Oxford Handbooks Online: The Modern State and Its Monopoly On Violence

The Modern State and Its Monopoly on Violence
Oxford Handbooks Online

Andreas Anter
The Oxford Handbook of Max Weber
Edited by Edith Hanke, Lawrence Scaff, and Sam Whimster
Subject: Sociology, Social Theory, Political Sociology Online Publication Date: Feb 2019
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190679545.013.13
Abstract and Keywords
Weber defines the state as a political institution that claims successfully on the monopoly
of violence. The chapter shows that this definition is a result of Weber’s historical studies
revealing the monopoly as the decisive criterion, which distinguishes the modern
occidental state from all other historical forms of domination. The monopolization of
violence by the occidental state was the result of a long-term process in which the local
holders of powers were expropriated by a central force. Comparing the worldwide
situation of present political communities, however, the Weberian state is rather the
exception than the rule. State-free territories are facing political communities with a high
degree of statehood. The chapter points out that particularly for democracies the
maintaining of the monopoly of violence is of fundamental importance since it guarantees
that legitimate decisions have the chance to be enforced.
Keywords: modern state, Weberian state, monopoly of violence, sovereignty, legitimacy, state-building
There is hardly any study in contemporary international state theory that would not relate
to Max Weber. Since his concept of the state has prevailed, it is “quite simply the most
commonly used working definition found in contemporary historical and political
writing.”1 In between, a “Weberian approach” has been established in state theory,2 and
even the state itself is sometimes referred to as a “modern Weberian state.”3 A theorist
whose research object is labeled with his own name has comprehensively imposed
himself. In methodological respect, Weber’s theory marks a turning point in the history of
political and legal science, which was dominated by doyens like Georg Jellinek at that
time, while angry young men like Hans Kelsen were already challenging the prevailing
opinion. This upheaval is somehow personified in Weber, for he was influenced by
sociological ideas, while remaining largely committed to a legal mode of thinking.4
In various parts of his writing, it becomes evident how much his political thought is
dominated by the state. This goes particularly for his political writings but also for his
early agrarian studies, his methodological essays, his sociology of law, and his sociology
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of domination. Time and again, he refers to the state as “the most important constitutive
element of all cultural life.”5 As different as the work contexts are the images and
metaphors he uses for the state: as a “complex of human action,” as a “machine,” as a
“tangle of value ideas,” as a “relation of domination,” and as a “bureaucratic apparatus.”
These varieties of state experience, to be sure, rely primarily on the various

manifestations of the object itself, which causes one of the central problems of state
theory, that is, to reduce the varieties to a single concept. It was not without reason that
Weber described the notion of the state as “the most complex and interesting case” of the
problem of concept formation.6 Every definition of the state faces the problem of how this
abstract, diverse, and constantly changing phenomenon can be distilled to a clear
concept. It is Weber who identifies this problem of complexity. He provides a conception
of the state which marks a key solution to a problem that can be traced back in modern
political and legal thought over more than one hundred years.
Despite all of his rich theoretical reflections on statehood, Weber never developed a
systematic theory of the state. He always deals with the state only in passing. The
fragments are scattered throughout his work and can be found in the most various
contexts. In his later years, he planned to develop a “sociology of the state,” which was
intended to be the keystone of his sociology of domination; but he did not carry out this
intention.7 Wilhelm Hennis is certainly right in discounting the declarations Weber made
on his proposed “sociology of the state,” objecting that nothing in this line was to be
expected.8 Hennis’ thesis becomes particularly evident when regarding the syllabus to
Weber’s Munich lecture on the sociology of the state.9 Since the syllabus largely overlaps
with his sociology of domination, it is very unlikely that his planned “sociology of the
state” would have broken new ground. Whoever wants to gain an overview of Weber’s
ideas has to reconstruct the relevant fragments scattered throughout his work.10
The Modern State and Its Monopoly of Force

