The state of the state—Some speculations

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to review the probable and possible development of the state, with special regard to Europe and the ongoing process of European integration. Before engaging this subject, a preliminary discussion is necessary about the concept of ‘the state’. Broadly speaking, there are two ways in which we can conceive of it. In the first place, ‘the state’ can be defined in a general way, for instance as any territory in which some political body monopolises the means of coercion. In this sense, ‘the state’ is an ahistorical concept.’ The ‘political systems of Highland Burma’ are then to be counted as ‘states’, just as the realm of Charlemagne, Carthage before it was destroyed by the Romans, or the Inca empire. Such a conception of ‘the state’ can have its uses in certain analyses. However, a second possible conception takes ‘the state’ ‘als ein konkreter, an einer geschichtliche Epoche gebundener Begriff.z In this view, ‘the state’ is not a universally applicable concept, but should be used for only a distinct historical period. In this essay, I take the second position. ‘The state’, then, emerged in the later Middle Ages in Europe as a new form of political organisation; and with it a political theory developed around this new phenomenon. Up until then the discrepancy between the actual division of political power, and the formal view of it, was enormous. According to the latter, Europe was one single Christian Empire. In reality, one could count at the end of the Middle Ages-depending on the definition used-80 to 500 separate political units: city-states, networks of landlords, bishoprics, kingdoms, monastic orders occupying islands or large tracts of territory, confederations of commercial cities, and so on.3 Since Leopold von Ranke, the invasion of Italy by the French king Charles VIII in 1494 has been viewed as the shock that triggered the rise of a new European states system. The Italian wars of 1494-1530 can be seen as the ordeal in which smaller and older political units-e.g. mostly Italian city-states-were defeated and absorbed by the new, still embryonic absolutist states, or had to follow more or less the example of the latter. (Here, only Venice was successful for a time.) The military revolution4 of these years meant a colossal rise in the cost of warfare, and only political units that had the scale and the coercive apparatus necessary for the raising of the resources to wage such wars (or which had enough commercial capital to pay for it), were to survive as independent and autonomous powers. The Italian wars, and the subsequent wars of Charles V, can also be seen in a