9

Theories of State Formation

Gianfranco Poggi
the concept and structure of a state (a
political entity with governance over a
specific territory) vary across different
regions and societies. There is no one
standardized model that applies
universally; instead, the form of the Three principal accounts of its formation:
state is influenced by factors such as 1. Managerial perspective
culture, history, and geopolitical context 2. Military perspective
in each particular setting. 3. Economic perspective

The state is not universal. It emerged in its modern form between the twelfth and
eighteenth centuries in Western Europe. Poggi focuses on three principal accounts of its
formation: (i) on the managerial perspective, which emphasizes the top-down aspect of
the process: the establishment of increasingly effective political administration over larger
and larger territories; (ii) on the military perspective which, following Weber, emphasizes
the state’s monopoly of legitimate violence, with particular reference to war; and (iii) on
the economic perspective which, following Marx, sees the state as an outcome of class
struggle between producers and exploiters in a capitalist mode of production. Poggi sees
each of these perspectives as making important contributions to our understanding of
state formation, and, indeed, to our understanding of all aspects of political sociology.

This essay gives a summary and highly selective account of the most significant
sociological perspectives on the early and intermediate phases of (what one may call)
‘statualization’, a set of processes taking place in Western Europe between the twelfth
and eighteenth centuries, in the course of which the practice of rule, as concerned a
diminishing number of generally larger and more clearly delimited territories, became
to a growing extent:
Authority shifted from being tied to specific individuals to being vested in official roles or offices.

. depersonalized – that is, rule is (in principle) vested in offices rather than in
physical individuals as such; Rules and governance became more structured, following explicit norms that spelled out how
authority should be used and controlled.
. formalized – the practice of rule increasingly refers to norms which expressly
authorize it, mandate it, specify the modalities of its expression and control it;
. integrated – rule increasingly takes into account other aspects of the social
process, recognizes their significance and makes some contribution to their
persistence, while being at the same time Governance started considering and contributing to other aspects of society,
recognizing their importance.

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology, First Edition. Edited by Edwin Amenta,
Kate Nash, and Alan Scott.
Ó 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
 When talking about "rule," it means
addressing specific issues or
96 problems using unique tools or
methods. GIANFRANCO POGGI
. differentiated from them – rule, that is, addresses distinctive concerns and
employs special resources (material and symbolic). Finally, it is
. organized – this expression suggests two related and at the same time contrasting
phenomena: on the one hand, rule is exercised by and through a plurality of
subjects (individual and collective); on the other, these subjects constitute
together a single unit, which overrides their plurality.
"Organized" suggests two related but contrasting ideas:
a. First Idea: Rule involves multiple individuals or groups (subjects) who are responsible for its exercise. So, it's not
just one person making all the decisions.
b. Second Idea: Despite the diversity of these subjects, they form a unified unit. This means that, collectively, they
work together as a single entity, even though they have different roles or perspectives.

Why Deal with These Matters?

It begins by noting outlines the historical evolution of scholarly interest in the state within political sociology.
that 30 years ago, As recently as 30 years ago, a work such as this one would probably not have contained
political sociology
rarely delved into an essay devoted to our present topic. At the time, political sociology largely left
the study of political
institutions, leaving
political institutions to political science. The latter, in turn, showed little concern with
it to political ‘the state’ as such, much less with the question of how it had developed. Subsequently,
science.
Sociologists later it fell largely to sociologists (though some of these were active both in sociology and in
took the initiative to political science) to ‘bring the state back in’ (Evans, Rueschemeyer and Skocpol (eds)
reintroduce the
study of the state, 1985). Some of them expressly thematized where, when, how and why the state had
influenced by
practical come into being and had become the prime political institution of modernity (see King
considerations, and Le Gal
es, Chapter 10, in this volume).
intellectual curiosity
about modernity, The state was put on the scholarly agenda, from the 1960s on, by diverse develop-
and the theoretical
legacies of Max ments. Some of these were of a pragmatic nature: for instance, the feeling that in the
Weber and West the ‘long boom’ and the prevalence of social peace owed much to various forms of
Marxism.
public intervention in, and regulation of, economic and social processes, which shifted
and sometimes seemed to erase the state/society divide. On the radical side, some
authors emphasized the role played by the welfare state in moderating social conflicts,
while others wondered about how long it could continue to play that role.
There were also more specifically intellectual reasons for thematizing the state and
The passage its developments. In particular, for reasons not discussed here, the nature of modernity
discusses the
dominant Marxist and the peculiar features of the West began to exercise the minds of some sociologists,
climate in the
1970s, where state
and both these overlapping topics necessarily led to an increased awareness of how
theory often distinctive and significant Western political arrangements had been, from the Middle
involved advanced
analyses rooted in Ages on.
Marxology.
However, some
Much of the resultant work was inspired by a new appreciation of the theoretical
Marx-inspired legacy of Max Weber, emphasizing his explicit concern with juridical and political
authors engaged
in more substantial developments. Oddly enough, however, scholars who appealed chiefly, instead, to
inquiries into the Marx’s legacy also moved towards the same themes, in spite of the fact that previously
phases and
modalities of the Marxist tradition had de-emphasized them. In the intellectual climate of the social
modern state
development. sciences in the 1970s, marked by a hegemony of Marxism, in some form or other,
Recent impulses much of what went under the name of ‘state theory’ was in fact a more or less
for studying the
state include sophisticated exercise in advanced Marxology, bent upon the peculiar task, say, of
concepts such as
nationalism, ‘deriving the category of the state’ from the concept of capital, or of commodity
citizenship, the (Holloway and Picciotto (eds) 1978; Jessop 1982). But some Marx-inspired authors
public sphere, and
the complex engaged in a less venturesome, more substantial inquiry into the phases and modalities
relationship
between the state of the development of the modern state. In fact, some of the more significant
and markets. contributions to these topics come from authors who appeal to some extent, more
or less expressly, to the Marxist tradition (Block 1987).
 The author concludes by mentioning that the
chosen accounts of state development focus on
managerial, military, and economic aspects.
Overall, the passage highlights the diverse factors
and influences that have shaped the study of the
THEORIES OF STATE FORMATION 97
state over time.
More recent impulses have come, on the one hand, from the growing significance of the rising importance
of concepts like
such concepts/phenomena as nationalism, citizenship or the public sphere; on the nationalism,
citizenship, and the
other, from the increasingly problematical nature of the relationship between ‘state public sphere, as well
as the complex
(or: politics) and markets’. The accounts of state development chosen for attention relationship between
the state (or politics)
below emphasize in turn what one may call the managerial, the military and the and markets.
economic aspects of ‘the state’s story’.

