WAR-MAKING AND STATE MAKING AS ORGANIZED CRIME

WAR MAKING, STATE MAKING AS ORGANIZED CRIME

Power holders’ pursuit of war involved them willy-nilly in the extraction of the resources for war making from the populations over which they had control. It also involved them in the promotion of capital accumulation by those who could help them borrow and buy. The interaction between war making, extraction, and capital accumulation shaped the European state making. Power holders did not undertake those three meaningful activities with the intention of creating national states--centralized, differentiated, autonomous, extensive political organizations. Neither did they foresee that national states would emerge from war making, extraction, and capital accumulation.

Making use of bandits and pirates:

governments often made use of violent groups during the war to defeat their rivals. Bandits became troops and pirates became sailors. These groups were considered illegal once they no longer served their purposes. The goal of power holders was to hold-on-to (keep) their turf, or to expend it.

Centralizing the use of force:

Nevertheless, it took a long time for the states to have the monopoly over the legitimate use of violence. Before states monopolized on the use of violence, different groups had control over the use of violence. For example, kings, local power holders, bandits, pirates, and so on.

Monarchs and lords

Monarchs had to find mechanisms, such as creating local police force and extending their officialdom to the local community to have monopoly over the use of violence. This way lords that could create problems for the rulers were coopted, eliminated, or neutralized.

Tudor demilitarized great lords in England in Four complimentary campaigns:

1- eliminating their great personal bands of armed retainers,

2- razing their fortresses,

3- taming their habitual resort to violence for the settlement of disputes

4- discouraging the cooperation of their dependents and tenants.

 

What do states do?

1- War-making: eliminating or neutralizing their own rivals outside their territories that pose danger to their survivals or integrity.

2- State-making: eliminating or neutralizing their rivals inside those territories

3- Protection: eliminating or neutralizing the enemies of their clients

4- Extraction: acquiring the means to carrying out the first three activities—war making, state making, and protection. (ranges from outright plunder, regular tribute to bureaucratized taxation)

War-making produced the mechanisms of the state, how?

1- War making—yielded armies, navies, and supporting services

2- State making—produced durable instruments of surveillance and control within the territory

3- Protection—added the apparatuses of justice, courts, and representative institutions, through which they could seek protection and defend their rights

4- Extraction—brought fiscal and accounting structures.

1- A great lord fought effectively and became dominant in a particular region

2- War making increased the need for men, arms, food, lodging, etc. (Extracted from the population living within its territory)

3- The building of the war making capacity increased the extraction capacity of the states

4- This very activity of extraction entailed elimination, neutralization, or cooptation of great lords’ local rivals.

5- As a byproduct, it increased the organizational capacity of the state, such as tax collection agencies, police force, courts, and account keepers

6- It also created a huge military organization with its own bureaucracy, industry, and army

7- States than allied with some classes to obtain technical assistance, societal support to keep people in compliance, and financial assistance.

8- This in turn contributed to the making of the state.

When ordinary people resisted vigorously, authorities made concessions: guarantees of rights, representative institutions, and court appeals. These concessions constrained the later paths of war making.

The relative balance among war making, state making, extraction, and protection impacted the organization of the states significantly.

When war making dominated the other areas, states built large standing armies (Spain)

When protection dominated the other areas, oligarchies of the protected classes dominated the subsequent national politics

When state making subordinated the other areas, surveillance and policing over developed as in the Papal States.