Chapter 2: States

Max Weber

provided one of the most famous early attempts at defining what a state truly was when he claimed it had a "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, "often abbreviated as a "monopoly on violence ..

Supranational organizations

make policies that limit the sovereign policymaking power of their member states.

Sovereignty

requires power, which can be manifested as the threat of physical force, or through many lesser forms.

federal state

In a(n) , there is an official legal constitutional division of powers between the central government and the regional governments, in which certain powers belong to each.

Unitary states

centralize power at one level of government.

European Union

Elections are held in each member state to send representatives to the European parliament, which has power over certain policy areas that the member states have agreed to give the .

Traditional legitimacy

exists when the legitimate political rulers acquired their status and power through old traditions that are simply being maintained for consistency and predictability in the present.

Supranational organizations

, which are governing bodies that allow many sovereign states to send representatives to make collective decisions for the group.

Federal states

divide power between the central level and regional levels of government.

Regime change can occur through reform

important but gradual changes to the political rules that do not fundamentally alter the political system

States

are what people often refer to as “countries” or “nations,” though those are not the appropriate academic terms. 

Max Weber

provided one of the most famous early attempts at defining what a state truly was when he claimed it had a “monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force,” often abbreviated as a “monopoly on violence.”

Sovereignty

requires power, which can be manifested as the threat of physical force, or through many lesser forms.

Strong states

meaning the state has the ability to enact a policy and see through its execution and enforcement.

weak state

by contrast, would not necessarily have the capacity to carry out even a program as popular as guaranteed health care for all.

Failed states

which are unable to provide even basic law and order to their people.

Autonomy

the ability to enact and carry out a policy without the support of the public.

Legitimacy

which means that the people accept the right of the state to rule over them.

Traditional legitimacy

exists when the legitimate political rulers acquired their status and power through old traditions that are simply being maintained for consistency and predictability in the present.

Charismatic legitimacy

also sometimes referred to as a personality cult, exists when a single individual so captures the loyalty and attention of the people that the individual leader alone now serves as the basis of the legitimacy of the state.

Rational-legal legitimacy

exists in a state where formal understood legal practices and rules of the political game determine who wields political power and when.

State institutions

which is a very broad term for all of the various actors that carry out the policymaking and policy implementation functions of the state.

Linkage institutions

which connect the people of the country to the formal policy making process; these include political parties, interest groups, the media, and many others.

Nations

are groups of people that are bonded together by a shared sense of a sovereign political destiny, most commonly the desire to gain or maintain sovereign self-government.

stateless nations

because they are poorly integrated into the political system of the state they reside in, and their desire to separate and form their own nation-state is currently unrealized. 

Regimes

determine how individuals and groups acquire and exercise political power.

constitution

which acts as the supreme and fundamental basis for determining how the political process occurs.

reform

important but gradual changes to the political rules that do not fundamentally alter the political system.

Revolution

which is a sudden and radical change in the structures and systems that completely transforms the political regime.

coup d’état

in which the military of the state acts internally to displace those currently in power and seize power for itself.

Government

refers to those individuals currently exercising political power from official positions of authority. 

Unitary states

concentrate all, or almost all, power at the central, national level. 

Devolution

in which the central government willingly cedes certain key powers to regional governments in order to achieve a policy objective.

Federal states

divide power between the central level and regional levels of government.

Supranational organizations

which are governing bodies that allow many sovereign states to send representatives to make collective decisions for the group.

European Union

is one such supranational organization.