Lecture 1: The State, Sovereignty, and Constitutions

Vocabulary flashcards covering foundational political concepts, social contract theories, constitutional models, elements of the State, and sovereignty from Lecture 1.

Political institutions

Enduring rules and organized practices structuring sovereign power, resilient to individuals' turnover.

Aristotle's constitutional forms

Monarchy, aristocracy, and polity, alongside corrupt forms: tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy.

Legal definition of a State

A political entity defined by three elements: sovereignty, population, and territory.

Weber's definition of the State

A human community successfully claiming a legitimate monopoly of coercion over a territory.

Gramsci's State

Political society plus civil society, where the ruling class wins dominated groups' active consent.

Poulantzas's view of the State

A non-neutral entity shaped by leaders and parallel power networks.

Bodin's definition of sovereignty

Absolute and perpetual power vested in a commonwealth (majestas).

Hobbes's State of Nature

A natural state of war where man is a wolf to man, resolved by creating an irrevocable Leviathan guaranteeing peace.

Locke's State of Nature

A state of free, equal, and independent individuals governed by reason, with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property.

Inalienable rights (Hobbes vs. Locke)

Hobbes views rights as entirely transferable and irrevocable, while Locke maintains inalienable rights cannot be transferred even by consent.

Locke's right to resist oppression

The right of citizens to dissolve the government without necessarily dissolving the underlying social contract.

Rousseau's State of Nature

A naturally free and peaceful condition corrupted by society and private property creating inequality.

State, Sovereign, and Power (Rousseau)

A political body designated as the State when passive, Sovereign when active, and Power versus other States.

Citizens vs. subjects (Rousseau)

Citizens share sovereign power, while subjects obey the State's laws.

Burke's critique of the Enlightenment

Prefers tradition, history, and gradual change over abstract reason and revolutionary upheaval.

MacIntyre's critique (After Virtue, 1981)

Argues that the contract rests on local community telos and shared ethics rather than universal natural law.

Principle of utility (Bentham)

The view that consent is maintained through pleasure and pain, seeking the satisfaction of the greatest number.

Harm principle (Mill)

The principle holding that individual liberty may only be restricted to prevent harm to others.

Marx's view on the social contract

Production separates man from objects; only capital remains free, thereby annihilating the social contract.

Nozick's critique (1974)

Rejects utilitarianism on the grounds that a greatest-number measure must never override individual choice.

Rawls's three components of justice

Equal liberty, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle.

Rawls's conditions for inequality

Inequalities must attach to offices open to all under fair opportunity and must benefit the least advantaged.

Continental view of the Constitution

Holds that no State can exist without a Constitution, which serves as the written foundational rules organizing the State.

Anglo-American view of the Constitution (Dicey)

Identifies the Constitution with the rule of law securing individual rights through customs, precedents, and broader rights.

Articles of association (Carré de Malberg)

A description characterizing the Constitution as the foundational articles of association of the State.

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

Marked the birth of Nation-States, establishing principles of sovereignty, self-determination, legal equality of States, and non-intervention.

Montevideo Convention (1933) Article 1 criteria

Four legal criteria for Statehood: permanent population, defined territory, government, and capacity to relate to other states.

Montevideo Convention Article 3

Establishes that the political existence of a State is independent of recognition by other States.

Declarative theory of recognition

The legal theory that a State exists autonomously without requiring recognition from other States.

Constitutive theory of recognition

The legal theory that a State exists only if enough other States officially recognize it.

Imperium vs. dominium (Carré de Malberg)

Territory represents imperium, meaning unlimited domination power, rather than dominium, which constitutes property ownership.

Objective definition of population/nation (Fichte)

A determinist definition based on shared ethnicity, language, and religion; root of nationalist claims and genocide.

Subjective definition of population/nation

A voluntary definition of the nation embraced by French and American traditions.

Renan's Nation

A common legacy of memories and practices that is continually renewed.

Nation (quiz definition)

An abstract historical community composed of past, present, and future members.

French CC decisions (91-290, 99-412)

Constitutional Council rulings affirming that an indivisible Republic forbids granting autonomous sovereignty to local regional peoples.

Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)

A disputed State involving contested territory with Morocco, Polisario leadership, and uncertain recognition and effective government.

Sovereignty 'of' vs. 'in' the State

Sovereignty 'of' the State is external sovereignty, whereas sovereignty 'in' the State refers to internal decisional power.

External sovereignty

The capacity to represent an entire population without delegation, holding independent final decision-making power internationally.

Kompetenz-Kompetenz (Kelsen)

The supreme power of a sovereign entity to determine its own legal competence and final decisional power.

Grundnorm (Kelsen)

The superior legal norm, usually the Constitution, which validates lower norms if they conform to it.

International law and national sovereignty

International law constrains only with a State's consent and cannot be imposed upon national sovereignty.