The purpose of the essay is to review the main points of Charles Tilly’s “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime” and to relate author’s approach with the South Caucasus region’s state formation history for further research. It would be better to know briefly about the author before delving into the central theme of this article. Charles Tilly was an American sociologist, political scientist and historian who was also referred as “the founding father of 21st-century sociology”. His main works cover issues ranging from democratization, state formation to revolutions and social movements. Charles Tilly is especially well-known for his aphorism “war made the state and the state made the war” which also concerns this essay’s underlying argument. This saying represents Tilly’s famous linkage between warfare and modern state formation in Europe. As said, the article, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime” which was published in 1985, is one of the writings that deals with the mentioned topic. There author argues that national states and their organizational capacity have been formed as a result of involving warfare and acting like a racketeer. He asserts the analogy between state making and organized crime, and its role in formation of modern states. Final strong forms of institutions in modern states such as bureaucracy, police, military forces, according to Tilly, are the result of presence of war in state formation as occurred in European case. Otherwise, in the absence of war likeliness to have strong institutions is very low as observed from the states emerged after decolonization. In the main body of the essay the respective article’s primary arguments and explanations will be summarized, and in the end, some comments and this approach’s potential application to the South Caucasian states will shortly be evaluated. With regard to the South Caucasus region’s state formation history two critical questions will be presented for further examination.
For the purpose of completeness terminological clarification is required in order to provide clear understanding. In general, state formation process and its various accounts tend to explain how personalistic rule has been replaced by formal authority structures (Spruyt, 2002). There are several explanations with regard to given phenomenon which especially try to describe formation of modern states. For example, according to bellicist account in which Charles Tilly himself are one of the main contributors, the main driving factor behind state formation was higher levels of warfare, which created more centralized, higher-capacity states. There wars are a great impulse to centralizing state power and building institutional capacity. Apart from bellicist account, there are economic-trade, cultural, geographic explanations trying to understand the development path. However, Charles Tilly often said that the term “state formation” which he coined was used in a way that he did not intend. Tilly’s explanations actually describes “state transformation” as a historical and evolutionary path, not “formation” which illustrates teleological process (Tilly, 2006). Nevertheless, this essay will stick to the original term – state formation, with bearing in mind author’s actual intention.
Another term is the “state” itself to which Charles Tilly is trying to give explanation. In the article, it is noted that “this essay, then, concerns the place of organized means of violence in the growth and change of those peculiar forms of government we call national states: relatively centralized, differentiated organizations the officials of which more or less successfully claim control over the chief concentrated means of violence within a population inhabiting a large, contiguous territory.” In referring to national states its difference from nation-states should be pointed out. Charles Tilly makes this distinction in his book “Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990 – 1992” by saying “the term national state, regrettably, does not necessarily mean nation-state, a state whose people share a strong linguistic, religious, and symbolic identity” (Tilly, 1990: p. 2-3). In the same book, he differentiate three types of states that have proliferated throughout history: tribute-taking empires, city-states or urban federations and national states. The first one possessed a huge military and extractive mechanism, while local management used to be left to regional lords. The second form of states relied on coalitions and consultative apparatus in times of war and extraction, but these were not sustainable in terms of strength of state system. However, the third one, national states were able to consolidate military, extractive and administrative structure in order to coordinate them from one central structure (Tilly, 1990: p. 21). From this distinction, it can be said that author’s main intention was to interpret the process how former two forms of states transformed into national states.
Charles Tilly starts with the description of the similarity between functioning of governments and that of protection racket. Protection racket as a form of organized crime with the leadership of local strong man “forces merchants to pay tribute in order to avoid damage” or threat which the strong man actually himself creates. In addition, the same strong man commits to protect these merchants from other dangers and affairs settle. Tilly argues that who organize the best and reliable protection from other local racketeers with relatively low price makes the “best offer of all”. In this regard, work practice of governments bears great resemblance to that of racketeers. From the theory, can be seen that governments offer protection from internal and external violence. In return, some charges are demanded in the form of for example, taxes and who object this order are labeled as “anarchists”, “subversives”. Tilly proceeds that actually the danger which governments commit to protect the subjects is imaginary or consequences of its own activities: governments as a main producers and drivers of wars and extractive actions, which are de facto threats to citizens, function in a same manner with racketeers.
