Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T17:26:33.599Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The autonomous power of the state: its origins, mechanisms and results

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Michael Mann
Get access

Extract

This essay tries to specify the origins, mechanisms and results of the autonomous power which the state possesses in relation to the major power groupings of ‘civil society’. The argument is couched generally, but it derives from a large, ongoing empirical research project into the development of power in human societies. At the moment, my generalisations are bolder about agrarian societies; concerning industrial societies I will be more tentative. I define the state and then pursue the implications of that definition. I discuss two essential parts of the definition, centrality and territoriality, in relation to two types of state power, termed here despotic and infrastructural power. I argue that state autonomy, of both despotic and infrastructural forms, flows principally from the state's unique ability to provide a territorially-centralised form of organization.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , November 1984 , pp. 185 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bendix, R., Kings or People (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clastres, P., Society against the State (Oxford, Blackwell, 1977).Google Scholar
Creveld, M. van, Supplying War: logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977).Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N., The Political Systems of Empires (New York, The Free Press, 1969).Google Scholar
Engel, D. W., Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finer, S., State and nation-building in Europe: the role of the military, in Tilly, Ch. (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1975).Google Scholar
Gellner, E., Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, Blackwell, 1983).Google Scholar
Gerschenkron, A., Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press, 1962).Google Scholar
Giddens, A., A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (London, Macmillan, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumplowicz, L., The Outlines of Sociology (Philadelphia, American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1899).Google Scholar
Hintze, O., The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (ed. Gilbert, F.) (New York, Oxford University Press, 1975).Google Scholar
Hopkins, K., Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978).Google Scholar
Kautsky, J. H., The Politics of Aristocratic Empires (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Lachman, L., The Legacy of Max Weber (London, Heinemann, 1970).Google Scholar
Lattimore, O., Feudalism in history: a review essay, Past and Present (1957) No. 12, 47–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lattimore, O., Studies in Frontier History (London, Oxford University Press, 1962).Google Scholar
Levi, M., The predatory theory of rule. Politics and Society, X (1981), 431–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIver, R. M., The Modern State (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1926).Google Scholar
Mann, M., States, ancient and modern, Archives européennes de sociologie, XVIII (1977), 262–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, M., State and society, 1130–1815: an analysis of English state finances, in Zeitlin, M. (ed.) Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. I (Connecticut, J.A.I. Press, 1980).Google Scholar
Oppenheimer, F., The State (1975 edition: New York, Free Life Editions).Google Scholar
Perez-Diaz, V., State, Bureaucracy and Civil Society: a critical discussion of the political theory of Karl Marx (London, Macmillan, 1979).Google Scholar
Poulantzas, N., Pouvoir politique et classes sociales (Paris, Maspero, 1972).Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., The Emergence of Civilisation: the Cyclades and the Aegean in the third mllenium B.C. (London, Methuen, 1972).Google Scholar
Rustow, A., Freedom and Domination: a historical critique of civilization (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Service, E., Origins of the State and Civilisation (New York, Norton, 1975).Google Scholar
Skocpol, T., States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, H., Principles of Sociology (one-volume abridgement) (1969 edition London, Macmillan).Google Scholar
Therborn, G., What does the Ruling Class do when it Rules (London, New Left Books, 1978).Google Scholar
Tilly, Ch., The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1975).Google Scholar
Tilly, Ch., As Sociology Meets History (New York, Academic Press, 1981).Google Scholar
Trimberger, E., Revolution From Above: military bureaucrats and development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt and Peru (New Brunswick, N.J., Transaction Books, 1978).Google Scholar
Weber, M., Economy and Society (New York, Bedminster Press, 1968).Google Scholar