Polity
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A polity is an identifiable political entity, defined as a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources.[1]
A polity can be any group of people organized for governance, such as the board of a corporation, the government of a country, or the government of a country subdivision. A polity may be a
.When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, states with limited recognition, constituent country, or a dependent territory.[2][3][4]
Overview
In
A polity may encapsulate a multitude of organizations; many of these may form or are involved to the apparatus of contemporary states such as their subordinate
A polity can also be defined either as a faction within a larger (usually state) entity or at different times as the entity itself. For example, Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan are parts of their own separate and distinct polity. However, they are also members of the sovereign state of Iraq which is itself a polity, albeit one which is much less specific and as a result much less cohesive. Therefore, it is possible for an individual to belong to more than one polity at a time.
Thomas Hobbes was a highly significant figure in the conceptualisation of polities, in particular of states. Hobbes considered notions of the state and the body politic in Leviathan, his most notable work.[7]
Polities do not necessarily need to be governments. A corporation, for instance, is capable of marshalling resources, has a governance structure, legal rights and exclusive jurisdiction over internal decision making. An ethnic community within a country or coast to coast entity may be a polity if they have sufficient organization and cohesive interests that can be furthered by such organization.
See also
References
- ^ Ferguson, Yale; Mansbach, Richard W. (1996). "Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change". Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.
- S2CID 145809847.
- ^ "Countries Not in the United Nations 2024". World Population by Country 2024 (Live). June 26, 1945. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
- ^ "Recognition and its Variants". academic.oup.com. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
- ^ Black's Law Dictionary, 4th ed. (1968). West Publishing Co.
- ^ Uricich v. Kolesar, 54 Ohio App. 309, 7 N.E. 2d 413.
- ^ Hobbes, Thomas (1651). Leviathan. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
External links
- Dictionary of the History of Ideas – analogy of the body politic (elaboration of correspondences between society or the state and the individual human body)
- Polity at the Encyclopædia Britannica