The origin of the state is contestable

For a long time in history, the state was an ambiguous concept. There was no clear definition of state. This ambiguity, caused wars in the European countries. There have been various attempts to define state. Some of these attempts include; the definition developed after the Westphalia treaty of 1648, the theory of social contract that was propagated by Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques, the divine origin of state in the Biblical perspective and also the modern classification of state by Mwabuzor and Mueller.

All these instances show s clearly that the origin of state is contestable. We are going to analyze all of these definitions and try to come up with a summary definition of each since it is difficult to come up with a universally accepted definition.

First, is the treaty of Westphalia It recognized that the origin of state was contestable and therefore laid down some elements of state. One of them is a government the government has to have the three arms namely executive, judiciary and legislature. All these three have to work in harmony for the smooth running of the state. The second element identified is territory. This simply means that a state should have control over a certain geographical area. The third element is a standing army. This is basically for defensive purposes the forth element was international recognition. This is through certification by the United Nations. Lastly, a state had to have citizens. These citizens had to owe their allegiance to the government. From this treaty, we can say that a state is an entity composed of a territory, government, citizens and international recognition. This shows us that a state can originate from a treaty.

The second instance that state has been defined is by the theory of social contract. It was propagated by three scholars listed above. The three scholars recognized that a man is a selfish being and only behaves the way he does for his own benefit. This man lived in solitude and isolation. Man only enjoined with others only for regeneration. After man satisfied his sexual desires, he went back to his solitary confinement. as time went on, it was noted that the strong would finally suppress the weak since society was guided by state of nature.