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L'oro e la spada. Capitale, guerre e potere nella formazione degli stati europei 990-1990
Violenza ed economia nella formazione degli stati europei: mille anni di trasformazioni politiche, di sfide economiche, di cambiamenti sociali sono osservati e analizzati attraverso un’ottica non convenzionale e in una narrazione avvincente da uno dei più grandi studiosi dei fatti sociali del mondo contemporaneo. Capitale e potere coattivo nelle loro combinazioni, nella loro interdipendenza e nel loro timing costituiscono altrettante variabiii per la spiegazione di guerre, relazioni internazionali, formazione di città e di stati. Le domande che Tilly ci pone sono i grandi interrogativi sulle strutture delle società in cui vi viamo: come spiegare un modello di formazione degli stati europei approssimativamente concentrico, che vede alla periferia stati di grandi dimensioni ma tenuti insieme da legami deboli, come l’impero ottomano e la Moscovia; una fascia intermedia stati più piccoli governati con più efficienza e infine un nucleo centrale di città-stato che si unificarono in stati più grandi solo dopo il 1790? Perché il potere politico e commerciale passò col tempo dalle mani delle città-stato e delie città-impero del Mediterraneo ai grandi stati e alle città relativamente sottomesse dell’Atlantico? Perché la guerra si trasformò da lotta tra poteri rivali per l’accaparramento di tributi a prolungate battaglie fra eserciti e flotte?
Seguendo una strada segnata dalle presenze di Barrington Moore jr., di Stein Rokkan e di Lewis Mumford, Charles Tilly si propone l’ambizioso obbiettivo di spiegare i meccanismi deila formazione degii stati europei muovendosi con destrezza nel difficile equilibrio fra possibilità esplicative contrapposte: «Da una parte la liscia parete del caso, dove ogni storia sembra sui generis, un re o una battaglia dopo l’altra; dall’altra i crepacci della teleologia in cui il risultato — la formazione degli stati — sembra spiegare l’intero percorso».
Uniforme nelle componenti — concentrazione dei mezzi di coercizione come eserciti, flotte, armi; esercizio del potere e sua efficacia; preparazione della guerra e prelievo delle risorse necessarie; costellazione delle principali classi sociali — l’analisi di Tilly cerca di spiegare non solo il modello del cambiamento, ma anche le differenze tra le forme di stato e il variare del successo delle strategie messe in opera dai governanti fino al momento nel quale il sistema, una volta europeo, ha rivendicato il controllo dell’intera Terra.
Ma questo sistema non è sempre esistito e non durerà per sempre. I segni del tramonto di un’epoca della storia universale sono davanti ai nostri occhi. Per questo dobbiamo riflettere sui monito di Tilly: «Distruggete lo stato e creerete il Libano; rafforzatelo e creerete la Corea. Finché altre forme non sostituiranno lo stato nazionale, non vi sono alternative».
Seguendo una strada segnata dalle presenze di Barrington Moore jr., di Stein Rokkan e di Lewis Mumford, Charles Tilly si propone l’ambizioso obbiettivo di spiegare i meccanismi deila formazione degii stati europei muovendosi con destrezza nel difficile equilibrio fra possibilità esplicative contrapposte: «Da una parte la liscia parete del caso, dove ogni storia sembra sui generis, un re o una battaglia dopo l’altra; dall’altra i crepacci della teleologia in cui il risultato — la formazione degli stati — sembra spiegare l’intero percorso».
Uniforme nelle componenti — concentrazione dei mezzi di coercizione come eserciti, flotte, armi; esercizio del potere e sua efficacia; preparazione della guerra e prelievo delle risorse necessarie; costellazione delle principali classi sociali — l’analisi di Tilly cerca di spiegare non solo il modello del cambiamento, ma anche le differenze tra le forme di stato e il variare del successo delle strategie messe in opera dai governanti fino al momento nel quale il sistema, una volta europeo, ha rivendicato il controllo dell’intera Terra.
Ma questo sistema non è sempre esistito e non durerà per sempre. I segni del tramonto di un’epoca della storia universale sono davanti ai nostri occhi. Per questo dobbiamo riflettere sui monito di Tilly: «Distruggete lo stato e creerete il Libano; rafforzatelo e creerete la Corea. Finché altre forme non sostituiranno lo stato nazionale, non vi sono alternative».
276 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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2355 people want to read
About the author
Charles Tilly
105 books132 followersCharles Tilly was an American sociologist, political scientist, and historian renowned for his pioneering contributions to the study of social change, state formation, and contentious politics. A prolific scholar, Tilly authored over 600 articles and more than 50 books, shaping disciplines ranging from sociology and history to political science. His research was grounded in large-scale, comparative historical analysis, exemplified by his influential works Coercion, Capital, and European States, Durable Inequality, and Dynamics of Contention.
Tilly began his academic career after earning his doctorate in sociology from Harvard University, where he studied under noted figures like George C. Homans and Barrington Moore Jr. He taught at several major institutions, including the University of Michigan, The New School, and ultimately Columbia University, where he held the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professorship of Social Science.
He developed a distinctive theoretical approach that rejected simplistic, static models of society, instead emphasizing dynamic processes and relational mechanisms. Tilly’s theories of state formation, particularly his provocative comparison of war-making and state-making to organized crime, remain central in political sociology. He also played a key role in the evolution of historical sociology and the relational sociology movement, especially through his collaborations and influence on the New York School.
A leading theorist of social movements, Tilly outlined how modern protest became structured around campaigns, repertoires of contention, and public displays of unity, worthiness, numbers, and commitment. His work with scholars like Sidney Tarrow and Doug McAdam further redefined the field by linking social movements to broader political processes.
Tilly received numerous honors, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as multiple honorary doctorates. His legacy endures through awards bearing his name and through continued influence on generations of social scientists.
Tilly began his academic career after earning his doctorate in sociology from Harvard University, where he studied under noted figures like George C. Homans and Barrington Moore Jr. He taught at several major institutions, including the University of Michigan, The New School, and ultimately Columbia University, where he held the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professorship of Social Science.
He developed a distinctive theoretical approach that rejected simplistic, static models of society, instead emphasizing dynamic processes and relational mechanisms. Tilly’s theories of state formation, particularly his provocative comparison of war-making and state-making to organized crime, remain central in political sociology. He also played a key role in the evolution of historical sociology and the relational sociology movement, especially through his collaborations and influence on the New York School.
A leading theorist of social movements, Tilly outlined how modern protest became structured around campaigns, repertoires of contention, and public displays of unity, worthiness, numbers, and commitment. His work with scholars like Sidney Tarrow and Doug McAdam further redefined the field by linking social movements to broader political processes.
Tilly received numerous honors, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as multiple honorary doctorates. His legacy endures through awards bearing his name and through continued influence on generations of social scientists.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
May 29, 2015
The book-length exposition of Charles Tilly's classic line about European state formation: "War made the state and the state made war." In a nutshell, his argument is:
1. certain rulers used guns and men (the means of "coercion") to conquer rivals.
