Sovereign states

Examples of Sovereign states in the following topics:

• Characteristics of the State

  • States may be classified as sovereign if they are not dependent on, or subject to, any other power or state.
  • Other states are subject to external sovereignty or hegemony where ultimate sovereignty lies in another state.
  • Such states differ from sovereign states, in that they have transferred a portion of their sovereign powers to a federal government.
  • The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit.
  • In the United States, the state is governed by a government headed by an elected president.

• Functions of the State

  • Many people consider the United States to be a pluralist state.
  • States may be classified as sovereign if they are not dependent on, or subject to, any other power or state.
  • States are considered to be subject to external sovereignty, or hegemony, if their ultimate sovereignty lies in another state.
  • Such states differ from sovereign states, in that they have transferred a portion of their sovereign powers to a federal government .
  • Dahl called this kind of state a polyarchy.

• Industrialized Countries

  • In countries such as the United States, with well-developed industries, residents have consistent access to electricity, roads, and other infrastructure that improves their standard of living.
  • An industrialized country, also commonly referred to as a developed country, is a sovereign state with a highly developed economy relative to other nations.
  • Developed countries, which include such nations as the United States, France, and Japan, have higher GDPs, per-capita incomes, levels of industrialization, breadth of infrastructure, and general standards of living than less developed nations.

• Corporations and Corporate Power

  • Corporations have powerful legal rights, and some have revenues that exceed the revenues of sovereign nations.
  • Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state, they can be responsible for human rights violations, and they can even be convicted of criminal offenses, such as fraud and manslaughter.
  • Often, a corporation is legally a citizen of the state (or other jurisdiction) in which it is incorporated.
  • Scholars have pointed out that multinationals have had a long history of interference in the policies of sovereign nation states.
  • This is a state effort to transfer technology to local entrepreneurs.

• Monarchies and Liberal Democracies

  • Currently, 44 sovereign nations in the world have monarchs acting as heads of state, 16 of which are Commonwealth realms that recognize Queen Elizabeth II of England as their head of state.
  • A monarch that has few or no legal restraints in state and political matters is referred to as an absolute monarchy, a form of autocracy.
  • Currently, 44 sovereign nations in the world have monarchs acting as heads of state—16 of those are Commonwealth realms that recognize Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state.
  • At the time, the vast majority of European states were monarchies, with political power held either by the monarch or the aristocracy.

• Police

  • The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by the state to enforce the law, protect property, and limit civil disorder.
  • The term police is most commonly associated with police services of a state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility.
  • In United States constitutional law, police power is defined as the capacity of the states to regulate behavior and enforce order within their territory for the betterment of the general welfare, morals, health, and safety of their inhabitants.
  • The term transnational policing entered into use in the mid-1990s as a description for forms of policing that transcended the boundaries of the sovereign nation state.
  • Explain the relationship between the police and the state, differentiating between preventive police and police detectives

• Colonialism, Decolonization, and Neo-Colonialism

  • Both organizations extend loans to African countries, but do so only if the sovereign African nation-state accepts certain conditions which usually advance democratic and capitalist norms.
  • Decolonization has had a significant impact on the economies of the newly formed states.
  • First and foremost, newly independent African states had to develop an economic system.
  • Thus, Western corporations still had a significant amount of control over the new states.
  • In this way, foreign companies exert significant influence over post-colonial states.

• State Formation

  • Thus, states, as an institution, were a social invention.
  • Political sociologists continue to debate the origins of the state and the processes of state formation.
  • According to one early theory of state formation, the centralized state was developed to administer large public works systems (such as irrigation systems) and to regulate complex economies.
  • Since then, states have continued to grow more rational and bureaucratic, with expanding executive bureaucracies, such as the extensive cabinet system in the United States.
  • Discuss the formation of states and centralization of authority in modern history

• Democracy in the U.S.

  • The United States is a federal constitutional republic in which the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.
  • In the United States, suffrage is nearly universal for citizens 18 years of age and older.
  • The United States is a federal constitutional republic in which the President of the United States (the head of state and government), Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.
  • All states and the District of Columbia contribute to the electoral vote for president.
  • These two parties have won every United States presidential election since 1852, and have controlled the United States Congress since at least 1856.

• Authority and Legitimate Violence

  • Max Weber conceived of the state as a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force.
  • Max Weber's theory about states and violence can help explain why states would want to enact policies like gun control.
  • By controlling access to guns, the state furthers this objective.
  • According to Weber, the state is that entity that "upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order. " The state's authority is derived from this: the state can enforce its precepts through force without losing its legitimate authority.
  • Territory is necessary because it defines the scope of the state's authority: use of force is acceptable, but only in the jurisdiction specified by the state's lands.