Political Science: Monarchical Generic Guidelines : Definitions
A people is a group of persons organized in one body and having common origin, tradition and language.
A nationality is a people capable of establishing a functional state. Once a state is established, nationality may also refer to the juridical definition of nation, that is the legal relationship involving the allegiance of a person to a state and the protection accorded to such a person by such a state.
A nation politically is a nationality that has established a functional state.
A federal nation is a nationality that established a federal state.
A sovereign is defined as a person independent from any other. A sui juris sovereign is a sovereign holding sui juris juridical personality either as an entity, such as a state, or as a natural person; a sui juris sovereign is ordinarily legibus solutus.
An ex officio sovereign is a sovereign holding juridical personality as a consequence of the office it holds; an ex officio sovereign is always sub lege, quia lex facit principem.
The status, power, dominion and rule of a sovereign define sovereignty, i.e. the supreme and absolute, or independent, political authority.
Sovereignty that originates from a territory is defined as territorial sovereignty and it is maintained until lost by debellatio. When a territory is actually being controlled by a force, other than the one of the original sovereign who lost control over it without debellatio, a territorial sovereign pretension is established under International Law and such an original sovereign is identified as a legitimate pretender.
Sovereign prerogatives consist of any and all the rights contained in the bodies of law (corpora juris) that define and identify a sui juris sovereign, within a society or the international community; said corpora juris are as follows: jus imperii, jus gladii, jus majestatis and jus honorum.
Sovereign functions are the activities inherent to a sui juris sovereign, i.e. any and all activities effected pursuant to the exercise of any and all rights contained in jus imperii, jus gladii, jus majestatis and jus honorum. Whenever said activities are effected directly by a sui juris sovereign, they are construed as originating pursuant to the motu proprio exercise of sovereign prerogatives; whenever said activities are effected through an agent of a sui juris sovereign or directly (and not pursuant to the motu proprio exercise of sovereign prerogatives) by a sui juris sovereign through any office of any one of said agents, they are construed as originating pursuant to the exercise of ex officio rights.
A person has juridical personality when it holds legal capacity and juridical subjectivity.
Legal capacity is defined as the set of all the rights that a person holds. When a person is a sui juris sovereign, its legal capacity (a set of prerogatives only) exists in its own right or sui juris and it is independent from any body of laws (corpus juris); conversely, any other person's legal capacity exists only as a consequence of the set of obligations (juridical subjectivity) that such a person holds within a given corpus juris.
A sui juris sovereign holds sui juris juridical personality, i.e. sui juris legal capacity and juridical subjectivity (that may be held either sui juris or, concurrently, both sui juris and within any relevant given corpus juris); whereas, any other person, including an ex officio sovereign, holds juridical personality only as a consequence of, or within, a given corpus juris (including international treaties or similar instruments). Within any corpus juris and in relation to any other person holding juridical personality within any such a corpus juris, legal capacity and juridical subjectivity are sui juris.
A person who holds sui juris legal capacity and juridical subjectivity, both sui juris and, concurrently, within a given corpus juris, is a sui juris sovereign subject of such a given corpus juris; conversely, any other person is a liege subject or simply a subject of any said given corpus juris.
As a liege subject, an ex officio sovereign may effect either acta jure gestionis or acta jure imperii (the latter ones only when acting as a consequence of the office it holds). In regard to an ex officio sovereign, acta jure gestionis do not enjoy immunity from jurisdiction; however, while said ex officio sovereign holds office, they do enjoy immunity from execution unless expressly waived, on a case-by-case basis.
Conversely, in regard to a sui juris sovereign, such a sovereign will always be found as effecting, or having effected (even ex tunc, whenever applicable), only acta jure imperii which are generally presumed always to enjoy immunity from both jurisdiction and execution unless expressly waived, either one of them or both, on a case-by-case basis.
A sovereign state is a state that holds full sovereign prerogatives although its exercise of such sovereign prerogatives and ensuing functions might be restricted, directly or indirectly, by one or more other sovereign states. In establishing their relationships with each other, sovereign states must recognize, expressly or implicitly, their respective governments; when such governments are recognized, the existence of their respective states is implied ex tunc.
An independent sovereign state consists of a sovereignty whose institutions, as a whole, exercise said sovereignty's full prerogatives (offices of a Head of State) and partial or full functions (offices of a Head of Government) over a group of persons organized as one body and subject exclusively to said sovereignty (or supreme and absolute political authority) itself.
Today, an ex novo independent sovereign state is considered modern when it fully complies with the following requirements under applicable international law: (a) it must be established by a nationality; (b) it must be organized under one government; (c) it must occupy one or more territories (boundaries must not necessarily be clearly defined or marked); (d) it must have the capacity to enter into any relationship by any means, under applicable laws, with other independent sovereignties;(e) and, it must continue to be independent.
A modern state is any independent state that finds itself as holding juridical personality sui juris within or pursuant to either the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 or, whenever applicable, the precepts of the Treaty of Vienna of 1814.