In his “Basic Sociological Concepts” Weber defines the state as a political institution that
claims successfully on the “monopoly of legitimate physical force.”11 He explicitly
underlines that the monopoly of physical force is not the only defining feature. The
“manner in which the state lays claim to the monopoly of rule by force is as essential a
current feature as is its character as a rational ‘institution’ and continuous
‘organisation’”; formally characteristic of the modern state is not only the monopoly of
physical force but “an administrative and a legal order subject to change by statute, to
which the organized group activity of the administrative staff … is oriented.”12
Since the rise of the modern occidental state went hand in hand with the formation of
modern bureaucracy, Weber regards the bureaucracy as the nucleus of the state.13 Due to
the increasing demands on the administration, mainly with respect to social policy, the
contemporary state becomes more and more “technically dependent upon a bureaucratic
foundation.”14 Like the prevailing legal positivist theorists of his time, Weber thought
domination to be an essential criterion of the state15; but unlike the positivist theorists,
Page 2 of 12

he tied the existence of domination to the criterion of legitimacy. The category of

legitimacy is the Archimedean point of his sociology of domination. In his view,
domination cannot last if it lacks a legitimate basis. Accordingly, every state requires a
legitimating foundation that provides validity for its orders. The legitimacy of the modern
state, to be precise, rests primarily on the belief in the legality of its orders.16
Despite such specifications, the monopoly of physical force nevertheless is the key
element of Weber’s theory. The definition is a result of his historical studies revealing the
monopoly as the decisive criterion which distinguishes the modern state from all other
historical forms of domination. He makes many further specifications which make clear
that physical force is neither the only nor the normal instrument of state acting and that
the application of force is only the last resort when other means have failed.17
Thus, Weber is not an apologist of violence. He came upon his findings of its constitutive
role by his historical studies. This historical perspective is clearly evident particularly in
his treatment of “political communities” in Economy and Society. Using examples from
European history, he illustrates that all political communities are based on force: every
community has resorted to physical force to protect its interests.18 The monopolization of
force by the state was the result of a long-term and violent process in which the local
holders of powers were gradually expropriated by a central force. Today’s historians date
the enforcement of the monopoly from the early modern age.19 However, this dating could
easily be postponed for some centuries. State authority and jurisdiction in the East Elbian
territories of Prussia, for example, were exercised by the landlords until the late
nineteenth century. As late as 1837, a quarter of the Prussian population was under
patrimonial jurisdiction, which was abolished in 1848 but reintroduced only five years
later.20 As a young agrarian statistician, Weber himself came into contact with this
atavistic structure in his survey of the East Elbian rural workers.21
It is not easy to come to an exact historical dating in this case since the monopoly of force
didn’t come overnight but during a long, protracted process. This is why the monopoly of
violence is actually not an absolute term. The fact that Weber does not even make an
approximate dating depends not least on the fact that his sociology of domination is not
based on a precise concept of the state: the latter definition of the state in his “Basic
Sociological Concepts” is only a result of his historical studies. Furthermore, Weber was
not particularly interested in the question of origin. Even after Weber’s death,
sociologists were not interested in this question for many decades.22 Weber refrains from
commenting on the birth of the monopoly of force, but he emphasizes that the Middle
Ages lacked access to it: “The things we are now accustomed to regard as the content of
the unified ‘supreme authority’ (‘Staatsgewalt’) fell apart under that system into a bundle
of individual entitlements in various hands. There was as yet no question of a ‘state’ in
the modern sense of the word.”23
The process of monopolization occurs not only in the exercise of force but also in
administration, legislation, judicial decision-making, and other spheres. For Weber, the
emergence of the modern state was a comprehensive process of centralization of powers.
Page 3 of 12

