What is a state? What characteristics do all modern states have?

A state is a set of ongoing institutions that develops and administers laws and generates and implements public policies in a defined territory.

Territory: An area with clearly defined boundaries

No unclaimed territories remain in the world, except Antarctica

State borders can change—examples: 2008 Kosovo independence, 2011 Southern Sudan votes to secede

Sovereignty: Ability of a state to govern over a given territory

Quality of a state as being legally recognized by other states as sole legitimate governing authority within its territory and as legal equal of other states

External sovereignty: Equal participation on the international arena, as recognized by other states/international law

Internal sovereignty: Ultimate authority within the state to make and enforce laws and policies

Legitimacy: Recognition of the right to rule

German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) distinguished 3 types of legitimacy:

Traditional: The right to rule based on a society’s long-standing patterns and practices

Example: “divine right of kings” in Europe (monarchy)

Charismatic: The right to rule based on personal virtue, heroism, sanctity, or other extraordinary characteristics, possibly believed to be supernatural

Example: popular revolutionary leaders such as Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro in their early years;

rational-legal: The right of leaders to rule based on their selection according to an accepted set of laws, standards, or procedures

Bureaucracy: Division of state authority and procedures for making decisions

A large set of appointed officials whose function is to implement the laws of the state, as directed by the executive

Tasks include tax collection, infrastructure building and maintenance, schools, military

Effective bureaucracy enhances state capacity, esp. in rational-legal legitimacy

The Clash of Civilizations” Samuel Huntington:

7.The Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.

•The theory was originally formulated in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?", in response to Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntington believed that while the age of ideology had ended, the world had only reverted to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his thesis, he argued that the primary axis of conflict in the future will be along cultural and religious lines.

•As an extension, he posits that the concept of different civilizations, as the highest rank of cultural identity, will become increasingly useful in analyzing the potential for conflict. It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.

8.Regimes. What types of regimes are there and how do they differ? Under what conditions do regimes change from one type to another?

The proper relationship between a state and its people, individually and collectively, is one of the most interesting and debated questions in political science.

All successful modern states are able to compel their citizens to obey and to regulate many areas of citizens' lives.

No modern state can do this, however, without answering questions about the legitimate boundaries of such compulsion and regulation.

various models of the relationship between a state and its people

Each regime is based at least partially on a political ideology.

Each model is embodied in a regime,

a set of fundamental rules and institutions governing political activity.

Regimes are more enduring than governments but less enduring than states

Democratic regimes, for example, may persist through many individual governments.

The United States elected its forty-fifth presidential government in 2012,

yet its democratic regime has remained intact for over two centuries.

Similarly, a modern state may persists

though its regime changes from democratic to authoritarian or the other way around.

The state is continuous, but its fundamental rules can change.

The Country and Concept table shows the great variation around the world in regime stability over the last century, from the single, continuous regimes of the United States and the United Kingdom to the eight regimes Nigeria has seen.

One of the most common ways to classify political systems is to distinguish democracies from nondemocracies.

Democracy is a political system in -which virtually all citizens periodically vote in order to select political leaders from among alternative contenders

the most common concept applied to nondemocratic systems is authoritarian regime. Most authoritarian regimes, like dictatorships, lack a limited mandate. But authoritarianism adds another dimension: the political actions and decisions of the ruler are not constrained, while the political rights and freedoms of the citizens are significantly limited. In other words, under authoritarianism, the population has few, if any, political rights. An authoritarian regime places severe restrictions on the activities of individuals and groups who desire to influence the allocation of values by the political system. The great majority of the population is not allowed to participate in any political activities except those expressly encouraged by the regime. Citizens are not permitted to question the political institutions, procedures, or public policies of an authoritarian regime. However, the nonpolitical aspects of people's lives, such as occupation, religion, and social life, are not generally under the direct control of the political system. In some countries, these other areas of life are still significantly controlled, but the control is by traditional societal values or by overriding religious values, not by the political system. Singapore, as well as Libya(in the time of Kaddafi) and Zimbabwe, could be characterized as authoritarian regimes.In a totalitarian regime, the key word is total. Thus, under totalitarianism, the political system's allocation of values and its control penetrate into virtually every aspect of its people's lives. The totalitarian political system demands complete obedience- the behavior and even the thoughts of its population.All organizations are subordinated to the totalitarian state. Every act the individual citizen is subject to scrutiny by the state in the name of the interest. The state might define the acceptability of films and plays, what jobs individuals will have, prohibit the activities of organized them, prevent families from moving without approval, and so on. Totalitarian regimes, even more than authoritarian regimes depend use of extensive coercion for their survival. The state use military, security forces, and other instruments of violence to suppress any citizens group that challenges its authority. To sustain its pervasive control, the totalitarian regime also makes extensive use of the agents of political socialization, especially the media, the educational system, and cultural forms. Often the totalitarian state is dominated by a single leader, venerated in a cult of personality by a single political party.

In politics, a regime is the form of government: the set of rules, cultural or social norms, etc. that regulate the operation of government and its interactions with society. It's basically the time or period a person rules.

Regime change can occur through conquest by a foreign power, revolution, coup d'état or reconstruction following the failure of a state. Regime change may replace all or part of the state's existing institutions, administrative apparatus, bureaucracy and other elements.