Polity

A polity is an identifiable political entity—any group of people who have 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 other group of people organized for governance (such as a corporate board), the government
of a country, country subdivision, or a sovereign state.

Contents
Overview
See also
References
External links

Overview
In geopolitics, a polity can be manifested in different forms such as a state, an
empire, an international organization, a political organization and other
identifiable, resource-manipulating organizational structures. A polity like a
state does not need to be a sovereign unit. The most preeminent polities today
are Westphalian states and nation-states, commonly referred to as countries
and also incorrectly referred to by the term nations.

A polity encapsulates a vast multitude of organizations, many of which form

the fundamental apparatus of contemporary states such as their subordinate
civil and local government authorities.[2][3] Polities do not need to be in
control of any geographic areas, as not all political entities and governments
have controlled the resources of one fixed geographic area. The historical
Steppe Empires originating from the Eurasian Steppe are the most prominent
example of non-sedentary polities. These polities differ from states because of
their lack of a fixed, defined territory. Empires also differ from states in that
Frontispiece of Leviathan,
their territories are not statically defined or permanently fixed and
1651
consequently that their body politic was also dynamic and fluid. It is useful
then to think of a polity as a political community.

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.[4]
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 subnational entity may be a polity if they have sufficient organization
and cohesive interests that can be furthered by such organization.

See also
Kokutai
Nation
Politeia
Political system

References
1. Ferguson, Yale; Mansbach, Richard W. (1996). "Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change".
Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.
2. Black's Law Dictionary, 4th ed. (1968). West Publishing Co.
3. Uricich v. Kolesar, 54 Ohio App. 309, 7 N.E. 2d 413.
4. Hobbes, Thomas (1651). Leviathan (http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/hobbes).
Retrieved 2 January 2019.

External links
Dictionary of the History of Ideas (https://web.archive.org/web/20060629232259/http://etext.lib.v
irginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-11) – analogy of the body politic (elaboration of
correspondences between society or the state and the individual human body)

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This page was last edited on 21 May 2021, at 07:32 (UTC).

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