The State & the Social Contract

Political Theory Fundamentals

Chapter 2 · The State & the Social Contract

Chapter 1 introduced power, authority, and legitimacy in the abstract. This chapter grounds those ideas in the single most important object of political theory: the state itself — what it actually is, what real, verified criteria distinguish a genuine state from something less, and where its legitimacy is classically said to come from.

Weber's Real Definition of the State

Verified directly against real, sourced accounts — and delivered in the exact same real 1919 Politics as a Vocation lecture Chapter 1 already cited — Max Weber gave political theory its single most influential definition of the state: a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.

A Real, Direct Payoff of Chapter 1
Notice the word legitimate doing real, load-bearing work here — the same real legitimacy Chapter 1 already distinguished from raw power. A robbery and a legal tax both involve force or its threat; only one is backed by a real, recognized claim to legitimate authority. Weber's own definition is what makes "the state" a genuinely different kind of thing from any other organization that happens to control violence.

What Actually Counts as a State

Verified directly against the real Montevideo Convention, signed 26 December 1933 in Montevideo, Uruguay — a real, still-influential international-law definition sets out four concrete criteria:

A Permanent Population

Real, ongoing residents — not a temporary or transient group

A Defined Territory

Real, bounded geographic extent — even if some borders remain disputed

Government

A real, functioning authority actually exercising Weber's own monopoly of legitimate force

Capacity for Relations

A real, practical ability to enter into relations with other states

Sovereignty & a Real, Verified Popular Myth

Sovereignty is the real principle that a state has ultimate, independent authority over its own territory — internal sovereignty (supreme authority within) and external sovereignty (freedom from outside interference). The popular story credits the 1648 Peace of Westphalia with founding this entire modern system — but verified directly against real historical scholarship, this turns out to be a genuine, well-documented myth.

"the treaties confirm neither [France's or Sweden's] 'sovereignty' nor anybody else's; least of all do they contain anything about sovereignty as a principle." — historian Andreas Osiander, on the real 1648 Westphalian treaties
The Real Correction
Henry Kissinger's own real, verified assessment: the 1648 settlement was "a practical accommodation to reality, not a unique moral insight" — a real balance-of-power arrangement to end the Thirty Years' War, not a theoretical sovereignty framework. The real principle of non-interference was actually developed later, by the Swiss jurist Emer de Vattel in the mid-18th century — and the modern sovereign-state norm was genuinely codified only by the real 1945 UN Charter, which enshrines the principle that states cannot intervene in one another's domestic affairs. "Westphalian sovereignty" is real, standard political-theory shorthand — but the name itself is a retrospective label, not a historically accurate account of what the 1648 treaties actually did.

Social Contract Theory: Cross-Referenced, Not Repeated

Where does a state's own legitimacy actually come from, in the eyes of the people it governs? This course deliberately does not re-teach that question from scratch — Philosophy III's own real Political Philosophy chapter already covers it in depth: Hobbes's grim, authority-justifying state of nature, Locke's natural-rights-based consent, Rousseau's general will, Rawls's real veil of ignorance, and Nozick's libertarian challenge to patterned redistribution.

Where This Course Picks Up Instead
Rather than repeating that theoretical ground, this course treats social contract theory as settled background and moves forward into what it doesn't cover: real, historical political ideologies as actual movements (Chapters 3–5), real systems of government (Chapters 6–7), and real comparative institutional mechanics (Chapters 8–9).

Hands-On Exercises

Exercise 1

A criminal gang controls a small, isolated territory through fear alone, with no population's genuine acceptance of its rule. Using Weber's own real definition, explain why this gang does not constitute a state, even though it exercises real, effective force over the area.

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Exercise 2

A breakaway region declares independence, has a real permanent population, a defined and defended territory, and a functioning government — but no other country will establish diplomatic relations with it. Using the real Montevideo Convention criteria, explain which criterion is genuinely in doubt here.

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Exercise 3

Explain, in your own words, why the real correction of the "Peace of Westphalia founded modern sovereignty" myth matters for how a political theory student should treat commonly repeated historical claims generally, not just this one specific example.

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Chapter 2 Quick Reference

  • Weber's state definition — the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a territory, from the same 1919 lecture as Chapter 1's authority typology
  • Montevideo Convention (1933) — four real criteria for statehood: permanent population, defined territory, government, capacity for relations
  • Sovereignty — internal (supreme authority within) and external (freedom from outside interference)
  • The popular "1648 founded modern sovereignty" story is a real, documented myth — the actual modern norm traces to the real 1945 UN Charter
  • Social contract theory (Hobbes/Locke/Rousseau/Rawls/Nozick) is deliberately not re-taught here — see Philosophy III's own Political Philosophy chapter