Abstract
The main purpose of the research is analysis of the states as main participants of world politics. In this regard, there are presented dates about the number of the states, their classification according to the socio-economic development (based on the GDP per capita and index of development), forms of governance (republican – presidential, semi-presidential, parliamentary; Monarchies – absolute and constitutional), administrative-territorial division (unitary and federal states), size of the territories, number of populations, geographical location, etc. Thus, it can be assumed that based on the geographic, political, socio-economic, legal, etc. factors, states differ from each other, which determines the differences in their foreign policy and national security priorities.
TopIntroduction
During the founding of the Westphalian system, the state became the main actor - the creator of the system and, in fact, the only element of the new world order. It is clear that in the earlier historic periods states function, however, along with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia, the state, or rather the nation-state, acquires new characteristics - national sovereignty and its involvement in the system of relations with other, the same nation-states. On this basis, social and political practice is constructed: according to international law, all states are independent and are equal to each other and before the international law. At the same time, many political scientists joke, based on the famous phrase of George Orwell: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more” equal “than others” (Orwell, 1949).
Most of the states that exist in the modern world were founded in the twentieth century. The most intense process of state formation took place in the 1960s, as a result of the collapse of the colonial system. At the end of the twentieth century, newly independent states arose as a result of the collapse of the former socialist countries (USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia).
After the ending of the “Cold War”, more than 20 countries appeared on the political map of the world. Today, many national entities in the world intend to obtain the status of a state - so it seems that this process is not complete (Chitadze, 2017).
It is interesting!
During the foundation of the United Nations in 1945, their members were 51 states, in 1991, (before the disintegration of the USSR) – 166, in 2000, their number gained 189 and in 2021, there are already 193 plenipotentiary members of the United Nations. In general, the number of states has been increased three times from the beginning of the XX Century (United Nations, 2021)
Key Terms in this Chapter
Armed Aggression: Combat between the military forces of two or more states or groups.
Group of 77 (G-77): The coalition of Third World countries that sponsored the 1963 Joint Declaration of Developing Countries calling for reform to allow greater equality in North-South trade.
Neutrality: The legal doctrine that provides rights for the state to remain nonaligned with adversaries waging war against each other.
National Interest: The goals that states pursue to maximize what they perceive to be selfishly best for their country.
Ethnic Groups: People whose identity is primarily defined by their sense of sharing a common ancestral nationality, language, cultural heritage, and kinship.
Balance of Power: The theory that peace and stability are most likely to be maintained when military power is distributed to prevent a single superpower hegemon or bloc from controlling the world.
Bilateral Agreements: Exchange between two states, such as arms control agreements, negotiated cooperatively to set ceilings on military force levels.
Great Powers: The most powerful countries, military, and economically in the global system.
Failed States: Countries whose governments have so mismanaged policy that their citizens in rebellion, threaten revolution to divide the country into separate independent states.
Ethnic Nationalism: Devotion to a cultural, ethnic or linguistic community.
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): A group of more than one hundred newly independent mostly less developed states that joined together as a group of neutrals to avoid entanglement with the superpowers competing alliances in the Cold War and to advance the Global South primary interest in economic cooperation and growth.
Democratic Peace: The theory that although democratic states sometimes wage wars against nondemocratic states, they do not fight one another.
Non-Aligned States: Countries that do not form alliances with opposed great-powers and practice neutrality on issues that divide great powers.
Long Peace: Long-lasting periods of peace between any of the military strongest great powers.
Collective Security: A security regime agreed to by the great powers that set rules for keeping peace, guided by the principle that an act of aggression by any state will be met by a collective response from the rest.
Nation: A collectively whose people see themselves as members of the same group because they share the same ethnicity, culture, or language.
Small Powers: Countries with limited political military economic capabilities and influence.
Third World: A Cold War term to describe the less-developed countries of Africa, Asia, The Caribbean and Latin America.
National Security: A country's psychological freedom from fears that the state will be unable to resist threats to its survival and national values emanating from abroad or at home.
Alliances: Coalitions that form when two or more states combine their military capabilities and promise to coordinate their policies to increase mutual security.