Existing forms of the state and its types

By, Dr. Abla XHAFERI

Abstract

The state is present in every activity of a country. It controls, regulates, supervises, authorizes, or prohibits illegal and useless activities. The main purpose of the state is to maintain order and stability in society. From Antiquity until today, it has existed in different forms, which have been reflected by philosophers of different periods. Plato recognized forms of the state: aristocracy, timocracy, plutocracy, democracy, and despotism. For Aristotle, the forms of the classical state were a monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, which could end in tyranny, oligarchy, and polity, respectively. Even Montesquieu classifies the above three forms, which can end in despotism. The meaning of the form of the state includes the form of government, which expresses the principles and the way of organization of the higher bodies of the state; the form of political rule, which is determined by the system of methods of its realization and the form of state organization, which is determined by the principles of the territorial construction of the state. The dominant forms of government have been monarchy and republic. Monarchy is a state ruled by a single person (monarch, king, or emperor). Monarchy appears in absolute, constitutional, or parliamentary forms. The republican form of government represents the direction of the state by an individual or a collective. In ancient times, republics were democratic or aristocratic, while today republics are parliamentary and presidential. In parliamentary republics, the head of state is elected by the parliament and has fewer powers, while in presidential republics the president is elected by the electorate and has greater rights and powers. Some other forms of governance have also been applied, such as the minimal state, in which the individual should enjoy as much freedom as possible and the state should be limited only to protection against violence, fraud, theft, guaranteeing the implementation of contracts; the developing state, whose role is to intervene in economic life to promote industrial growth and economic development; the social-democratic state, which intervenes only to make social restructurings, to mitigate the inequalities and injustices of the free market; the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which controls the entire economic and social life of a country, it is comprehensive and influences every aspect of human existence. The type of state is determined by its economic-social base. The state is classified into a state of slavery, a feudal state, a bourgeois or capitalist state, and a socialist state. The real functioning of a state also requires the implementation of some requirements to be effective, to move away more and more from the features and indicators of a weak state, and, therefore, also failed in fulfilling its historical mission.

How to cite: Xhaferi, A. (2023). Existing forms of the state and its types. Jus & Justicia, 17(1), 118–127.

https://doi.org/10.58944/uzsf9078