States

A state is a set of institutions that possess the authority to make the rules that govern the people in one or more societies, having internal and external sovereignty over a definite territory. more...

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The state includes such institutions as the armed forces, civil service or state bureaucracy, courts, and police. By Max Weber's influential definition, a state has a "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."

By modern practice and law of international relations, a state's sovereignty is not conditional upon the diplomatic recognition of the state's claim to independence by other states. However the capacity of a state to enter into various international relations and treaties is conditional upon such recognition. Degrees of recognition and sovereignty may vary. However any degree of recognition, even the majority recognition, is not binding on third-party states.

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 traditions of 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 comprise 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 the Federal Republic of Germany.

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:

Country is the geographical area; 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;

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