User:Nick Gardner /Sandbox
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The concept of the state as a country's supreme legal entity has become an indispensible component of political analysis. Although originally created by governments, the state has acquired a notional existence that is independent of the government, country and nation with which it is associated. It has the characteristics of a corporation in its ability to enter into every form of legal and commercial transaction in the same way as an individual. There have been a number of different interpretations of the term and attitudes to the concept. It was seen by Thomas Hobbes [1] in the 17th century as the means of preventing the chaos of a “war of all against all”,