CONCEPT OF STATE AND

GOVERNMENT

CONSTITUTION
State
• A community of persons, more or less
numerous, permanently occupying a
definite portion of territory, having a
government of their own to which the great
body of inhabitants render obedience, and
enjoying freedom from external control.
ELEMENTS
OF
STATE
People
• This refers to the inhabitants living with in
the state.
• Without people there can be no
functionaries to govern and no subjects to
be governed.
• Ideally, it should be neither too small nor
too large: small enough to be well-governed
and large enough to be self-sufficing.
Territory
• It includes not only a fixed portion of land
over which jurisdiction of the state
extends (territorial domain), but also the
rivers and lakes, a certain area of the sea
which abuts upon its coast and the air
space above it.
• The domain of the state may be described
as terrestrial, fluvial, maritime, and areal.
Government
• The agency through which the will of
the state is formulated, expressed, and
carried out.
• The ordinary citizens of a country may
be part of the state, but are not part of
government.
Sovereignty
• The supreme power of the state to
command and enforce obedience to its
will from people with in its jurisdiction,
to have freedom from foreign control.
State Distinguished
from Nation
• The state is a political concept, while
nation is an ethnic concept.
• A nation is a group of people bound
together by certain characteristics such
as common social origin, language,
customs, and traditions, and who believe
that they are one and distinct from
others.
• The term is more strictly synonymous
with “people”.
State Distinguished
from Nation
• A state is not subject to external control
while nation may or may not be
independent from external control.
• A single state may consist of one or more
nations or people and conversely, a single
nation may be made up of several states.
State Distinguished
from Government
• The government is the only agency
through which the state expresses its will.
• A state cannot exist without a
government, but it is possible to have a
government without a state.
CONSTITUTION
Constitution
• The body of rules and principles in
accordance with which powers of
sovereignty are regularly exercised.
• A written instrument by which the
fundamental powers of the government
are established, limited, and defined.
Nature and Purpose of
Constitution
• Serves as the supreme or fundamental
law
• It speaks for the entire people from
which it derives its claim to obedience.
• It is the law to which all other laws
shall conform and in accordance with
which all private rights must be
determined and all public authority
administered.
• It is the test of legality of all
governmental actions, whether
Nature and Purpose of
Constitution
• Establishes basic framework and
underlying principles of government
• The purpose of the constitution is to
prescribe the permanent framework of
the system of the government and to
assign different department or
branches, their respective powers and
duties, and to establish certain basic
principles on which the government is
founded.
Nature and Purpose of
Constitution
• Establishes basic framework and
underlying principles of government
• It is primarily designed to preserve and
protect the rights of individuals against
the arbitrary actions of those in
authority.
• Its function is not to legislate in detail
but to set limits on otherwise unlimited
power of the legislature.