On the tracks of Weber, Heinrich Popitz perceives the contemporary result of this as a
“routinization of centralized domination” that is
accompanied by the centralized provision of the goods required for the conduct of
a civilized existence. In the morning with a look at the clock, we ascertain the
centrally set time, we avail ourselves of centrally provided water, light, and heat at
(it is hoped) centrally controlled prices, we grimly meet at the breakfast table
(within the framework of the laws of marriage and family), we in leaving our
house slip into the channels of the traffic code, and we are not allowed to take the
law into our hands even if someone parks in front of our garage.24
Regarding the process of centralization and monopolization, Weber follows the historical
research of Rudolph Sohm, his academic teacher, who also inspired his concept of
charisma.25 In his essays on state theory, the canonist Sohm pointed out how the
emerging modern state gradually dominated the local forces, eliminating all of the other
instances of domination.26 Even the concept of the monopoly of force was coined by
Sohm, who formulated legal coercion as a “monopoly of the state” since “all use of force
within the state can only be based on behalf and in representation of the state
authority.”27 Quite similar, Rudolf von Jhering defined coercive force as the “absolute
monopoly of the State.”28 Subsequently, this formula became a commonplace in later
nineteenth-century theories of the state. Hence, Weber’s notion is borrowed almost
literally from German canonists and legal theorists of his time.
Evidently, Weber’s theory of the state is historically based.29 If the state is characterized
by the monopoly of violence and the monopoly emerged first in early modern Europe, the
state is a located phenomenon. According to Weber, only the modern, occidental, and
rational state is really a state. This clear understanding is entirely contradicted by the
casual way he refers to the “state” of the ancient Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, or
Chinese.30 This casual usage of the word is in sharp contrast to his otherwise nominalist
meticulousness. Therefore, it is hardly comprehensible how a Weber expert like Carl
Schmitt could praise the “conceptual restraint” in “distancing himself from a generalising
use of the term ‘state’” which he did not project “on to the ruling organisations of other
cultures and epochs.”31 There can be no question of such abstinence.
Today’s political and legal theorists are convinced that the notion of the state cannot be
used arbitrarily,32 but in practice, everyone does it the way it has been done for a
hundred years: first, one emphasizes the historicity of the concept but only to ignore it
afterward. Weber occupies nevertheless an important position in the development of
modern state theory since he formulated more clearly than anyone else the monopoly of
violence as the elementary criterion of the state. It is not by chance that he is known
worldwide as the theorist of the monopoly of force. Whenever this monopoly is mentioned
in contemporary social and legal science, he is constantly referred to. Having already
been confirmed by classical sociologists like Norbert Elias,33 Niklas Luhmann,34 and
Heinrich Popitz,35 Weber’s concept of the state seems to be established more than ever
before in present-day social and legal sciences.36
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The Contemporary Debate on the Modern State

and Its Monopoly
Regarding the current debate on the state and its monopoly of violence, Weber’s theory
seems to be more relevant than ever. The debate turns particularly to the question of the
role of the monopoly in the process of state-building, its function in securing the legal
process and domestic peace, and the fact that the monopoly is constantly endangered in
the European states—and does not even exist in many parts of the world. Until now,
hardly any country in Africa37 or Latin or South America38 could establish a monopoly of
violence—and therefore no state. Not least the global threat of Islamic terrorism has
rendered the monopoly of violence in many states as highly tenuous.39
As many states have troubles in fulfilling their primary protective duties, the number of
private security companies is worldwide increasing.40 Does this create new power
instances that are no longer subject to democratic control? Do they potentially undermine
the monopoly of violence? From a Weberian perspective, an expansion of privatization of
security would certainly invoke a reversal of the previous historical development, and,
moreover, it would undermine at least the legitimacy of the modern state.41 Private
security companies, after all, are not doing their job on behalf of public interests but on
behalf of the commercial interests of their customers. Hence, security would turn into a
commodity that could only be acquired by those with the appropriate financial resources.
But the legitimacy of the modern state rests on the supposition that all citizens obtain
security and protection without distinction, at least in principle.
Regarding the fact that there is no universal enforcement of the monopoly of violence,
already decades ago critics like Sheldon Wolin maintained that Weber’s theory has
become obsolete: “whatever the ‘uniqueness’ of the modern state may be, it does not
consist in a monopoly of the means of violence.”42 For a long time, it was fashionable to
speak of the state only in the past tense. The state was said to no longer exist.43 This
thesis is evidently wrong because the state is still very alive. Furthermore, modern
history reveals its tremendous changeability and dynamism, which is part of its nature
and is to be seen as one of its characteristics.
However, Stefan Breuer is right in observing a “modified distribution of force” in the

