Sovereign state

This article is about sovereign independent states. For subnational entities called states, see State (administrative division). For other uses, see State (disambiguation) and government.

A sovereign state is a political association with effective sovereignty over a geographic area and representing a population. A state usually includes the set of institutions that claim the authority to make the rules that govern the people of the society in that territory, though its status as a state often depends in part on being recognized by a number of other states as having internal and external sovereignty over it.

In sociology, the state is normally identified with these institutions: in Max Weber's influential definition, it is that organization that "(successfully) claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory," which may include the armed forces, civil service or state bureaucracy, courts, and police.

Definition

Although the term often includes broadly all institutions of government or rule—ancient and modern—the modern state system bears a number of characteristics that were first consolidated beginning in earnest in the 15th century, when the term "state" also acquired its current meaning. Thus the word is often used in a strict sense to refer only to modern political systems.

In casual usage, the terms "country", "nation", and "state" are often used as if they were synonymous; but in a more strict usage they can be distinguished:

• Nation denotes a people who are believed to or deemed to share common customs, origins, and history. However, the adjectives national and international also refer to matters pertaining to what are strictly states, as in national capital, international law.
• State refers to the set of governing and supportive institutions that have sovereignty over a definite territory and population.

Modern criteria

Constitutive theory of statehood

In 1815 at the Congress of Vienna the Final Act only recognised 39 sovereign states in the European diplomatic system, and as a result it was firmly that in future new states would have to be recognised by other states, and that meant in practice recognition by one or more of the great powers.

The constitutive theory was developed in the 19th century to define what is and is not a state. With this theory, the obligation to obey international law depends on a entity's recognition by other countries. Because of this, new states could not immediately become part of the international community or be bound by international law, and recognized nations did not have to respect international law in their dealings with them.

One of the major criticisms of this law is the confusion caused when some states recognize a new entity, but other states do not, a situation the theory does not deal with. Hersch Lauterpacht, one of the theory's main proponents, suggested that it is a state's duty to grant recognition as a possible solution. However, a state may use any criteria when judging if they should give recognition and they have no obligation to use such criteria. Many countries may only recognize a state if it is to their advantage.

Montevideo Convention

One of the criteria most commonly cited by micronations with regard to difficulty getting international recognition is the Montevideo Convention. The Montevideo Convention was signed on December 26 1933 by the United States, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Mexico, Panama, Bolivia, Guatemala, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Cuba but it never received international consensus. The Montevideo Convention has four conditions that an entity must meet to become a country:

• a permanent population
• defined territory
• Government
• capacity to enter into relations with other states

Because of these easy to meet criteria, the Montevideo Convention was never accepted by the international community and most countries instead use the constitutive theory of statehood as a benchmark.

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