Polity
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A polity is a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of political, institutionalized, social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources.[1][2] It is the unit or entity of a political community or body politic.[3]
Overview
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In geopolitics, a polity can manifest in different forms such as a province, a nation, a state, an empire, an international organization, a political organization or another identifiable, resource-manipulating organizational structure. A polity like a state does not need to be a sovereign unit. The preeminent polities today are Westphalian states and nation-states, commonly referred to as countries. The term country may refer to a variety of types of polity: usually to a sovereign state, but also to a state with limited recognition, a constituent country of a sovereign state, or a dependent territory.[4][5][6]
A polity may encapsulate a multitude of organizations. Many of these form (or are involved in) the administrative apparatus of contemporary nation states: such as their subordinate civil, regional, and local government authorities.[7][8]
Thomas Hobbes was a highly significant figure in the conceptualisation of polities, in particular of states. Hobbes considered notions of the state and the body politic in Leviathan, his most notable work.[9]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Ferguson, Yale; Mansbach, Richard W. (1996). Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 1570031282.
- ^ Corry, Olaf (2010). "What is a (Global) polity?". Review of International Studies. 36: 157–180. doi:10.1017/S0260210510000975.
- ^ Collins, Stephanie; Lawford-Smith, Holly (2021). "We the People: Is the Polity the State?". Journal of the American Philosophical Association. 7: 78–97. doi:10.1017/apa.2020.15.
- ^ Fowler, Michael Ross; Bunck, Julie Marie (1996). "What constitutes the sovereign state?". Review of International Studies. 22 (4). Cambridge University Press (CUP): 381–404. doi:10.1017/s0260210500118637. ISSN 0260-2105. S2CID 145809847.
- ^ "Countries Not in the United Nations 2024". World Population by Country 2024 (Live). June 26, 1945. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
- ^ Talmon, Stefan (2001). "Recognition and its Variants". Recognition of Governments in International Law: With Particular Reference to Governments in Exile. Oxford Academic. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
- ^ Black's Law Dictionary, 4th ed. (1968). West Publishing Co.
- ^ Uricich v. Kolesar, 54 Ohio App. 309, 7 N.E. 2d 413.
- ^ Hobbes, Thomas (1651). Leviathan. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
External links
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- "Analogy of the Body Politic" – at the Dictionary of the History of Ideas
- Polity at the Encyclopædia Britannica
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