An ex novo modern state or contemporary state is any independent functional state initially organized within, pursuant to or after the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 and in accordance with the peremptory norms (a.k.a. jus cogens) and customs of International Law, applicable at the time of its inception.
A nation-state consists of a sovereignty's institutions as a whole that hold indissolubly in themselves all the characteristics and attributes of a nation and whose inherent independent sovereign powers assure the preservation and continuation of the national identity and unity of the persons, a people, such institutions host.
A nation-state, although a non-national state, may over time evolve into a national state. Said evolution does not in itself qualify such an ab initio nation-state as a modern state established ex novo; it simply re-qualifies a nation-state as a national state whose origin remains (and will continue to remain) proper to a non-national state.
A state is a national state when it is established by one nationality or more nationalities.
In a national state, the relationship between a nation and its state must always be homogeneous (i.e. fully sharing similar or identical institutions). Whenever such a relationship is not homogeneous, a national state will technically cease to exist.
A dependent state or a dependent sovereignty is a state or sovereignty that depends, directly or indirectly, on one or more other sovereign states for the exercise of part or all its sovereign prerogatives or functions. A dependent state is also defined as a nationality that established a state that is not independent.
A dynastic state is a state whose sovereignty lies in the Head of the Name and Arms of a dynasty.
A dynasty is a sovereign family whose at least two Heads of its Name and Arms have ruled not necessarily consecutively.
A federal state is a union of states whose government administers whatsoever sovereign functions each member state delegated to such a union; nonetheless, such a union is not sovereign, it simply acts on behalf of its member states that continue to retain sovereign prerogatives and powers.
A regional state is a member state of a federal state.
A body politic is defined as the political unit, or any of its agencies, that exercises political authority through an organization. A body politic is also defined as the people as a whole, or the aggregate people, of a nation or a state. The people element in a nation, which is basically a nationality that has organized a functional state, is a body politic.
Politics is the art or science of government, the ability to direct or influence government policy, or the capacity to gain or hold actual control of a government.
A political party is a group of people organized in a structure, formal or informal, for the purpose of gaining and holding control of a government, or for the purpose of directing or influencing government policy.
In an indirect democracy, a political party establishes, for all its members, a common agenda known as the platform; this platform consists of three main activities of interest: (i) strategizing to identify and promote candidates in political elections; (ii) establishing the administrative and political agenda, should such party gain control of the government; or if not, (iii) exerting influence over government policy by opposing the leading political party or coalition.
A government is the organization through which a political unit, or any of its agencies, may exercise authority. A government is totalitarian when it forces its authority on the people over whom it governs; the government of one individual, holding unlimited authority over the people whom it governs, is not totalitarian if such people, of their own free will, subject themselves to such a government.
Authority is the ability to establish, interpret and enforce laws that are binding over people or over a well-defined territory.
Jurisdiction refers to the limits within which authority can be exercised over people or over a well-defined territory.
A territory is a geographical area that belongs to, or is under the jurisdiction of, a government.
(A state does not have to absolutely own a territory; it simply has to occupy it.) A debellatio, during peacetime, is the motu proprio devolution of sovereignty from a sovereign to another person; it needs not be formal and may take any form acceptable to both said sovereign and said other person.
During wartime, a debellatio is the motu proprio devolution of territorial sovereignty from one sovereign (the conquered) to another (the conqueror) as a consequence of the loss of a war. Even in this case, debellatio needs not be formal and may possibly take any form acceptable to the conqueror. A debellatio may not be executed unless all the following events will have first occurred: (a) a war must have been formally declared among two or more independent sovereignties; (b) the central government and the infrastructure of the sovereignty being attacked must have been made fully non-functional by the conquering force; (c) an unconditional surrender of the defending force to the conquering force must have been executed.
(A debellatio may be executed concurrent or consequent to an instrument of unconditional surrender and, concurrent or consequent to said debellatio, the territory of the conquered may be annexed to the territory of the conqueror.) Consequent to an unconditional surrender, with or without a debellatio, a peace treaty must be executed to end said war.
An association is the voluntary and spontaneous gathering of people who share common purposes and goals; such people are organized in or without a formal structure.
An association needs not be established according to the laws of any jurisdiction; nonetheless, an association may need to be authorized to exercise its functions in any of the jurisdictions in which it operates. Whenever an association is established according to the laws of a specific jurisdiction, such an association will hold juridical personality within said specific jurisdiction. When an association is also a subject of public international law, it may further be qualified as “free” not only in reference to the fact that it is autonomous or independent of any jurisdiction but also because its members, or associates, within the jurisdiction in which such an association is legally or politically respectively authorized to operate or recognized, are free to exercise their individual membership rights and privileges, thus fulfilling their respective obligations, regardless of the laws of the sovereignty of which they are nationals, or citizens, or in which they may reside.
An institution is a structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of persons within a given human collectivity.
Political Science Definitions / January 18, 2009 / Last Updated 8-12-2014
