According to Max Weber in Essays in Sociology, a state can be defined as a “human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Using this statement and the provided articles, one would conclude that Syria cannot be considered a state. Although they do use physical force, it cannot be considered a legitimate use of physical force within their given territory. The Syrian civil war is one of the controversies that arise in the question of whether they are a state or not according to Weber's theory.
In accordance with Weber's theory, Syria cannot be considered as a state because they do not hold a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. In Syria, there are multiple groups fighting against the Ba'ath government, and using physical force to overthrow the government. In this sense, there is no clear monopoly on the use of physical force within the territory. Both groups are fighting for the monopoly and the power. The threat of violence exists on both sides, and so the monopoly is nonexistent, because the other side also has the capability to enact the threat of physical violence. In the conflict, the Brotherhood is fighting against the existing Ba'ath government who if there was no uprising would have the monopoly and could make Syria be considered a state according to Weber. However, as soon as the rebellion began to take root and turn violent, according to Weber's definition, Syria stopped being a state as soon as that occurred because they lost the monopoly on legitimate physical force.
I do not agree with Weber's assessment of the defined “state.” I do not agree with it because a state does not have to only rely on the legitimate use of physical forc...
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...force. They still hold a national identity and have well defined borders. They also have a functioning market, which is a pinnacle for statehood. Syria exists within its boundaries, and is unchallenged as being existent among other states. Just because there is no monopoly on violence, does not mean that their state is defunct and they cannot be considered a state.
Weber's definition is too narrow, and so it should not be considered as an accurate assessment of the statehood of a region. It doesn't include an other important criteria for statehood, and relies on the ability of a region to exercise violence. If we were to adhere to this theory, states would be popping up and disappearing very often, and maps would change just as often. A state should be defined as a region with defined borders with a working market economy, authority, and a strong national identity
Given that MacIntyre is attacking the political justification of “neutralist states,” it is important clarify what he mean by these terms. First of all, a state is an entity
The freedom in Syria made citizens mad because there wasn't enough of it. So the people of Syria started to protest to gain more freedom. The government wanted this to stop so they used violence so they can stop for good. All that caused was more angry citizens and started to use violence as well. This is one of the fueling of the violence in Syria.
Unlike the other Arab spring revolutions, such as in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia, the Syrian Civil War takes a place of its own in today’s political world. It brought back the Cold War ghosts, and reasserted the tension between the U.S. and Russia, because a big part of the American policy in Syria is a result of getting in a direct confrontation between the two strong powers.
The date is March 20, 2003; American forces enter Iraq in the form of air strikes over the capital city of Baghdad. The night sky lights up from anti-aircraft fire from Iraqi sites. The echoing sound of bombs and heavy explosions tremble in the night sky that knew of silence just decades ago. Now eighteen months have pasted, the regime is overthrown, and over one thousand American soldiers have lost their lives in the battle for Democracy in the Middle East. Everyday the numbers of American deaths spent to create Democracy increase. And everyday the number of dollars spent to create Democracy increase. Is it really a possible goal? Can the Americans establish Democracy in Iraq? The five fundamental ideals of Democracy support the common man, but in Iraq is this really what the common man wants?
There are two groups in Syria that always fight against each other, and they are the Shi’a against the Sunni, also a fact that Bashar Al-Assad is from Shi`a, so all the Shi`a support him, and a certain Sunni group stand for the Sunni people in Syria. Another thing that there are an external parties outside Syria that influenced a lot to this war such as (china, Russia, US, UK, and other countries), and Russia announced its offer for commerce with the mounting chemical weapons crisis on 9 September, as the US Congress was fixing to vote on wh...
The concept of state terrorism is highly debated. The main opposition to state-terrorism declares that states have legitimate monopoly over violence, therefore, state-violence cannot be considered terrorism (Lacquer). Furthermore, conceptualizing particular properties of state-terrorism has furthered complicated the debate. For instance, should state-terrorism constitute external conflict or internal conflict; also is the normative strength of non-state violence as compelling as
Kurdistan is a region that has existed in turmoil and is the “never was” country. The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group of the Middle East, numbering between 20 and 25 million. Approximately 15 million live in the regions of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, an area they called Kurdistan, yet they do not have a country of their own. Formal attempts to establish such a state were crushed by the larger and more powerful countries in the region after both world wars. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I, the Kurds were promised their own independent nation under the Treaty of Sevres. In 1923 however, the treaty was broken allowing Turkey to maintain its status and not allowing the Kurdish people to have a nation to call their own. The end of the Gulf war, Iran-Iraq war, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the cold war has reinvigorated a Kurdish Nationalist movement.
