 Still, this wider perspective does not lead Aquinas to develop a theory of international community; this had to be developed by his sixteenth-century followers. Indeed, he takes remarkably little interest in a number of important issues related to the plurality of states and the dynamics of state-formation, and the appropriate relationship between a people [populus, gens, etc.] and a state (should each people presumptively have a state?). His political philosophy explores with subtlety and care the state [civitas, regnum, etc.], almost as if there were simply a single permanent political community.