State (polity)

A state is a political entity that regulates society and the population within a definite territory. Government is considered to form the fundamental apparatus of contemporary states.

A country often has a single state, with various administrative divisions. A state may be a unitary state or some type of federal union; in the latter type, the term "state" is sometimes used to refer to the federated polities that make up the federation, and they may have some of the attributes of a sovereign state, except being under their federation and without the same capacity to act internationally. (Other terms that are used in such federal systems may include "province", "region" or other terms.)

For most of prehistory, people lived in stateless societies. The earliest forms of states arose about 5,500 years ago. Over time societies became more stratified and developed institutions leading to centralised governments. These gained state capacity in conjunction with the growth of cities, which was often dependent on climate and economic development, with centralisation often spurred on by insecurity and territorial competition.

Over time, varied forms of states developed, that used many different justifications for their existence (such as divine right, the theory of the social contract, etc.). Today, the modern nation state is the predominant form of state to which people are subject. Sovereign states have sovereignty; any ingroup's claim to have a state faces some practical limits via the degree to which other states recognize them as such. Satellite states are states that have de facto sovereignty but are often indirectly controlled by another state.

Definitions of a state are disputed. According to sociologist Max Weber, a "state" is a polity that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, although other definitions are common. Absence of a state does not preclude the existence of a society, such as stateless societies like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy that "do not have either purely or even primarily political institutions or roles". The degree and extent of governance of a state is used to determine whether it has failed.

The word state and its cognates in some other European languages (stato in Italian, estado in Spanish and Portuguese, état in French, Staat in German and Dutch) ultimately derive from the Latin word status, meaning "condition, circumstances". Latin status derives from stare, "to stand", or remain or be permanent, thus providing the sacred or magical connotation of the political entity.

The English noun state in the generic sense "condition, circumstances" predates the political sense. It was introduced to Middle English c. 1200 both from Old French and directly from Latin.

With the revival of the Roman law in 14th-century Europe, the term came to refer to the legal standing of persons (such as the various "estates of the realm" – noble, common, and clerical), and in particular the special status of the king. The highest estates, generally those with the most wealth and social rank, were those that held power. The word also had associations with Roman ideas (dating back to Cicero) about the "status rei publicae", the "condition of public matters". In time, the word lost its reference to particular social groups and became associated with the legal order of the entire society and the apparatus of its enforcement.