PeopleA people is any plurality of persons considered as a whole. Used in politics and law, the term "a people" refers to the collective or community of an ethnic group or nation. The term "the people" refers to the public or common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. Chapter One, Article One of the Charter of the United Nations states that "peoples" have the right to self-determination.
State (polity)A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. Definitions of a state are disputed. One widely used definition comes from the sociologist Max Weber: a "state" is a polity that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, although other definitions are common. Absence of a state does not preclude the existence of a society, such as stateless societies like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy that "do not have either purely or even primarily political institutions or roles".
AuthorityIn the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, authority is practiced by the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. In the exercise of governance, the terms authority and power are inaccurate synonyms. The term authority identifies the political legitimacy, which grants and justifies the ruler's right to exercise the power of government; and the term power identifies the ability to accomplish an authorized goal, either by compliance or by obedience; hence, authority is the power to make decisions and the legitimacy to make such legal decisions and order their execution.
SovereigntySovereignty can generally be defined as supreme authority. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or institution that has the ultimate authority over other people in order to establish a law or change existing laws. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme legitimate authority over some polity. In international law, sovereignty is the exercise of power by a state.
DemocracyDemocracy (from dēmokratía, dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule') is a system of government and form of liberalism in which state power is vested in the people, or the general population of a state based on principles of liberty and free will. According to the United Nations, democracy "provides an environment that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, and in which the freely expressed will of people is exercised." In a direct democracy, the people have the direct authority to deliberate and decide legislation.
Self-governanceNOTOC Self-governance, self-government, or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any form of institution, such as family units, social groups, affinity groups, legal bodies, industry bodies, religions, and political entities of various degree. Self-governance is closely related to various philosophical and socio-political concepts such as autonomy, independence, self-control, self-discipline, and sovereignty.