2. Warfare forced these rulers to develop extractive apparatuses -- institutions for taxation, conscription, etc, in order to fund and man their conquests.
3. This led to the rise of state bureaucracies and, more generally, a centralized and differentiated state.
4. The type of state that developed in this process depended on the prevailing class structure of the area in question. Where merchants and capital predominated, city states arose (example: Venice), and where independent landlords predominated, centralized absolutism developed (example: Russia). In areas where both could be found in ample supply, a sort of hybrid resulted (examples: England and France).
6. Ultimately, all forms of European states converged on the "national state" of today in part through mutual influence and embeddedness in an international state system.
The book was fascinating and well-researched, but would have had greater expository impact if he'd focused on three or four states and followed their stories throughout the longue duree instead of attempting to cover all of Europe.
If you don't have time, focus on chapters 1 and 5, which contain the most interesting elements of the argument.
1. certain rulers used guns and men (the means of "coercion") to conquer rivals.
2. Warfare forced these rulers to develop extractive apparatuses -- institutions for taxation, conscription, etc, in order to fund and man their conquests.
3. This led to the rise of state bureaucracies and, more generally, a centralized and differentiated state.
4. The type of state that developed in this process depended on the prevailing class structure of the area in question. Where merchants and capital predominated, city states arose (example: Venice), and where independent landlords predominated, centralized absolutism developed (example: Russia). In areas where both could be found in ample supply, a sort of hybrid resulted (examples: England and France).
6. Ultimately, all forms of European states converged on the "national state" of today in part through mutual influence and embeddedness in an international state system.
The book was fascinating and well-researched, but would have had greater expository impact if he'd focused on three or four states and followed their stories throughout the longue duree instead of attempting to cover all of Europe.
If you don't have time, focus on chapters 1 and 5, which contain the most interesting elements of the argument.
October 18, 2018
Coercion, Capital, and European States charts a grand theory of history that attempts to explain why Europe in the late 20th century looks like it does, a fairly uniform sprawl of nation-state social democracies, as opposed to the diverse variety of political systems existent over the past 1000 years: feudal baronies, city-states, sprawling empires. Tilly's basic thesis is that states make war, and vice versa. The increasing expense of maintaining gunpowder, and later armies of mass conscripts, forced centralization and fictionalization, which broke less affluent and efficient states, and lead towards the modern ideal. This is not to imply a singular and inevitable path: Tilly traces a coercion intensive path followed by Sweden, a capital intensive path followed by the Dutch, and a medium path typical of France, England, and Prussia.
As a relatively short book, it's hard to cover every part of the grand theory in detail, but I was dissatisfied. Clearly, coercion and capital are two major forces in history, but as variables they lack explanatory power. Armies look like unitary instruments of coercion from a distance, and in a Clausewitzian framework, are coercive elements of power between states, but this glosses over the factionalism that characterized pre-modern armies, the autonomy of a warrior elite against the agricultural masses, and the difficulty of using coercion systematically against weaker states. While Tilly is right to note that budgets increased in time of war settle at a higher baseline, and to gesture at key phase transitions in warfare, he is vague on key details. In particular, there should be more comparison between strong kings and weak kings at the mercy of major dukes, the rise and fall of the condottieri mercenary regiment, the Levée en masse of the French Revolution, and high-tech warfare of the 20th century. I'd point towards McNeill's The Pursuit of Power and Mallett's Mercenaries and the Masters for the first two, I'm not well-versed enough on the French Revolution to talk about the second one, and the third deserves an entire shelf.
Economics is an area that I am less well-versed on than military history, but I was equally dissatisfied with his explanation of capital. Cities and trade networks serve as the engines of capital accumulation, and wealth is linked to military strength as wars became increasingly financed by loans, but there is more there. The good credit of Dutch merchants helped liberate them from Spanish rule as Spain declared bankruptcy several times during the Spanish-Dutch wars, yet the wealthy city-states of Italy declined as powers past the 16th century. There are obvious benefits to being the center of the financial system, as London and New York's dominance show. Yet capital is fluid, transnational, and while states benefit from and caused monetization, capital is distinct from statehood. In particular, more attention should be paid to 'real capital', in the productive qualities of physical objects on the land, against capital that exists on paper and in the beliefs of bankers.
It's not a surprise that someone with my academic pedigree would say this, but Coercion, Capital, and European States could really use more engagement with the biopolitical theories of Foucault. Tilly completely misses the development of disciplinary administrative apparatuses as an element of power, and the circulation of disciplinary techniques between states. The nation-state, which links ethnicity, territory, and administration in a sovereign union, can only be understood from a biopolitical perspective.
The final chapter, on the extension of European style states to the the post-colonial, post-World War II order, and the continued resilience of military elites in the third world, has not aged particularly well. I can't blame someone writing at the fall of the USSR for thinking out loud about states in the 21st century and not capturing the War on Terror, the rise of transnational NGOs as instruments of power, and the concerns about failed and failing states, but this book posits an end to history and fails to see beyond it. And finally, if I were a scholar in this field, I'm not sure how I'd use the ideas here. Plot my state on Capital vs Coercion over time? Draw lines? Postulate moderation as good?
As a relatively short book, it's hard to cover every part of the grand theory in detail, but I was dissatisfied. Clearly, coercion and capital are two major forces in history, but as variables they lack explanatory power. Armies look like unitary instruments of coercion from a distance, and in a Clausewitzian framework, are coercive elements of power between states, but this glosses over the factionalism that characterized pre-modern armies, the autonomy of a warrior elite against the agricultural masses, and the difficulty of using coercion systematically against weaker states. While Tilly is right to note that budgets increased in time of war settle at a higher baseline, and to gesture at key phase transitions in warfare, he is vague on key details. In particular, there should be more comparison between strong kings and weak kings at the mercy of major dukes, the rise and fall of the condottieri mercenary regiment, the Levée en masse of the French Revolution, and high-tech warfare of the 20th century. I'd point towards McNeill's The Pursuit of Power and Mallett's Mercenaries and the Masters for the first two, I'm not well-versed enough on the French Revolution to talk about the second one, and the third deserves an entire shelf.
Economics is an area that I am less well-versed on than military history, but I was equally dissatisfied with his explanation of capital. Cities and trade networks serve as the engines of capital accumulation, and wealth is linked to military strength as wars became increasingly financed by loans, but there is more there. The good credit of Dutch merchants helped liberate them from Spanish rule as Spain declared bankruptcy several times during the Spanish-Dutch wars, yet the wealthy city-states of Italy declined as powers past the 16th century. There are obvious benefits to being the center of the financial system, as London and New York's dominance show. Yet capital is fluid, transnational, and while states benefit from and caused monetization, capital is distinct from statehood. In particular, more attention should be paid to 'real capital', in the productive qualities of physical objects on the land, against capital that exists on paper and in the beliefs of bankers.
