coercion.

• Adolfo Posada: They are the territorial social groups with enough power to remain independent.

• Herman Heller: The State is the connection of social work. The power of the State is the unity of action organized within and outside. Sovereignty is the exclusive and supreme territorial management power.

• Herman Heller: The State is the sovereign political organization of territorial domination. It's the connection of social powers.

• Groppali: It is the grouping of a people who live permanently in a territory with a supreme command power represented in the government.

• Max Weber: The State is the legitimate and specific coercion. It is the brute force legitimized as "last ratio", which maintains the monopoly of violence.

• Ernest Gellnerfollowing Max Weber: "The state is the specialization and concentration of order maintenance. The state is that institution or group of institutions specifically related to the preservation of order (although they may be related to many more things). The state exists where specialized agents in this conservation, such as the police and the courts, have separated themselves from the rest of the social life. They They are. the state».

• Ahistric definition: State is the supreme political form of a people.

Violence in relation to the State

Max Weber wrote in his book Politics as a Vocation that a fundamental characteristic of the State is the claim of a monopoly on violence. His expanded definition was that something is "a 'State'" if and to the extent that its administrative staff successfully defends a claim on the "monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force" by the State. in the execution of their order". The public police and the army are their main instruments, but private security can also be considered as having the "right" to use violence "as long as the only source of this perceived right is the state sanction.

Ultimately, it is only possible to define the modern state, sociologically, based on its specific environment, as well as any political federation: I refer to physical violence. “Every state is based on force,” Trotski said in Brest-Litovsk. That's right, actually. If there were only political structures that did not apply force as a means, then the concept of “State” would have disappeared, giving rise to what we usually call “anarchy” in the strict sense of the word. Of course, force is not the only means of the State or its only remedy, there is no doubt, but its most specific means. In our time, precisely, the State has a close relationship with violence. The various institutions of the past (...) considered violence as an absolutely normal means. Today, on the other hand, we should formulate it this way: the State is the human community that successfully exercises the monopoly of legitimate physical violence within a certain territory

Max Weber. Politics as a vocation, p. 2

The capacity of a state is often measured in terms of its fiscal and legal capacity. Fiscal capacity means the state's ability to recover taxes to provide public goods, and legal capacity means the state's supremacy as the sole arbiter of dispute resolution and contract enforcement. Without some form of coercion, the state could not otherwise assert its legitimacy in its desired sphere of influence. In early and developing states, this role was often filled by the "stationary bandit" who defended villagers from roving bandits, hoping that protection would incentivize villagers to invest in economic production, hoping that the stationary bandit could eventually use his coercive power to expropriate some of that wealth.

In regions where the presence of the state is minimally felt, non-state actors may use their monopoly of violence to establish legitimacy and order. For example, the Sicilian Mafia originated as a protection gang that provided protection to buyers and sellers on the black market. Without this type of execution, market participants would not be confident enough to trust that their counterparties would honor existing contracts and the market would crash.

Even in illicit and underground markets (somewhat like stateless societies), violence is used to enforce contracts in the absence of accessible legal dispute resolution. Charles Tilly continues this comparison to say that war and state building are actually the best representations of what organized crime can become.

Origin and evolution of the concept of State

Machiavelli introduced the word “State” in his work The Prince.

Before Machiavelli, concepts referring to the state were often confused with the ruling dynasty and the state apparatus. We can see this, for example, in Ibn Khaldun in his Almuqqadima.

In Plato's Dialogues, the structure of the ideal State is narrated, but it is Machiavelli who introduced the word State in his famous work The Prince: using the term from the Italian language « Stato», evolution of the Latin word «Status».

The States and sovereignty that have had and have authority over men, were and are, or republics or principalities.

Machiavelli, The Prince.

Although it can be considered that the desire to command is innate, the human being has civilized the instinct of domination, transforming it into authority. And he has created the State to legitimize it.

Human societies, for as long as we know, have been politically organized. Such an organization can be called a State, as long as it corresponds to the aggregation of people and territory around an authority, not being, however, correct to understand the notion of State as unique and permanent throughout history.

In a general way, then, it can be defined as the organization in which three elements come together: authority, population and territory. But, this ambiguous notion forces us to record that although the State has existed since antiquity, it can only be precisely defined taking into account the historical moment.