An attack on the Syrian state would fall within the boundaries of the international concept of the responsibility to protect. The crisis in Syria has escalated by protests in March 2011 calling for the release of all political prisoners. National security forces responded to widespread peaceful demonstrations with the use of brutal violence. The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad refused to stop attacks and allow for implementation of the reforms requested by the demonstrators. By July 2011, firsthand accounts emerged from witnesses, victims, and the media that government forces had subjected innocent civilians to detention, torture, and the use of heavy weaponry. The Syrian people were also subjected to the Shabiha, a largely armed state sponsored militia fighting with security forces. Al-Assad continually denied responsibility to these crimes and placed blame on the armed groups and terrorists for these actions.
Anyone who has watched the news in the past few months has probably heard Qaddafi's name tossed around a couple of times and perhaps used in the same sentence as “ruthless dictator”. Yet one cannot help but wonder if Qaddafi was truly the bloodthirsty tyrant that the media painted him to be why are the Libyan people only rebelling now more than four decades after he came into power? Muammar al-Qaddafi came into power in 1969 as a young, popular, revolutionary leader who vowed to free Libya from the government corruption that was occurring under King Idris's rule. (Sullivan, 13) Qaddafi wanted a better life for all Libyans but he had his own views about what was and wasn't good for Libya. During next four decades, Qaddafi silenced political opposition and called the shots for Libya. The growing resentment towards Qaddafi came to a head on February 15, 2011 when protests sprang up all over Libya calling for an end to Qaddafi's absolute reign. The situation quickly escalated into a bloody civil war between Qaddafi's government and the rebel organization, which promises to bring democracy to Libya. Qaddafi's dictatorship has failed to be an effective form of government for Libya because his decisions do not represent the wishes and needs of the people. Democracy is the answer if the people of Libya do not want to keep paying for the mistakes of a single ruler.
It is vital to grasp the historical, present and future attempts at attaining autonomy, the challenges in the quest for autonomy, the reaction from other nation-states, and if there is any global support towards attainment of independence. In any walk, there are bound to be enemies. The enemies of the Kurds are those nations and elements that have been causing stagnation in their quest for autonomy. An exploration of the various ways this has been happening shall be fundamental. Also, there are ways in which they have had self-inflicted stagnation. Such ways need elucidation. The above will guide on the future of the Kurds.
...tages is one of its largest weaknesses at the same time, in my opinion. When the focus lies on the totality of the system, generalizations lead to the assumption of great behavioral uniformity among the systems actors and their relationships. While it seems logical that most states seek to preserve what is in their national interest, it is important and necessary to consider that states might differ in their intention to preserving that interest, or simply in what they consider to be their national interest, for example. Disregarding the relevance of variation among states could lead to imprecise assumptions about the systems actors and could raise questions about the explanatory capability of this level of analysis.
The reason that the states seek survival is because if the states are not exist, they can’t seek any other interests. Waltz introduces that bipolar systems provide a be...
Weber describes history in terms of the constant struggle for power. He bases all significant historical changes on the power struggle that caused them. Weber describes power as a zero sum game. That means for one person to gain power, someone else has to loose the same amount of power. A fundamental aspect of the power struggle is the state, and its power. Weber states that the state is the monopoly of legitimate force. The state is a compulsory of power, and the laws within it are its powers to enforce its power. The main struggle for power is that of force verses authority. Force is power that can be used to get one's way, and authority is the legitimate use of power to rule.
Oppenheimer, Franz. The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically. New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1922. Print.
Max Weber defined a state as a body that successfully claims a monopoly of legitimate force in a particular territory . The government of a state carries out legislative, executive, and judicial functions in order to create internal control and stability in a country. The state is the universal form of political organization, which is composed of a population, territory, and sovereignty. All land (excluding Antarctica) is currently divided into 190 separate states. Examples of states include the United States, France, Chile, and many more. All states have a government that makes political decisions and aims to protect the state from external and internal attack. ...