The word "state" in political science originally came from the word "statos" used by the Italian thinker Machiavelli, which comes from the Latin word "status".
The meaning of the word "country" in Chinese is similar to the European concept of "country", and "country" and "home" were initially distinguished. For example, "Book of Changes": "This means that the body is safe and the country can be protected." After the Qin and Han Dynasties, one country ruled the world. Since Confucian culture emphasized "the isomorphism of family and state," and family also refers to family and family, the conditions for "family" and "country" to be mentioned simultaneously were formed, and "country" refers to the entirety of a country. For example, Liu Xiang's "Shuo Yuan" of the Western Han Dynasty said: "There are those who can secure the country and benefit the people." Huang Daozhou of the Ming Dynasty's "Jie Huan Yuan Gong Zhuan" said: "Gong (Yuan Keli) Nai Kangshu said: 'Then the people's livelihood is in danger and the character is evil. Who will be the voice of the country again?" "History of the Ming Dynasty": "The country depends on Gonger." However, the "country" that appears in ancient Chinese books is not the concept of a modern nation-state, but only the concept of "tianxia". When Western learning spread to the East, the word "country" was used to attach to the Western state.
In the East, represented by China, countries appeared earlier and their forms changed little. The Qin Dynasty had already laid the foundation for China's modern country.
In the West, the establishment of modern nation-states probably began with Britain and France in the 13th century. Its typical feature is the struggle between royal power, religious power and feudal power. In this process, the independence of the state from civil society has become increasingly prominent, and its development has four stages.
The first stage is the struggle between royal power and religious power.
The second stage is to eliminate the personal dependence of serfs and tenant farmers on the lord, so that all people in the country have only one superior: the king. After the revolution, this loyalty to the king was transformed into loyalty to the nation and the motherland, and then citizens in the modern sense emerged.
The third stage is the emergence of various political institutions and administrative institutions, such as town councils, various advisory bodies (gradually evolving into government ministries), etc. This is the beginning of modern bureaucracy.
The fourth stage is the increasing legalization of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled. This process can be counted from the British Magna Carta, and was initially realized with the Petition of Rihts in 1628 and the Bill of Rights in 1791. It regulated political power and its application within the framework of statutory law, becoming the forerunner of later representative systems. By the time of the North American War of Independence, especially the French Revolution, this process was basically completed - a written constitution was formulated, and a bill of rights and citizenship was formulated, allowing individuals to fight against the abuses of the state.