Jump to content

Country

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 203.218.218.109 (talk) at 22:51, 6 February 2008. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For other uses, see Country (disambiguation).

In political geography and international politics, a country is a political division of a geographical entity, a sovereign territory, most commonly associated with the notions of state or nation and government.

In common usage, the term is used casually in the sense of both "nation" (a cultural entity; see below) and "state" (a political entity; see below). Definitions may vary. It is sometimes used to refer to both states and some other political entities[1], while in some occasions it refers only to state.[2] It is not uncommon for general information or statistical publications to adopt the wider definition for purposes such as illustration and comparison.[3]

There are dozens of non-sovereign territories (subnational entities, another form of political division or administrative division within the expanse [realm or scope] of a larger nation-state) which constitute cohesive geographical entities, some of which are former countries, but which are not sovereign states. Most of these nowadays even have a great deal of autonomy and local governments but such do not constitute a nation as they are possessions of such states—as several states have overseas dependencies, with territory and citizenry separate from their own. Such dependencies are sometimes listed together with states on lists of countries.[3]

Types

State

State is an independent territory with a government, a population, and sovereignty over these. The entire landmass of the Earth (excluding Antarctica), along with coastal seas is considered to be divided among such countries. There are currently 193 states recognized by the United Nations — its 192 members and Vatican City.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) is not currently a member of the United Nations, nor is it officially recognized by most other states. This is primarily due to the People's Republic Of China's "One-China" policy, which requires states to give no official recognition to the ROC (Taiwan) as a condition of maintaining diplomatic relations with the PRC. Despite this, the island nation of the ROC (Taiwan) is recognized as a sovereign independent state by 24 states, including the Holy See of Vatican City.

In addition to these, there are other non-sovereign territories which, under the philosophy of self-determination, wish to be considered countries in this sense. Some of these have de facto control over their population and territory, such as Abkhazia, but are not considered states as they are not recognised as having sovereignty. On the other hand, in some internationally-recognised states, there is no functioning central government or there are several de facto states and governments. These are internationally not considered to constitute separate states, but rather to exist on the territory of the internationally recognised state.

Nation

Main article: Nation

A nation is a 'set of people with a common identity who have formed a nation-state or usually aspire to do so' (Viotti and Kauppi, 2001). In this sense of country, the reference is more likely to be to a group that supposedly shares a common ethnic origin, language, religion, or history (real or illusory).

The term has become synonymous with 'country' where nations without sovereignty (that is, nations that are not states) have aimed to identify themselves on the same terms as sovereign states. Others, including nationalists, may consider their single nation (or country) to be divided between different states.

Nation, country and state: a comparison

The casual use of 'country', 'state' and 'nation' as synonyms leads to confusion. Compounding this is the often confused official use: for example, the United Nations is actually a body made of 'states'; and the countries constituting the United Kingdom are sometimes called the home nations.

The United Kingdom is an internationally recognised sovereign state, which is also referred to as a country and whose inhabitants have British nationality, but the United Kingdom is a 300-year-old political union and each constituent part of the United Kingdom continues to be referred to as a 'country'. The terminology can be further complicated by the use of the word state to mean a non-sovereign sub-entity of a sovereign state, as is done in the United States of America and Australia. In most English-speaking countries when the terms state, nation and country are used internally, they are understood by the context in which they are used and are not controversial. However, when these terms are used to describe the statehood aspirations of a people who do not currently live in the internationally recognised independent State they would like to dominate, these terms can be controversial and open to misunderstanding.

In reality, there is often a rough correspondence between both senses of country - this is the concept of the nation-state. It is one that many governments have attempted to encourage, in order to provide legitimacy to their control over a territory. However, because of historical and modern migration, ethnically homogeneous communities are rare or non-existent - Iceland and Japan being the most commonly quoted exceptions (and even this ignores minority aboriginal groups, such as the Ainu and Ryūkyūans, in the case of Japan.) However, nations may also be defined by culture instead of ethnicity.

The physical creation and recognition of a new state is ruled by international law, which lists three requirements for 'statehood': a permanent and settled population, effective control by a government, and a fixed territory.

Under these requirements, a 'fixed territory' is defined as a 'natural segment of the Earth's surface' -- an apartment, artificial island or other constructed body does not suffice. 'Effective control by a government' means that a governing body must be able to maintain control over its claimed territory, while a 'permanent and settled population' must be a 'cohesive community with a common destiny' -- such a population can't merely be a group of people with a loose or superficial connection, such as a hobby or a commercial interest.

Finally, while the above is required for even the consideration of statehood, existing countries retain discretion over the formal political recognition of a newly-founded state.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/aia1901230/s22.html, http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/disp.pl/au/cases/cth/federal%5fct/1997/912.html, http://foia.state.gov/masterdocs/09fam/0941104X1.pdf http://www.economist.com/theworldin/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3372495&d=2005 http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/84411.pdf http://www.democratsabroad.org/countries
  2. ^ About.com:"Geography: Country, State, and Nation".
  3. ^ a b countryreports.org, cia.gov, guinnessworldrecords.com, guinnessworldrecords.com [1] [2] http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/chapters/pdf/index2007_RegionA_Asia-Pacific.pdf
  • Anderson, Benedict; 'Imagined Communities: Reflections On the origin and Spread of Nationalism'; London, Verso; 1991
  • Viotti, Paul R. and Kauppi, Mark V.; 'International Relations and World Politics - Security, Economy, Identity'; Second Edition; New Jersey, Prentice Hall; 2001
  • Mires, Stuart and Addison-Scott, Alexandra

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Country&oldid=189604826"