It's not a surprise that someone with my academic pedigree would say this, but Coercion, Capital, and European States could really use more engagement with the biopolitical theories of Foucault. Tilly completely misses the development of disciplinary administrative apparatuses as an element of power, and the circulation of disciplinary techniques between states. The nation-state, which links ethnicity, territory, and administration in a sovereign union, can only be understood from a biopolitical perspective.
The final chapter, on the extension of European style states to the the post-colonial, post-World War II order, and the continued resilience of military elites in the third world, has not aged particularly well. I can't blame someone writing at the fall of the USSR for thinking out loud about states in the 21st century and not capturing the War on Terror, the rise of transnational NGOs as instruments of power, and the concerns about failed and failing states, but this book posits an end to history and fails to see beyond it. And finally, if I were a scholar in this field, I'm not sure how I'd use the ideas here. Plot my state on Capital vs Coercion over time? Draw lines? Postulate moderation as good?
February 19, 2023
Framing question: "What accounts for the great variation over time and space in the kinds of states that have prevailed in Europe since AD 990, and why did European states eventually converge on different variants of the national state?"
three takeaways:
1 - Extraction and struggle over the means of war propagated state formation in Europe
2 - Variation in types of state formation can be traced to different levels of coercion and capital required for economic production (and therefore the means for war). The spectrum runs from coercive intensive regions (like Russia, with few cities and mostly agriculture) to capital intensive regions (like Venice, where market-oriented production was widespread). In the medium run, these differences produced vastly different state structures.
3 - "The increasing scale of warfare and the knitting together of the European state system through commercial, military, and diplomatic interaction eventually gave the war-making advantage to those states that could field standing armies; states having access to a combination of large rural populations, capitalists, and relatively commercialized economy won out. They set the terms for war, and their form of state became the predominant one in Europe. Eventually European states converged on this form: the national state."
three takeaways:
1 - Extraction and struggle over the means of war propagated state formation in Europe
2 - Variation in types of state formation can be traced to different levels of coercion and capital required for economic production (and therefore the means for war). The spectrum runs from coercive intensive regions (like Russia, with few cities and mostly agriculture) to capital intensive regions (like Venice, where market-oriented production was widespread). In the medium run, these differences produced vastly different state structures.
3 - "The increasing scale of warfare and the knitting together of the European state system through commercial, military, and diplomatic interaction eventually gave the war-making advantage to those states that could field standing armies; states having access to a combination of large rural populations, capitalists, and relatively commercialized economy won out. They set the terms for war, and their form of state became the predominant one in Europe. Eventually European states converged on this form: the national state."
February 24, 2020
Charles Tilly place emphasis on the relationship between the formation of the states and wars. The states today as we know as modern emerged as a result of civil wars or waged wars against others. States played a role as the agent of coercion, extraction&distribution of resources and waging wars. In the early years of its formation states as a coercive force took the advantage of privateering, piracy and mercanery in order to take the control of violence inside and outside of their territories. Therefore, states fought and as long as they waged wars they completed their formation. Wars also caused the emergence of new states. In a sense, one was the other's midwife.
reference
July 3, 2022inventio
Visiting Luke as follower of Ronen Bergman this was one of the skip 20 list on the comparing page.
According to some reviews it is interesting, therefore it could take some time to get it.
LOC gives 1990 and 1992 (this is the edition of 1993 0408) -
1992 -
1990 -
Wiley-Blacwell gives 2 titles with the author -
the other is European Revolutions, 1492 - 1992
bookpage publisher -
previews:
toc pdf, 2 p. -
Cities and States in World History (ch 1) pdf, 37 p. -
index pdf, 14 p. (5 empty)
-.
August 28, 2018
Karşılaştırmalı bir tarih-siyaset-sosyoloji çalışması. Bin yıllık Avrupa tarihine bakıyor ve kıtadaki devletlerin nasıl olup da bu biçimi aldığına yanıt bulmaya çalışıyor.
Tilly Avrupa'daki devlet oluşumunda gözlemlenen farklılıkları, "zor" ve "sermaye" kavramlarıyla açıklıyor. Her coğrafyada, zor ve sermaye kendine özgü bir karışım gösteriyor. Tilly bunları üçe ayırmış: 16. yüzyıla kadar Venedik'te bol sermaye ve onun hizmetine koşulmuş bir zor vardı (sermaye yoğun devlet). Aynı dönemde Rusya ve Osmanlı ise gelişmemiş şehirlere, az sermayeye ve güçlü bir zor aygıtına yaslanmıştı (zor yoğun devlet). İngiltere ve Fransa ise sermaye ve zorun dengelendiği coğrafyalardı (sermayeleşmiş zor).
Buradan yola çıkarak, yazar şu tezi geliştiriyor:
Tilly, daha sonra buna ikinci bir katman ekliyor: Savaş. Savaş Tilly'ye yalnızca iç değil, dış mekanizmaları da hesaba katma imkanı veriyor. Bu devlet oluşumu şöyle şematize edilebilir:
i. Devletler kendi aralarında kaynaklar ve nüfus üzerine rekabete tutuşunca, her devlet kendi içinde savaş hazırlığı yapmaya yöneliyor.
ii. Devlet savaş için gereken kaynağı, kendi nüfusundan zorla ya da pazarlıkla kaynak çekerek yaratmak istiyor.
iii. Bunun için merkezi bir yapı kuruyor. Vergi topluyor, borç ya da haraç alıyor, askere alıyor.
iv. Sermaye devletle pazarlık yapacak güçteyse, bu süreçte imtiyazlar ediniyor (parlamento, danışma kurulları vs.). Karşılığında borç veriyor, silah üretiyor.
v. Küçük köylü, emekçi sınıflar bu duruma örgütlenip direnerek karşılık veriyor. Devlet iç güvenlik aygıtını geliştirerek onları kontrol altına almaya girişiyor. Halkı silahsızlandırıyor ve şiddeti kendi tekeline alıyor. (İlerleyen aşamalarda konut yaparak, ücretsiz sağlık ve eğitim vererek bu kontrolü daha da genişletecek.)
Tilly Avrupa devletlerine özgünlüğünü veren şeyin, benim 5 maddede özetlediğim bu faktörlerin karışımı olduğunu söylüyor. Devletin dışta karşılaştığı rakibin zayıf/güçlü oluşu; içte kaynak çekmek için kurulan mekanizmanın güçlü/etkili/hantal/küçük oluşu vs. gibi unsurlar devlete tarihsel süreç içinde karakterini veriyor. Şu sözünü etkili buldum:
Son olarak, Tilly Avrupa'daki devletlerin gelişim yolunda 4 aşamadan geçtiğini söylüyor: i. Patrimonyal devlet. Egemen sınıf haraç almakla yetinip, merkezi kontrol kurmadığı döneme denk düşer. ii. Komisyoncu devlet. Bu aşamada egemen sınıf savaş işini paralı askerlere, kiralık ordulara havale ediyor ve onlara yağmadan pay veriyor. iii. Ulus-devlet. Fransız Devrimi ile birlikte burjuvazi merkezi bürokratik bir devlet ile ulusal ordular kurmaya yöneliyor. Napolyon savaşlarından sonra bu Avrupa'da norm haline geliyor. iv. Uzmanlaşma dönemi. Orduların savaş işinde uzmanlaştığı ve siyaseti sivillere devrettiği dönem. Bugün hakim hale gelen bu ulus-devlet modeli, Avrupa'da oluştu ve sonra 19-20. yüzyıllarda tüm dünyaya yayıldı diyor Tilly.
