Independence of a nation, country, or state is in which its population exercises self-government. The opposite of independence is a dependent territory. Autonomy is a kind of independence granted by an overseeing authority that itself still retains ultimate authority over that territory. A state wishing to achieve independence from a dominating power issues a declaration of independence. A territorial entity covers a part of the Earths surface with specified borders. Territory is a country subdivision. Capital territory is a designated territory where a countrys capital lies within its borders. Territorial waters is defined by the 1982 ‘United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,’ as a belt of coastal waters extending to 12 nautical miles from the baseline of a coastal state. The territorial sea is the sovereign territory of the state, including airspace over and seabed below. Adjustment of Territorial waters is called maritime delimitation. A neutral territory is not an integral part of any state and is not terra nullius, but an agreement under international law between two bordering states. The terms country, nation, and state are not synonymous. Nation denotes a people who share common customs, religion, language, origins, ancestry or history. Nation is a community of people. Webster’s New Encyclopedic Dictionary says; nation is ‘a community of people composed of one or more nationalities with its own territory and government’. It is a cultural-political community, conscious of its coherence, unity and interests. A country is a region in political geography. A country may be sovereign state or a non-sovereign. The ‘CIA World Factbook’ uses the word country as ‘a wide variety of dependencies, areas of special sovereignty, uninhabited islands, and other entities in addition to the traditional countries or independent states’. As defined by the League of Nations and reaffirmed by the United Nations, ‘a resident of a country is subject to the independent exercise of legal jurisdiction.’ State is the set of governing and supportive institutions that have sovereignty over a definite territory and population. States are political orders that emerged from feudal Europe. The existence or disappearance of a state is a ‘question of fact’. H. V. Evatt of the High Court of Australia said ‘sovereignty is neither a question of fact, nor a question of law, but a question that does not arise at all.’ A sovereign state is a nonphysical juridical entity having a permanent population, a government and relations with other sovereign states. Sovereignty is self-determination and the prohibition against the threat as ‘jus cogens’. Westphalia sovereignty is the concept of a nation-state sovereignty based on territoriality and the absence of external agents in domestic structures. Multinational corporations and organizations began with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Lassa Oppenheim said ‘perhaps no conception exists of the meaning of which is more controversial than that of sovereignty. It is an indisputable fact that this conception, from the moment when it was introduced into political science until the present day, has never had a meaning which was universally agreed upon. The United Nations Charter, the Declaration on Rights and Duties of States and the charters of regional international organizations express that ‘all states are juridical equal and enjoy the same rights and duties based upon the mere fact of their existence as persons under international law.’ In political science, sovereignty is essential attribute of the state in the form of its complete self-sufficiency in the frames of a certain territory that is its supremacy in the domestic policy and independence in the foreign one. The constitutive theory of statehood defines a state as a person of international law if, and only if, it is recognized as sovereign by other states. This is confusion as some states recognize a new entity but other states do not. Many states may recognize another state if it is to their advantage. L. F. L. Oppenheim said: ‘.......International Law does not say that a State is not in existence as long as it isnt recognized, but it takes no notice of it before its recognition. Through recognition only and exclusively a State become an International Person and a subject of International Law’. The declarative theory defines a state as ‘a person in international law if it meets the following criteria: 1.a defined territory; 2’ a permanent population; 3’ a government and 4’ a capacity to enter into relations with other states. The declarative model was expressed in the Montevideo Convention. The European Economic Community ‘Opinions of the Badinter Arbitration Committee’ suggests that a state is defined by having a territory, a population, and a political authority. Sovereign states are states ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’ , they exist both in law and in reality. State and government are wrongly used interchangeably. International law lays distinction between states and governments. States are nonphysical juridical entities. Governments are organizations of any kind. States are durable entities and become extinguished through voluntary means or by military conquest. Because states are nonphysical juridical entities, the physical actions of a military are associated with the correct social or judiciary actions in order to abolish a state. The nation state is a state that has its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity while the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. Nation state formation is the dominant form of state organization. In political science, legitimacy is the popular acceptance of an authority. Political