What term has been used by Max Weber to a "body that successfully claims a monopoly of legitimate force in a particular territory"
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → State
Option (1) State — Correct. In its most general sense, the state is a set of political-legal institutions claiming control over a particular territory and the people living in it. In Max Weber’s well-known definition, a state is a body that successfully claims a monopoly of legitimate force in a particular territory.
Option (2) Nation — Incorrect. A nation is a large-scale community, a community of communities whose members wish to be part of the same political collectivity. That wish usually leads it to seek a state, but a nation is a community, not a body holding the monopoly of force.
Option (3) Political party — Incorrect. A political party is an organisation oriented towards achieving legitimate control of government through an electoral process. It seeks to win power in the state through elections; it is not the body that holds the monopoly of legitimate force.
Option (4) Nation-State — Incorrect. Nations are communities that have a state of their own, which is why the two are joined with a hyphen to form the term nation-state. Weber’s definition is of the state alone, the body that claims the monopoly of legitimate force; the nation-state is a nation joined to such a state, not the term Weber used.
NCERT (2025-26): “Nations and Nation-States … At the simplest level, a nation is a sort of large-scale community – it is a community of communities. Members of a nation share the desire to be part of the same political collectivity. This desire for political unity usually expresses itself as the aspiration to form a state. In its most general sense, the term state refers to an abstract entity consisting of a set of political-legal institutions claiming control over a particular geographical territory and the people living in it. In Max Weber’s well-known definition, a state is a ‘body that successfully claims a monopoly of legitimate force in a particular territory’ (Weber 1970:78). A nation is a peculiar sort of community that is easy to describe but hard to define.…” |