Kitap burada özetlediğim süreci, 1000 yıllık tarihin önemli duraklarına bakarak, ülkeler arasındaki farklılıkları örnekleyerek açıklamış. Birkaç nokta dikkatimi çekti:
- Tezler önemli ama kitap biraz eskimiş gibi duruyor.
- Özellikle teoriyi boyutlandırmayı bırakıp, Hobsbawm gibi "tek paragrafta Vietnam savaşı" ya da "1. Dünya Savaşı'na katılmış ülkeler listesi" vermeye başladığında camı açıp bağırasım geldi. Bu türden ilgisiz/derinliksiz/gereğinden fazla ayrıntılı yerler okumayı eziyete dönüştürebiliyor.
- Sermaye ile zor arasına koyduğu keskin ayrım yanıltıcı. Özellikle de Fransız Devrimi'nden ve 19. yüzyıldan itibaren. Devlet yöneticileri hep savaşa susamış, gül gibi geçinip giden sermayeye "hadi savaşalım" deyip duruyor gibi.
- Buna paralel, ekonomi, üretim ilişkileri boyutu çok güdük, savaşa kıyasla hep ikincil duruyor.
- Önce tüm devletlerin aşırı gelişmiş mafya örgütlenmeleri, savaş araçları olduğunu söyleyip, sonra "ulus devletlerin gücünü savaşmak için değil, adaletin ve demokrasinin yaratılması için kullanalım" demesine anlam veremedim. Zaten Tilly'nin anlatısı günümüze yaklaştıkça devletlerin sınıfsal nitelikleri belirsizleşiyor. "Devlet! Ne senle, ne sensiz olmuyor" diyen apolitik bir yaklaşımı var.
- Kudret Emiroğlu'nun Türkçe çevirisinde ufak tefek dikkatsizliklerle karşılaştım ama genelde oldukça okunaklı bir çeviri sunmuş. Gıpta ettim.
Tilly Avrupa'daki devlet oluşumunda gözlemlenen farklılıkları, "zor" ve "sermaye" kavramlarıyla açıklıyor. Her coğrafyada, zor ve sermaye kendine özgü bir karışım gösteriyor. Tilly bunları üçe ayırmış: 16. yüzyıla kadar Venedik'te bol sermaye ve onun hizmetine koşulmuş bir zor vardı (sermaye yoğun devlet). Aynı dönemde Rusya ve Osmanlı ise gelişmemiş şehirlere, az sermayeye ve güçlü bir zor aygıtına yaslanmıştı (zor yoğun devlet). İngiltere ve Fransa ise sermaye ve zorun dengelendiği coğrafyalardı (sermayeleşmiş zor).
Buradan yola çıkarak, yazar şu tezi geliştiriyor:
"Bir devletin toprakları içindeki ana toplumsal sınıfların örgütlenmesi ve bunların devletle ilişkileri, yöneticilerin kaynaklara el koyma stratejilerini, karşılaştıkları direnci, bundan çıkan mücadele biçimini, el koyma ve mücadelenin ortaya çıkardığı kalıcı örgütlenme türlerini ve dolayısıyla kaynaklara el koyma etkinliğini önemli derece etkilemiştir." (s. 40)
Tilly, daha sonra buna ikinci bir katman ekliyor: Savaş. Savaş Tilly'ye yalnızca iç değil, dış mekanizmaları da hesaba katma imkanı veriyor. Bu devlet oluşumu şöyle şematize edilebilir:
i. Devletler kendi aralarında kaynaklar ve nüfus üzerine rekabete tutuşunca, her devlet kendi içinde savaş hazırlığı yapmaya yöneliyor.
ii. Devlet savaş için gereken kaynağı, kendi nüfusundan zorla ya da pazarlıkla kaynak çekerek yaratmak istiyor.
iii. Bunun için merkezi bir yapı kuruyor. Vergi topluyor, borç ya da haraç alıyor, askere alıyor.
iv. Sermaye devletle pazarlık yapacak güçteyse, bu süreçte imtiyazlar ediniyor (parlamento, danışma kurulları vs.). Karşılığında borç veriyor, silah üretiyor.
v. Küçük köylü, emekçi sınıflar bu duruma örgütlenip direnerek karşılık veriyor. Devlet iç güvenlik aygıtını geliştirerek onları kontrol altına almaya girişiyor. Halkı silahsızlandırıyor ve şiddeti kendi tekeline alıyor. (İlerleyen aşamalarda konut yaparak, ücretsiz sağlık ve eğitim vererek bu kontrolü daha da genişletecek.)
Tilly Avrupa devletlerine özgünlüğünü veren şeyin, benim 5 maddede özetlediğim bu faktörlerin karışımı olduğunu söylüyor. Devletin dışta karşılaştığı rakibin zayıf/güçlü oluşu; içte kaynak çekmek için kurulan mekanizmanın güçlü/etkili/hantal/küçük oluşu vs. gibi unsurlar devlete tarihsel süreç içinde karakterini veriyor. Şu sözünü etkili buldum:
"Bizim geriye bakışla rahat biçimde "devlet oluşumu" adını verdiğimiz süreç, sıradan insanların kısa dönemli perspektifinden, fakir köylü ve zanaatkar için acımasız vergiler, çeyiz olacak hayvanlardan zorla alınan satış vergisi, cemaatin gecikmiş vergileri nedeniyle yerel önderlerin esir alınması, itiraz etmeye cesaret eden başkalarının asılması, talihsiz sivil halkın üzerine kaba askerlerin salınması... anlamına geliyordu." (s. 173-174)
Son olarak, Tilly Avrupa'daki devletlerin gelişim yolunda 4 aşamadan geçtiğini söylüyor: i. Patrimonyal devlet. Egemen sınıf haraç almakla yetinip, merkezi kontrol kurmadığı döneme denk düşer. ii. Komisyoncu devlet. Bu aşamada egemen sınıf savaş işini paralı askerlere, kiralık ordulara havale ediyor ve onlara yağmadan pay veriyor. iii. Ulus-devlet. Fransız Devrimi ile birlikte burjuvazi merkezi bürokratik bir devlet ile ulusal ordular kurmaya yöneliyor. Napolyon savaşlarından sonra bu Avrupa'da norm haline geliyor. iv. Uzmanlaşma dönemi. Orduların savaş işinde uzmanlaştığı ve siyaseti sivillere devrettiği dönem. Bugün hakim hale gelen bu ulus-devlet modeli, Avrupa'da oluştu ve sonra 19-20. yüzyıllarda tüm dünyaya yayıldı diyor Tilly.
