Correct Answer - Option 2 : The state
The state is considered the most universal and most powerful of all man-made institutions. It influences the life of the people in various ways. The state is a political association that establishes sovereign jurisdiction within a definite territory exercising authority over people and other institutions.
- In the words of Aristotle, the state is an association of families for the sake of attaining a perfect and self-sufficient existence.
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Prof. Woodrow Wilson defined a state as “the people organized for law within a definite territory”.
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MacIver views the state as “an association which acting through law as promulgated by a government endowed to this end with coercive power, maintains within a community territorially demarcated, the universal external conditions of social order”.
- The state is represented by the government which appears to be more visible. Governments exercise all authority and functions on behalf of the state. ‘state’ represents a wider and more stable entity in comparison to ‘government’.
- The state is the organization and the government is its administrative organ. A state has a Constitution, a code of law, a way of setting up its government, and citizens' bodies. It may be noted that the image of the state inspires unity among the people and provides them with an identity as a nation.
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The term “state” is used synonymously with ‘society’. But both are different. The state is usually described as a society politically organised. Society consists of individuals. Society is an association of human beings which fulfils all their multifarious needs of life. We cannot see any territorial limit for society.
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Society is broader than a state. The state provides binding laws and decisions for order and security and performs common services.
- To put it more clearly when a society is governed by a common set of rules, regulations, and a supreme decision making authority it becomes qualified to be a state.
