STATES, Classification of. States or na tions may be classified according to: (a) the extent of the political state; (b) the structure of the political state; (c) the structure of the government. In political science a state is understood to be a body of people inhabiting a given territory, organized for common pur poses, independent of external control and supreme in the enactment and enforcement of law within the state territory. For the enact ment and for the execution of law, and for international interchange, it is essential that the state be organized for public purposes. Without a definite political organization, no body of people can be recognized as having international status. This organization must be adequate to ascertain and express the pub lic will and must have supreme power to sub ordinate all other wills to that which is taken as the will of the state. The essential marks of sovereignty are independence without and supremacy within.
States may be democratic, oligarchic, or i autocratic. A democratic state is one in which the social state dominates the political. In an oligarchic or aristocratic state the social state relatively is a small part of the political. In an autocratic state political power is supposed to be vested in a single person. As democracies, republics and monarchies, states may be classi fied as (a) Pure democracies, in which nearly all functions of government and especially legislation are performed directly by the political state; (2) in which representatives chosen directly or indirectly by the political state carry on nearly all the functions of government, including legislation and adjudica tion; (c) monarchies, in which the head of the administration owes his position to birth rather than to personal choice by the political state. A state is oligarchic or aristocratic, if the members of a branch of the government owe their position to birth or some other cause independent of the will of the political state, as in the British House of Lords, the upper house or senate of the imperial legislature, where the members hold their position by hereditary title, and some by virtue of holding some other office. But with a few aristocratic
survivals, the British Empire constitutes a democratic monarchy, republican in fact, and so are most modern monarchical states, the monarch being really little else than the hered itary president of a more or less democratic republic.
The organization of the political state may also determine its classification. It may be either centralized or federal, if (a) the will is determined in mass, as in France; or (b) if the will of the state is determined by balancing the separate will of a series of fundamen tal groups, as in the United States, Switzer land and in Germany. The well-being of the social state as a whole is the purpose of all political organization, and a central ized government may be more efficient than a federal government, but where intelli gence and education are generally diffused among a people self-reliant and mutually tolerant, a federal government is more re sponsive to the variety of ideas which may characterize a large state, and is more likely to be permanent. Autocracy may attain high efficiency but is usually attended by tyranny. While a democracy has a republican form of government, a republic is distinguished by an oligarchic tendency, and a monarchy may be democratic or oligarchic, as well as autocratic.
The most practical form of state appears to be a republic with powers delegated to the government. With the nominal exception of Canada, all North and South American states have adopted this form, also France, Switzer land, Portugal and China and in 1919 the newly formed European states. Consult Dealey, J. Q. 'Development of the State' (1909) ; Willoughly, W. W., 'Nature of the State' (1896); Wilson, W., 'The State' (rev. ed., 1909).