The State & Sovereignty

Watch

• What is Sovereignty? | Sovereignty in Political Science | Meaning | Explained | Polity | Sovereignty ↗Harinath Dwivedi
• Native American Food Sovereignty, Explained ↗PBS Origins
• POLITICAL THEORY - John Locke ↗The School of Life
• 12. The Sovereign State: Hobbes' Leviathan ↗YaleCourses

Read

• Leviathan ↗A foundational text arguing for a powerful sovereign to prevent societal collapse, essential for understanding the origins of state authority.Thomas Hobbes
• Politics as a VocationThis seminal lecture defines the modern state by its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, a crucial insight for political analysis.Max Weber
• Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992 ↗An authoritative historical account detailing how war-making and resource extraction shaped the diverse forms of European states over centuries.Charles Tilly
• The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics ↗Explores how states, despite the absence of a global sovereign, manage to create and maintain a degree of order within an international society.Hedley Bull
• Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy ↗A provocative analysis challenging traditional notions of sovereignty, revealing its varied forms and frequent violations in international relations.Stephen D. Krasner

Voices to follow

• Francis Fukuyama ↗Known for his influential work on political development, state-building, and the origins of political order, offering deep insights into the evolution and function of the modern state.Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow, Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
• Anne-Marie Slaughter ↗A leading voice on global governance and international law, she explores how sovereignty is reconfigured in an interconnected world, advocating for a more networked approach to global challenges.CEO, New America; former Director of Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State
• John Mearsheimer ↗A pre-eminent proponent of offensive realism, his analysis of great power competition and the security dilemma provides a stark perspective on the enduring centrality of state power and self-interest in international affairs.R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
• Parag Khanna ↗A global strategist and author, he examines the shifting geographies of power and connectivity, arguing that traditional state sovereignty is increasingly challenged by megacities, supply chains, and new forms of global governance.Founder & CEO, FutureMap; Author and Global Strategist

Glossary

• CitizenA citizen is a legal member of a state, who has certain rights and responsibilities towards that state. This membership usually comes with benefits like protection and the right to vote. For example, as a citizen of India, you have the right to vote when you turn 18 and the responsibility to follow Indian laws.
• ConstitutionA constitution is the most important set of fundamental laws and principles that outlines how a state is governed, what powers its government has, and what rights its citizens possess. It's like the rulebook for the entire country. For example, the Constitution of India defines how the government is structured, what powers the Prime Minister and Parliament have, and guarantees rights like freedom of speech.
• GovernmentThe government is the group of people and organizations that run a state, make laws, and provide services to its citizens. It's the operating system of a country. For example, the Indian government is responsible for building roads, running schools, and ensuring safety for everyone in the country.
• International RelationsInternational relations is the study of how different states (countries) interact with each other, including their political, economic, and social connections. It covers everything from trade agreements to peace treaties and conflicts. For example, when India and the USA sign a trade deal, that's an aspect of international relations.
• LawLaws are the official rules and regulations made by the government of a state that everyone living there must follow. They are designed to maintain order, protect rights, and ensure justice. For example, traffic laws like stopping at a red light are rules made by the government to keep people safe on the roads.
• NationA nation is a large group of people who share a common culture, language, history, or sense of identity, even if they don't have their own independent state. Sometimes a nation can live within one state, or be spread across many. For example, the Tamil people form a nation because they share a common language and culture, even though they live in different states like Tamil Nadu in India and Sri Lanka.
• Public PolicyPublic policy refers to the actions, decisions, and laws that a government makes to address problems and achieve goals for the benefit of its citizens. It's how the government tries to solve issues in society. For example, a government's decision to provide free education for all children up to a certain age is a public policy.
• SovereigntySovereignty means a state has the supreme and independent power to govern itself without interference from outside countries or other groups. It's like being the ultimate boss of your own house. For example, India's sovereignty means no other country can tell it how to run its internal affairs or make its laws.
• StateA state is a country or a political community that has its own government, controls a specific area of land (its territory), and has people living there (its population). It has the power to make and enforce laws within its borders. For example, India is a state because it has its own government, a defined territory, and a population, and it makes its own rules.
• TerritoryTerritory refers to the specific geographical area or land that a state controls and where its laws apply. It includes the land, water, and airspace within its borders. For example, the territory of India includes all the land from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, its coastal waters, and the air above it.

Threads 5

Where this connects to other fields, and why it's worth knowing.

• Location Tracking and Surveillance Geography

  A government can't tax or draft people it can't find. So states forced messy life into readable form: fixed surnames, house numbers, standard weights, maps of every plot of land. A huge chunk of modern life is really administrative eyesight, built so the state could finally read you like a page.

• Food & Agriculture Systems Environment

  Early kingdoms were built on wheat, not because it fed the most people, but because a wheat field ripens all at once, right out in the open where a tax collector can count it and take a cut. A potato hides underground and gets dug up whenever you want, so it can't be counted or taxed. Which crop you grow decided whether a state could seize a share of it.

• Media Law & Freedom of the Press Media

  A country's laws stop at its borders, but a single online post is everywhere on Earth at the same instant. So when someone says something illegal in one nation but legal in another, whose rules win? Nobody's fully sure. The internet quietly leaks right through the walls that are supposed to define where a government's power ends.

• Incentives & Rational Choice Economics

  A raider who loots a village and rides off takes everything once. But a raider who settles down and rules the village realizes he'll earn more by protecting these people and taxing them every year. An economist named Olson made the unsettling case that this is basically how governments began: a bandit who got greedy enough to stay put and call it 'protection.'

• Internet Censorship Media

  The internet was built to ignore borders. Now countries are carving it back up into national chunks, sometimes called the 'splinternet.' Governments are basically re-drawing their borders onto a thing that was invented specifically to have none.