raison d'état

See also: raison d'État and raison d'etat

English

Alternative forms

• raison d'etat

Etymology

From French raison d’État (literally “reason of state”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹeɪˌzɒn deɪˈtɑː/

Noun

raison d’état

1. A state interest, especially when invoked as politically superior to moral or even legal considerations.
   • 1975, Philip B. Kurland, editor, The Supreme Court and the Judicial Function‎^[1]:

     The law as created by the Supreme Court has been nay-saying in fact and in effect, stating in specific instances a series of "thou shalt nots." Not entirely, to be sure, as the cases illustrating raison d'état in American constitutional law tend to indicate, but enough to make the generalization valid.

   • 1999 April 3, Ian Traynor, quoting Gerhard Schröder, “Schröder struggles against mounting pacifist anguish”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     ‘The western alliance is part of Germany's raison d'état,’ he declared. ‘We've got to take responsibility. […] ’

   • 2008 December 18, Ross Douthat, “What Would Gore Have Done?”, in The Atlantic‎^[3]:

     Nor did the end of the Cold War put an end to the bipartisan tendency toward placing raison d'etat above the standards of international law and morality that America officially aims to uphold.

   • 2012, Yale H. Ferguson, R. J. Barry Jones, Political Space: Frontiers of Change and Governance in a Globalizing World‎^[4], page 173:

     These epochal shifts contributed to lend specificity to the substantive rationality of the state — raison d'etat.

Translations

state interest

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 執政者理由／执政者理由 (zhízhèngzhě lǐyóu), 执政者理由 (zhízhèngzhě lǐyóu)

• Finnish: valtionetu
• French: raison d’État (fr) f
• German: Staatsräson (de) f