In 1972, for the first time, many 18-year-olds were allowed to vote. Perhaps waiting in line to vote allowed time for reflection. Why am I doing this? Will it make a difference? Is government really necessary? What does government have to do with my life?

While most of us realize that government is necessary, people have asked basic questions about the institution of government for centuries. What is the proper function of government? What form of government serves best? Where or why did government originate? Many scholars have written much about these issues. This text will help answer some of these basic questions.

The State

Aristotle, a scholar in ancient Greece, was one of the first students of government. He studied the polis, the ancient Greek city-state. Many terms and concepts of government, such as politics, democracy, and republic, originated in ancient  Greece and Rome. The familiar terms country and state have basically the same meaning. The word state comes from a form of the Latin word stare, meaning “to stand.” Today the word state precisely identifies a political community that occupies a definite territory and has an organized government with the power to make and enforce laws without approval from any higher authority. The United States is one of more than 160 states in the world today.

To citizens of the United States, the term state sometimes has a different meaning. The name United States was first used in 1776 when the thirteen British colonies became states by declaring their independence. At that time, each state thought of itself as a country. Even though the states later joined together as one nation under the Constitution, the term state continued to be used to describe the main political units within the United States.

The term nation is often used to describe an independent state or country. Strictly speaking, however, a nation is any sizable group of people who are united by common bonds of race, language, custom, tradition, and, sometimes, religion.
Usually the territorial boundaries of modern states and those of nations are the same. For example, although not all citizens of France are of French descent, the territories of both the nation of France and the state of France coincide. The term nation-state is often used to describe such a country.

Not all groups that consider themselves to be nations have their own states. Eastern Canada, for example, includes many French-speaking Catholics who prefer to follow French culture and traditions rather than those of the English-speaking non-Catholic majority of Canada. Some of these people want to break away from Canada and establish their own state. On the other hand, in Africa the populations of some national groups are divided among several African states, the result of artificial borders established during European colonialism. The popular use of the term nation, however, fits the standard definition of state. For this reason this text will use the terms state and nation interchangeably

Essential Features of a State

The states that make up today’s political world share four essential features: population, territory, sovereignty, and government.

Population

The most obvious essential for a state is people. The nature of a state’s population affects its stability. States where the population shares a general political and social consensus, or agreement about basic beliefs, have the most stable governments. For example, most Americans share basic beliefs about the value of democratic government.

Another way that population affects the political organization of a state is through its mobility. Millions of Americans change residences each year. As a result, political power is slowly changing and being modified. A major shift in population from the North and East to the South and West caused Southern and Western states to gain representatives in Congress based on the census, while some states in the North and East lost representation. The movement of some of the population from inner cities to suburban areas resulted in a similar shift in political power.

Territory

A state has established boundaries. The United States’ continental boundaries are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and recognized borders with Canada and Mexico.

The exact location or shape of political boundaries is often a source of conflict among states. Territorial boundaries may change as a result of war, negotiations, or purchase. The territory of the United States, like that of some other states, has grown considerably since the original thirteen states declared their independence. By purchase, negotiation, and war the United States extended its territory to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Sovereignty

The key characteristic of a state is its sovereignty. Political sovereignty means that the state has supreme and absolute authority within its territorial boundaries. It has complete independence, and complete power to make laws, shape foreign policy, and determine its own course of action. In theory, at least, no state has the right to interfere with the internal affairs of another state.

Because every state is considered sovereign, every state is equal with respect to legal rights and duties—at least in theory. In practice, of course, states with great economic strength and military capabilities have more power than other states.

Government

Every state has some form of government. Government is the institution through which the state maintains social order, provides public services, and enforces decisions that are binding on all people living within the state.

What are the essential features of a state?

Theories of the Origin of the State

How did the state or government come to be? No one knows precisely how or why people created the earliest governments. Many scholars have constructed theories that attempt to explain the origin of the state.

Evolutionary Theory

Some scholars believe that the state evolved from the family. This is the basis of the evolutionary theory of government origin. The head of the primitive family was the authority that served as a government.An extended family might include hundreds of people. Abraham’s descendants in the Old Testament of the Bible are an example of the emergence of this kind of rule. Gradually the large extended family needed more organization.

Force Theory

In the earliest civilizations people worked together to build walled cities, to control floods, to construct buildings for worship, and to cooperate in other ways. Leaders issued decrees and soldiers went to war to protect their city. Some scholars believe that the state was born of force. The force theory says that government emerged when all the people of an area were brought under the authority of one person or group.

Divine Right Theory

The notion that the gods have chosen certain people to rule by divine right has been important in many civilizations. The Egyptians, Chinese, and Aztec were among those who believed that their rulers were either descendants of gods or at least chosen by gods. In Europe beginning in the 1400s, monarchs often referred to their right to rule as coming from God. People believed that the state was created by God, and those who were born to royalty were chosen by God to govern. To oppose the monarch was to oppose God and was both treason and sin.

