Violence and Security: Paradigms and Debates Readings
Summary
Lecture 1
Shawn Davies, Garoun Engstrom, Therése Pettersson and Magnus Öburg. 2024. “Organized
Violence 1989-2023, and the prevalence of organized crime groups.” Journal of Peace Research
61(4): 673-693.
Trends in organized violence in 2023
- Fatalities from organized violence decreased compared to 2022, but historically still high
- Active state-based armed conflicts increased compared to 2022
- Non-state conflicts and one-sided conflicts decreased compared to 2022, but historically still
high
• Organized crime groups have fuelled this
o They lack political goals (unlike rebel groups)
• Conflicts among these groups are about drug smuggling routes in urban areas
Lecture 2
Tilly, C. (2017). War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. In Castañeda, E., &
Schneider, C.L. (eds.), Collective Violence, Contentious Politics, and Social Change: A Charles
Tilly Reader (pp. 121-139). Taylor & Francis.
Introduction
- War making and state making are examples of organized crime
- Coercive exploitation large part of creation of European state
- What is the place of organized means of violence in the growth and change of the forms of
government we call national states?
- War making, extraction of resources and capital accumulation shaped European state making
• War makes states and states make war
• Permanent, professional army + eliminating local rivals → monopolization of violence
• External threats + monopolization of violence → protection provided by government
• Protection → war making, extraction → state-making
Protection, violence and governments
- Protection can be both shelter against danger provided by a powerful friend, insurance policy
or sturdy roof and strong man who forces merchants to pay tribute in order to avoid damage
- Which image depends on our assessment of reality and the externality of the threat
- Racketeer: someone who creates threat then charges for its reduction
• Governments are racketeers, but difference is they have authority
- How did governments get authority? monopolization of violence: the distinction between
legitimate and illegitimate force
• Legitimacy: probability that other authorities will act to confirm the decisions of a
given authority
o Higher when authority has force (e.g. fear of retaliation, desire of stability)
- How did governments get monopolization of violence?
• Early in state making process many parties had right to use of violence
o Bandits and pirates were hired during wars
• After some time, the state’s armies were unified and permanent
• Local rivals were eliminated, through
, o Extending officialdom to local community
o Encouraging creation of police forces subordinate to government
Protection as business
- Governments forcefully sell protection
- Monopoly profit (/tribute): money coming to owners of means of producing violence as result
of difference between production costs and price extracted from costumers
- Protection rent: effective protection accruing to those costumers against outside competitors
- Different managers of protection-providing government have different behaviours
• Citizens
o Minimize costs and tribute, maximize protection rent
• Monarch
o Maximize tribute, set costs to maximize tribute, indifferent to protection rent
• Managers themselves
o Cost high by maximizing own wages, maximize tribute, indifferent to protection
rent
• Dominant class
o Maximize monopoly profits, protection rents to interests of dominant group
- Four periods of capitalism
1. Anarchy and plunder
2. Tribute takers attract costumers and establish monopolies by struggling to create
exclusive, substantial states
3. Merchants and landlords gain more from protection rents than governors from tribute
4. Technological changes cause protection rents as source of profit for entrepreneurs
What do states do?
- Capital accumulation, location next to sea ( strong navy) and military technology helped
military expansion
- Four kinds of state-controlled violence
• War making: eliminating/neutralizing rivals outside of their territory
• State making: eliminating/neutralizing rivals inside of their territory
• Protection: eliminating/neutralizing enemies of their clients
• Extraction: acquiring means of carrying out the first three activities
- They reinforce each other
- Depend on state’s tendency to monopolize means of coercion
- Each major use of violence produced forms of organization
• War making: armies, navies
• State making: surveillance and control within territory
• Protection: protection apparatus (e.g. courts, representative assemblies)
• Extraction: fiscal and accounting structures
- Three influences that connect national state to European network of states
1. Flow of resources in the form of loans and supplies
2. Competition among states for hegemony in disputed territories war making
3. Creation of coalitions of states
- History of European state making has three stages
1. Differential success of some power holders in external struggles establish difference
between internal and external arena for deployment of force
2. External competition generates internal state making
3. External compacts among states influence forms and locus of particular states ever more
powerfully
Richard Stubbs. 1999. “War and Economic Development: Export-Oriented Industrialization in
East and Southeast Asia.” Comparative Politics 31(3): 337-355.
