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1. Wars and the Un-making of States: Taking Tilly Seriously in the Contemporary World

Author:
Anna Leander
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
That war makes states has become part of international relations (and political science) folklore. There are good reasons for this. The idea can be evoked with reference to venerable classical masters of our trade, including Weber, Hintze and Elias, or more recent ones such as Finer or Tilly. Moreover, the argument dovetails beautifully with the anti-liberalism underlying much realist thinking in international relations. It stresses the violent foundations of power and states as opposed to liberal stress on the role of power growing out of legitimacy and common action. And finally, the argument is useful from two perspectives. Analytically, it enables observers to make positive sense of the messy reality of war in large parts of the world: it is just an inevitable step on the way to state formation (Cohen, Brown et al. 1981). And politically it provides a welcome excuse for not getting too closely involved with that messy reality. If wars make states, well then the best thing is to allow them to be fought out (Herbst 1996-7).
Topic:
Government, Sovereignty, and War

2. Conditional Legitimacy, Reinterpreted Monopolies: Globalisation and the Evolving State Monopoly on Legitimate Violence

Author:
Anna Leander
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The article argues that globalisation is altering the nature and meaning of the state monopoly on legitimate violence. It is accentuating the tensions around the meaning of “legitimacy”. The relativism implied in the idea that states can define which use of violence is “legitimate” (and which is not) is increasingly contested both by the international society of states and in a world society of transnational actors. At the same time a profound redefinition of what it means to have a “monopoly” of violence is going on. Increasing the private ownership and allocation of the means of coercion are blurring the responsibility of states beyond their own borders and, for some states, even within them. As a consequence the differentiation among states is growing, private actors are central to war and peace, and the system of national states might be undergoing a fundamental change.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Globalization, Peace Studies, and War