Joseph Strayer The Managerial Perspective

Strayer argues that the modern state, as seen today, is
based on patterns that emerged in Europe between 1100
and 1600.
My chief witness concerning this view is a short work that has been largely ignored in
the current discussion about that story: On the medieval origins of the modern state,
by the American historian Joseph Strayer. One reason for putting it first is its explicit
focus on the early phases of that story, coupled however with a suggestion that ‘the
modern state, wherever we find it today, is based on the pattern which emerged in
Europe in the period 1100 to 1600’ (Strayer 1970: 12). Over this time

[w]e are looking for the appearance of political units persisting in time and fixed in space,
the development of permanent, impersonal institutions, agreement on the need for an
authority which can give final judgements, and acceptance of the idea that this authority
should receive the basic loyalty of its subjects.
characteristics or features in examining the historical development of political entities that instances where political units
have longevity, are governed by stable and non-personal institutions, where there's a consensus on the need for a decisive (Strayer 1970: 10)
authority with the power to make final judgments, and where the people accept and show loyalty to this governing authority.
These criteria serve as a guideline for evaluating the historical evolution of political structures, especially during the medieval
period.
The book’s relevance in our context rests on its focus on the top-down aspect of the
process; that is, on the developing conceptions and practices concerning the political
administration of larger territories. Strayer emphasizes both the traits common to
most Western European experiences (for instance, the practices of consultation
between rulers and other powerful individuals or bodies or the importance of law)
and some of the contrasts relating to these matters between countries, especially
England and France. growingThe central idea in Strayer's view is the establishment of effective modes of management for larger territories by
bodies of professional administrators.
The key process, in Strayer’s view, consists in the establishment of increasingly
effective modes of management of larger and larger territories, put into place on behalf
of rulers by growing bodies of professional administrators. He thus concerns himself
to a large extent with the evolving practices relating to the recruitment, training and
employment of those administrators, and with the distinctive practices which they
develop (often quite self-consciously) and which later become to an extent traditional.
How distinctive and pointed this argument is, in spite of the low-key way in which
Strayer advances, shows from what is missing from it – in particular, any bloody-
minded, ‘Schmittian’ sense of the heroic distinctiveness of the political enterprise, of
the centrality of the confrontation with ‘the Other’, of the momentousness and drama
The development of political decision, of ‘the demoniac face of power’ (Ritter 1979).
of the modern
state, according to As Strayer depicts it, the development of the modern state is chiefly an ongoing, low-
Strayer, involves
an ongoing, profile process of inventing and adopting/adapting marginally (though sometimes
low-profile
process of markedly) more effective ways of collecting and husbanding resources, of controlling
inventing more
effective ways of their employment, of providing services (especially judicial and ‘police’ services) to
collecting and
managing
local communities. As he remarks pointedly, ‘the first permanent institutions in
resources,
controlling their
Western Europe dealt with internal not external affairs. High courts of justice and
usage, and the first permanent institutions in Western Europe dealt with internal, not external affairs, emphasizing high courts of justice and
providing services treasury departments over foreign offices and defense departments.
to local
communities.
 98 GIANFRANCO POGGI
Treasury Departments existed long before Foreign Offices and Departments of
In simpler terms,
people in ancient
Defence’ (1970: 26).
offices, especially The individuals active in these primordial offices play the key role in getting a
those in charge of
managing resources, population, in spite of its intense localism, to accept and value the existence of a
are really important in
making a group of centrally controlled framework of rule, to which it increasingly refers in defining its
people agree with and
appreciate a system of interests and obligations, and to develop a sense of trans-local commonality (this,
government that's
controlled from a Strayer argues, happened first in England). Thus, political units in the process of
central authority.
Instead of trying to
becoming states are not seen in the first place as conquering entities, but as the growing Strayer recognizes
conquer other groups,
the main goal is to take
estates of dominant dynasties, assisted chiefly by managers intent, day in, day out, that religious
leaders have a
care of and increase upon tending and increasing the dynasty’s possessions. significant
on shaping
impact
the wealth and power
of the ruling family or Strayer refers occasionally to the role played in the above process by ecclesiastical societies. They
dynasty. contribute by
personnel, who contributed to it on the one hand a distinctive concern with establish- promoting peace,
spreading
ing and maintaining peace, on the other some critical resources, such as literacy and important skills
the use of Latin as a trans-local language; and a sense of what it means for a local like reading and
writing, using Latin
collectivity (a parish, an abbey) to belong to a higher one (a diocese, the Church at as a common
language, and
large, a religious order as a whole). fostering a sense
of unity among
strengthens this argument Some years after the publication of Strayer’s book, a distinguished legal scholar, people in a larger
