The state is the political institution that governs a defined territory and population through a centralized administrative apparatus. Max Weber's classic sociological definition, from his 1919 lecture Politics as a Vocation, holds that a state is a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a certain territory; the underlying idea of a sovereign monopoly on legitimate violence reaches back further, to Jean Bodin's Les Six Livres de la Republique (1576) and Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651). States first arose roughly 5,500 years ago in early complex societies, including Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica, and the Andes, made possible by settled agriculture, especially grain cultivation, and by writing systems; for most of human prehistory, people lived in stateless societies with no centralized authority and comparatively little economic inequality.
Facts
Institution TypeSourced to the subject's own accountPolitical institution: the organization Max Weber defined as holding a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. 1 Emergence PeriodSourced to the subject's own accountStates first arose roughly 5,500 years ago in early complex societies including Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica, and the Andes; Max Weber's monopoly-on-legitimate-force definition, the discipline's most widely cited, dates to his 1919 lecture Politics as a Vocation. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Weber's 1919 monopoly-on-legitimate-force definition is the discipline's most widely cited definition of the state.
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