HUMANITY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE The State and its Elements
Elements of the State Physical Bases of the State
Political Bases of the State
Population
Government
Territory
Sovereignty
Population • Essential for the State • Greek thinker- too big nor too small • Plato’s Ideal Number 5040 • Aristotle- neither too large nor too small • Rousseau – 1000o to be an ideal number
• Modern States- Vary in population
Territory • No state without a fixed territory. • To live and organize socially and politically
• Included land, water and air-space • Modern state differ their sizes • No definite size with regard to extent of area of the state • Extent are small and big states • Complete freedom from external control
Government • Third element of the state • No state without government
• Working agency of the state • Political organization of the state • As the agency (will of state-formulate, expressed and realized) • To make and enforce Law – state must have supreme authority
(government)
Sovereignty • The fourth essential element of the state • Means supreme and final legal authority • Above and beyond no legal power exists
• Was developed with the rise of the modern state • Derived from Latin word super anus • Jean Badin-the father of modern theory of sovereignty
Sovereignty • Two aspects
Internal sovereignty • External sovereignty •
• Internal Sovereignty:
State is supreme overall its citizens and association
• External Sovereignty:
State is independent and free from foreign and outside control
Outermost and Innermost of the State Society
Politics
State
Government
Democracy • Democracy
is “Government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system”.
• Abraham Lincohn
“of the people, by the people and for
the people”. • Rules by the people.
Two categories of Democracy •
Direct Democracy
- all citizens, without the intermediary of elected or appointed officials - can participate in making decisions. •
Indirect Democracy
•
- The right to take part in the government of country
•
- The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government