Kitap burada özetlediğim süreci, 1000 yıllık tarihin önemli duraklarına bakarak, ülkeler arasındaki farklılıkları örnekleyerek açıklamış. Birkaç nokta dikkatimi çekti:
- Tezler önemli ama kitap biraz eskimiş gibi duruyor.
- Özellikle teoriyi boyutlandırmayı bırakıp, Hobsbawm gibi "tek paragrafta Vietnam savaşı" ya da "1. Dünya Savaşı'na katılmış ülkeler listesi" vermeye başladığında camı açıp bağırasım geldi. Bu türden ilgisiz/derinliksiz/gereğinden fazla ayrıntılı yerler okumayı eziyete dönüştürebiliyor.
- Sermaye ile zor arasına koyduğu keskin ayrım yanıltıcı. Özellikle de Fransız Devrimi'nden ve 19. yüzyıldan itibaren. Devlet yöneticileri hep savaşa susamış, gül gibi geçinip giden sermayeye "hadi savaşalım" deyip duruyor gibi.
- Buna paralel, ekonomi, üretim ilişkileri boyutu çok güdük, savaşa kıyasla hep ikincil duruyor.
- Önce tüm devletlerin aşırı gelişmiş mafya örgütlenmeleri, savaş araçları olduğunu söyleyip, sonra "ulus devletlerin gücünü savaşmak için değil, adaletin ve demokrasinin yaratılması için kullanalım" demesine anlam veremedim. Zaten Tilly'nin anlatısı günümüze yaklaştıkça devletlerin sınıfsal nitelikleri belirsizleşiyor. "Devlet! Ne senle, ne sensiz olmuyor" diyen apolitik bir yaklaşımı var.
- Kudret Emiroğlu'nun Türkçe çevirisinde ufak tefek dikkatsizliklerle karşılaştım ama genelde oldukça okunaklı bir çeviri sunmuş. Gıpta ettim.
September 4, 2024
Seriously heavy handed historical scholarship regarding state formation in Europe.state is in government not u.s territory/ local government.
His central question is how European states since 990 developed into the their full fledged present realities.
Different states/governments had different histories yet arrived at the nation state which is nearly the same across Europe .
His theory is complex and it relates to the use of force to get money to compete militarily. And then as the government receives threats both inward and outward , it adapts. This adaptation often requires the government to become larger and more bureaucratic. To pay for that expansion, the government has to use force in one of many ways to get more money. The cycle continues.
I’m giving a stupidly simple over simplification. He has a theoretical scheme which eludes me, using the two concepts of coercion , and capital.
He then makes a lot of bizarre charts mapping the relation of these concepts to the overall thrust of the book .
I’ll admit I read it quicker than I should have.
This is a HIGHLY reputed book in political science . And he is not to be dismissed with a wave of the hand.
This is a truly sophisticated scholar.
Perhaps I’ll give the book a second try in the future.
Overall. He knows his audience. That being people in his field . The book is dense . Good luck
His central question is how European states since 990 developed into the their full fledged present realities.
Different states/governments had different histories yet arrived at the nation state which is nearly the same across Europe .
His theory is complex and it relates to the use of force to get money to compete militarily. And then as the government receives threats both inward and outward , it adapts. This adaptation often requires the government to become larger and more bureaucratic. To pay for that expansion, the government has to use force in one of many ways to get more money. The cycle continues.
I’m giving a stupidly simple over simplification. He has a theoretical scheme which eludes me, using the two concepts of coercion , and capital.
He then makes a lot of bizarre charts mapping the relation of these concepts to the overall thrust of the book .
I’ll admit I read it quicker than I should have.
This is a HIGHLY reputed book in political science . And he is not to be dismissed with a wave of the hand.
This is a truly sophisticated scholar.
Perhaps I’ll give the book a second try in the future.
Overall. He knows his audience. That being people in his field . The book is dense . Good luck
August 31, 2008
In these days of historical specialization, a comprehensive treatment of any subject is most welcome, whatever its faults. Tilly has indeed set himself a daunting task, namely to explain the development of state formation in Europe over the last millennium; specifically, he seeks to explain why a pattern of divergent state formations ultimately converged in the form of the modern nation-state. To the chagrin of social scientists, he assumes that war has always been the central object of the state; economic/political determinism is complementary but subordinate. Given that the nation-state has enjoyed the greatest military success throughout the centuries, all states have been forced either to move in that direction or cease to exist.
Tilly makes many good points. He reminds us that rulers did not operate with a specific plan of state formation in mind--they created states only in conjunction with certain of their subjects. Given geographic and temporal circumstances, rulers could only pursue increasingly costly military ventures by bargaining with power blocks within their subject population for the necessary resources--soldiers, rations, etc. Where capital was not accumulated and concentrated, the balance of power lay with landowners. Where a city had emerged with a concentration of capital, proto-capitalists held power. Where capital was unavailable, the ruler could resort to methods of coercion of his subjects. Political and economic conditions dictated the bargaining terms with which the ruler sought to win support for his military goals. Tilly argues that different combinations of coercion and capital created diverse types of states. As the demands of war increased, the power blocks which rulers depended on gained more and more advantage over them, thus winning for themselves concessions that increased their standing in the state's government. In effect, the era of bureaucratization was born. The means of capitalization and coercion were incorporated into the structure of the state, and thus was born the nation-state. Essentially, the nation-state has proven to be the best at mobilizing and fighting wars, leading lesser states to either emulate it or risk being conquered by it.
Tilly offers a somewhat simplistic argument, acknowledging the criticisms he duly expects will come. State formation is portrayed as little more than an afterthought of warmongering. The accumulation of royal concessions in time laid the foundation for permanent infrastructure. By seeking revenues and compliance from a subject population, rulers eventually found themselves having to provide for their subjects' welfare--via production, distribution, transportation, etc. In the most modern states, social spending now outweighs military spending; this has served to shorten the length of wars while greatly increasing their intensity. A major contribution of this book is its implication that social history by itself does not explain the emergence of modern states and societies. Some will find Tilly's simplistic model untenable, but I find it quite logical and compelling. His argument (and the wealth of resources on which he draws) certainly warrants serious thought on the part of the reader.
Tilly makes many good points. He reminds us that rulers did not operate with a specific plan of state formation in mind--they created states only in conjunction with certain of their subjects. Given geographic and temporal circumstances, rulers could only pursue increasingly costly military ventures by bargaining with power blocks within their subject population for the necessary resources--soldiers, rations, etc. Where capital was not accumulated and concentrated, the balance of power lay with landowners. Where a city had emerged with a concentration of capital, proto-capitalists held power. Where capital was unavailable, the ruler could resort to methods of coercion of his subjects. Political and economic conditions dictated the bargaining terms with which the ruler sought to win support for his military goals. Tilly argues that different combinations of coercion and capital created diverse types of states. As the demands of war increased, the power blocks which rulers depended on gained more and more advantage over them, thus winning for themselves concessions that increased their standing in the state's government. In effect, the era of bureaucratization was born. The means of capitalization and coercion were incorporated into the structure of the state, and thus was born the nation-state. Essentially, the nation-state has proven to be the best at mobilizing and fighting wars, leading lesser states to either emulate it or risk being conquered by it.