community.
Harold Berman, argued at length in an impressive book, Law and Revolution, a
the first Western
state was set up by much stronger version of that argument. He does not simply point to the contribution
the church under the
leadership of the made by ecclesiastics and their distinctive ways of thinking and acting to the
pope in the late 11th construction of states, but holds that ‘the first state in the West was that which was
and 12th centuries.
Berman highlights established in the church by the papacy in the late eleventh and the twelfth century’
the importance of
law, especially (Berman 1983: 276). This is chiefly because the Gregorian reformation made express
written laws that
aren't based on and sustained use of sophisticated, text-based, secular, ‘rational’, institutionally
tradition, in building
and organizing the differentiated legal discourse in order to institute, activate and coordinate ecclesi-
state. Laws help set
clear rules for how astical organs. Such discourse was later much used, in properly political bodies, to
public officials and
citizens should orient and control binding decisions, including those involving the threat of or the
behave, providing
stability while also
recourse to violence.
allowing for some
flexibility through
Although Strayer had already acknowledged the uses of law in the performance of
specific procedures. managerial tasks, Berman follows and complements an earlier tradition of legal and
The high regard for
law in terms of constitutional history in emphasizing the wider significance of law in state-building.
morality and culture
in the West Why is law important, and particularly enacted, non-customary law? For one thing, it
contributes to its
crucial role in the permits two contrasting requirements to be fulfilled: on the one hand it reduces the
development of
states. contingency in the conduct of public bodies and in the determination of the obligations
of subjects/citizens towards them, by tying them to expressly promulgated commands
valid in principle ‘wherever and whenever’; on the other hand, each such law is itself
contingent, for, by following certain procedural rules (themselves juridical in nature),
it can be set aside by another one. Thus, administrative and judicial bodies can be
programmed to act in predictable ways, but that programming is itself variable. Also,
the validity of existent bodies of law can be extended to new territories, facilitating
their incorporation in a given polity.
Furthermore, in the West, on various grounds, law long enjoyed high moral and
cultural prestige. It is a sophisticated, highly literate, text-based intellectual product,
which can be systematized, taught and examined. It can thus assist rulers and their top
administrators in the process of selecting and training the specialized personnel who,
through the first centuries of the modern state, are increasingly called upon to replace
the feudal and the clerical elements in manning the political establishment. To this
 THEORIES OF STATE FORMATION 99
extent, Berman’s sustained concern with the legal dimension in the development of
papal institutions usefully complements Strayer’s primary emphasis on other aspects
of the management of royal territories.

The Military Perspective

The state is the central political institution; qua political, it has an intrinsic connection
with violence, emphasized in a famous definition of the state by Weber, which Randall
Collins has elaborated as follows: Max Weber defined the state as a compulsory political
organization with a centralized government that maintains a
the 'state' is defined as
monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain
an organization of
territory violence. It consists of
By ‘state’ we mean a way in which violence is organized. The state consists in individuals individuals possessing
firearms and weapons,
in possession of firearms and other weaponry and willing to put them to use: in the version willing to use them, and
of political organization found in the modern world, these individuals claim the claiming a monopoly on
the legitimate use of
monopoly of such use. [. . .] The state is, in the first instance, the army and the police. force. The army and
police are highlighted as
(Collins 1975: 181) the primary components
of the state in the modern
world.

emphasizes law Although the distinction itself between army and police is a historical product, and can
enforcement,
suppression of be institutionalized to a different extent, this statement suggests two different ways in
threats to public
order, and judicial which this theme can be elaborated: one which emphasizes primarily what we may call
actions by the
police. However,
the ‘internal’ uses of organized violence – law enforcement, the repression and
the literature on
state development
suppression of threats to the public order, by the police and the judicial system – focuses on war and
the military
tends to give less and one which emphasizes its ‘external’ uses – war and the military establishment. But Historically, this establishment.
attention to this
aspect, despite in the literature on state development the first mode of elaboration is much less approach has
potential insights received more
from Foucault's significant, although significant moves in its direction could be derived, in particular, attention and has
writings on experienced a recent
punishment and from Foucault’s writings on punishment and surveillance. The second, on the other resurgence. It also
surveillance. inspires reflections
hand, has been much practised in the past, and recently has enjoyed something of a on broader political
revival. It is, furthermore, more likely to inspire reflections about other significant themes such as the
moral significance of
themes of political theorizing, such as the moral significance of violence in general and violence, sovereignty, territory,
war in particular, or such concepts as sovereignty, territory, the states system, political the states system,
and political
obligation. obligation.

