5.2. Signs and essence of the state

The concept of the state, its characteristics are concretized when disclosing features that distinguish it both from the tribal system and from non-governmental organizations of society. In other words, the analysis of the signs of the state deepens knowledge about it, emphasizes its uniqueness as an irreplaceable form of organization of society and the most important socio-political institution.

1. Territorial organization of the population and the exercise of public authority in the territorial limits. In pre-state society, an individual’s affiliation to one or another genus was determined by blood or supposed kinship. Moreover, the clan often did not have a strictly defined territory, moved from one place to another. In a state-organized society, the blood principle of organization of the population has lost its meaning. He was replaced by the principle of his territorial organization. The state has a strictly localized territory to which its sovereign power extends, and the population living on it turns into citizens or citizens of the state. Thus, the spatial boundaries of a state arise, in which a new legal institution appears - citizenship or citizenship.

2. Public (state) power. It is called public because it coincides with society, acts on its behalf, on behalf of the whole nation.

Power existed in the pre-state society, but it was directly public power, which came from the whole race and was used by it for self-government.

The principal feature of public (state) power is that it is embodied in the officials, i.e. in the professional class (rank) of the rulers, of which the controls and coercion bodies (the state apparatus) are completed. Without this physical incarnation, state power is only a shadow, an imagination, an empty abstraction.

Impersonated in state bodies and institutions, public authority becomes state authority, i.e. the real force that provides government coercion, violence.

3. State sovereignty. The concept of "state sovereignty" appeared at the end of the Middle Ages, when it was necessary to separate state power from the church and give it an exclusive, monopolistic meaning.

Sovereignty as a property of state power lies in its supremacy, independence and independence.

The supremacy of state power within a country means:

• the universality of its power, which applies to the entire population, all parties and public organizations of the country;
• its prerogatives (the government can cancel, recognize as void any manifestation of any other public authority, if the latter violates the law);
• she has such means of influence that no other public authority has (the army, police or police, prisons, etc.).

The connection between state and law is inseparable. Without the right of the state can not exist. The law legally formalizes the state and state power and thereby makes them legitimate.

The essence of the state is the meaning, the main thing, which is deep in it, which determines its content, purpose and functioning . In other words, the question of the existence of a state is the question of who owns state power, who exercises it and in whose interests.