States, Nations and Governments

Abstract

States are important in international relations, though just how important is a matter of controversy. The traditional view of international relations has been that the discipline’s primary concern is the behaviour of states and their interactions with each other. These interactions were characterized by that fact that they took place in a situation of anarchy where there was no government to oversee and control them. Thus, war became a common feature of the system and security the dominant goal of foreign policy. States are regarded as sovereign in the territories under their jurisdiction, meaning that the state, or rather its government, controls what goes on within its borders. There is no overriding body in the world which rules over the states and their governments and, legally at least, there is nothing anyone can do in the area of a state without the active or tacit consent of that government. Formally, in the state system, all states are fully sovereign in that no authority takes precedence over them in their territories (though this is modified in the case of the European Union. See Chapter 3). This view is known as the realist approach which is discussed in more detail in Chapter 6.