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
