Legitimate Violence Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Legitimate violence emerged as a core theme in social science with the lasting contribution made by German sociologist Max Weber in the early twentieth century. Initially known as (legitimate) use of physical force, the concept became a central contribution in modern sociology and more particularly in the definition of modern states. This line of thought was continued by a number of theorists who described the process by which states, at least in western Europe, became more centralized, impersonal, authoritative, and resourceful. The interest in the capacity of modern states to control violence is a recurrent theme in social science today as numerous societies are affected by illegitimate, public, and private types of violence.

Legitimate Violence And The Weberian Sociology Of The State

Max Weber’s sociology is central to the explanation of social phenomena and institutions illustrating the various configurations of power, legitimacy, and authority. The importance of these basic processes makes Weberian thinking clearly distinct within the classical sociological contributions. Only in this analytical context can the functioning of political and nonpolitical associations be understood. By Weber’s definition, “a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force” (Gewaltmonopol des Staates) within a given territory. This definition indicates that legitimate use of physical force in the form of violence is a distinctive instrument of modern states but is nonetheless limited in usage and not the only instrument used. Weber considers states, or any other social organization, unable to be defined in terms of function as this range is extremely diverse. Instead, the states should be defined in terms of their specific means, that is, the use of physical force.

According to Weber, other types of groups, such as kinship and household groups, medieval guilds, and churches, have historically used violence against their members and external entities to attain their objectives. The physical force used by the state is different, however, in that it is exercised over a continuous community and territory. And even though the use of violence by the state is a specific instrument, it is not an exclusive one. It is a potential and last resort that a political institution may use to attain its goals.

Yet while this is a common characteristic of state action, there exists a huge variation in capacity. Despite their general claim and legitimacy, some states are more successful than others in monopolizing the use of physical force. A key variable describing this capacity is the development and functionality of the administration put in place to enforce binding decisions and use physical force against the members of the community or other states if needed.

For Weber, the nationalization of the legal order and the monopolization of the legitimate use of force developed gradually, starting in late western European Middle Ages. It required the dismantling or embedding of military forces into the political order and purposeful action by agents of the latter. The use of mercenary and nobility-sponsored forces was replaced by professional and national armies supported and funded by the central state. Groups and organizations primarily defined by their economic and peace interests supported the state in this process. Others demonstrated a natural resistance to this monopolization—groups such as the nobility, which previously had the power to use violence for its own purposes, resisted the ultimately successful effort to centralize the political system and contain private violence.

Legitimate Violence And The Neo-Weberian Sociology Of The State

A significant number of social scientists accepted political violence and its containment by the state as constitutive to the modern political processes taking place primarily in western Europe starting with the seventeenth century. Following Weber’s initial insights, they developed more detailed explanatory frameworks to capture dynamics and relevance of violence in modern politics. Norbert Elias places the centralization of political power and monopolization of violence in a larger process of “civilizing.” Bertrand de Jouvenel explains how the power of the state is permanently increasing, allowing central governments to use without control violence against their own citizens. Charles Tilly puts the capacity of states to organize coercion at the core of the process of state formation in Europe. As state agents and structures stripped other entities of their rights and capabilities to use violence, states, in turn, had to extend their security apparatus and offer external and internal protection services to client domestic groups. Michael Mann defined successful modern states as having two types of power—despotic and infrastructural—both converging to offer stability to the national political order. Anthony Giddens indicates that internal pacification is a key dimension of state action as part of a larger process of increasing its administrative power. Other authors highlighted the potential superior capacity of states to control and organize social interaction. Michel Foucault, for instance, departing from the Weberian primary focus on monopolization of violence, initiated a research agenda dedicated to the advance of state capacity as “governmentality” starting with the eighteenth century.

The Continuous Relevance Of Legitimate Violence In Contemporary Politics

Legitimate violence is a recurrent theme in the social sciences. Violence and state capacity are central in three topical areas. First, the emergence of totalitarian/authoritarian regimes in the twentieth century highlighted the dangers of unaccountable political and military power. In the cases of these types of regimes, the ability to monopolize violence is secured to such an extent that it becomes the main instrument and support of political rule. At the other end of the state power spectrum are countries that experience civil conflicts and state weakness and failure. These phenomena were present especially in countries gaining independence after colonial rule and the countries facing violent regime change and state dissolution after the end of the cold war in the early 1990s. In this latter case, the role of violence was related to the difficulties of building a recognized and efficient political center able to contain violence and project a legitimate form of it. Third, the institutionalization of human rights regimes created a normative obstacle against illegitimate state violence. The human rights regime is supported by specialized national and international institutions and justifies external intervention in conflict situations, especially after the end of the cold war.

Bibliography:

Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell, 2005.
De Jouvenel, Bertrand. Du Pouvoir. Histoire Naturelle de Sa Croissance. Geneva: Les Editions du Cheval Aile, 1945.
Giddens, Anthony. The Nation-state and Violence. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity, 1985.
Foucault, Michel, G. Burchell, C. Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds. The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Mann, Michael. The Sources of Social Power:The Rise of Classes and Nation States, 1760–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Tilly, Charles, ed. Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990–1992. Malden, U.K.: Blackwell, 1990.
The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975.
Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946.
The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947.

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