In legal and social terms, the definition of the State is the form and organization of society, its government and the establishment of norms of human coexistence. It is the legal unit of the individuals that constitute a people that lives in the shelter of a territory and under the rule of a Law, in order to achieve the common good. In addition, it is a human creation, since prehistoric times where man lived in what is known as natural territories, in which they were not subject to positive laws, nor did they belong to any delimited territory.
What is the state
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A State in the judicial and social field is a style of organization supplied with sovereignty, it is composed of four fundamental elements such as: territory, population, sovereignty and government.
Taking the definition of the State from the sociologist Max Weber who says that this is the institution that centralizes the application of legitimate force. This meaning of the State refers to the important role that the State plays, by helping to eliminate self-justice or private revenge, which was applied in the early years, even when the State itself already existed.
The State presents various forms, the best known are: according to its organization we have Simple States, where political power directs everything and there is only one authority, it is divided into Unitary States and Decentralized States.
There are also Composite States, which includes a plurality of States, thus forming unions between them, is divided into Federal States, it is an area divided territorially into several Regions or provinces (it occurs in a democratic government), and in Confederation of States, which is the permanent union of free and independent States, through an international pact.
What a State Represents
A state is the representation of the people, it is in charge of exercising the will of the majority and always looking for the best options for citizens. Its main function is to establish peace and order within society, for this it must regulate the possible conflicts that occur between the various groups that comprise it.
In the same way, it must act as the face of citizens before the rest of the states of the world, serving as a defender of the territory and the people within it, in case there are external threats. It should also foster relations with other countries. Regarding economic interests, it must also control the economy and labor relations, collect the corresponding fees and the money that is collected must be channeled in order to solve the country's problems.
Another of the functions it performs is to offer public goods and services to society in general, such as health, education, roads suitable for land transport, adequate infrastructure for communication.
In the same way, regarding the environment and the functions that it must exercise is to use the resources that the state's territory possesses correctly, without neglecting access to housing for its citizens.
Taking into account all of the above, it can be said that the state represents citizens both to defend their rights, and to verify that their duties are properly fulfilled, maintaining the balance for coexistence in peace.
When speaking of the essence of a territory as a social phenomenon, the following characteristics of a State can be highlighted:
- It constitutes the organization of political dominance that arose at a certain stage of historical development and which also disappears at a certain stage of this development.
- It is conditioned by the economic base of society and is the superstructure built on it.
- It is the organization of the ruling class of owners of the main means of production to defend their class interests.
- It is the universal political organization that owns the sovereign public power and its material appendages, it is distinguished by the distribution of the population, the administrative-territorial division, taxes and Law.
What are the Elements of a State
The most significant elements of the State are the territory, the population, the government and sovereignty. It should be noted that the State is a style of social organization provided with sovereignty, which is the supreme power that coexists in citizens.
Every Territory must have the following four basic elements: a territory (in which to operate), a population (that grants it sovereignty), a government (through which to exercise) and a sovereignty (power to exercise its authority).
Population
It is a human institution, which means that a population is made up of individuals. Furthermore, a country is a community of people. This means that without a population there cannot be a Country.
According to Aristotle, the number of members of a population should not be too small or too large. In either case, it must be precisely large so that the state can be self-sufficient and adequately small so that it can be governed.
An example of a population would be the state of Mexico, according to a census carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, the population of Mexico amounted to approximately 130 million inhabitants in 2015.
Territory
A territory is the physical area in which a Nation develops. Since it cannot exist in the sea or in the air, but must exist in a land area in which it can be formed.
What is really important is not the extension of the territory but the delimitation of it. Which means that a people must have a well-defined land space, divided from the other states by precise and clear limits.
It is important to highlight that the territory not only includes the solid terrain, but also encloses the air space and the water limits that are within said terrain, such as the lakes, rivers and internal seas. The territory of a population can include islands, an example would be the Mexican territory which is integrated by a continental area and another by maritime space.
government
The government is the political organization of a region. This is the element through which the will of the people is expressed, formulated and specified. The government is made up of a chain of institutions that provide the region with the authority to administer issues that concern it, such as the optimization of public services (health, education, security), the administration of wealth, among others.
For example: Mexico has a federal and democratic government system, made up of a supreme power that at the same time is divided into three branches: Executive, legislative and judicial.
Sovereignty
The expression sovereignty comes from the Latin term superanus, which means "supreme." In this sense, sovereignty means that it is the supreme power, none of the other powers will surpass sovereignty. Which means that sovereignty is really the true power of a Nation, allowing it to govern, command and ensure the subordination of the inhabitants within the limits of its territory.
According to the French politician Jean Bodin, sovereignty has two aspects: one external and the other internal. External sovereignty which means that the Country is independent, so it has all the right not to be interceded by other regions. In the same way, external sovereignty implies the Government's experience of establishing relations with other regions.
Internal sovereignty, for its part, is the capacity of the state to make its own decisions and have them carried out within the territory
For example: the sovereignty of Mexico is observed in articles 38, 40 and 41 of its political constitution. These articles establish that the supreme power of the country lies in its population and that any benefit that is released must be applied later.
What is the rule of law
The rule of law is a pattern of order for a country by which all members of a society (even those in government) are counted in the same way, subject to publicly expressed legal processes and codes; it is a political situation that does not refer to any specific law. This political model implies that each of the settlers is subject to the law, including the subjects who are legislators, judges or officials in charge of enforcing the law.
Any action or measure must be coupled with a written legal norm and the authorities of the region are strictly restricted by a pre-established legal framework that they approve and to which they submit in its contents and forms. Therefore, any decision-making by its governing bodies must be subject to procedures regulated by law and directed with total respect for rights.
With the development of this process, the fragmentation of powers is reflected (the judiciary, the legislative power and the executive power, which are three institutions that, in the absolute state, are agglomerated in the figure of the government). In this way, the courts become autonomous with respect to the sovereign and reflected in the parliament, to counter the power of the ruler.
Another concept that is related to this is that of democracy, since it presumes that the population has power and applies it through elections, when they choose their leaders.
Furthermore, it is extremely important to establish that some kind of legal system coexists in all territories, but that does not mean that an order of law governs it, since for it to persist, it is necessary that the political society be fully juridified. and where the norms affirm that all inhabitants will be treated equally in front of the justice.
It is important to indicate that in order to be considered as such, a legal order of rights must comply with a succession of rules, they are:
Differences between State, Nation and Government
- There is a difference between what is a state, a government and a nation.
While the State refers to the unbreakable institutions that make possible the functioning of an entire country, that is, it is the group of public institutions that make up the government of a country. The nation, for its part, refers to the group of people who live in the country and who share the same origin, are led by the same government and usually have a popular custom.
- While the state is a machinery through which political power is made effective, the government, for its part, is the one who, in a first approximation, holds that power, since it is constituted by the set of people who operate said machinery. That is to say, in other words, it is called that way, the authorities that, on behalf of a Nation, perform administrative functions of any kind for a specified time.
