Terms: State - Nation - Society - Government - Administration - Control

[DaVinci]

As i often stumble about discussions, where these terms above are confused (mixed up), i would like to offer that topic.

Discuss, what you understand above these terms. Please give also your definitions and their applications (examples) in reality. I'm curious how the people think about these terms.

[The Dude]

State: The leadership of a country and the forces/powers that accompany it in helping it maintain law. This term can include any number of government officials such as police and military officers but will never include civilians.

Nation: A collective identity taken on individually. In other words, the leadership and its people having come together to present itself as one to the rest of the world. A nation can only be if there's a sense of cultural cohesion. For example, it's much harder to present Indonesia as a nation than it is Germany due to Indonesian culture being largely dependant on a specific island's customs. The ultimate example of a non-nation would be Somalia, which is completely absent of any form of unity.

Society: The people without its leadership.

Government: Those with the authority to make and maintain law in a country.

Administration: The same as government. Synonyms.

Control: The standard by which the state's (note: not just the government's) ability to force its subjects into certain behaviour is measured.

[BNS]

Society is an abstract term composed of transactions between individuals. I have no idea why it's being lumped up with state, nation, and government. They often serve to limit these transactions and can be considered anti-social.

Administration, the management of certain duties, and control, the exercise of command over a specific area or task, both are a part of public and private entities.

[DaVinci]

Society is an abstract term composed of transactions between individuals. I have no idea why it's being lumped up with state, nation, and government. They often serve to limit these transactions and can be considered anti-social.

Administration, the management of certain duties, and control, the exercise of command over a specific area or task, both are a part of public and private entities.

'Society' is an important term and property in the relation to the above terms. I suggest to look into 'sociological' or 'social' sciences to get an idea why. And since ie. Jean-Jacques Rousseau made a basic (controversial) work in this relation, it is part of political and economical sciences and terms (and later of course in socio-psychological sciences and other social-sciences). Merely it is vice versa, political and economical sciences are part of the social-sciences which universities offer.

However, for me the simple term society in the above relation means, short: The people within a state and its structures - and as said the science of that is sociology or social-sciences (translation: society-sciences). I guess you have those sciences as well in the US ( ? ), so it should not be something that is abstract and unrelated to understand to the above terms.

Simple example:
A politician says "our society of our nation expects this or that" or he says "in our society we have currently 10 % official unemployment".

[BNS]

'Society' is an important term and property in the relation to the above terms. I suggest to look into 'sociological' or 'social' sciences to get an idea why. And since ie. Jean-Jacques Rousseau made a basic (controversial) work in this relation, it is part of political and economical sciences and terms (and later of course in socio-psychological sciences and other social-sciences). Merely it is vice versa, political and economical sciences are part of the social-sciences which universities offer.

However, for me the simple term society in the above relation means, short: The people within a state and its structures - and as said the science of that is sociology or social-sciences (translation: society-sciences). I guess you have those sciences as well in the US ( ? ), so it should not be something that is abstract and unrelated to understand to the above terms.

Simple example:
A politician says "our society of our nation expects this or that" or he says "in our society we have currently 10 % official unemployment".

I like to keep the term society as an abstract noun. Often those who use the word to describe a concrete entity, usually populist, do so to push some political agenda.

Even in your examples you give society two different meanings:

"our society of our nation expects this or that"
Here it's a (concrete) collective entity demanding something.

"in our society we have currently 10 % official unemployment"
Here it is used as I defined it (abstract), a broad view of human interactions. The 10% unemployment rate is an observation of human interactions.

[DaVinci]

I like to keep the term society as an abstract noun. Often those who use the word to describe a concrete entity, usually populist, do so to push some political agenda.

Even in your examples you give society two different meanings:

"our society of our nation expects this or that"
Here it's a (concrete) collective entity demanding something.

"in our society we have currently 10 % official unemployment"
Here it is used as I defined it (abstract), a broad view of human interactions. The 10% unemployment rate is an observation of human interactions.

Ok, so much to your "social-scientific" views in this relation (i believe i can read what you mean between the lines), and that you think it has something to do with a certain political agenda.
Did you read overall what i said about social-sciences / society-sciences?

Anyways, in both of my examples, the term 'society' is used as synonym for 'population' or even 'land' or 'country', you can exactly exchange the terms and they have commonly the same meaning in the political discussion, at least in europe.

So if you have in the US totally other terms in the political discussion in this relation, is an interesting item, thanks for the hint, and it's exactly one of the main reasons of this thread to get those infos, but i wish to get it in a proper discussion manner. However you can drive around negatively biased with those terms as you want, that changes not the common used terminology and meaning of them, in europe. Oh, and "10% unemployment" is simply a sociological statistical measured rate, nothing more, and has something to do with human interaction, exactly as all actions by humans in a society have, yes (my impression: i guess your objection with the term must be a specific american thing). And as said, i'm interested to get as much input into this thread as possible, from all people of the world).

[MathiasOfAthens]

Great thread because obviously not every has taken the same political science course and terms will be easy misunderstood. I suggest this page be stickied with the main post being the most accepted answers.

+rep Davinci.
Country, State, and Nation are often used as synonymous used interchangeably to refer to Political, geographic entities such as United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

State: Set of governing and supportive institutions that have sovereignty over a definite territory and population. Shorten from Sovereign State which is independent of another States' government.

Nation: Cultural or ethnic identity.

Society: The way in which a group of people within a community live together.

Government: A body which has the authority to make and enforce rules, laws, and regulations. Types of Governments: Anarchism, Authoritarian, Democracy, Constitutional Monarchy, ect.