The notion of legitimacy cannot be predicated of the state of Antiquity, since it arose from the fact that a certain chief (king, tyrant, prince) seized a certain territory, often poorly determined, regardless of the feeling of connection of the population, generally invoking a divine investiture and counting on the loyalty of regional chiefs and bosses. So were the empires of antiquity, the Egyptian and the Persian, among them.

Greek civilization provided a new notion of State. Since the form of political organization that characterized it corresponded to the city, the polis, the population was granted a binding participation, beyond religious sentiment and without intermediate seigneurial powers. In addition, each city being endowed with a small territory, its defense concerned all citizens, who took care of what is now called the national interest.

In the feudal regime, personal ties prevailed, disappearing both the strict delimitation of the territory and the notion of general interest. The central power was legitimate but weak and the local chiefs strong, to the point that they exercised attributes typical of the prince, such as administering justice, collecting taxes, minting money and recruiting armies.

And, finally, the modern state incorporates legitimacy, inherited from the feudal, the notion of sovereignty, a revolutionary concept, as pointed out by Jacques Huntzinger, who attributes the historical step of a disaggregated and crumbling society, but founded on religion, to a society of states organized and independent of each other.

But, this modern state, arisen from the aspiration of the kings to get rid of the feudal ties and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the nation-state, the union of a central power, a territory and a population around the revolutionary concept of Sovereignty would have to know two forms, two different definitions, the first, the princely state and the second, the democratic state.

The princely state was characterized by personal power exercised uniformly over a strictly delimited territory. The prince was the sovereign, with internal and external powers. Within his territory, he collected taxes and produced laws of a general nature, enforced coercively, through the monopoly of public force. Internationally, he represented and compelled his State.

And the democratic state, which emerged from the English, American, and French revolutions, transferred sovereignty from the prince to the nation. His powers were assumed by organizations arising from consultations with the population, through previously and clearly defined rules of the game. And as in the Greek polis, the patriotic feeling developed and with it those of belonging, civility and national interest.

Whether democracy is practiced or only verbally adhered to, the historical process described has led to the extension of the nation-state as a political form. The principles developed in Europe and North America spread with the decolonization that occurred during the XX century and thus, as Huntzinger affirms, became "It has come to universalize the nation-state model in such a way that the planet is now populated with states."

State, Nation and Government

• It should not be confused with the concept of government, which would only be the generally responsible party to carry out the functions of the State by delegating its capacities to other institutions. The Government may also be regarded as the set of rulers who temporarily hold office for a limited period within the whole State.

• Nor is it entirely equivalent to the concept, of a more ideological character, of "Nation", since it is considered possible the existence of non-State nations and the possibility that different nations or nationalities will be grouped around a single State. Commonly, the states form entities called "State" that combine both concepts, and it is customary for each nation to possess or vindicate its own state.

There are different forms of organization of a State, ranging from "centralist" to the "federalists" or the "autonomous", in which the State allows federations, regions or other organizations smaller than the State, the exercise of powers that are their own but forming a single State (what happens, for example, in Switzerland, Germany or the USA).

State formation and statehood

(Note: e#34;statehood" is used here as equivalent to "statehood" or &# 34;statism")

The U.S. Capitol.

Not all current states arose in the same way; neither did they follow an evolution or an inexorable and unique path. This is so because States are historical constructions of each society. In some cases they arose early, such as the English National State. In other cases they did so later, such as the German National State.

States can be dynamically examined using the concept of statehood, contributed by Oscar Oszlak. From this point of view, they gradually acquire certain attributes over time until they become organizations that meet the definition of State.

These characteristics of statehood, stated in an arbitrary order in the sense that each State can acquire these characteristics not necessarily in the indicated sequence, are the following:

• Ability to outsource its power: that is, to obtain recognition from other States.
• Capacity to institutionalize its authority: it means the creation of agencies to impose coercion, such as the armed forces, schools and courts.
• Ability to differentiate your control: that is, having a set of professionalized institutions for specific applications, among which are important those that allow tax collection and other resources in a controlled way.
• Ability to internalize a collective identity: creating common symbols of belonging and identification, differing from that of another State, for example, with their own hymn and flag.

Thus, all the territories go through a long process until they reach that quality of full State. That it will only be such to the extent that that State has successfully achieved all these requirements. Requirements that are minimal and necessary to speak of a true National State.

All this makes the State one of the most important forms of social organization in the world, since in each country and in a large part of the societies the real or fictitious existence of a State is postulated. However, the creation of supra-state entities such as the European Union has modified the traditional concept of the State, since it delegates a large part of its essential powers to the highest European authorities (economic, fiscal, legislative, defense, diplomacy...) thus diminishing the original sovereignty of states.

