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The United States of America is a federal republic [1] consisting of 50 states, a federal district (Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and various minor islands. [2] [3] Both the states and the United States as a whole are each sovereign jurisdictions. [4]
Confounding the definition problem is that "state" and "government" are often used as synonyms in common conversation and even some academic discourse. According to this definition schema, the states are nonphysical persons of international law, and governments are organizations of people. [39]
Rechtsstaat, the legal state (constitutional state, state subordinated to law) in the philosophy of law and as a principle of many national constitutions; United States Department of State, a division of the executive branch of the United States federal government, dealing with foreign affairs; sometimes referred to as "State", for short, in American political jargon.
Additionally, the member states of the United States do not possess international legal sovereignty, meaning that they are not recognized by other sovereign states such as, for example, France, Germany or the United Kingdom, [4] nor do they possess full interdependence sovereignty (a term popularized by international relations professor Stephen ...
The United States Census counts government units across all States. This includes "special districts". To count the special districts the Census must define the special districts so as to address all such governmental entities across the broad spectrum of 50 states' definitions and interpretations. The Census's full definition is: [3]
Besides the four aforementioned states, other states have also on occasion used the term "commonwealth" to refer to themselves: The term "commonwealth" is used interchangeably with the term "state" in the Constitution of Vermont, [11] but the act of Congress admitting that state to the Union calls it "the State of Vermont."
Beyond these basic definitions, the word republic has a number of other connotations. W. Paul Adams observes that republic is most often used in the United States as a synonym for "state" or "government," but with more positive connotations than either of those terms. [82]
Term Description Examples Autocracy: Autocracy is a system of government in which supreme power (social and political) is concentrated in the hands of one person or polity, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of a coup d'état or mass insurrection).