State

The state is one of the, if not the, most important entities in world politics. It is also a core object of study for several academic disciplines, including International Relations (IR). Despite this centrality, or rather because of it, the state has remained an ambiguous concept, lacking a generally accepted definition. This entry traces its history, including stories of origin and trajectory, as well as different attempts to ‘capture’ it conceptually and theoretically in the history of (Western) political thought. It then turns to the role of the state in world politics during the last century and reconstructs the debates it has triggered in IR theory, including moments of affirmation and critique. It argues that the ambiguity of the state concept, like attempts to confirm or dissolve the state, should not be conceived as problematic but as attempts to discuss diverging imaginaries of political order by invoking the state.