Talk:State (polity)/Archive 3

Baltic states

I'm in trouble figuring out the naming rules for The Baltic states. And as a case study, may work well here as well. Problem: The mentioned article is about "The Baltic states", which is a term for grouping countries. University of Western Australia has a clear example of the capitalisation rules for the word "state", which supports the current naming of the mentioned article. "The Baltic States" would traditionally mean that the three countries somehow form a common governing body / form a union, which the Baltic states do not. The current naming practice is also supported by all other wiki articles about the Baltic states, where the S is not capitalised. So it all seems right so far. But then it's all messed up in real life - There are many cases on the internet where "The Baltic States" has been (erroneously?) used. I can understand when States has been used for book titles. But aside from book titles, this seems to be a bigger problem than it seems at first, as in english, especially for an American, reading "The Baltic States" would undoubtedly mean that the three countries form a common governing body. The capitalised version seems to be used a lot online in body text. Just wondering what the consensus on this is. Even the site of the Latvian government seems to be inconsistent in this and often using the capitalised version. The Estonian government's site apparently gets confused as well. The constitutions of the three countries do not say anything about being baltic states, so it's hard to find direct sources. Can this really just be a mistake in spelling? If it is, it's quite a big mistake and with far-reaching consequences. The three countries do not form a union or anything similar to it and would also not want to be seen as a union. SørenKierkegaard (talk) 20:05, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Clarification re "nation state"

The article lede has a bit of an odd locution, in the text:

"In international law, such entities are not considered states, which is a term that relates only to the national entity, commonly referred to as the country or nation."

but does not use the term "nation state" which is the more frequently used term in the disciplines of political theory and political science for this "national entity". I suspect this may be because the Wikipedia article on nation state has seemed to redefine the term in the "Nation state" article to be merely entities "in which a great majority shares the same culture and is conscious of it."

That makes it a bit awkward to use the quite correct term "nation state" in that sentence to clarify matters in THIS article, simply 'cause the link uses the more narrow definition as "the definition" of the term, and does not explicate its several uses very well.

This is kind of a multi-article problem. What do others think? N2e (talk) 14:04, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

For certain states, the long form and the short form are identical:

Iceland is not a good example, because in UNGEGN Geographical Names both the short name Iceland and the formal name the Republic of Iceland are mentioned. 62.168.13.101 (talk) 08:35, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

And by the way, I have now made sure that wikipedia users are functionally illiterate, do not understand the written word and just delete. 62.168.13.101 (talk) 08:35, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Please remember to focus on the content, not the editors. Should you successfully gather support for your edit (you don't have it currently), it can certainly be made. See wp:3rr. Shajure (talk) 17:28, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Looking at https://www.government.is/government/about-the-government/, it appears the government refers to itself as the government of Iceland. *shrug*Shajure (talk) 17:35, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Looking at the constitution, it begins "Iceland is a Republic with a parliamentary government."...so it appears that usage "republic" is descriptive, rather than being part of the name... that is "The republic of Iceland" would be proper but "The Republic of Iceland" would be less so, outside of a legal document where "Republic" is capitalized to show it is a specific defined legal term.Shajure (talk) 02:58, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Sentence / phrase

"(...) Latin status derives from stare, "to stand," or remain or be permanent, thus providing the sacred or magical connotation of the political entity." - What ? .. I cannot understand how one jumps from "remain or be permanent" to "sacred or magical". - Joaquin89uy (talk) 15:38, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Monopoly on violence should be in the first sentence

It is such an intrinsic component to the definition of the state that it belongs in the first sentence of this article. I think the other mentions of 'monopoly on violence' in the first paragraph can be relegated to the body or to a less prominent part of the lead. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:11, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Amcelis. Peer reviewers: Amcelis.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:09, 17 January 2022 (UTC)