Ebook The State’s Monopoly on Legitimate Violence
The monopoly on legitimate force or violence belongs to the essential elements of modern statehood – so the scholarly consensus since Thomas Hobbes or at least since Max Weber. In “Economy and Society” Weber defines the state as a political organization whose “administrative staff successfully upholds the claim to the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its orders” (Weber 1922: 29, translation). This definition seems to be very clear, but sometimes it leads to misunderstandings.
First of all, the use of force is not the sole and not even the normal means for the modern state “to realize its orders”; it is only the ultima ratio if all other means are not effective. The crucial point for Weber was the fact that the state cannot be defined by its “ends” because there are almost no ends that states did not try to realize in the course of history. Of all social institutions and ll possible actors in modern society, only the state is legitimated to use physical force as a “means”– with the implication that all forms of non-state violence are illegitimate and have therefore to be prosecuted and punished according to the penal law (Milanes 1999). One of the misunderstandings concerns the question sometimes posed in discussions: How can we speak of a “monopoly on violence” if there is so much violence originating in society? Yes, there is an important difference between monopolies in the economy where certain goods or services may be supplied by only one company whereas the state hasn’t even a chance to monopolize the ownership of arms, not to speak of innumerable devices that can be used in exercising violence, for instance, knives. In other words, the state’s monopoly on violence does not create a “society without violence” (Anter 1995: 44), because it is completely impossible for the state to suppress all forms of violence. The term “monopoly” refers only to the legitimate use of force or violence!
Posted in :
