A polity is a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of political, institutionalized, social relations and have a capacity to mobilize resources. It is the unit or entity of a political community or body politic.
Overview
In geopolitics, a polity can manifest in different forms such as a province, a nation, a state, an empire, an international organization, a political organization or another identifiable, resource-manipulating organizational structure. A polity, like a state, does not need to be a sovereign unit. The preeminent polities today are Westphalian states and nation-states, commonly referred to as countries. The term country may refer to a variety of types of polity: usually to a sovereign state, but also to a state with limited recognition, a constituent country of a sovereign state, or a dependent territory.
A polity may encapsulate a multitude of organizations. Many of these form (or are involved in) the administrative apparatus of contemporary nation states: such as their subordinate civil, regional, and local government authorities.Black's Law Dictionary, 4th ed. (1968). West Publishing Co.Uricich v. Kolesar, 54 Ohio App. 309, 7 N.E. 2d 413.
Thomas Hobbes was a highly significant figure in the conceptualisation of polities, in particular of states. Hobbes considered notions of the state and the body politic in Leviathan, his most notable work.Hobbes, Thomas (1651). Leviathan. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
See also
Kokutai Nation Politeia Political system
References
External links
"Analogy of the Body Politic" – at the Dictionary of the History of Ideas Polity at the Encyclopædia Britannica