Tilly offers a somewhat simplistic argument, acknowledging the criticisms he duly expects will come. State formation is portrayed as little more than an afterthought of warmongering. The accumulation of royal concessions in time laid the foundation for permanent infrastructure. By seeking revenues and compliance from a subject population, rulers eventually found themselves having to provide for their subjects' welfare--via production, distribution, transportation, etc. In the most modern states, social spending now outweighs military spending; this has served to shorten the length of wars while greatly increasing their intensity. A major contribution of this book is its implication that social history by itself does not explain the emergence of modern states and societies. Some will find Tilly's simplistic model untenable, but I find it quite logical and compelling. His argument (and the wealth of resources on which he draws) certainly warrants serious thought on the part of the reader.
October 25, 2016
Review: Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992 by Charles Tilly
For some time I have wanted to understand the evolution of kingdoms into modern states. This book seemed to offer answers. There is a sense in which Tilly’s answer is contained in the title: coercion, meaning war, and later, police power, and capital, meaning mercantilism (as opposed to a society of great landlords). Tilly constructs a series of combinations of the two forces which, he suggests, explains the development of European states.
This explanation is not surprising inasmuch as one would expect that power—the alpha male—would eventually gather riches, capital. Tilly points out situations where, when power is not strong, the less powerful in the society can gather riches through mercantile transactions and become brokers, keeping the power from becoming absolute.
The land owning societies rarely developed mercantile capital and evolved into modern states by reason of needing to go to war, an expensive undertaking. War (coercion) is the fundamental driver in the evolution of modern European states because it is so expensive: leaders need to recruit popular support, which empowers subjects, who ask for things like political rights, education, security, etc.
Although the explanation is fundamentally simplistic, it will have to do until a more persuasive analysis comes along. Thus, I have an answer, but not without cost.
The book seems to be or to wish to be a textbook. Two predictable consequences of such ambition are, one, the author will seldom use a short, plainly understood word where he can find a longer, less understood word, and two, the author will pepper the text with obscure, preferably very obscure test words, in this text, the names of states few non-specialists have ever heard. How else to tell if students have really read the book?
But that is not then end of the cost. “Repetition is the mother of learning,” we are told, and Tilly repeats, and repeats, and repeats, until one learns that repetition is also the mother of tedium. This may be the most boring book I have ever read. Its modest length, although padded by diagrams so obscure as to be meaningless, is at least ten thousand words too long. If it were better written, it might make a good magazine article.
Mr. Graziano is the author of From the Cross to the Church. The Emergence of the Church from the Chaos of the Crucifixion.
For some time I have wanted to understand the evolution of kingdoms into modern states. This book seemed to offer answers. There is a sense in which Tilly’s answer is contained in the title: coercion, meaning war, and later, police power, and capital, meaning mercantilism (as opposed to a society of great landlords). Tilly constructs a series of combinations of the two forces which, he suggests, explains the development of European states.
This explanation is not surprising inasmuch as one would expect that power—the alpha male—would eventually gather riches, capital. Tilly points out situations where, when power is not strong, the less powerful in the society can gather riches through mercantile transactions and become brokers, keeping the power from becoming absolute.
The land owning societies rarely developed mercantile capital and evolved into modern states by reason of needing to go to war, an expensive undertaking. War (coercion) is the fundamental driver in the evolution of modern European states because it is so expensive: leaders need to recruit popular support, which empowers subjects, who ask for things like political rights, education, security, etc.
Although the explanation is fundamentally simplistic, it will have to do until a more persuasive analysis comes along. Thus, I have an answer, but not without cost.
The book seems to be or to wish to be a textbook. Two predictable consequences of such ambition are, one, the author will seldom use a short, plainly understood word where he can find a longer, less understood word, and two, the author will pepper the text with obscure, preferably very obscure test words, in this text, the names of states few non-specialists have ever heard. How else to tell if students have really read the book?
But that is not then end of the cost. “Repetition is the mother of learning,” we are told, and Tilly repeats, and repeats, and repeats, until one learns that repetition is also the mother of tedium. This may be the most boring book I have ever read. Its modest length, although padded by diagrams so obscure as to be meaningless, is at least ten thousand words too long. If it were better written, it might make a good magazine article.
Mr. Graziano is the author of From the Cross to the Church. The Emergence of the Church from the Chaos of the Crucifixion.
January 11, 2022
Charlie here is a true believer in God-the-Government. And he is appalled by the Satanic wielders of Capital and their corruption of the perfect God. And, like an Islamist preacher for war, Tilly lacks the brain power to grasp his context. So the Government coercion to force the people into paying taxes, that is not an issue. Because Tilly knows some of the money collected this way is rightfully his. Is Tilly a hypocrite? Not at all. Just another government certified "scientist".
March 12, 2023
"Over Europe as a whole, alterations in state control of capital and of coercion between AD 900 and the present have followed two parallel arcs. At first, during the age of patrimonialism, European monarchs generally extracted what capital they needed as tribute or rent from lands and populations that lay under their immediate control - often within stringent contractual limits on the amounts they could demand. In the time of brokerage (especially between 1400 and 1700 or so), they relied heavily on formally independent capitalists for loans, for management of revenue-producing enterprises, and for collection of taxes. By the eighteenth century, however, the time of nationalization had come; many sovereigns were incorporating the fiscal apparatus directly into the state structure, and drastically curtailing the involvement of independent contractors. The last century or so, the age of specialization, has brought a sharper separation of fiscal from military organization and an increasing involvement of states in the oversight of fixed capital.
On the side of coercion, a similar evolution took place. During the period of patrimonialism, monarchs drew armed force from retainers, vassals, and militias who owed them personal service - but again within significant contractual limits. In the age of brokerage (again especially between 1400 and 1700) they turned increasingly to mercenary forces supplied to them by contractors who retained considerable freedom of action. Next, during nationalization, sovereigns absorbed armies and navies directly into the state's administrative structure, eventually turning away from foreign mercenaries and hiring or conscripting the bulk of their troops from their own citizenries. Since the mid-nineteenth century, in a phase of specialization, European states have consolidated the system of citizen militaries backed by large civilian bureaucracies, and split off police forces specialized in the use of coercion outside of war.
By the nineteenth century, most European states had internalized both armed forces and fiscal mechanisms; they thus reduced the governmental roles of tax farmers, military contractors, and other independent middlemen. Their rulers then continued to bargain with capitalists and other classes for credit, revenues, manpower, and the necessities of war. Bargaining, in its turn, created numerous new claims on the state: pensions, payments to the poor, public education, city planning, and much more. In the process, states changed from magnified war machines into multiple-purpose organizations. Their efforts to control coercion and capital continued, but in the company of a wide variety of regulatory, compensatory, distributive, and protective activities."