Administration: Subject to type of government, Parliamentary or Democratic Republic. Ruling regime or party.

Control: Level of managerial power like planning, organizing, staffing, and directing to achieve stated goals of the administration.

[DaVinci]

I suggest this page be stickied with the main post being the most accepted answers.

Well, i intend to let that thread flow as it comes. I'll only "intervene" if i stumble about something like that of my last post where a term was understood as not belonging to the topic, just to explain (or to correct) things and obvious misconceptions, so next people shall not follow a wrong assumption and perhaps ignore a term of the topic.

Edit:

I smell a trap, but I'll play along. ...

I beg you to post only properly, Nietzsche.

[Nietzsche]

I beg you to post only properly, Nietzsche.

Of course sir

[Nietzsche]

I smell a trap, but I'll play along.

You will find that these terms have a different definition for everyone.

Let's take State for example. Here in barbaric and backward America, it could mean the State in which you live; for example, Minnesota, and it's many cultural aspects which make it different than Florida. It could also mean the government of said state, as in the State of Minnesota, and its many laws which are also different than Florida. Or, it could mean The Federal State, also known as the Federal Government and its many broad sweeping connections, legislation, and influences.

A Nation is politically defined. I don't understand what the ambiguity would be here. Oh, unless we were referring to things such as the Cherokee Nation which is really just a loose confederation of remaining members of that tribe. Or, Aryan Nation, which is a group formed to curtail the rights and dignities of minorities; although the latter group would really be more of a "society."

Society, despite your begging to Rousseau, is even more loosely defined. It need not at all be contractual, or even clearly defined. It can exist at a micro level, say the Opera House Society, which would merely be a group of rich culture snobs who enjoy and fund the Opera. It can be defined less narrowly into a city wide group such as the Columbia Association in Maryland. It can be a nation-wide group like the SPCA or an international one like GreenPeace. It can include people organized around a charter (SPCA), an idea (Free Markets), a cause (Abortion Rights), or a neighborhood/city (Queens/New York). It can be a collection of independently concerned individuals in a given geographical area, or it can be a loosely affiliated national group of members of which few know of one another. In other words, context matters. There is no precise definition for you to hammer home an ideology. Rousseau was wrong.

Government is a body that regulates the lives of others either indirectly through legislation, or directly through taxation and judicial action.

Administration is government overhead and oversight. It's the bureaucratic mechanism that necessarily develops whenever government decides to regulate the lives of individuals.

Control is plainly obvious from the two above. It is reason for government and administrative existence. Control is the central feature of the State.

[Boer]

I guess I'm defining these as nouns, not verbs.

State = country
Nation = people group with a common culture or ethnic identity [nation-state is a country with a uniformed ethnic identity, such as Albania]
Society = culture
Government in usage, usually refers to the congress/parliament, sometimes including the executive and legislative branches of government.
Administration, in the US, is usually used to refer to the executive branch (ie, Bush administration then Obama administration).

I'm not sure in what scene you want the word control defined.

[Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh]

I have bookmarked this thread, as I would like to see how it ends up. I think these are some good terms, and I have recently become interested in these topics.

Nation: A collection of communities that feel - or are forced to feel, and thus, through generations, end up feeling by free will - a bond with each other that sees them work together. I like this idea, though I wonder at the purpose of it. To me, it is similar to the notion of state, where it is inorganic, artificial.

State: I see this as the condition of the country. The causality and paradigms (traditions/customs) that has led the country to where it is create, or have created, institutions, both physical and idealogical. The notion of statehood, royalty, and hierarchy are institutions that make the state. It is the condition of it, and because of this, I feel that it is constantly archaic, and the (/a) purpose it has is to uphold tradition. Tradition vs innovation it comes down to. The state is the tradition of the country and people. Although valuable, it is stagnant and inorganic.

Society: I think this is where real human work is done. The society is the organic part of the country (/nation). It is the part, that I feel, is able to actually develop. Through the society's development, the nation develops as a whole and the state is pushed forward (I see the state as a 'slider' on a measuring ruler, a sliding peice that is moved to act as a point of reference. It is pushed, it has movement, but it doesn't move in the sense that it is selfpropelling).
I feel that the society is the community. I haven't really come to grips with my thoughts here, but I am thinking at the moment that society is only really achievable at a 'city' level, where there is still a notion of connectedness. Granted, globalisation part 1 (the era of transport developments in the 19/20 century, not the one of telecommunications now) extended and warped this notion of connectedness, but I still feel that there is something at the city level that is not too big like papa nation, not too small, like mama neighbourhood, but just right.

Government: Hmmm... I suppose this is the 'acting out' of the state. The workings of the state animated by part of the society. I don't know. I'll have to think on this.

Administration: not sure.

Control: too ambiguous a word i think.

[DaVinci]

We can let out the term 'control', it's not really necessary as extra-item.

It's optional from now on

[barbarossa pasha]

State - The entity that exercises sovereignty over a territorially defined region, retains exclusive right to the use of violence within its borders, and includes the structures and institutions of governance, such as the legal system, within that territory.

Nation - A group that has a shared sense of culture, language, and history. Often tied to a state or seeks to be one.

Government - The body of people that are the primary decision- and policy-makers within a state. The chief executive, the cabinet/advisors to the chief executive, and also the party in power.

Administration - The Civil Service/Bureaucracy, the bodies that carry out policies set forth by the Government. In the US system this is the responsibility of the President, hence you get the 'Obama Administration'.

[Enemy of the State]

wrong thread, fail, delete.

[Enemy of the State]

What the , links me to wrong thread for some reason, delete