Other social groups that are currently considered as States are not such because their capacities and functions are so diminished in favor of other forms of social organization.

Attributes of the State that distinguish it from other institutions

• Stable and bureaucracy officials: vital for your administrative functioning and effective management of your nation. There is a need for a body of staff who is fully engaged in the task.

• Fiscal monopoly: it is necessary to have full control of the rents, taxes and other income, for their livelihood. Use your bureaucracy for this purpose.

• Permanent Army: needs an armed institution that protects him from a foreign, internal threat and is dedicated to forming a defense for him.

• Monopoly of legal force: in order to be a State it is necessary for modern and contemporary states to develop the exclusive and legitimate use of force in order to secure internal order. That is why the legislative branch creates laws that are mandatory, the executive branch controls with the use of coercive mechanisms its compliance and the judiciary applies them and executes them with the use of force, which is legitimate.

Power shows two different facets: strict and legitimate. The first when it is referred to in the sense of coercive force, that is, pure application of force. While the second is conceived when it is the result of the recognition of the dominated. In this way, the people recognize an institution par excellence as an authority and delegate their power to it.

• Sovereignty: the power to be recognized as the institution of greater prestige and power in a particular territory. Today, sovereignty is also discussed in the external sphere, i.e. international, with this limited to international law, international agencies and the recognition of the States of the world

• Territory: Determines the geographical limit on which the State is unfolded. It is one of the factors that distinguishes it from Nation. This must be clearly defined. Currently the concept does not encompass a portion of land, but reaches seas, rivers, lakes, air spaces, etc.

• PopulationIt is the society on which such power is exercised composed of institutions, which are nothing but the same state that is present in many aspects of social life.

Types and forms of State

A first and classic classification of States refers to the centralization and decentralization of Power (an aspect that should not be confused with the aspect of States of concentration and decentralization of power), from there it can be differentiate between Unitary States and States with a complex structure or Complex States, the latter generally being federations and confederations, as well as other intermediate types.

International Law also gives another classification of States according to their capacity to act in international relations:

1. On one side are the States with full capacity to operatethat is, it can exercise all its capacities as a sovereign and independent State. In this case there are almost all States of the World.
2. On the other hand are those States with limitations on their ability to work on different issues. Thus, within this typology you can observe, in turn, a second classification of these:
   1. neutral States. Those who abstain from participating in international conflicts. This neutrality has been adapted according to:
      1. If you own absolute neutrality by constitutional provision. It's the case of Switzerland. Sweden also maintained absolute neutrality in international affairs between 1807 and 1993.
      2. If it's a neutralized country. They are neutral states regarding someone and something specific. It is a neutrality imposed by an international treaty, a constitutional provision or an international sanction. It was the case of Austria, which in 1956, after the withdrawal of the occupying forces from France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, they drafted a constitution that provided that Austria should be neutral with respect to the four signing forces.
   2. sovereign State which renounces its international competence. They are dependent States on international relations. It is often the case of micro-states who leave or give up international relations to a third, well-rounded State, whether with which it maintains good relations. It is the case of San Marino, which entrusts international relations to Italy; of Liechtenstein, which is given to Switzerland, or Monaco to France.
   3. State in Free Association with another. It is an independent State but in which a third State assumes part of its external competences, as well as other matters such as defence, economy or diplomatic and consular representation. It is the case of Palaos regarding the United States of America.
   4. States under fiduciary administration. They are a kind of State guarded in a manner similar to what were the States under mandate, not currently possible, and under protection. The International Society protects or assumes the guardianship of that State as a precautionary or transitional measure in times of crisis. It was the case of Namibia until 1998.
   5. Non-Internationally Recognized sovereign States. They are sovereign and independent States but by not being recognized by any other they have very limited their ability to work. It may not be well recognized by an international sanction, either by pressure from a third country (the case of the Republic of China, not recognized for avoiding confrontations with the People ' s Republic of China, although it maintains great international activity), either by disinterest (the case of Somaliland). Another case concerning this was the Bantustans, only recognized by the Republic of South Africa and rejected by the rest of the International Community.

State Recognition

Recognition is a discretionary act that emanates from the predisposition of pre-existing subjects. This act has legal effects, being considered both international subjects, the recognizer and the recognized one, as equals since a link is created between the two.

