Reading Note Tilly Coercion, Capital, European States, Charles Tilly

Reading Note Tilly Coercion, Capital, European States

I Cities and States in World History

introduction:

Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990 is a book by the American political scientist and sociologist Charles Tilly published in 1990. Charles Tilly (1929–2008) was one of the greatest sociologists of the second half of the twentieth century. The book Coercion, Capital, European States is just a simple narration of History, how states and cities have evolved in the Western Europe.

We will focus on the first chapter called Cities and States in World History. This text is all about the formation of states. Charles Tilly’s theory is basically about the construction of states and cities. His theory adresses two important questions: the first one is why states take different forms while ultimately coming into a national state. While adressing this question he summarizes different perspectives and he categorises those perspectives into two major categories.

The first category consists of those perspectives, they explain how the formation of state is dependent on economic change and these are external interment perspectives and the other categories consist of external perspectives: that expand how strong and influence of external factors are in the way of the transformation of the state. However, internal perspectives are a Marxist perspective, which is mode of production, and the external perspectives are world system theory, which is basically a Marxist theory of international relations which is part of economic post-Marxism, and geopolitical. Tilly argues that his theory is basically based on two important factors. The first one is the concentration of coercion and capital within the state and the second one is the interplay of war wagging States on “international stairs'' till he argues that the preparation for war, defensive or offensive wars, lead to build infrastructures of Taxation supply and all that. For Tilly, all the prestigious institutions were the by-product of the patience for war. He emphasizes on the importance of coercion and capital and he described the position of any of these or both of these and then on the basis of that position he describes the four forms of States.

• Statist: economically only partially and internal factors as central, but leaves out temporary state forms
• Geopolitical: external factirs like inter-state interactions shape-state formations, but, little effect on different
• Mode of production
• World system

Now I will analyse those four differentt types of states:

1. Statist analyses

The most popular thesis among scholars is that States act on their defined interests, and that the interactions among them is strictly the consequence of their self-interested logic. Rational choice inspired movement.

They define a path followed by every State, and explain the deviations by economic factors, the geopolitical position of the State, etc.

1. Geopolitical analysises

Others argue that the international context is very important. Relations between states have an organisation of their own. States can adapt to each other, try to render the environment consistent with the existing structures, etc.

1. Mode of production analyses

Some argue the most important function of a State is to distribute the surplus value. In that perspective, it’s the capitalists within the State that play a great role in the transformation of the latter.

1. World system analysis

Emphasises the importance of the State and its place in the World system. Importance of the world economy.

Accumulation and concentration: of capital creates cities ( agriculture gives trade that needs infrasctructure) and of coercion creates states (capacity to control a territory).

Coercion and capital: former more in states and latter more in citiesn leves depending on region and period.

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