legitimacy is a basic condition for governing, without which a government will suffer legislative deadlock and collapse. In moral philosophy, the term legitimacy is positively interpreted as the normative status conferred by a governed people upon their governors’ institutions, offices and actions. In law, legitimacy is distinguished from legality to establish that a government can be legal whilst not being legitimate. John Locke said that ‘political legitimacy derives from popular explicit and implicit consent of the governed’. The argument of the Second Treatise is that the government is not legitimate unless it is carried on with the consent of the governed. Dolf Sternberger said, ‘Legitimacy is the foundation of such governmental power as is exercised, both with a consciousness on the government’s part that it has a right to govern, and with some recognition by the governed of that right.’ Seymour Martin Lipset said that ‘legitimacy also involves the capacity of a political system to engender and maintain the belief that existing political institutions are the most appropriate and proper ones for the society.’ Robert A. Dahl said ‘legitimacy is a reservoir; so long as the water is at a given level, political stability is maintained, if it falls below the required level, political legitimacy is endangered.’ Legitimacy is different from Sovereignty which is the quality of having independent authority over a geographic area. According to Stephen D. Krasner; 1. Domestic sovereignty is actual control over a state exercised by an authority organized within this state 2. Interdependence sovereignty is actual control of movement across states borders, assuming the borders exist 3. International legal sovereignty is formal recognition by other sovereign states 4. Westphalian sovereignty is lack of other authority over state than the domestic authority According to Immanuel Wallerstein, ‘Sovereignty is more than anything else a matter of legitimacy that] requires reciprocal recognition. Sovereignty is a hypothetical trade, in which two potentially conflicting sides, respecting de facto realities of power, exchange such recognitions as their least costly strategy’. A failing state’s central government is so weak or ineffective that it has little practical control over much of its territory. The term stateless nation is an ethnic group which is not the majority population in any nation state and dispersed across a number of states. A failed state is perceived as having failed basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government. According to the ‘Fund for Peace’ it has following characteristics: 1. Loss of control of its territory or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein 2. Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions 3. An inability to provide public services 4. An inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community Pillarisation is the politico-denominational segregation of a society according to different religions or ideologies. These pillars have their own social institutions. Separatism is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. It refers to full political secession. Motivations for separation include; 1. Emotional resentment of rival communities 2. Protection from ethnic cleansing and genocide 3. Justified resistance by victims of oppression including denigration of their language, culture or religion. 4. Propaganda by those who hope to gain politically from intergroup conflict and hatred. 5. The economic and political dominance of one group that does not share power and privilege in an egalitarian fashion 6. Geopolitical power vacuum from breakup of larger states or empires. 7. Feeling that the perceived nation was added to the larger state by illegitimate means. 8. Opposition to political decisions Governments respond to separation in a number of ways; 1. Accede to separatist demands 2. Adopt asymmetric federalism where different states have different relations to the central government depending on separatist demands or considerations 3. Allow minorities to win through parliamentary voting 4. Suppress any separatist movement in their own country 5. Support separatism in other countries Wars of national liberation are conflicts fought by nationalities to gain independence. These wars are called insurgencies, rebellions or wars of independence. Declaring independence and attaining it are two different things. Causes for a country wishing to seek independence are severe economic difficulties. A conflict of a war of independence is over a territory. The state holding the territory sends in military, a separatist rebellion begins. If a new state is established, the conflict is a war of independence. Rebellion is a refusal of obedience or order as civil disobedience, civil resistance and nonviolent resistance. it may be violent campaigns. Those who participate in rebellions are known as rebels. An armed but limited rebellion is an insurrection. The revolt is an insurgency. Larger conflict of the rebels with government is a civil war which is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, a civil war is a high-intensity conflict. Mutiny is a conspiracy among a group to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject. A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time. Their results include changes in culture, economy and socio-political institutions. Aristotle described two types of political revolution: 1. Complete change from one constitution to another 2. Modification of an existing constitution. Scholarly debates run about what does and does not constitute a revolution.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 22:52:13 +0000
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