Monopoly on violence

The monopoly on the legal use of force, monopoly on violence or monopoly on legitimate violence is the property of a polity or government/state that differentiates it for all over organizations in a given territory. This monopoly upholds a government's sovereignty and jurisdiction and makes it the only organization that can legally imprison, tax, etc. Without such coercion, a state ceases to be a state. The social contract theory suggests a government's monopoly on the legal use of force is derived from the "consent of the governed".