Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990-1992

Citation

Tilly, C. (1993). Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990–1992 (rev. ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

Chapter Summary

The book is about 280 pages in seven chapters, with a preface and a closing "Envoi". It sets out an argument about how states formed in Europe over a thousand years, in which the main variables are coercion and capital. The publisher states that Tilly challenges earlier formulations of state development in Europe for two reasons: they fail to account for the great variety of kinds of states that were viable at different stages of European history, and they assume a single path of development that ends in today's national state. The book closes by turning to the contemporary world.

Chapter 1: Cities and States in World History

The first chapter frames the problem under the headings "States in History", "Available Answers", "Logics of Capital and Coercion", "War Drives State Formation and Transformation", "Long Trends and Interactions" and "Prospects". The section on available answers reviews existing explanations of state formation, and the section on logics of capital and coercion introduces the book's central pair of terms.

Chapter 2: European Cities and States

This chapter turns to Europe, with sections on "Absent Europe", "States and Coercion", "Cities and Capital", "City-State Interaction", "State Physiologies", "Liaisons Dangereuses" and "Alternative Forms of State". The sections on states and coercion and on cities and capital take the two central variables in turn, and the section on city-state interaction brings them together.

Chapter 3: How War Made States, and Vice Versa

The chapter takes up war as the driver of state formation. Its sections cover "A Bifurcation of Violence", "How States Controlled Coercion", "Wars", "Transitions", "Seizing, Making, or Buying Coercion", "Paying the Debts" and "The Long, Strong Arm of Empire".

Chapter 4: States and their Citizens

The fourth chapter looks at the relation between rulers and the people they ruled. Its sections include "Bargaining, Rights, and Collective Action", "The Institution of Direct Rule", "The French Revolution: From Indirect to Direct Rule", "State Expansion, Direct Rule, and Nationalism", "Unintended Burdens" and "Militarization = Civilianization".

Chapter 5: Lineages of the National State

The chapter compares China and Europe, re-examines states and cities, and then distinguishes three kinds of trajectory: "Coercive Trajectories", "Capitalist Trajectories" and "Trajectories of Capitalized Coercion".

Chapter 6: The European State System

The sixth chapter places states in an interconnected system, covering "The Connectedness of European States", "The Ends of Wars", "Members of the System", "The Creation of a State-Linked World", "How Wars Began" and "Six Salient Questions".

Chapter 7: Soldiers and States in 1992

The last chapter brings the argument to the contemporary world. Sections include "Political Misdevelopment", "The Impact and Heritage of World War II", "The Ascent of Military Men", "Today's Military in Historical Perspective", "Military Buildup", "Soldiers in Power" and "How Did the Military Gain Power?", followed by the "Envoi". The publisher presents this as examining contemporary state formation across the globe in light of the European experience.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3

• Logics of capital and coercion: the two resources whose differing levels and concentrations, according to the publisher, explain the different kinds of state.
• War and state formation: war as the driver of the formation and transformation of states, argued in Chapter 1 and developed in Chapter 3.
• Bifurcation of violence: a section heading in Chapter 3, on how violence was divided between states and others.
• Cities and capital: the second main variable, discussed in Chapter 2.

Chapters 4–7

• Direct and indirect rule: the contrast Chapter 4 follows through the French Revolution.
• Militarization and civilianization: the pair of processes that the heading "Militarization = Civilianization" links.
• Coercive, capitalist and capitalized-coercion trajectories: the three paths distinguished in Chapter 5.
• State system: the interconnection among states, treated in Chapter 6.
• Military in power: the topic of the final chapter.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A comparative, long-run frame. The contents show a thousand-year argument that covers cities, states, wars, citizens and the state system, and compares Europe with China, so readers see state formation as a process rather than a single event.
• A clear, argued thesis. The publisher stresses that the book challenges a unilinear picture of state development and accounts for the variety of states.
• Critical reception. Reviews quoted by the publisher call it a "closely argued and thought-provoking book" (Economic History Review), "an important, provocative theory, with much originality and richly documented" and "extremely well written" (American Journal of Sociology), and a book that presents the complex history of European state formation over a thousand years "in a most understandable way" (International Review of Social History).
• Compact length. The argument is carried in seven chapters and about 280 pages.

Limitations

• Heavy on historical background. The chapters cover many states and centuries, so a reader without general knowledge of European history will find names and episodes unfamiliar.
• Europe-centred. The argument is built from Europe; Chapter 5 compares it with China and Chapter 7 turns to the contemporary world.
• Dated. The revised edition ends in 1992, so developments since then are outside it.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the political sociology course, Tilly's book is a historical-sociological argument about the state, to be read after a general introduction. Orum and Dale's Political Sociology, Kate Nash's Contemporary Political Sociology and Elisabeth Clemens's What Is Political Sociology? are introductions of different lengths to power, the state and collective action, and they provide the vocabulary needed to place Tilly's argument.

Theda Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions is the closest companion: a comparative-historical analysis that also treats states as potentially autonomous organisations, applied to the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions, and the two make a natural pair. Arlie Russell Hochschild's Strangers in Their Own Land is a very different ethnographic study of political feeling in one community and shows the contemporary side of political sociology that Tilly does not address.

How to Use This Book

The book is for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in political sociology, comparative politics and historical sociology. A general knowledge of European history and some familiarity with political sociology are helpful.

A practical plan:

• Start with Chapter 1, which sets out the argument and reviews alternatives, then read Chapters 2 and 3 for the core claims about capital, coercion and war.
• Read Chapters 4 to 6 for the elaboration: the relation between states and citizens, the three trajectories and the state system.
• Treat Chapter 7 as an extension to the contemporary world, useful for readers interested in military rule.
• Read it alongside Skocpol to compare how two authors use comparative history to explain state-level change.