In the context of the discussion about state development, the argument for the
significance of war is straightforward. From the beginning, the modern state was origin of
modern state
shaped by the fact of being essentially intended for war-making, and primarily
concerned with establishing and maintaining its military might. In turn, the fortunes
of war played the decisive role in shaping the map of Europe and thus the original
based on
comparative context of the states system, which found in war the irreplaceable instrument for
foundational connection between the modern state, war-making, and the crucial role of military
scholarship, all state
constitutions
periodically revising its equilibrium. considerations in shaping both the state and the broader international states system.
essentially originated
as war constitutions
Early in the twentieth century Otto Hintze claimed most succinctly that according
Otto Hintze:
or military to all comparative scholarship, ‘all state constitution is originally war constitution, In the early 20th
constitutions. Later century, Otto Hintze
elaborations of this military constitution’ (Hintze 1970: 53). Later elaborations of this thesis emphasize claimed that,
thesis focus not only
on a direct link not so much a direct link, say, between the distribution of military capacities within a according comparative
to
between military scholarship, all state
distribution and population and the structure of the polity, but rather an indirect one: each state derives constitutions have
political structure but
also on an indirect its institutional arrangements chiefly from the ways in which it goes about providing constitution or
their origins in war
connection. The
argument suggests
itself with ‘the sinews of war’ – the material resources necessary to equip itself military constitution.
that each state's
institutional
militarily. Bertrand de Jouvenel’s statement of the argument exemplifies this
arrangements are emphasis:
primarily shaped by elaborated on this thesis, emphasizing an indirect link between military capacities and political structure. He argued that institutional
how it secures the arrangements of each state are primarily shaped by how it secures material resources for war ("the sinews of war").
material resources,
known as 'the sinews
of war,' necessary for
military preparation.
 100 GIANFRANCO POGGI

Adam Smith's remark, as

The intimate tie between war and power is a constant feature of European history. [. . .]
cited by Jouvenel, If a feudal monarchy succeeded in getting financial aids from the vassals at more and
emphasizes the
inevitability of adopting a more frequent intervals and could thus increase the number of mercenaries in its
standing army once one
civilized nation does so. employ, the others had to copy it. If in the end these aids were consolidated into a
Security concerns drive
neighboring nations to
permanent tax for maintaining a standing army, the movement had to be followed. For,
introduce a standing army, as Adam Smith remarked, ‘Once the system of having a standing army had been
as traditional militias are
seen as insufficient adopted by one civilized nation, all its neighbours had to introduce it; security reasons
against such a force.
made it inevitable, for the old militias were quite incapable of resisting an army of this
kind’.
strong link between state structures and rulers' efforts to (de Jouvenel 1962: 142)
secure military resources, and he extends this idea to later
phases of state development with a concrete example from
the British state's history.
A recent, very strong re-statement of this point, by Tilly (1992), suggests that stateThe Boer War, fought
between 1899 and
structures at large be understood as secondary products of the rulers’ efforts to provide1902 in South Africa,
pitted the British
themselves with military resources. On the face of it, this might seem to apply only toBoer republics. Empire against the
It
the core administrative and fiscal structures, those established in the early and middle stemmed from
tensions over British
phases of state development; but one might argue that even arrangements typical of itsimperial expansion
and control of
late phases, and apparently remote from military concerns, sometimes have a militaryresources. The conflict
saw Boer guerrilla
rationale. For instance, some of the early welfare state provisions introduced by thetactics, British "
British state were a response to the realization, in the course of the Boer War, thatscorched earth"
policies, and resulted
many of the young males brought up in the industrial conurbations were in inadequateinhardships. casualties and
The war
physical condition, and thus poorly fit for fighting. ended in 1902, with
the Boers accepting
there's a consistent
connection between the A significant component of this kind of argument has always been the connectionBritish rule. The
challenges that war aftermath led to the
brings and a tendency for between the challenge of war on the one hand, and a tendency to tighten the hold of formation of the Union
governments to centralize of South Africa in
their power. When a
the centre on the political organs of the periphery of the state. In other words, the1910, shaping the
region's geopolitical
country faces the
immediate and urgent
proximity, the awareness, the urgency of that challenge have generated and sus-landscape.
issues of war, it often tained the ‘centralization trend’ typical of maturing states. Note that this connection
leads to a trend where
the central government is not a prerogative of European states; it can be found in the United States, a polity
gains more control over
the political aspects of the originally designed in the express intent of transcending the European experience,
regions within the country.
This idea isn't limited to and operating in a very different geopolitical environment. For instance, Richard
European countries; it
can also be seen in the Bensel (1991) emphasizes the role played by the American Civil War in fostering the
United States. For
instance, Richard
progress of central political institutions both in the United States and in the
Bensel's work in 1991
shows how the American
Confederacy. how money is managed and used by the government
Civil War played a role in
strengthening the central
Two significant aspects of the military perspective on state development may be
political institutions in both noted. In the first place, its frequent emphasis on fiscal arrangements creates a kind of
the United States and the alligned
Confederate states. thematic overlap with what I have called the managerial perspective. In the second
place, by the same token it also connects the study of political arrangements with the looks at how
governments
arrangements dominant in two other spheres of social experience: on the one hand organize and
manage different
the economy, on the other technology – particularly, of course, the technology of aspects.
warfare. looks at how political decisions are linked to how money is
handled and the technologies used in warfare.
This last connection, in particular, is extensively explored in some of the more
sophisticated studies developing the military perspective. Warfare technology, itself, is military
a complex matter: one aspect of it is strictly material, and has to do with the power, hardware
capabilities
precision, and other operational features of the military hardware; the other is largely and social
aspects
social, and is constituted chiefly by the ways in which military manpower is raised,
trained, deployed, organized, monitored, motivated, etc.
Recent studies have made much of the relationship between the early modern
‘military revolution’, characterized largely in material terms, and changes in the
 connection between
the early
modern 'military
revolution' (mainly in
material terms) and
changes in political,
THEORIES OF STATE FORMATION 101
fiscal, and
administrative political, fiscal, administrative arrangements of European states. The title and subtitle
arrangements in
European states. of Brian Downing’s Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy
and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe neatly convey the message.
In fact, title and subtitle suggest two different emphases, in this book as well as in
others adopting the same perspective: a (let us call it) ‘narrative’ emphasis, stressing
continuities and discontinuities – of military practice in this case – and the relative
adaptations; and a comparative emphasis, stressing instead the variations in those
adaptations. In the latter perspective what matters are the different, indeed divergent
ways in which rulers respond to developments in the technology (material and social)
of warfare.
The broadest generalization suggested by writings advancing this perspective is that
The military revolution
the military revolution makes it necessary for states, if they want to remain in business, necessitates states to
to commandeer more resources than the arrangements inherited from the late acquire more resources
than medieval
arrangements allow,
medieval past can put at their disposal. Those arrangements (which can be subsumed prompting a need for
under one variant or the other of the so-called St€ andestaat, or ‘polity of estates’) must significant adjustments.
be either suppressed or complemented by others that increase the discretion of rulers enhance rulers'
discretion and
and/or capitalize on the parallel process of economic modernization. leverage economic