Social Contract Theory   Beginning in the 1600s, Europeans challenged the rule of sovereigns who ruled by divine right. They were often supported by the writings of philosophers who believed that the origin of the state was in a social contract. Thomas Hobbes in England was one of the first to theorize how the social contract came about. He wrote that in a “state of nature,” no government existed. Without an authority to protect one person from another, life was “cruel, brutish, and short.” By contract, people surrendered to the state the power needed to maintain order. The state, in turn, agreed to protect its citizens. Hobbes believed that people did not have the right to break this agreement.

John Locke took the social contract a step further. In 1688 the British Parliament forced King James II to flee and invited William and Mary of Orange to rule. Locke defended Parliament’s overthrow of the king. He wrote that people were naturally endowed with the right to life, liberty, and property. To preserve their rights, they willingly contracted to give power to a governing authority. When government failed to preserve the rights of the people, the people could justly break the contract. Nearly a century later, the American colonies revolted against King George III. They declared their independence supported by the political philosophy of natural rights that Locke had written.

What is the origin of government?

The Purposes of Government

Today governments serve several major purposes for the state: (1) to maintain social order; (2) to provide public services; (3) to provide for national security and a common defense; and (4) to provide for and control the economic system. In carrying out these tasks, governments must make decisions that are binding on all citizens of the state. Government has the authority to require all individuals to obey these decisions and the power to punish those who do not obey them.

The decisions of government are authoritative—that is, they can be enforced upon all of society. Governments derive their authority from two sources—their legitimacy and their ability to use coercive force. Legitimacy means the willingness of citizens to obey the government. In democratic countries legitimacy is based on the consent of the people. Americans understand that if their elected officials fail to respond to the interests of the people, they can be voted out of office. Therefore, the people entrust their government with power.

Coercive force, the second source of government authority, derives from the police, judicial, and military institutions of government. Government can force people to pay taxes and can punish offenders by fines or imprisonment.

Maintaining Social Order

John Locke, writing in Two Treatises of Government in 1690, explained:

“Men being, as has been said, by Nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this Estate, and subjected to the Political Power of another, without his own Consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his Natural Liberty, and puts on the bonds of Civil Society is by agreeing with other Men to joyn and unite into a Community. . . .”

Governments provide ways of resolving conflicts among group members, helping to maintain social order. Governments have the power to make and enforce laws. Governments can require people to do things they might not do voluntarily, such as pay taxes or serve in the army. Governments also provide structures such as courts to help people resolve disagreements in an orderly manner.

Without government, civilized life would not be possible. Government controls and contains conflict between people by placing limits on what individuals are permitted to do. Government provides a group with law and order. An effective government allows citizens to plan for the future, get an education, raise a family, and live orderly lives.

Providing Public Services

Abraham Lincoln identified one purpose of government: “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. But in all that people can individually do for themselves, government ought not to interfere.” —Abraham Lincoln, 1854

One of the important purposes of government is to provide essential services that make community life possible and promote the general welfare. Governments undertake projects, such as building sewer systems, that individuals could not or would not do on their own.

Governments also provide an essential service by making and enforcing laws that promote public health and safety. Government inspectors check meat and produce to prevent the sale of spoiled food. State legislators pass laws that require people to pass a driving test.

Providing National Security

A third task of government is to protect the people against attack by other states or from threats such as terrorism. Protecting its national security is a major concern of each sovereign state. In today’s world of nuclear weapons, spy satellites, international terrorists, and huge armies, the job of providing for the defense and security of the state is complex.

In addition to protecting the nation from attack, government handles normal relations with other nations. The United States Constitution gives our national government a monopoly over our nation’s dealings with foreign countries. Thus, our national government has the exclusive power to make treaties with other nations. Government helps to provide economic security by enacting trade agreements with other countries. Some state governments maintain informal relations with foreign governments for trade and cultural purposes. The national government, however, has the power to limit these arrangements.

Making Economic Decisions

Nations vary greatly in their ability to provide their citizens with economic opportunities or resources. No country provides its citizens with everything they need or desire. Even in a wealthy country like the United States, many people are poorly clothed, housed, and fed. The problem of scarcity is far greater in many other nations around the world.

Material scarcity is often the cause of conflict in society. Countries in which the gap between rich and poor is great may experience civil unrest. Historically this has been the primary cause of several full-blown revolutions. For this reason governments often use their power to reduce the cause of such conflict by intervening in the economic system.

Governments do not limit their intervention to only domestic necessities. They may intervene in the economic affairs of another nation. For example, after World War II, the United States provided economic aid to nations in which it believed economic conditions might foster Communist revolutions.

Governments pass the laws that determine and control the economic environment of the nation. Such a function could be as limited as simply providing a national currency, or it could be as extensive as controlling every individual’s economic decisions.

Governments also may make choices that distribute benefits and public services among citizens. For example, the government can make payments to farmers who raise certain crops or allow tax advantages to certain industries. The government’s decision to build a veterans’ hospital in a certain town benefits some of the people and not others. Governments usually try to stimulate economic growth and stability through controlling inflation, encouraging trade, and regulating the development of natural resources.

What are the four main purposes of government?