Today, the accepted doctrine for the recognition of States is the Estrada doctrine, pragmatic as long as a subject is not annoying to international society, it will not have difficulty being recognized. It is understood that if one subject recognizes another, there will be contact between the two, so that when the procedures for the establishment of diplomatic relations begin, it is assumed that there is mutual international recognition. However, the rupture of these diplomatic relations does not imply the loss of recognition. Likewise, a simple formal declaration is also valid to recognize another State despite not initiating diplomatic relations.

In the regulatory field, there are proposals that point to the need for greater integration with the creation of a global State, understood as a planetary political framework with coercive power and the capacity to regulate inter-state relations and extrapolitical sources of power, with the capacity to executive, legislative and judicial capable of imposing itself on national States in certain areas that cannot be approached from the perspective of national sovereignty (environment, terrorism, tax havens...).

Criticism of the State

Allegory of Peace and State Happiness. The classics considered the peace of a State as the logical consequence of justice and good governance. Work preserved at the Víctor Balaguer Museum Library

The State is one of the institutions that lasts without an important evolution in its structure and operation, with the exception of its growth. The modern state was created with the industrial revolution, but the world and the dynamics of society have changed a lot since the 19th century. For example, while modern companies, which were created during the industrial revolution, quickly change their dynamics whenever the market demands it, States do not change their laws in the same way as society demands (see: economic calculation).

The critical approach also differs between institutionalism and classism as a determining factor of the nature of the State. Some conceptions such as anarchism consider convenient the total disappearance of the States, in favor of the sovereign exercise of individual freedom through free associations and organizations. Other conceptions accept the existence of the State, with greater or lesser authority or power, but they differ as to what should be its form of organization and the scope of its powers:

Anarchism

Anarchism maintains that the State is the power structure that claims to have a monopoly on the use of force over a territory and its population, and that it is recognized as such by neighboring states. The most apparent elements that indicate the power of the state are:

• border control,
• tax collection,
• the emission of currency,
• a police force and an army,
• a bureaucratic system administered by workers.

The false ostentation of security, defense, social protection and justice of the population is criticized; actually exercising an obligatory government and violating individual sovereignty and non-coercion. Anarchists point out that the State is a repressive institution to maintain an economic order and concrete power linked to public power. They attribute to the State a good part of the evils that afflict contemporary humanity such as poverty, economic crises, wars, social injustice, etc.

A few words that fully identify what the State is for anarchists from the perspective of Bakunin, one of the theorists of modern anarchism:

“Whoever says 'State', necessarily says 'War'. The State tries (and should try) to be strong, stronger than its neighbors; otherwise, it will be a toy in their hands. It is forced to weaken, to impoverish the other States in order to impose its law, its policy, its commercial treaties, in order to enrich itself at their expense. The struggle for supremacy, which is at the base of the bourgeois economic organization, is also the base of its political organization.

Marxism

For their part, Marxists affirm that any State has a class character, and that it is nothing more than the armed and administrative apparatus that exercises the interests of the dominant social class. Therefore, they aspire to the conquest of political power by part of the working class, the destruction of the bourgeois State and the construction of a necessary workers' State as a transition step towards socialism and communism, a society where in the long term there will be no State because the contradictions and struggles between the social classes have been overcome. The feasibility of eliminating the conditions of bourgeois existence is discussed, supposed for the transition from alienated to communist society.

Liberalism

Liberalism advocates reducing the role of the State to the minimum necessary (minimum State), from a civil sense for the respect of basic liberties, that is, the State should be in charge of security (army and police to guarantee civil liberties) and justice (judicial power independent of political power). In no case should the State be used to exert coercion to take away from some individuals to give to others, and private agents should be the ones that regulate the market through the price system, assigning to each thing the value it really has.

Bastiat exposed two possible ways of understanding the State: A state that does a lot but must take a lot, or a state that does little but also takes little from its citizens. The third possibility of a state that does a lot for its citizens but asks little in return (third way) is, according to Bastiat, an invention of some irresponsible politicians.

Integrism

Integrist ideologies defend the conception of the State subservient to the religion they profess.

The reason of State

In defense of the common good of the entire population that encompasses the State or its survival, the so-called reason of State is frequently used, a term coined by Nicholas Machiavelli, for which Said State harms or affects in one way or another people or groups of people, in favor of the rest of the individuals that make it up, generally ignoring the legal or moral norms that govern it. Such is the argument used, for example, in certain selective assassinations or in certain cases of State terrorism.