On the side of coercion, a similar evolution took place. During the period of patrimonialism, monarchs drew armed force from retainers, vassals, and militias who owed them personal service - but again within significant contractual limits. In the age of brokerage (again especially between 1400 and 1700) they turned increasingly to mercenary forces supplied to them by contractors who retained considerable freedom of action. Next, during nationalization, sovereigns absorbed armies and navies directly into the state's administrative structure, eventually turning away from foreign mercenaries and hiring or conscripting the bulk of their troops from their own citizenries. Since the mid-nineteenth century, in a phase of specialization, European states have consolidated the system of citizen militaries backed by large civilian bureaucracies, and split off police forces specialized in the use of coercion outside of war.
By the nineteenth century, most European states had internalized both armed forces and fiscal mechanisms; they thus reduced the governmental roles of tax farmers, military contractors, and other independent middlemen. Their rulers then continued to bargain with capitalists and other classes for credit, revenues, manpower, and the necessities of war. Bargaining, in its turn, created numerous new claims on the state: pensions, payments to the poor, public education, city planning, and much more. In the process, states changed from magnified war machines into multiple-purpose organizations. Their efforts to control coercion and capital continued, but in the company of a wide variety of regulatory, compensatory, distributive, and protective activities."
August 8, 2020
Charles Tilly's work is a strange academic hybrid - he's obviously responding to the new Marxist scholarship of Perry Anderson, but he's also working in the militaristic, international relations model of "men talking about states" that bears about as much relationship to reality as my childhood games of Axis and Allies do to Second World War historians.
Tilly was also writing at a time when the giants of political studies exerted a powerful influence, and his attempts at grand synthesis are mixed with some delightfully naive visualizations and the requisite blanket statements that cross the verge into arrogance when compared with more cautious, minatory political science today. The positive spin to all of this is that Tilly arrives at a vast canvas in which he can make fairly cutting statements about the powers of states and those who lead them which continue to be important reminders to us today.
To see how the bargain between those with arms and those with political capital evolved over time and in varying relationships to capital accumulation and regional specificities is useful and interesting. This leads to a better understanding of the ways in which citizens eventually became able to extract concessions of a kind from states. Now, those who believe in human rights would complicate this picture usefully, but the fundamentally ambiguous relationship between the state, capital, the coercive forces that use and are used by the state, and citizens are not anywhere as simple as people today may assume - that the people demand and the state obeys. For these reasons, Tilly remains very much worth reading.
Tilly was also writing at a time when the giants of political studies exerted a powerful influence, and his attempts at grand synthesis are mixed with some delightfully naive visualizations and the requisite blanket statements that cross the verge into arrogance when compared with more cautious, minatory political science today. The positive spin to all of this is that Tilly arrives at a vast canvas in which he can make fairly cutting statements about the powers of states and those who lead them which continue to be important reminders to us today.
To see how the bargain between those with arms and those with political capital evolved over time and in varying relationships to capital accumulation and regional specificities is useful and interesting. This leads to a better understanding of the ways in which citizens eventually became able to extract concessions of a kind from states. Now, those who believe in human rights would complicate this picture usefully, but the fundamentally ambiguous relationship between the state, capital, the coercive forces that use and are used by the state, and citizens are not anywhere as simple as people today may assume - that the people demand and the state obeys. For these reasons, Tilly remains very much worth reading.
February 8, 2024
Tilly overstates the importance of war in nation-building, while simultaneously completely ignoring the importance of the Catholic Church throughout the Medieval period. Instead, he offers a rather overtly simplistic bimodal model of absolutist-patriarchial and parliamentarian
-bureaucratic states. However, how does he explain the nation-building of England into a modern nation-state without even mentioning Henry VIII's founding of the English Church or for France and the French crown's ability for clerical investiture? The Reformation? The Black Death? Instead, Tilly goes into great depth explaining how the different polities arose out of a need to obtain capital to fight wars. As wars became longer and more costly, kingdoms began creating different administrative apparatuses and whichever proto-state developed its political-economic path depended on what that access to capital looked like. Yet there are a variety of states that existed and disproved Tilly's model - Prussia was both absolutist and highly bureaucratized, and Poland was both parliamentarian and patriarchial.
-bureaucratic states. However, how does he explain the nation-building of England into a modern nation-state without even mentioning Henry VIII's founding of the English Church or for France and the French crown's ability for clerical investiture? The Reformation? The Black Death? Instead, Tilly goes into great depth explaining how the different polities arose out of a need to obtain capital to fight wars. As wars became longer and more costly, kingdoms began creating different administrative apparatuses and whichever proto-state developed its political-economic path depended on what that access to capital looked like. Yet there are a variety of states that existed and disproved Tilly's model - Prussia was both absolutist and highly bureaucratized, and Poland was both parliamentarian and patriarchial.
May 8, 2025
为什么历史上类型那么多的欧洲国家最后都归集成民族国家？ 一千年的欧洲历史中的“国家”是怎么演变的。 Tilly确实在漫无目的和狭缝之间找到了“强制集中””资本集中”和”资本性强制”这一个非常有说服力的抓手。尤其是这些抓手在解释历史上诸如热那亚，更早的罗马帝国，俄罗斯帝国这种明显不逊于英国巅峰影响力的国家是怎么丧失优势的。
强制与国家&资本与城市构成了全书十分重要的一组张力。Tilly对于战争与战争资金的筹措对于国家的意义十分关注，其中就包括信贷，征税等方式。而两种逻辑下的国家对于战争资金的筹措的方式是很不一样的。资本密集国家追求贸易垄断，用较为柔和的商业税和后续的信贷支撑军事，不需要庞大的官僚机构和中间阶级。而强制密集大国往往需要把经历用于殖民、奴役本土劳动力和榨取资源，并往往倾向于通过土地税直接征用，这就给了中间阶级的地主贵族下放的权力。
对当今世界的讨论稍显仓促结尾，但无疑Schiner式的自上而下与自下而上，备战和因备战而积聚资源的方式对于国家的影响的思路是宝贵的。
本书对于方法论的研究也很有启示。尤其是第一章最后，指出一个其他变量的欠讨论的质疑是远远不够的。
强制与国家&资本与城市构成了全书十分重要的一组张力。Tilly对于战争与战争资金的筹措对于国家的意义十分关注，其中就包括信贷，征税等方式。而两种逻辑下的国家对于战争资金的筹措的方式是很不一样的。资本密集国家追求贸易垄断，用较为柔和的商业税和后续的信贷支撑军事，不需要庞大的官僚机构和中间阶级。而强制密集大国往往需要把经历用于殖民、奴役本土劳动力和榨取资源，并往往倾向于通过土地税直接征用，这就给了中间阶级的地主贵族下放的权力。
对当今世界的讨论稍显仓促结尾，但无疑Schiner式的自上而下与自下而上，备战和因备战而积聚资源的方式对于国家的影响的思路是宝贵的。
本书对于方法论的研究也很有启示。尤其是第一章最后，指出一个其他变量的欠讨论的质疑是远远不够的。
June 24, 2025
Un punto di riferimento soprattutto per quanto riguarda l'età moderna. Racconta una teoria illuminante sulla storia di come si sono formati gli stati nazionali in Europa e oltre. A mio avviso in certi punti è un po' dispersivo, sembra quasi distrarsi dalla tesi principale e toccare brevemente altri ambiti di indagine; inoltre tende a ripetere moltissimo concetti già detti e ridetti. Ad ogni modo ne consiglio la lettura agli interessati, è senz'altro un libro lucido, chiaro e ricco di dati.
