Poli 220 Tilly

• According to Tilly: Medieval Africa was...

  -Sparsely populated (low returns to agriculture)

  - the land itself is not of much value

  - sheer distance protects rulers from external rivals

  - rulers have little incentive to gain and hold territory or engage in war over territory

  - labour (people) is valuable

  - incentivizes slavery

  - so much space allows disgruntled subject to easily exit

  - extraction is light and sporadic

  - endemic weakness of African state reflects a medieval predecessor that did not need to develop the sinew of the modern states (strong armies and bureaucracies)
• According to Tilly: Medieval Europe was ...

  - densely populated, so agricultural returns were high

  - strong incentive for rulers to gain and hold territory both for extraction and security

  - result in endemic/existential warfare

  - incentivized rulers to establish strong armies and bureaucracies
• Tilly's argument is...

  - development of the modern state was unanticipated by-product of an evolutionary process

  -endemic war-fare systematically eliminated rulers and entities who failed to extract sufficient resources to arm a military capable of eliminating their internal and external rivals

  - city states are too small to maintain with this war-fare (size limits economies of scale)

  - empires fall becuase they are too decentralized and invite internal rivalry

  - states are just right at making warfare
• Tilly's argument is not...

  -early warlords intentionally developed the modern state

  - the rise of the modern state was inevitable
• According to Tilly: extraction

  - to acquire the resources to carry out above

  - requires systems of taxation and accounting
• According to Tilly: protection

  - to eliminate threats to clients

  - requires assemblies, petitions, courts

  (channels via clients can call on ruler)

  - eliminating or neutralizing the enemies of their clients
• According to Tilly: state-making

  -eliminate internal rivals

  - requires instruments of surveillance and control (reason for census)

  - eliminating or neutralizing their rivals inside those territories
• According to Tilly: war making

  - eliminate external rivals

  - requires armies and military technology

  - eliminating or neutralizing their own rival outside the territory in which they had clear and continuous priority as wielder of force

  -fundamental cause of state-formation/ exogenous
• How does Tilly see state coercion used for 4 key activities

  how/why state use violence

  1. war-making

  2. state-making

  3. protection

  4. extraction
• According to Tilly: What does "War makes the state... state makes war" mean

  states are in the business of violence
• According to Tilly: Bureaucracy in state formation

  builds the military (i.e. conscription)

  
  

  AND census

  - facilitates conscription to provide soldiers

  
  

  taxation

  - provides revenue for military

  - institutions like fixed-field agriculture, slavery, and serfdom facilitate extraction

  - naval power likewise facilitates extractions - ports, customs, duties, trade flows
• According to Tilly: key institutions of state formation

  Military and Bureaucracy
• According to Tilly: The elimination of internal rivals and the development of the capacity to extract resources is the process of...

  State formation
• According to Tilly: The need to compete with external and internal rivals creates a need for ....

  rulers to raise revenue to fight wars
• According to Tilly: Example of successful state-owned enterprises

  Taiwan

  - Allowed agriculture to remain private, but regulated the issue of surplus extraction and maintaining motivation of accumulation by managing a small industry- fertilizer industry
• According to Tilly: State owned enterprises

  Supersedes a market of private capital accumulation

  - Ex) ICBC makes it difficult to car insurance companies to expand

  Allows the state to enmesh their goals in the market

  - Often in areas that only the rich could afford to tap into otherwise

  Can help accumulation by lowering costs of manufacturing industries

  - Ex) government regulated or supported electricity, steel, petroleum refinement industries
• According to Tilly: Decentralization vs Centralization

  Issue: many types of state actions require decentralization for maximum efficiency

  The more centralized

  - The easier it is for information and commands to get distorted or lost

  - Less outside influence

  - More efficient
• According to Tilly: Examples of failed state distribution

  INCRA Failed to follow

  market logic

  - Production in this new land wasn't economically rewarding

  societal instituions

  = Couldn't legally ensure clear entitlement of the land to colonist

  Tanzania

  - Farmers wasn't economically rewarding enough in comparison to peasantry

  - Failed to ensure entrepreneurs would have sufficient resources to make it worth it
• According to Tilly: Failed state distribution occurs when

  Information is acquired incorrectly

  Must assess

  - administrative information

  - social issues
• According to Tilly: What features of the state apparatus make state intervention more effective?

  - Reshape core participants into having the same goals and priorities so that they become one body

  Otherwise

  - Things take longer to achieve

  - Focus is difficult
• According to Tilly: The efficacy of the state will always depend on

  how they balance what's required for the common good
• According to Tilly: Common good is to

  balance maintaining:

  - sovereignty

  - defense

  - institutional infrastructure

  - internal peace

  While facilitating

  - individuality and groups
• According to Tilly: Why can't the state claim to work in the universal interest?

  Tension: If it's that, then it can't be an

  - autonomous body

  - dominating body
• According to Tilly: Why is the state as being structured as a corporate actor(structured organization of many) problematic?

  - each state elite having their own will will prevent unified action

  - Outside groups may use the state as a means to their interests
• According to Tilly:

  "If we do not trust individuals in the state of nature, why should we trust representatives of the state who have even more power"

  - The provider of our security os more likely to be a threat to the purchaser
• According to Tilly: (pre- Bellicist Theory of the State)

  -states should be viewed as extortion or protection rackets

  -state provides citizens with security (the state) for revenue

  - argues the seller of security (state) represents a key threat to the buyer's (citizens) continued security