Nevertheless, there is one distinction: racketeers run their business “without the sanctity” of governments. Then, the question of why governments have this advantage over racketeers arises. There another question, question of legitimacy sets into motion. What defines the legitimate or illegitimate use of force? Actually, author puts little emphasis on this issue. In his opinion, contrary to contractual explanations, whatever the justification of use of violence, be it consent of the governed, or some abstract principle, these conditions only explain or justify the tendency of state to monopolize violence. Tilly argues that the state differs from other organizations in its inclination to monopolize and organize violence. At that point, the Weberian definition of the state as referring “the monopoly on the legitimated use of physical force” exactly corresponds to Tilly’s description (Weber, 2015). Moreover, Max Weber argues that such form of monopoly should emerge in tandem with legitimation process. Actually being the sole supplier of violence in a limited territory creates environment for governments to make more convincing offers than their illegitimate counterparts do. It can be tested with the example of failed or weak states. “Failed state occurs when sovereignty over claimed territory has collapsed or was never effectively established at all” (Samuels, 2013: p. 29) meaning where state lose its monopoly on violence and legitimacy, cannot provide public services and raise taxes, has no say in international arena, there another forces, organizations such as terrorist groups, criminal organizations, militias etc. emerge. Some of the striking examples of this tendency can be observed in Syria, Columbia, Afghanistan etc.
After, Charles Tilly questions the given distinction between states’ and other organizations’ use of violence asking how these difference established itself. Meaning in which way have states reached the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence? According to Tilly, in the early stages of state formation process distinction of legitimate and illegitimate was blurred, there were so many sides such as kings, bandits, pirates, regional power holders, professional soldiers etc. who possessed right to use force. And also, in times of war rulers of states sometimes used to hire and mobilize pirates, bandits to utilize their force for own goals. However, when war ends these forces were turning into their original domains without the royal protection. The sharp distinction between legitimate and illegitimate appeared as a result of selection process in the long run. Military revolution and states’ tendency to build permanent and unified armies also triggered this process. As a logical continuation of this process, rulers sought to disarm everyone within a territory. In this way they solidified own monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Regarding this process, Tilly gives the example from the history of France when Richelieu implemented the great disarmament in the 1620s. Banning duels, destroying castles of the rebel lords, forbidding keeping private military forces are some examples of the process. Otherwise, centralization of power would not be possible because the role of mentioned local lords, magnates, military subjects in governing the whole territory was very critical, as central rulers, or kings could not reach every individual and mobilize great army on their own. Therefore, they had to rely on these powerful subjects via indirect rule. The local powerholders were also possible rivals to rulers in internal affairs. They had access to government issues without the official domain. Therefore, in order to reach monopoly on power, rulers had to eliminate these rivals reducing reliance and creating direct rule system. From this necessity, states created police forces who were dependent on government, not local lords, extending own official domain to local areas. In France, we can proceed, later 17th century experienced events that resulted in increasing degree of state capacity and centralization of power. As a result of XIV Louis’s ventures great nobles began to lose own regional power. Louis XIV replaced them with regional administrators, which were subordinated to the center, and it was easier to substitute them with new ones compared to local powerholders (Tilly, 2007: p. 18). Moreover, in general either rulers gave these lords, magnates official honorific positions in government, exempted from taxation, thereby making these subjects’ economic securities dependent on central state structure. Or, in another way, kings opted to use brutal means in order to eliminate their rivals. In the end, as a result of long process national states accomplished monopoly of violence in a given territory.
It was the one side of the story. According to Charles Tilly, in acquiring the monopoly agents of states operationalize violence in four directions interdependently:
- War making: Eliminating or neutralizing their own rivals outside the territories in which they have clear and continuous priority as wielders of force
- State making: Eliminating or neutralizing their rivals inside those territories
- Protection: Eliminating or neutralizing the enemies of their clients
- Extraction: Acquiring the means of carrying out the first three activities — war making, state making, and protection
Tilly says that these four processes work in an interdependent logic, affecting each other and in the end creating different types of state structures throughout Europe. The reason of this difference lies in degree of state’s ability to defeat its internal competitors, thereby obtaining opportunities to collect greater revenues, launch a war, and protect own clients. At that time, clients of the state were mainly local lords, military figures and churchmen, not all of citizens in a modern sense. Charles Tilly explains this continuation like that: a great lord started war with his rival in order to acquire dominance in certain area, making war required high revenues and other musts of warfare to possess powerful army. In this way, preparing a war paved the way for constant extractive operations, in the long run creating fiscal and financial structures. Successful extractors in a certain territory acquired a power to defeat, eliminate or co-opt their rivals. Implementing protection policies of the state led to creation of courts. To sum up, speaking of war-making, state-making, protection, and extraction, all resulted in different types of state structures: warfare led to the development of a military, the growth of the state encouraged creation of police forces and enforcement, protection is connected to courts, and extraction to the formation of national fiscal structures. One point should be noted that none of these was conducted with the intention of creating national states, and teleological explanations should not be made.
