A state is a political association with effective sovereignty over a geographic area. These may be nation states, sub-national states or multinational states. A state usually includes the set of institutions that claim the authority to make the rules that govern the exercise of coercive violence for the people of the society in that territory, though its status as a state often depends in part on being recognized by a number of other states as having internal and external sovereignty over it. In sociology, the state is normally identified with these institutions: in Max Weber's influential definition, it is that organization that "(successfully) claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory," which may include the armed forces, civil service or state bureaucracy, courts, and police.

Usage

Although the term often includes broadly 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, when the term "state" also acquired its current meaning. Thus the word is often used in a strict sense to refer only to modern political systems.

Within a federal system, the term state also refers to political units, not completely sovereign themselves; however, these systems are subject to the authority of a constitution defining a federal union which is partially or co-sovereign with them. Thus we find the "states and territories of Australia" and the "states" in the United States of America.

In casual usage, the terms "country," "nation," and "state" are often used as if they were synonymous; but in a more strict usage they can be distinguished:

• Country denotes a geographical area.
• Nation denotes a people who are believed to or deemed to share common customs, origins, and history. However, the adjectives national and international also refer to matters pertaining to what are strictly states, as in national capital, international law.
• State refers to the set of governing institutions that has sovereignty over a definite territory and population.

Etymology

The word state and its cognates in other European languages (stato in Italian, état in French, Staat in German and estado in Spanish and Portuguese) ultimately derive from the Latin STATVS, meaning "condition" or "status". With the revival of the Roman law in the 14th century in Europe, this Latin term was used to refer to the legal standing of persons (such as the various "estates of the realm" - noble, common, and clerical), and in particular the special status of the king. The word was also associated with Roman ideas (dating back to Cicero) about the "status rei publicae", the "condition of the republic." In time, the word lost its reference to particular social groups and became associated with the legal order of the entire society and the apparatus of its enforcement.Skinner, Quentin. 1989. The State. In Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, edited by T. Ball, J. Farr and R. L. Hanson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521359783