Editing State (polity) (section)

===Modern state===
{{See also|Bureaucracy|Constitution|Corporation|Globalization|Neoliberalism}}

Cultural and national homogenization figured prominently in the rise of the modern state system. Since the absolutist period, states have largely been organized on a [[nation]]al basis. The concept of a national state, however, is not synonymous with [[nation state]]. Even in the most [[ethnic]]ally homogeneous societies there is not always a complete correspondence between state and [[nation]], hence the active role often taken by the state to promote [[nationalism]] through an emphasis on shared symbols and national identity.<ref name="Breuilly" />

Charles Tilly argues that the number of total states in Western Europe declined rapidly from the Late Middle Ages to Early Modern Era during a process of [[state formation]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tilly |first1=Charles |title=Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992 |date=1992 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=978-1-55786-067-5 |oclc=1148616089 |page=44 |url=https://archive.org/details/coercioncapitale0000till }}</ref> Other research has disputed whether such a decline took place.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Abramson |first1=Scott F |title=The Economic Origins of the Territorial State |journal=International Organization |date=2017 |volume=71 |issue=1 |pages=97–130 |doi=10.1017/S0020818316000308 |s2cid=22432480 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

For [[Edmund Burke]] (Dublin 1729 - Beaconsfield 1797), "a state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation" (Reflections on the Revolution in France).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/%C3%89tat/31318|title=Définitions : État - Dictionnaire de français Larousse|first=Éditions|last=Larousse|website=www.larousse.fr|accessdate=17 March 2023}}</ref>

According to [[Hendrik Spruyt]], the modern state is different from its predecessor polities in two main aspects: (1) Modern states have a greater capacity to intervene in their societies, and (2) Modern states are buttressed by the principle of international legal sovereignty and the judicial equivalence of states.<ref name="Spruyt-2002">{{cite journal |last1=Spruyt |first1=Hendrik |title=The Origins, Development, and Possible Decline of the Modern State |journal=Annual Review of Political Science |date=June 2002 |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=127–149 |doi=10.1146/annurev.polisci.5.101501.145837 |s2cid=145637947 |doi-access=free }}</ref> The two features began to emerge in the Late Middle Ages but the modern state form took centuries to come firmly into fruition.<ref name="Spruyt-2002" /> Other aspects of modern states is that they tend to be organized as unified national polities, and that they have [[Rational-legal authority|rational-legal bureaucracies]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Thomas |first1=George M. |last2=Meyer |first2=John W. |title=The Expansion of the State |journal=Annual Review of Sociology |date=August 1984 |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=461–482 |doi=10.1146/annurev.so.10.080184.002333 }}</ref>

Sovereign equality did not become fully global until after World War II amid decolonization.<ref name="Spruyt-2002" /> [[Adom Getachew]] writes that it was not until the 1960 [[Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples]] that the international legal context for popular sovereignty was instituted.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Getachew |first1=Adom |title=Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination |date=2019 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-17915-5 |jstor=j.ctv3znwvg |pages=73–74 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv3znwvg }}</ref> Historians [[Jane Burbank]] and [[Frederick Cooper (historian)|Frederick Cooper]] argue that "[[Westphalian sovereignty]]" – the notion that bounded, unitary states interact with equivalent states –&nbsp;"has more to do with 1948 than 1648."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Burbank |first1=Jane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y7B9euuLEkUC |title=Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference |last2=Cooper |first2=Frederick |date=2010 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-12708-8 |pages=182 |language=en}}</ref>