Western world.44 Violence is not threatening the state’s existence as long as the vast
majority of citizens agree with its legal order. But things are different when growing parts
of the population reject the existing order. In many European societies, the current
immigration flow from Islamic cultures has created parallel societies that are alien to the
majority society and have even developed their own parallel justice.45 Since they are
mostly shaped by cultures of violence,46 new violent potential emerges in European
societies. The states therefore face the difficult task of confronting the potential of
violence as well as the parallel justice if they don’t want to jeopardize their stability and
legitimacy.
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If we want to ask for the relevance of Weber’s theory, we first have to look at the concept
of monopoly. In the context of violence, it means something different from what it means
in economics. While an economic monopoly is relatively easy to enforce, a monopoly of
violence never can be absolute. Not even a total or dictatorial state would be capable of
preventing all competing sources of violence. The monopolization always remains
incomplete since violence is a form of human action that is—weather latent or manifest—
always present.47 This incompleteness of the monopoly of violence drives us to respecify
the meaning of this notion. Its conceptual as well as its practical problems derive from
the fact that a “real” monopoly can only be partially realized. Therefore, the monopoly
has to be understood not in absolute terms but in a teleological sense, for it is a claim
that has to be constantly asserted and enforced. This enforcement depends, first, on the
institutionalization of the means of force by the state and, second, on a basis of legitimacy
that ensures the compliance of such a claim. In this sense, the state can always only aim
at prohibiting non-state violence.
Maintaining the monopoly of force is of fundamental importance for present-day

democratic states based upon the rule of law since it guarantees that democratically
legitimate decisions have the chance to be enforced. Thus, the “rule of law” and the
monopoly of violence are very closely linked to each other. The fact that violence in the
outlined sense is monopolized by the state does not mean that the problem of violence is
solved once and for all. It appears again and again, for it is not abolished by
monopolization; and, moreover, it is shifting to a new level: the state itself must make use
of violence to maintain its monopoly claim. Hence, every state faces a double bind: the
promise of putting an end to non-domesticated and uncontrolled violence is only realized
at the cost of being itself potentially violent. Following Weber, Heinrich Popitz concludes
that violence is a “necessary condition” of the preservation of order. An order that does
not surrender its existence must protect itself forcefully when threatened with violence.48
To be sure, many European states have gaps in their monopoly of violence, but gaps like
this have persecuted the modern state from the beginning and occur in every historical
epoch. Weber himself was a witness of violent attacks that shook the state’s monopoly,
and it is unlikely that he was not aware of its fragile nature.
The Weberian State and the International

Order
Many observers also believe that the state suffers increasing losses of power in the
international sphere due to transfer of sovereign rights to supranational communities and
organizations so that its sovereignty is threatened at large. Weber’s state, to be sure, is
far from the “anarchical society” Hedley Bull observed as an organizational form of the
international community.49 It is also far from the multilevel system, the global
governance, or the global society with its global media communication,
dehierarchification, and globalization.50 In political and legal science, the current
metamorphosis is reflected by permanent attempts to grasp this process, rapidly and
Page 6 of 12