Transformation of
In most cases, the ancient pattern of decentralized military capacity and of ad hoc modernization.
Resource financial levies is replaced by one of three, all of which substantially increase the
Extraction
extraction of resources to be put to military uses. The main contrast lies perhaps
between Prussia and England: the first develops a pattern of ‘authoritarian’ extraction,
associated chiefly with a new, centrally imposed and run system of taxation; the latter,
a pattern of ‘negotiated’ extraction, which involves first the court, later Parliament as
Contrasts in
Resource
the representative organ of society, and taps the new resource base constituted by an
Extraction increasingly commercialized economy via both taxation and (increasingly) a flexible,
Patterns
responsible public debt system. But one must add at least the French pattern, whereby
the monarch puts the state in hock by means of a ruinous process of indebtment with
which taxation can never catch up. relies heavily on borrowing, surpassing the capacity of taxation to cover the
financial obligations.
One reason why much attention has been recently devoted to how such matters
were settled in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century is the sense that each of the
patterns (and their variants) makes a huge difference to the nature of the state at large,
(rules for governing)
including whether, to what extent, at what point, it opens itself to constitutionalism,
(people electing leaders) (individual freedoms)
representative government, liberalism. (A book by Thomas Ertman (1997) is partic-
ularly significant in this context.) But of course the perspective also includes later
developments in the relation between war and state making; in particular, it is often
claimed that there is a significant connection between, at one end, the advent of mass
armies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and continuing since then;
at the other end, ‘the entry of masses into politics’ characteristic of the later part of the
nineteenth and of the twentieth centuries. In other terms, the military perspective on
state development lends itself to extensive and sophisticated elaboration (see in
particular the arguments developed in Mann 1988).
The perspective also looks at later developments, connecting the rise of mass armies in the late 18th and early 19th centuries with the increased participation of
ordinary people in politics during the 19th and 20th centuries. In simpler terms, the way states organized their military and dealt with war had long-lasting effects on
how they were governed and how people became involved in politics. Scholars, like Mann in 1988, have extensively explored and refined this perspective, showing
that these connections between military and state development are complex and go beyond just the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Economic Perspective how wealth is produced and distributed. It considers political phenomena
KARL MARX and the formation and growth of the state as interconnected with
economic activities and conflicts.
In the interpretation just discussed, the development of the modern state finds its basic
rationale in a phenomenon – war – that is a (perhaps the) most significant aspect of the
economic activities and conflicts play a crucial role in shaping political events and
the formation of states. Marx's ideas are central to this perspective, and
understanding his views is key to grasping the main arguments within this
framework.
 102 GIANFRANCO POGGI
political sphere. The next interpretation, however, shifts the focus to a different sphere,
the economic one, where take place the processes of production and distribution of
material wealth, and which views as aspects and components of those processes, and of
the resulting conflicts, political phenomena in general, and the formation and devel-
opment of the state in particular. This line of thinking has as its main proponents Karl
Marx and various thinkers chiefly inspired by him; thus my exposition of it must seek to
convey, in however elementary a fashion, the main contentions of Marx’s views on
politics and the state (see Jessop, Chapter 1, in this volume). Concept of surplus value Karl Marx
Human life relies on
labor, and when people
Human life can only be sustained through labour. Beyond a minimal threshold of emphasizing through labor,
that

