What are the characteristics of modern state ?
1. According to Max Weber, state is the most fundamental institutions of a political system.
The state means the institution which exercises the monopoly over the legitimate use of power within a given territory,
2. State can use force to implement its policies. It has sovereignty.
3. There are sub-institutions of the state which are involved in the exercise of political power.
4. The executive, the judiciary and the legislature are the instruments which co-operate in the distribution of power.
5. The essential elements of the state are: (i) a population, (ii) a defined territory, (iii) a government and (iv) Sovereignty.
6. All modern societies are nation-states. Giddens writes that ‘nation-states’ are the states in which the great mass of population are citizens who regard themselves as a part of single nation.