constantly changing descriptions and images of the state,51 whose adjectives are often
out of date at the time of their invention.52
To ensure their functioning, many states form supranational communities to which they
assign parts of their sovereign rights. They are actively pursuing this process, and,
moreover, they remain the key actors in it. As Josef Isensee points out, “the international
organisations did not absorb the state and did not make it superfluous. The international
community is still essentially a community of states. The states are still the bearers of the
international order, and they are the actual creators and guarantors of international
law.”53 Thus, the widespread talk about the “end of the state” is even in the international
sphere simply to be considered as counterfactual. The fact that the state continues to be
irreplaceable is not least demonstrated by its security policy since the beginning of the
twenty-first century. As Catherine Colliot-Thélène notes, “the principle of sovereignty has
remained a cornerstone of international law up to now.”54 The number of states has even
increased since the late twentieth century. The fall of the Soviet Union as well as the
disintegrated multinational Yugoslavia gave rise to a multitude of new nation-states.
However, the idea that the state as an occidental model of political order may be
transferred to other regions of the world has turned out to be illusory. Comparing the
worldwide situation of political communities, we can observe a very heterogeneous
tableau. Disintegrated orders and state-free territories are facing stable political
communities with a high degree of statehood. In global comparison, the Weberian state is
rather the exception than the rule of political organization. Only 16 percent of the world
population live under the conditions of modern statehood, while nearly three quarters live
in areas of low statehood and 10 percent live in completely state-free and disordered
territories.55 An intelligent policy of global governance therefore would have to promote
the emergence of solid statehood since without state structure a legitimate political
system cannot emerge. For this reason, an active state-building is required for many
areas.56
One of the essential tasks of international community and global governance actually is to
promote the formation of state structures in territories shaped by uncontrolled violence.
The realization of such state-building57 requires not only the provision of the necessary
resources and instruments58 but also an in-depth reform of the way of thinking in Western
political communities, which pursued the policy of denationalization for decades. The
ubiquitous violence in the unregulated territories and failed states of Africa, Latin
America, and Asia can make clear a differentia specifica. It shows that all civilization
rests on “functioning state structures and an enforced monopoly of violence.”59 It is
certainly no coincidence that today’s theorists of state-building rely on Max Weber,60 the
sober analyst of the significance of the modern state.
Page 7 of 12

Notes:
(1.) Duncan Kelly, The State of the Political: Conceptions of Politics and the State in the
Thought of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt and Franz Neumann, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008), 4.
(2.) Matthias vom Hau, “State Theory,” in The Oxford Handbook of Transformations of the
State, ed. Stephan Leibfried et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 131–151,
135ff.
(3.) Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, Nicholas Onuf, and Vojin Rakić, “Introduction: Disputing
Weberian Semantics,” in Semantics of Statebuilding: Language, Meanings and
Sovereignty, ed. Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, Nicholas Onuf, Vojin Rakić, and Petar Bojanić
(New York: Routledge, 2014), 1–18, 7.
(4.) Cf. Andreas Anter, Max Weber und die Staatsrechtslehre (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr
Siebeck, 2016), 3ff.
(5.) Max Weber, “The ‘Objectivity’ of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy,” in
The Essential Weber (hereafter Essential), ed. Sam Whimster (London: Routledge, 2004),
359–404, 371; Zur Logik und Methodik der Sozialwissenschaften. Schriften 1900–1907,
Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe (hereafter MWG) I/7, ed. G. Wagner with C. Härpfer et al.
(Tübingen, Germany: Mohr [Siebeck], 2018), 142–234.
(6.) Weber, “The ‘Objectivity’ of Knowledge,” 394; MWG I/7, 216.
(7.) See Gangolf Hübinger, “Einleitung,” in Weber, Allgemeine Staatslehre und Politik
(Staatssoziologie), MWG III/7, ed. G. Hübinger with A. Terwey (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr
[Siebeck], 2009), 1–39; Stefan Breuer, “Max Webers Staatssoziologie,” Kölner Zeitschrift
für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 45 (1993): 119–219, 215ff.
(8.) Wilhelm Hennis, Max Weber’s Central Question, trans. Keith Tribe, 2nd ed. (Newbury,
UK: Threshold Press, 2000), 98.
(9.) Cf. Weber, Allgemeine Staatslehre und Politik, 66.
(10.) For this attempt, see Andreas Anter, Max Weber’s Theory of the Modern State:
Origins, Structure and Significance, trans. Keith Tribe (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2014).
(11.) Weber, “Basic Sociological Concepts,” in Essential, 311–358, 356; Wirtschaft und
Gesellschaft. Soziologie, MWG I/23, ed. K. Borchardt, E. Hanke, and W. Schluchter
(Tübingen, Germany: Mohr [Siebeck], 2013), 147–215, 212.
(12.) Weber, “Basic Sociological Concepts,” 357; MWG I/23, 214.
Page 8 of 12

