ABSTRACT
Tilly has contributed powerfully to the study of political organization. He describes in detail the variations of the state-building and power-wielding processes in different areas of Europe over the millennium since 990. Searle suggests that the political implies group conflict. The nation state creates at least two groups, the public and the private group struggling over social and material goods internally and struggling to align their interests in interstate relations. Searle also suggests the political has some distinguishing features: the distinction between public and private institutions and spheres and group conflict over social goods. The nation-state form of politics implied that the state was in control also of the private sphere the land occupied by private persons, families and firms, and could withdraw the autonomy assigned to that sphere. This demonstrates again the importance of the relational view of politics. Politics in nation states thus implies a relation between groups, institutions, nation states and other relatively self-contained societies.