, Introduction
- Not enough research on impact war has on economic development, except for major powers
(e.g. European countries)
• Makes it harder to understand events in Asia
• Wars (e.g. WW2, Korean war, Vietnam war) and strong states (Taiwan, Japan, South-
Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand)
- To what extent have wars and the threat of war been a crucial factor in the development of
these seven successful economies?
Effects of war
- Tilly: wars make states
- Stubbs: preparation for wars also helps shaping societies and economies
- Countries involved in or preparing for war can experience its destructive, formative and
redistributive effects
• Destructive (or disintegrative) effects: e.g. loss of life, forced migration, shortage of food
• Formative (or developmental) effects: e.g. territorial gains, unification of society,
centralization of government and power, development of technology, growth of economy
• Redistributive (or reformative) effects: e.g. domestic redistribution of wealth, increase in
educational and skill levels
- Kind of war determines which impact it has on the state (e.g. civil war vs. world war)
- Linkages
1. War and war preparation have impact on creation of state structures and promote
civilization of state power through development of central bureaucracy designed to
mobilize resources for expansion of military
2. Relationship between capital and coercion is key to understanding impact of wars
3. Interventionist state in Europe was associated with confluence of industrialization and
preparation for and fighting of wars
4. War and mercantilism went hand in hand during wars or war preparation
5. Wars close old markets, open new ones and change existing patterns of trade
Strong state, supply of capital and markets
- One of key conditions for development of industrialization strategy in Asia was strong
institutional state linked to business community and able to adopt and implement necessary
policy reforms
- After WW2 the seven states became strong states because
• Social and political order of the region was devastated
• Rapid development
• Relationship between state and society was greatly altered by reformative and
redistributive effects of prevailing geostatic context
- With later wars (e.g. Korean and Vietnamese) export-oriented economies helped states become
stronger
- For export-oriented economies, much capital is necessary (e.g. through FDI)
• Wars and threat of war are sources of funds → wars generate capital
- For export-oriented economies, markets are also necessary
• Wars are crucial in creating markets for export manufacturing
Conclusion
- The sequence of events is crucial
• In what order did the three effects of war happen (destructive, formative, redistributive)
and when did they decide to adopt an export-oriented strategy
- The linkages between wars and economic development in Asia indicate the importance of
understanding the ways in which wars and the threat of war influence the accumulation of
wealth and the distribution and redistribution of capital.
- Wars and the threat of war breed mercantilism
Summary
Lecture 1
Shawn Davies, Garoun Engstrom, Therése Pettersson and Magnus Öburg. 2024. “Organized
Violence 1989-2023, and the prevalence of organized crime groups.” Journal of Peace Research
61(4): 673-693.
Trends in organized violence in 2023
- Fatalities from organized violence decreased compared to 2022, but historically still high
- Active state-based armed conflicts increased compared to 2022
- Non-state conflicts and one-sided conflicts decreased compared to 2022, but historically still
high
• Organized crime groups have fuelled this
o They lack political goals (unlike rebel groups)
• Conflicts among these groups are about drug smuggling routes in urban areas
Lecture 2
Tilly, C. (2017). War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. In Castañeda, E., &
Schneider, C.L. (eds.), Collective Violence, Contentious Politics, and Social Change: A Charles
Tilly Reader (pp. 121-139). Taylor & Francis.
Introduction
- War making and state making are examples of organized crime
- Coercive exploitation large part of creation of European state
- What is the place of organized means of violence in the growth and change of the forms of
government we call national states?
- War making, extraction of resources and capital accumulation shaped European state making
• War makes states and states make war
• Permanent, professional army + eliminating local rivals → monopolization of violence
• External threats + monopolization of violence → protection provided by government
• Protection → war making, extraction → state-making
Protection, violence and governments
- Protection can be both shelter against danger provided by a powerful friend, insurance policy
or sturdy roof and strong man who forces merchants to pay tribute in order to avoid damage
- Which image depends on our assessment of reality and the externality of the threat
- Racketeer: someone who creates threat then charges for its reduction
• Governments are racketeers, but difference is they have authority
- How did governments get authority? monopolization of violence: the distinction between
legitimate and illegitimate force
• Legitimacy: probability that other authorities will act to confirm the decisions of a
given authority
o Higher when authority has force (e.g. fear of retaliation, desire of stability)
- How did governments get monopolization of violence?
