Political Science 1020E Chapter Notes -Class Stratification
1 May 2013
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Document Summary
Perhaps the most immediately notable characteristic of the state is that it is a territorial form of political organization. Sovereignty means not only that the governing authority is supreme within the state"s territory but that it is independent of all external authority as well. When more than one government claims sovereign authority, the state either does not exist or is in a condition of civil war. All states, the modern state included, are based upon some system of class stratification. Governance of such socially and political undifferentiated societies wherein no centralized authority exists, much less the sovereign state, can only occur through mechanisms of kinship. And the rules of justice in kin based societies are always and everywhere customary rather than statutory. State sovereignty cannot exist where real authority rests with subordinate social units.
