POLSCI 1AB3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Feudalism
Document Summary
Human communities are, by and large, organized under the authority of states. However- a world divided into separate states is not the only way of thinking about social/political life and how it is organized. We being to neglected other ways to divide the world when we only look at the world through the state prism. A(cid:272)(cid:272)ordi(cid:374)g to di(cid:272)kerso(cid:374) a(cid:374)d fla(cid:374)aga(cid:374): (cid:862)a state is defi(cid:374)ed (cid:271)(cid:455) the joi(cid:374)t prese(cid:374)(cid:272)e of three factors: population, territory, and sovereignty. A state exists when a sovereign power effectively rules over a population residing within the boundaries of a fixed territory(cid:863: sovereignty. Sovereignty has both internal and external aspects. There is also a second aspect to sovereignty at least when we are talking about sovereignty as a guided principle of the international system. Sovereigns (at least in principle) acknowledge that there are limitations to their own authority that their legal authority does not extent outside of their own boarders.