work, they can produce effectiveness, labour, in its interaction with nature, can yield a greater product than is people can produce
more than necessary for more than what they
their survival. strictly necessary to reconstitute the individual’s capacity to labour, in the form both of need for basic
survival. This
product which is surplus to the consumption needs of producers and of embodied surplus, according to
products of past labour to be used as instruments of further labour. But both surpluses, Marx, is often taken
away by a minority
for their benefit,
In simple terms, the being objectified, can be taken away from those producing them, and put to the contributing to
passage talks about a
common situation where service, and placed under the control, of individuals not themselves responsible for economic inequality.
a small group of people
(minority) enjoys the producing them. Labor has the potential to yield more than the
minimum necessary for individual survival.
luxury of using more
resources than they
Typically, the privilege of consuming more than one contributes to the social
contribute to society,
while the majority does
production process is enjoyed by a minority who make the majority work to their own
most of the work. This advantage; thus it is intrinsically invidious and contentious, and exposed to the risk of
setup is naturally
conflict-prone and being challenged by the majority. On this account, the minority/majority relationship
unstable. To keep things
stable, those in power is always potentially unstable, and must be stabilized by processes external to those of
use external methods
like creating ideas and material production: chiefly, the production of symbolic and ideological resources
beliefs to calm down any
resentment from the which moderate or divert the majority’s resentment of and opposition to their
majority. Additionally,
they control the ability to
condition, and an asymmetric allocation also of the capacity to exercise coercion.
use force. This control
can directly impact how
This capacity (grounded on control over means of violence, including organization)
work is done (like in may play either a direct role in the production/exploitation process (as in slavery or
slavery or serfdom) or
indirectly influence it. In serfdom) or only (or chiefly) an indirect role. In particular, the ‘feudal mode of
historical contexts, like
feudalism, the overt production’ required the overt submission of the producers to the political superiority
submission of workers
was needed because of the exploiters, and to the threat of open coercion, because some means of
some resources were
under their direct control, production were under the producers’ immediate control. This situation was com-
allowing for
decentralized authority.
patible with (and indeed conducive to) the decentralization of authority, and of
The unfair treatment
coercive resources, characteristic of feudalism in its political aspects. where one group
However, in the capitalist mode of production, according to Marx, exploitation is expenseatofthebenefits
another.
achieved in a covert manner, not by expressly subjecting the producers to the Instead of using
force, it happens
exploiters, but by means of voluntarily entered, contractual relations between through agreements
that people enter into
formally free individuals, once these have been dispossessed of any autonomous willingly. However,
the catch is that,
control over the means of production. This pattern required that rearrangement of despite appearing
political relations and of juridical arrangements which is the core of state develop- free, one group has
more control over
important resources,
ment, at any rate in its domestic aspects. In particular: making the
agreements less fair.
So, even though it
. Capitalism entails production for the market, centred on exchange values, not looks like everyone is
agreeing freely,
on use. As such it requires orderly, purposefully organized cooperation within some are at a
disadvantage due to
units and peaceable, market ‘traffics’ between units. An intrinsic aspect of state unequal control over
essential things like
formation and of the unification of jurisdictions it involves is the widening production resources.
territorial reach of power centres, which standardize and secure relations
between many individuals across wide spaces, making production and exchange
easier and more calculable, and more open to continuing rationalization.
Capitalism is an economic system where the focus is on making things to sell in markets. The key aspects include organized cooperation
within companies and peaceful transactions between them. The involvement of governments and unified legal systems helps make
these transactions more predictable and efficient across larger areas. In essence, capitalism is about producing and exchanging goods
for value in a systematic and organized way.
 THEORIES OF STATE FORMATION 103
shape the economic .
landscape but also influence
The development of the modern state is associated, particularly on the Con-
the very nature of societal
interactions, encouraging
tinent, with two fundamental developments in the field of private law: the return
wealth creation, flexibility,
and efficient exchange
to the absolute Roman conception of property (dominium), and the establish-
partnerships. They are ment of contract as the key device for the creation and transmission of rights.
considered indispensable
elements in understanding Both are indispensable to the mobilization of wealth and to the creation of
the evolution of the modern
state and its interconnected contingent, open-ended, cash-oriented relations between exchange partners.
legal and economic
frameworks.
. In particular, the contractualization of employer/employee relations allows The use of contracts in
employer-employee
capitalists to dismiss any responsibility for the workers’ livelihood, to treat relationships allows
capitalists to avoid
labour (power) as commodity, buying it to the extent and for the duration responsibility for
required for production and in the light of present or expected market demand workers' well-being. It
treats labor as a
and on terms set in turn by the market. According to Marx, this construction of commodity to be
bought and used based
employer/employee relations is critical because it hides the intrinsically exploit- on market demand.
According to Marx, this
ative character of the employment relation, wherein the systematic inferiority of contractual
arrangement hides the
all employees (qua members of a class) towards all employers (qua members of a exploitative nature of
the relationship, as the
as modern law transitions from
class) allows the latter to extract unpaid labour from the former, without systematic imbalance
between employees
emphasizing 'status'
to 'contract,' it brings forth a new
seeming to. and employers enables
kind of collective actor – the . The secular movement from ‘status’ to ‘contract’ characteristic of modern law the latter to extract
class. Unlike traditional groups, unpaid labor without it
this class forms based on also leads to the emergence of a new kind of collective actor – class: a unit of a being apparent.
shared interests rather than
recognized privileges. This non-corporate nature, based purely on the convergence of the factual interests of
socio-economic shift aligns with
a political movement towards its components, rather than on publicly recognized privileges. To this socio-
formal equality among citizens,
a characteristic of the state. In economic development corresponds, in political terms, a long-run movement
essence, the evolution in legal
and social structures is closely
towards the formal equality of all citizens, which is characteristic of the state.
tied to the emergence of new
collective entities and changing
dynamics in societal
organization.
The absolutization of property allows the abolition of property forms of communal the absolute emphasis
on individual property
nature, and thus the expropriation of resources which previously allowed the members rights enables the
elimination of
of subaltern groups to subsist autonomously, if only on a collective basis, forcing them communal forms of
property, leading to the
into the new dependency characteristic of salaried labour. ‘Absolute’ property also expropriation of
resources that once
entitles those who own it to a privileged claim on the deployment of that coercive sustained subaltern
groups collectively.
power which the state has progressively monopolized and vested in the police and the This forces them into
dependence on wage
judiciary. Furthermore, within the new places of production, and signally within the labor. Absolute
factory, it grounds a despotic control by the capitalist over the expenditure of labour property ownership
also grants privileged
power by workers and over their product, to the end of maximizing profit. access to the coercive
power monopolized by
These aspects of state development in the political sphere constitute significant, the state, particularly
through the police and
indeed essential requisites of the formation and advance of the capitalist mode of judiciary. Moreover, in
modern production
production. Like other, pre-modern forms of political order, the state is thus critically settings, especially
factories, it allows
implicated in upholding the central form of inequality, that constituted by the control, capitalists to exert
control over workers'
or the exclusion from control, over the means of production characteristic of a given labor and products to
situation: ruling practices secure the exploitation process and the advantages of the maximize profit.