March 14, 2025
The idea that states operate with the same functions as an organized crime syndicate, while very euro-centric, is an idea that applies very nicely to the formation of European statehood. It also helps to explore the failings of former European colonies that fail to state build as effectively. Amazing theory although he can be a little long-winded.
January 16, 2023
This book is a must-read for anyone interested in how modern European states were formed.
April 22, 2025
Interesting perspective
May 2, 2025
"War made the (European)k state and the (European) state made war."
July 23, 2025
Better than ‘The Rise and Fall of Great Powers’ and shorter. Great cover, especially in that library laminate.
June 12, 2022
In this book, Charles Tilly (1929-2008) seeks to sketch the development of the European state and state-system. His main thesis is that rulers make war and in doing so, they build up an administrative apparatus to better access their territories' resources - the state. However, Tilly notes that this development can take numerous paths, depending on the environment it operates in. He thus creates three idealized models: the capital intensive route, the coercion intensive route and the capitalized-coercion route. The capital intensive route is taken in areas with lots of readily available capital (think heavily industrialized and commercial regions such as the Low Countries and Northern Italy). Here the resources needed are readily available and the state institutions that develop are often quite light, and representative of society's dominant classes. In the coercion-intensive route (think Prussia and Russia, but also Scandinavia). Capital is scarce and the state develops in form of a huge coercive apparatus to extract the necessary resources. This is often done in cooperation with huge landlords who gains strong controll over their peasants (cf. Prussian and Russian serfs). However, other alliances also exists, for example Sweden, where the state also cooperated with a huge landowning peasantry which it controlled through state officials and clergy. The last part is the capitalized-coercion path. In a sense, these are areas which contain both areas with lots of capital and areas without, for example France and England. In this case, a strong state develops which cooperates both with landlords and with capitalists (often through loans). It is this route which creates what we would call the "modern territorial state". (Tilly uses "national state" which he contends is different from a "nation-state" but in my opinion, such a term only creates more confusion). These states provided a template for other state's to follow.
Timewise, Tilly discusses the whole period from 990 to 1990 (990 arbitrarily choosen to have a thousand year time-span). But in reality he could have written 1490 to 1990 as most of his focus is on the early modern period, with some references further back.
All in all, an interesting though perhaps somewhat disappointing read. Tilly is often quoted by scholars and historians of state-building. This book does contain some interesting observations, but it isn't providing any especially revolutionary revelations for a reader in 2022. It is well worth a read for those interested in state-building and European history, but other books should come first.
Timewise, Tilly discusses the whole period from 990 to 1990 (990 arbitrarily choosen to have a thousand year time-span). But in reality he could have written 1490 to 1990 as most of his focus is on the early modern period, with some references further back.
All in all, an interesting though perhaps somewhat disappointing read. Tilly is often quoted by scholars and historians of state-building. This book does contain some interesting observations, but it isn't providing any especially revolutionary revelations for a reader in 2022. It is well worth a read for those interested in state-building and European history, but other books should come first.
May 18, 2016
This is a partial re-read — I read portions of this around five years ago, and just re-visited it. In brief, the theory argues that European states started with varying endowments of capital and coercive resources and political actors who controlled them; the leaders of the proto-states drew upon these resources to consolidate their control over internal and external rivals; in doing so the most successful formed professional bureaucracies (usually formed in war, with a ratchet effect that led to their continuation in some form afterwards) that were better able to mobilize revenues and the means of coercion; this gave these more modern nation-state structures advantages against other state forms that those rivals were obliged to either copy or otherwise be swallowed up by in a process of continual competition; and the process of extracting or bargaining for resources shaped the form of the state and the degree to which state leaders were obliged to make concessions and compromises in terms of representation, public service provision, etc.
This is a foundational text that echoes throughout the state formation literature, though having read more on the subject in the intervening period since I first picked this up, some of the novelty and presentation of the argument suffers somewhat through comparison with other authors who may have unpacked aspects of the subject in more generalizable or clearly written forms than what Tilly puts forward here. I think the coercive-centric vs capital-centric categories may be a little too broad when making detailed comparative political analysis about actual political organizations, bargaining, coalition management, etc. Some of the points about how states with potential access to high levels of (more easily taxable) mobile capital could thrive with comparatively light administrative structures but that were ultimately unable to compete with larger states that more effectively mixed coercive and capital resources were interesting to consider. I think the explanation of the political logic of coercion-intensive states is less well-developed, though, and the factors that could produce the magic capital-coercive mix to produce a modern nation-state are less clear.
In the end it’s essential but not the easiest read on the subject.
This is a foundational text that echoes throughout the state formation literature, though having read more on the subject in the intervening period since I first picked this up, some of the novelty and presentation of the argument suffers somewhat through comparison with other authors who may have unpacked aspects of the subject in more generalizable or clearly written forms than what Tilly puts forward here. I think the coercive-centric vs capital-centric categories may be a little too broad when making detailed comparative political analysis about actual political organizations, bargaining, coalition management, etc. Some of the points about how states with potential access to high levels of (more easily taxable) mobile capital could thrive with comparatively light administrative structures but that were ultimately unable to compete with larger states that more effectively mixed coercive and capital resources were interesting to consider. I think the explanation of the political logic of coercion-intensive states is less well-developed, though, and the factors that could produce the magic capital-coercive mix to produce a modern nation-state are less clear.
In the end it’s essential but not the easiest read on the subject.
April 16, 2013
Really good examination of the formation of the modern state, specifically the modern European national state. The author takes 1000 years of European history and compacts it into 227 pages using only what he needs to show the three paths taken. He openly admits the problems of doing this, such as skimming over important events, but does not contort history to make his argument. Parts of it could be further developed, and the sections of his last chapter on the forming of states in the modern world outside Europe had major flaws. Most of the last chapter probably could have been omitted without any problems though. Overall a great book, though do not use it as a definitive history of the last thousand years of Europe, or assume his idea is applicable to all situations as it is not and does not really claim to be.
February 10, 2016
War made state, and the state made war. Tilly's thesis in this book is that the modern state rose as a function of the need to make war, and to extract funding for those wars from the populations within the territorial controlled by the national state. Overtime, this necessitate all polities to adopt the same model.
March 20, 2008
Tilly at his best!!! Excellent discussion of state development in Europe in the early modern period. Tilly is a master historian. He might not be right about everything, but there's alot of really important stuff here.
March 26, 2007
An ambitious empirical study tracing the role of warfare in the creation of the modern European state. It is a little tedious but comes to profound, hard-won conclusions.
February 22, 2015
Read this if you are at all into politcal science. Charles Tilly proves that he was the master of academias "big-wave " surfing.
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