Polity

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. It is the unit or entity of a political community or body politic.

Overview

Frontispiece of Leviathan, 1690

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.

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.

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.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ferguson, Yale; Mansbach, Richard W. (1996). Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 1570031282.
  2. ↑ Corry, Olaf (2010). "What is a (Global) polity?". Review of International Studies. 36: 157–180. doi:10.1017/S0260210510000975.
  3. ↑ 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.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ "Countries Not in the United Nations 2024". World Population by Country 2024 (Live). June 26, 1945. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
  6. ↑ 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.
  7. ↑ Black's Law Dictionary, 4th ed. (1968). West Publishing Co.
  8. ↑ Uricich v. Kolesar, 54 Ohio App. 309, 7 N.E. 2d 413.
  9. ↑ Hobbes, Thomas (1651). Leviathan. Retrieved 2 January 2019.