This was the general description of the state formation process in Europe. However, as can be observed each European state has distinct forms of government organization and regimes. Why did the national states of Europe end up differing forms, while they underwent same transformative process, had similar patterns? Tilly proposes two primary contributing factors. First factor was the degree of opposition from ordinary people. The more people opposed policies of state the more central government made concessions, and these concessions determined the character of state formation. Conclusion can be drawn that high degree of concessions led to the government types what we today call democratic, and less degree of concessions resulted in more authoritarian state structures. Second factor Tilly proposes is related to the balance among four violence-oriented activities – war making, state making, protection and extraction. He argues that if the extent of one of these activities were relatively higher than three of them, role played by same segment will be wider in national politics. Tilly gives the example of Spain where role of war making were higher than the rest, and because of this, military body became main factor on national issues. Although it is not included to European category in terms of state formation explanations this approach can be applied to Turkey where in the state formation process role of military was particularly high in defeating internal and external rivals. Thus, this character of state formation helps to explain the respective political turbulences such as several military coups in Turkey’s twentieth century.
While this approach to formation history of states is useful, some unclear points should be highlighted. Firstly, regarding the legitimacy question of early periods of state formation is overlooked in the article. Actually, at that time kings had divine and dynastic rights to use violence, which were making them legitimate from the viewpoint of ordinary people (Spruyt, 2017). This indicates that apart from modern times, also in early periods kings differed from racketeers in terms of having special sanctity in own violent activities. Second point is related to the character of state structures. Tilly’s explanations implies that everything started from war and results of warfare and reactions to that determined future forms of government while neglecting the impact of preexisting social and institutional arrangements. Characteristics of early institutions and social norms influenced final administrative and political structures, degree of tendency towards democracy etc. (for example, see Why Nations Fail from Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, regarding impact of early institutions on future development; or theories concerning institutional memory and path dependency).
Another point it is worth to address is this approach’s applicability to states that have existed in the South Caucasus. However, as noted by Tilly state formation experiences of Europe are quite different compared to that of the Third World countries, this method can be used to analyze the weaknesses and future of the certain states. Of course, it requires extensive empirical investigation and historical analysis, but as a starting point, two questions can be distinguished in this context. First, what is the main determinants of nonexistence of national states in South Caucasus region until 1918 and once emerged reasons of collapse after a short period. It is clear that until twentieth century within the territory of modern Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, either kingdoms or empires and sometime khanates ruled the lands, and after emergence of the first national states they lived through nearly only two years. How can the bellicist approach explain these two occurrences? What is the position of “war” phenomenon in this case? The second question concerns the region’s near history. After the demise of USSR, reappearance of independent national states changed the shape of relations among international actors. Conflicts among and within these national states became one of the most salient features of the region in a global context. Since then Azerbaijan’s protracted conflict with Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh region, Georgian-Ossetian, Georgian-Abkhazian conflicts with Russia’s involvement have been dominating each government’s everyday state policies. However, with the help of bellicist account can the state formation process of these three countries be examined in the context of given conflicts? To what extent has involving the conflicts affected state structures of aforenamed countries? Were the bureaucracy, fiscal, taxation practices influenced by the needs emerging from preparation for potential war scenario in these countries? As mentioned before, answers to all of these questions need further research.
Bibliography:
Samuels D. J. (2013). Comparative Politics. Pearson Education
Spruyt, H. (2002). The Origins, Development, And Possible Decline Of The Modern State. Annual Review of Political Science, 5(1), 127–149
Spruyt, H. (2017) War and State Formation: Amending the Bellicist Theory of State Making. Does War Make States? Investigations of Charles Tilly’s Historical Sociology edited by Lars Bo Kaspersen and Jeppe Strandsbjerg. Cambridge University Press p. 73-97
Tilly, C. (1990). Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990–1990. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell
Tilly, C. (2007) Democracy. Cambridge University Press
Tilly, C. (2006) Why and How History Matters, The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis edited by Robert E. Goodin and Charles Tilly, p. 417-437
Weber M. (2015). Weber’s Rationalism and Modern Society translated and edited by Tony Waters and Dagmar Waters. New York: Palgrave Books p. 129-198