dominant minority. For the same reason, all significant changes in the socio-economic
order presuppose a substantial development in the means and the relations of
production, but must also have a political dimension, resulting in the changed nature
of the ruling class. Thus, for all the differences it may reveal in its phases and in its
locales, the modern state also entails the ascent of the bourgeoisie also to a dominant
political role. In a famous sentence of the Manifesto, ‘the government is but the
executive committee of the bourgeoisie’.
For this very reason Marx, Engels and many Marxist authors display a certain
interest in political developments, assuming that certain developments in the
104 GIANFRANCO POGGI
formation of public policies, and particularly those centring on the emergence of
parties, would in turn play a role in the political dimension of the socialist
revolution. However, Marx himself, at any rate from the mid-1840s on, paid little
sustained attention to major changes in the institutional forms of the state. One
might suspect that a more or less explicit economistic bias, while it allows Marx and
others to develop (what strikes me as) an insightful view of the process of state
development as a whole, seriously limits their capacity for appreciating some
significant aspects of it.
At any rate, in the early twentieth century, following Hobson, Lenin interprets
imperialism as the ‘supreme phase’ of capitalism, allowing the ruling classes of the
West to delay its inevitable fate, and placing the class struggle on we would call today a
global footing. By and large, Marx-inspired writers treat war as the extreme limit case
of the conflict between ‘national fractions’ of capital over opportunities for accumu-
lation and/or as ways of diverting the working masses from pursuing their class
interest. They interpret fascism chiefly as a different, but not hugely different way of
organizing and conducting the business-as-usual of the state in countries where
financial capital has prevailed over other forms, and where the bourgeoisie feels
particularly threatened by the class war.
Valuable as some of these interpretations may be, they mostly revolve on the
question of what kind of political order is necessary for what kind of economic order.
Since the latter is conceptualized in a rather simple way, as a succession of only four
modes of production (ancient, feudal, Asiatic, capitalist), this mode of analysis
becomes essentially unilinear, and pays little attention to the historical variants of
the respective political orders – a lack of attention which in the twentieth century was
to have unfortunate practical consequences, such as the early refusal of the communist
parties outside the Soviet Union, but controlled by the Comintern, to take on board the
gravity of the appearance of fascism, and to make a resolute stand for the defence of
democratic institutions in the West.
But the interpretation outlined above is only a partial rendering of the Marxist
perspective on state development, reflecting only its ‘objectivist’, systemic/function-
alist side. Marx’s own thinking has another side which emphasizes the class struggle,
and acknowledges to some extent the plurality of its protagonists, the variety of the
respective interests and the strategic component in their relations (which class allies
itself with which, against which, with what success or lack of it). In this context, it can
attribute some significance, among other things, to the various political arrangements
associated with those strategies and with their outcomes.
Within the Marxist camp (broadly understood) the best work in this manner, as
concerns our topic, is probably that done by Perry Anderson. However, an even more
impressive, imaginative framework of analysis focused on classes and their strategies,
and expressly concerned with varieties of political development and (among other
things) of state construction, is embodied in a masterpiece by Barrington Moore, Jr:
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. I wind up this essay by briefly
considering this book because, while reflecting upon the early modern era, it is
concerned chiefly with a later development, the commercialization of the countryside,
and seeks to account for even later ones, such as Nazism and fascism, and the
communist-led revolutions of the twentieth century. It also has an expressly com-
parative focus, as its title itself makes clear. Nazism is the belief system and Fascism is a political
policies of Hitler and the Nazi Party ideology marked by
in Germany. It's known for extreme strong nationalism and
nationalism, anti-Semitism (hatred dictatorial power. It often
