ABSTRACT

Max Weber denes the state as the holder of the monopoly of the legitimate use of force over a given territory and he adds that this monopoly is only possible because those who are subject to the authority of the state, to some extent accept it or consent to it. I think that this denition eectively captures the essential of what constitutes the modern state – a state which I believe is in a process of radical transformation – but I propose one modication to the wording of this denition: the modern state is the holder of the monopoly of legitimate violence. I prefer ‘legitimate violence’ to ‘the legitimate use of force’ because it indicates more clearly that between legitimate and illegitimate violence, the only dierence is that it is legitimate, in both cases what we are dealing with is violence. Max Weber’s wording suggests that there is between the ‘legitimate coercive force’ of the state and illegitimate violence a dierence in nature, as if ‘coercive force’ was something radically dierent from violence. is is not to say of course that legitimacy is simply a sham, an illusion or a lie, its eects as we will see are very real. Further, the word ‘use’, used by Weber, suggests rationality in the state’s recourse to force, ‘the monopoly of legitimate violence’ implies no such connotation (nor does it exclude it). Finally, the modied formulation also aims to draw our attention to the fact that violence and legitimacy are intimately linked. Legitimacy, political legitimacy, I argue, is inseparable from the ability to make the distinction between good and bad violence and that ability is ultimately rooted in violence itself.