Dictionary

raison d'état en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ɹeɪˌzɒ̃ deɪˈtɑː/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ɹeɪˌzɑn deɪˈtɑː/ (General-American)
• /ɹeɪˌzɒn deɪˈtɑː/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. A state interest, especially when invoked as politically superior to moral or even legal considerations.
   • 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. 2008 December 18, Ross Douthat, “What Would Gore Have Done?”, in The Atlantic:
   • These epochal shifts contributed to lend specificity to the substantive rationality of the state — raison d'etat. 2012, Yale H. Ferguson, R. J. Barry Jones, Political Space: Frontiers of Change and Governance in a Globalizing World, page 173:
   • 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. 1975, Philip B. Kurland, editor, The Supreme Court and the Judicial Function:
   • ‘The western alliance is part of Germany's raison d'état,’ he declared. ‘We've got to take responsibility.[…]’ 1999 April 3, Ian Traynor, quoting Gerhard Schröder, “Schröder struggles against mounting pacifist anguish”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Forms

Translations (6)

pl racja stanu (state interest) · fr raison d’État (state interest) · cmn 执政者理由 (state interest) · cmn 執政者理由 /执政者理由 (state interest) · de Staatsräson (state interest) · fi valtionetu (state interest)