of Jews), and a totalitarian rule that involves suppressing
led to World War II. opposing views,
prioritizing the state's
authority, and can
 THEORIES OF STATE FORMATION 105
Moore’s relationship to Marx and Marxism is complex. He shares that
tradition’s tough-minded emphasis on revolution and on revolutionary violence;
the attribution to classes and class interest of the key role in historical develop-
ment; the assumption that the key relationship between dominant and subaltern
groups is one of exploitation, however masked by claims for the ‘functional’
contribution of the former to the welfare of the latter; the systematic discounting of
the significance of ‘values’ and other cultural factors. However, as indicated above,
he considers the countryside as the central stage of modernization processes, and
landowners and peasants as its protagonists; he adds to these the ruler and its
apparatus, and the town-based burgher and then bourgeois groups – but the
working class is nearly nowhere, even in considering twentieth-century events.
Even Moore’s construction of at any rate some moments in the development of the
bourgeoisie is at variance with the standard Marxist construction. He somewhat half-
heartedly concedes, in particular, that the French Revolution may be labelled
‘bourgeois’, but points out that the bourgeoisie in question had little to do with
capitalism proper, and even less with industrial capitalism.
Furthermore, Moore problematizes the Marxist assumption that exploited and
oppressed groups will revolt; he also has an acute sense of the contingent nature of
major social developments and of the attendant ironies – see for example one of his
chapter headings: ‘England and the contribution of violence to gradualism’! It is again
ironic that those revolutions in which peasants have played the most significant role (in
the twentieth century, the Russian and the Chinese) are also those which in the end
imposed on them the greatest costs and defeats. Even more significant, in our context, is
Moore’s sense that political institutions matter, and so do differences between them;
particularly valuable are those that impose constraints on arbitrary rule, allow the
development of just and rational rules, and give the populace some voice in their making.
Finally, as I have already suggested, Moore attaches great weight to the strategic
components in the operation of major social groupings, and particularly to their
positive or negative alignments and the resultant arrangements in the political sphere.
The argument to this effect is (alas) too complex to be reviewed here. But when all is
said and done, as I see the matter, Social Origins, in an original and sophisticated
manner, interprets many critical aspects of political modernization, including some
relating to the timing, nature and shape of state development, chiefly in the light of the
interests of groups constituted around questions of control or exclusion from eco-
nomic resources. On these grounds, it develops a significant, though of course
controversial, interpretation of such events as the great revolutions of the twentieth
century, and the rise of fascism and of collectivist states.

Conclusion

We have come a long way from a ruler’s efforts to increase his dynastic patrimony and
optimize its management at the very beginnings of the modern state, to mention an
attempt to analyze some complexities in the nature itself of the state enterprise in its
twentieth-century phase. In this manner, the proposed, simple tripartition between
‘perspectives’ adopted by major students of state development appears relevant not
just to the topic of this essay but to others pursued in the volume.
106 GIANFRANCO POGGI
One may ask oneself which of these perspectives appears more relevant and
reliable. The answer would have to be, predictably, that each has something to
contribute, and that one should attempt, if anything, to achieve a synthesis between
them rather than compel a choice. Some recent works already mentioned expressly
aim at such a synthesis: for instance, Tilly’s utilizes insights proper to the military and
the economic perspectives; and Ertman does the same thing within a framework
which, by emphasizing the significance of administrative arrangements, may remind
the reader also of the managerial perspective. And one may already see the elements of
a masterful synthesis in some of Max Weber’s many contributions to the topic,
culminating perhaps in the wonderfully compressed version offered in ‘The Profession
and Vocation of Politics’.

Further Reading

Lachmann, R. 2010: States and Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Poggi, G. 1990: The State: Its Nature, Development and Prospects. Cambridge: Polity Press.