Walls, fences, oceans and mountains, all of them can serve the purpose of a border. The true idea of a border is to set an end to one state, and the beginning to another. But what exactly is a state? In this short article I’ll tell you.
First of all, we have to do some research on the history of the state system, as we have to realize that we indeed live in such. Everything began in Europe (of course), where in medieval times there were many different sized and interdependent territorial entities that were run by semi-free leaders. Sometimes it was a king, who had to subordinate himself to an emperor, and sometimes baron, who was bound to his king. Of course, this only is one dimension of the system. The second was the church: Here we had the pope, archbishops, bishops and so on. With time, this system evolved to the one we know from our newspapers (and blogs).
In Europe, competition was — is — everything, and that very unproductive authoritarian system was finally substituted by the (mostly) secular one. In between, Europeans colonized the world: After having established it in the 17th century, it spread to North America (18th century), South America, Japan (19th century both) and finally to the rest.
But what makes a state? In my book-review1 process I stumbled across a very interesting, yet simple list of values:
- Security
- Freedom
- Order and justice
- Welfare
On the basis of these key elements they are classifiable: We distinguish between strong and weak powers, as well as strong and weak states. E.g.
- The US are a strong power and a strong state.
- Russia is a strong power, but a weak state.
- Sweden is a strong state, but a weak power.
- Somalia is a weak power and a weak state.
Knowing these classifications, we can go on and focus on those elements, that make a modern state.
- ”International Relations — Theories and approaches” by R. Jackson and G. Sørensen, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 1999 [↩]
