POLS 2100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Jared Diamond, Ruhollah Khomeini, Haile Selassie
9 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Since the dawn of humanity people have relied on some form of political organization for the past few centuries modern states have been the dominant expression of that relation. States now represent and end point in human intellectual and organizational evolution. States allow for large numbers of people to live together. Jared diamond: they allow us to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them. Provide services such as welfare, the construction of roads, schools and hospitals. Tax its citizens so that is can perform the above functions. Max weber"s de nition of state the organization that maintains a monopoly of violence over a territory . To provide security and protection from internal and external threats. Anarchy is dangerous, there is no one to protect you. A state can maintain order, through armies, courts, police forces. They need to be stronger than anyone else. Louis xiii, the seventeenth century monarch probably tore down more fortresses than he constructed.