(13.) Weber, Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (hereafter E&S),
ed. G. Roth and C. Wittich (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968), 212–301, cf. 223; MWG I/
23, 449–591, cf. 463.
(14.) E&S, 971 (translation modified); Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Nachlaß. Herrschaft,
MWG I/22-4, ed. E. Hanke with Th. Kroll (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr [Siebeck], 2005),
181.
(15.) For this, see Anter, Max Weber’s Theory of the Modern State, 46ff.; Stefan Breuer,
“Herrschaft” in der Soziologie Max Webers (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2011);
Edith Hanke and Wolfgang J. Mommsen, eds., Max Webers Herrschaftssoziologie
(Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2001).
(16.) E&S, 215; MWG I/23, 453.
(17.) Weber, “Basic Sociological Concepts,” 356; MWG I/23, 212.
(18.) E&S, 904–905; Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Nachlaß. Gemeinschaften, MWG I/22-1,
ed. W. J. Mommsen with M. Meyer (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr [Siebeck], 2001), 208–209.
(19.) See Thomas Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in
Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2008); Philip S. Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Birth of the State
in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 79ff.
(20.) Cf. Reinhart Koselleck, Preußen zwischen Reform und Revolution (Stuttgart,
Germany: Klett-Cotta, 2001), 674, 547.
(21.) Weber, Die Lage der Landarbeiter im ostelbischen Deutschland 1892, MWG I/3, ed.
M. Riesebrodt (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr [Siebeck], 1984), 914.
(22.) However, important exceptions are the works of Charles Tilly, Stefan Breuer, Philip
S. Gorski, and Thomas Ertman.
(23.) Weber, “Suffrage and Democracy in Germany,” in his Political Writings, ed. Peter
Lassman and Ronald Speirs, 6th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 80–
129, 101; Zur Politik im Weltkrieg. Schriften und Reden 1914–1918, MWG I/15, ed. W. J.
Mommsen with G. Hübinger (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr [Siebeck], 1984), 347–396, 367.
(24.) Heinrich Popitz, Phenomena of Power: Authority, Domination, and Violence, trans.
Gianfranco Poggi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 185.
(25.) For this, see “Max Weber und Rudolph Sohm,” in Anter, Max Weber und die
Staatsrechtslehre, 47–68; Stephen P. Turner and Regis A. Factor, Max Weber: The Lawyer
as Social Thinker (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 110ff.
(26.) Cf. Rudolph Sohm, “Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des modernen Staates,” Cosmopolis
5 (1897): 853–872, 861.
Page 9 of 12

(27.) Rudolph Sohm, Die Fränkische Reichs- und Gerichtsverfassung (1871), 2nd ed.
(Leipzig, Germany: Duncker & Humblot, 1911), XIV.
(28.) Rudolf von Jhering, Law as a Means to an End (1877), trans. Isaac Husic (Boston:
Boston Book, 1913), 238.
(29.) For historical aspects, see Anter, Max Weber’s Theory of the Modern State, 149ff.
(30.) Cf. E&S, 970–971, 990, 1089–1090, 1097, 1102–1103; MWG I/22-4, 180–181, 212–
213, 416ff., 431–432, 441–442.
(31.) Carl Schmitt, “Staat als ein konkreter, an eine geschichtliche Epoche gebundener
Begriff” (1941), in his Verfassungsrechtliche Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1924–1954 (Berlin:
Duncker & Humblot, 1958), 375–385, 384.
(32.) See Thomas Vesting, “Absolutismus und materiale Rationalisierung. Zur Entstehung
des preußischen Patrimonialstaates,” Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 119 (1994): 369–399;
Helmut Quaritsch, Staat und Souveränität, vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main, Germany:
Athenäum, 1970), 32ff.; Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, “Die Entstehung des Staates als
Vorgang der Säkularisation” (1967), in his Recht, Staat, Freiheit (Frankfurt am Main,
Germany: Suhrkamp, 1991), 92–114.
(33.) Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic

Investigations, vol. 2, trans. Edmund Jephcott, rev. ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
(34.) Niklas Luhmann, Political Theory in the Welfare State, trans. John Bednarz (Berlin
and New York: de Gruyter, 1990), 74.
(35.) Popitz, Phenomena of Power, 184–185.
(36.) See Paul du Gay and Alan Scott, “State Transformation or Regime Shift? Addressing
Some Confusions in the Theory and Sociology of the State,” Sociologica 2 (2010): 1–23;
Colin Hay and Michael Lister, “Theories of the State,” in The State: Theories and Issues,
ed. Colin Hay, Michael Lister, and David Marsh (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan,
2006), 1–20, 7ff.; Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the
21st Century (New York: Cornell University Press, 2005), 19f.; Josef Isensee, “Staat und
Verfassung,” in Handbuch des Staatsrechts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, ed. Josef
Isensee and Paul Kirchhof, vol. 2, 3rd ed. (Heidelberg, Germany: C. F. Müller, 2004), 3–
106, 40–41; Gianfranco Poggi, Forms of Power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), 12ff.
(37.) See David Andersen et al., “State Capacity and Political Regime Stability,”
Democratization 21 (2014): 1305–1325; Keith Krause, “Hybrid Violence: Locating the Use
of Force in Postconflict Settings,” Global Governance 28 (2012): 39–56; Bruce Baker,
“Beyond the State Police in Urban Uganda and Sierra Leone,” in Afrika Spectrum 41
(2006): 55–76.
Page 10 of 12

(38.) Cf. Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson, and Rafael J. Santos, “The Monopoly of
Violence: Evidence from Colombia,” Journal of the European Economic Association 11
(2013): 5–44; Dennis Rodgers and Robert Muggah, “Gangs as Non-State Armed Groups:
The Central American Case,” Contemporary Security Policy 30 (2009): 301–317.
(39.) See Walter Laqueur, A History of Terrorism, exp. ed. (New York: Routledge, 2017),
175 ff.; Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press,
2006).
(40.) See Molly Dunigan and Ulrich Petersohn, eds., The Markets for Force: Privatization
of Security across World Regions (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015);
Elke Krahmann, States, Citizens and the Privatization of Security (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010).
(41.) In this sense Stefan Breuer, Der Staat (Reinbek b. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1998), 296.
(42.) Sheldon Wolin, “Postmodern Politics and the Absence of Myth,” Social Research 52
(1985): 217–239, 226.
(43.) See, for example, Wolfgang Reinhard, Geschichte der Staatsgewalt, 3rd ed. (Munich,
Germany: C. H. Beck, 2003), 535.
(44.) Breuer, Der Staat, 298.
(45.) Cf. Joachim Wagner, Richter ohne Gesetz. Islamische Paralleljustiz gefährdet
unseren Rechtsstaat (Berlin: Ullstein, 2012). Cf. further Josef Isensee, “Integration mit
Migrationshintergrund. Verfassungsrechtliche Daten,” Juristenzeitung 65 (2010): 317–
327; Wolfgang Bock, “Islam, Islamisches Recht und Demokratie,” Juristenzeitung 67
(2012): 60–68.
(46.) Cf. Gudrun Krämer, “Gewaltpotentiale im Islam,” in Religionen und Gewalt. Konflikt-
und Friedenspotentiale in den Weltreligionen, ed. Reinhard Hempelmann and Johannes
Kandel (Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 239–248.
(47.) See Popitz, Phenomena of Power, 31ff.
(48.) Ibid., 40.
(49.) Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 4th ed. (New
York: Columbia University Press), 2012.
(50.) Cf. Saskia Sassen, A Sociology of Globalization (London and New York: W. W. Norton,
2007).
(51.) See, for example, Andreas Voßkuhle, “Der ‘Dienstleistungsstaat.’ Über Nutzen und
Gefahren von Staatsbildern,” Der Staat 40 (2001): 495–523.
(52.) See the critical remarks by Paul du Gay and Alan Scott, “Against the ‘Adjectival
State,’” Sociologica 2 (2010): 1–14.
Page 11 of 12