• Early in state making process many parties had right to use of violence
o Bandits and pirates were hired during wars
• After some time, the state’s armies were unified and permanent
• Local rivals were eliminated, through
, o Extending officialdom to local community
o Encouraging creation of police forces subordinate to government
Protection as business
- Governments forcefully sell protection
- Monopoly profit (/tribute): money coming to owners of means of producing violence as result
of difference between production costs and price extracted from costumers
- Protection rent: effective protection accruing to those costumers against outside competitors
- Different managers of protection-providing government have different behaviours
• Citizens
o Minimize costs and tribute, maximize protection rent
• Monarch
o Maximize tribute, set costs to maximize tribute, indifferent to protection rent
• Managers themselves
o Cost high by maximizing own wages, maximize tribute, indifferent to protection
rent
• Dominant class
o Maximize monopoly profits, protection rents to interests of dominant group
- Four periods of capitalism
1. Anarchy and plunder
2. Tribute takers attract costumers and establish monopolies by struggling to create
exclusive, substantial states
3. Merchants and landlords gain more from protection rents than governors from tribute
4. Technological changes cause protection rents as source of profit for entrepreneurs
What do states do?
- Capital accumulation, location next to sea ( strong navy) and military technology helped
military expansion
- Four kinds of state-controlled violence
• War making: eliminating/neutralizing rivals outside of their territory
• State making: eliminating/neutralizing rivals inside of their territory
• Protection: eliminating/neutralizing enemies of their clients
• Extraction: acquiring means of carrying out the first three activities
- They reinforce each other
- Depend on state’s tendency to monopolize means of coercion
- Each major use of violence produced forms of organization
• War making: armies, navies
• State making: surveillance and control within territory
• Protection: protection apparatus (e.g. courts, representative assemblies)
• Extraction: fiscal and accounting structures
- Three influences that connect national state to European network of states
1. Flow of resources in the form of loans and supplies
2. Competition among states for hegemony in disputed territories war making
3. Creation of coalitions of states
- History of European state making has three stages
1. Differential success of some power holders in external struggles establish difference
between internal and external arena for deployment of force
2. External competition generates internal state making
3. External compacts among states influence forms and locus of particular states ever more
powerfully
Richard Stubbs. 1999. “War and Economic Development: Export-Oriented Industrialization in
East and Southeast Asia.” Comparative Politics 31(3): 337-355.
, Introduction
- Not enough research on impact war has on economic development, except for major powers
(e.g. European countries)
• Makes it harder to understand events in Asia
• Wars (e.g. WW2, Korean war, Vietnam war) and strong states (Taiwan, Japan, South-
Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand)
- To what extent have wars and the threat of war been a crucial factor in the development of
these seven successful economies?
Effects of war
- Tilly: wars make states
- Stubbs: preparation for wars also helps shaping societies and economies
- Countries involved in or preparing for war can experience its destructive, formative and
redistributive effects
• Destructive (or disintegrative) effects: e.g. loss of life, forced migration, shortage of food
• Formative (or developmental) effects: e.g. territorial gains, unification of society,
centralization of government and power, development of technology, growth of economy
• Redistributive (or reformative) effects: e.g. domestic redistribution of wealth, increase in
educational and skill levels
- Kind of war determines which impact it has on the state (e.g. civil war vs. world war)
- Linkages
1. War and war preparation have impact on creation of state structures and promote
civilization of state power through development of central bureaucracy designed to
mobilize resources for expansion of military
2. Relationship between capital and coercion is key to understanding impact of wars
3. Interventionist state in Europe was associated with confluence of industrialization and
preparation for and fighting of wars
4. War and mercantilism went hand in hand during wars or war preparation
5. Wars close old markets, open new ones and change existing patterns of trade
Strong state, supply of capital and markets
- One of key conditions for development of industrialization strategy in Asia was strong
institutional state linked to business community and able to adopt and implement necessary
policy reforms
- After WW2 the seven states became strong states because
• Social and political order of the region was devastated
• Rapid development
• Relationship between state and society was greatly altered by reformative and
redistributive effects of prevailing geostatic context
- With later wars (e.g. Korean and Vietnamese) export-oriented economies helped states become
stronger
- For export-oriented economies, much capital is necessary (e.g. through FDI)
• Wars and threat of war are sources of funds → wars generate capital
- For export-oriented economies, markets are also necessary
• Wars are crucial in creating markets for export manufacturing
Conclusion
- The sequence of events is crucial
• In what order did the three effects of war happen (destructive, formative, redistributive)
and when did they decide to adopt an export-oriented strategy
- The linkages between wars and economic development in Asia indicate the importance of
understanding the ways in which wars and the threat of war influence the accumulation of
wealth and the distribution and redistribution of capital.
- Wars and the threat of war breed mercantilism
