A state is a set of institutions that possess the power to make the rules that govern the people in one or more societies, having internal and external sovereignty over a definite territory. Following Max Weber's influential definition, a state has a 'monopoly on legitimate violence'. Hence the state includes such institutions as the armed forces, civil service or state bureaucracy, courts, and police. For theorists of international relations, recognition of the state's claim to independence by other states, enabling it to enter into international engagements, is key to the establishment of its sovereignty.

Although the term often refers broadly to all institutions of government or rule—ancient and modern—the modern state system bears a number of characteristics that were first consolidated in western Europe, beginning in earnest in the 15th century.

In the late 20th century, the globalization of the world economy, the mobility of people and capital, and the rise of many international institutions all combined to circumscribe the freedom of action of states. However, the state remains the basic political unit of the world, as it has been since the 16th century. The state is therefore considered the most central concept in the study of politics, and its definition is the subject of intense scholarly debate. Political sociologists in the tradition of both Karl Marx and Max Weber usually favor a broad definition that draws attention to the role of coercive apparatus.

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USATODAY.com Nation - Top Stories

Conn. high court allows same-sex marriage
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:59:39 -0000
Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that gay couples have the right to marry, making the state the third behind Massachusetts ...
Pa. law targets puppy mills
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:58:00 -0000
Sammy, a Shetland sheepdog, wouldn't touch his food, retreating to a corner of the yard and devouring mouthfuls of dirt behavioral ...
1 killed, 1 hurt in Mass. construction site collapse
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:35:58 -0000
One construction worker is dead and another seriously injured after a hydraulic lift platform collapsed in Massachusetts.
Golden Gate anti-suicide net considered
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:15:10 -0000
A stainless steel net may soon hang underneath the Golden Gate Bridge to stop people from attempting suicide by jumping off.
Sibling feud stalls Coretta Scott King bio
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:52:42 -0000
An author and minister who spent hours interviewing Coretta Scott King for her biography said Friday that she may abandon the ...
Coastal rebuilding awash in debate
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:45:05 -0000
The double-blow of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike just three years after Katrina and Rita unleashed the costliest natural disaster ...

The Economist: United States

Swing states: Indiana: Hoosier Daddy?
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
A state that dislikes change may contemplate it after allAT MIDDAY in downtown Indianapolis, Kathy Vari leads 50 schoolchildren out of the City-County Building, each wearing a sticker reading “I voted”. It is the first day of early voting in Indiana, and students from the elementary school in Lawrence Township—a political battleground on the suburban fringe—are on a field trip to see the newly opened polling place. They even fill out ballots. The results? Twenty five vote for John McCain, 25 for Barack Obama. That, says Ms Vari, is about what it feels like in Indiana these days. To many Americans, Indiana conjures up images of corner churches, high-school basketball and endless fields of maize. It is whiter, a bit less educated and slightly poorer than America at large, and perhaps most famous for the Indianapolis 500, a huge car race. “They don’t like change very much” in Indiana, explains John Hurt, a resident of Martinsville, a small town south-west of Indianapolis lobbying to get a proposed interstate highway diverted away from its shuttered main street. ...
California's budget : No money to pay the bills
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
The state’s finances are worsening by the dayTWO weeks ago Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s governor, signed a state budget that was a record 85 days late. Much cajoling and bullying was required to get it to his desk. At one point the governor threatened to pay state bureaucrats the minimum wage; at another he promised to veto every bill he saw. Few like the end result, which involves spending cuts and a good deal of what John Chiang, the state controller, described as “Enron-style accounting tricks”. And yet it became clear this week that the budget is hopelessly optimistic and will almost certainly have to be renegotiated. The world’s eighth biggest economy has two problems, both stemming from the economic downturn. First, it is finding it hard to raise enough money to pay the bills. Under normal circumstances the state would sell $7 billion in bonds to tide it through until April, when income taxes flood in. Thanks in part to the delayed budget, the state has been forced to go to the bond markets at a time when investors are wary of everything but Treasury notes. ...
The candidates at home (2): Mean streets
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
The Democrat’s most vulnerable point is also his strongest base“BARACK OBAMA, born of the corrupt Chicago political machine”, begins a sinister voice in a McCain advertisement. Among the Democrat’s “friends from Chicago”, Sarah Palin tells crowds, is a former violent radical, William Ayers. Mrs Palin also says that Republicans should highlight another Chicagoan, Mr Obama’s divisive former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Chicago, for better or worse, is a principal part of the McCain campaign’s effort to bring Mr Obama down. Chicago itself remains the centre of efforts to lift him up. This is not just because nomadic campaign staffers have claimed every sofa in the city. Most Chicagoans love Mr Obama. Linda Randle, one of his biggest fans, met him in 1986 when she was living in public housing and he was a young organiser. Today she owns more than 20 Obama T-shirts and has campaign signs taped to her windows. “I always thought he was going to be the greatest civil-rights lawyer,” she says, “but I don’t have a problem with him being president.” ...
The bail-out bill: Someone to watch over me
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
The bail-out law brings more oversight of the Fed and the financial systemTHE 451-page bail-out bill passed by Congress on October 3rd contained reams of extraneous stuff, ranging from $150 billion in tax breaks to increased insurance cover for mental illness. No surprise there. It also includes two little-noticed provisions that portend closer oversight of the financial system and of its single biggest player, the Federal Reserve. The law orders up two reports on regulatory overhaul. The first, by a congressional panel created to monitor exactly how the Treasury is to spend up to $700 billion on mortgage assets and stakes in financial companies, is due by January 20th 2009, the date of the next president’s inauguration. The second, to be written by the next treasury secretary, is due on April 30th. ...
The candidates at home (1): A moderate among hotheads
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
Why Arizonans aren’t as keen as they might be on John McCainIN A Paradise Valley shopping mall, Martin Dunleavy takes a break from the scorching Arizona sun. He is wearing a cap emblazoned with an eagle and an American flag, and describes himself as somewhat conservative. He adores Sarah Palin, whom he describes as “every man’s woman”. How about John McCain, Arizona ’s senior senator and the state’s first plausible presidential candidate since Barry Goldwater in 1964? Mr Dunleavy shakes his head: “You just can’t trust McCain.”Nobody besides a few excitable Democrats believes John McCain will lose Arizona. Presidential candidates nearly always carry their home states. But Mr McCain is less popular at home than one might expect. On February 5th he won less than half of the vote in Arizona’s Republican primary. A state poll conducted two weeks ago put him seven points ahead of Barack Obama. It is hardly an overwhelming lead in a state that has voted for a Democratic president only once since 1948. ...
The economy and the election: It’s an ill wind
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
As the economy sags, Barack Obama’s electoral prospects soarIN A small town in Pennsylvania, where the liquor store is called “Beer World”, the mini-golf course has a Statue of Liberty hole and a sign boasts that this is the “21st best town in the US”, Barack Obama is making a speech. The latest unemployment statistics have just been released, and they are grim. It is the day after the vice-presidential debate, during which Sarah Palin accused the Democrats of wanting to impose job-killing tax hikes on business. “Just since January, we’ve lost more than 750,000 jobs across America, 7,000 in Pennsylvania alone,” says Mr Obama. “So when Senator [John] McCain and his running-mate talk about job-killing, that’s something they know a thing or two about. Because the policies they’re supporting are killing jobs every single day.” ...

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