(53.) Josef Isensee, “Die vielen Staaten in der einen Welt—eine Apologie,” Zeitschrift für
Staats- und Europawissenschaft 1 (2003): 7–31, 12.
(54.) Catherine Colliot-Thélène, Demokratie ohne Volk (Hamburg, Germany: Hamburger

Edition, 2011), 214.
(55.) Dieter Senghaas, “Der Leviathan in diesen Zeiten,” Leviathan 36 (2008): 175–190,
176–177.
(56.) Ibid., 190.
(57.) For this, see David Chandler and Timothy D. Sisk, eds., The Routledge Handbook of
International Statebuilding (London and New York: Routledge, 2013; Aidan Hehir and
Neil Robinson, eds., State-Building: Theory and Practice (New York: Routledge, 2007).
(58.) Cf. Fukuyama, State-Building.
(59.) Wolfgang Knöbl, “Zivilgesellschaft und staatliches Gewaltmonopol. Zur

Verschränkung von Gewalt und Zivilität,” Mittelweg 36, 15 (2006): 61–84, 81.
(60.) Cf. Lemay-Hébert et al., “Introduction,” 1–18; Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, “Rethinking

Weberian Approaches to Statebuilding,” in Chandler and Sisk, The Routledge Handbook
of International Statebuilding, 3–14; Fukuyama, State-Building.
Andreas Anter
Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences, University of Erfurt
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The Modern State and Its Monopoly on Violence

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Abstract and Keywords

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

These varieties of state experience, to be sure, rely primarily on the various

The Modern State and Its Monopoly of Force

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

he tied the existence of domination to the criterion of legitimacy. The category of

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

The Contemporary Debate on the Modern State

However, Stefan Breuer is right in observing a “modified distribution of force” in the

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

Maintaining the monopoly of force is of fundamental importance for present-day

The Weberian State and the International

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

(6.) Weber, “The ‘Objectivity’ of Knowledge,” 394; MWG I/7, 216.

(9.) Cf. Weber, Allgemeine Staatslehre und Politik, 66.

(12.) Weber, “Basic Sociological Concepts,” 357; MWG I/23, 214.

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

(16.) E&S, 215; MWG I/23, 453.

(17.) Weber, “Basic Sociological Concepts,” 356; MWG I/23, 212.

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

(33.) Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic

(35.) Popitz, Phenomena of Power, 184–185.

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

(44.) Breuer, Der Staat, 298.

(47.) See Popitz, Phenomena of Power, 31ff.

(48.) Ibid., 40.

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

(54.) Catherine Colliot-Thélène, Demokratie ohne Volk (Hamburg, Germany: Hamburger

(56.) Ibid., 190.

(58.) Cf. Fukuyama, State-Building.

(59.) Wolfgang Knöbl, “Zivilgesellschaft und staatliches Gewaltmonopol. Zur

(60.) Cf. Lemay-Hébert et al., “Introduction,” 1–18; Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, “Rethinking

Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences, University of Erfurt

Subscriber: University of Glasgow; date: 23 March 2019

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