Michael Mann

The autonomous power of the state: its origins, mechanisms and results

This essay tries to specify the origins, mechanisms and results of the autonomous power which the state possesses in relation to the major power groupings of ‘civil society’. The argument is couched generally, but it derives from a large, ongoing empirical research project into the development of power in human societies. At the moment, my generalisations are bolder about agrarian societies; concerning industrial societies I will be more tentative. I define the state and then pursue the implications of that definition. I discuss two essential parts of the definition, centrality and territoriality, in relation to two types of state power, termed here despotic and infrastructural power. I argue that state autonomy, of both despotic and infrastructural forms, flows principally from the states unique ability to provide a territorially-centralised form of organization.

States, war, and capitalism : studies in political sociology

1. The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and Results 2. States, Ancient and Modern 3. State and Society, 1180-1815: An Analysis of English State Finances 4. Capitalism and Militarism 5. War and Social Theory: Into Battle with Classes, Nations and States 6. The Roots and Contradictions of Modern Militarism 7. Ruling Class Strategies and Citizenship 8. The Decline of Great Britain.

War and Social Theory: Into Battle with Classes, Nations and States

It would be easy to polemicise against ‘orthodox sociology’s’ shameful neglect of war; to lament the paucity of sociology’s contribution to the most urgent social problem of our time — peace; and to deride the naive, pacific optimism of the ‘classic theorists’ whose writings form the theoretical core of our own education and that of our students. But the neglect may now be over. Recently sociology has been paying more attention to war and peace; while the surrounding political and cultural climate has changed more radically. In the ‘Star Wars’ programmes — I do not mean the fantasy version by Ronald Reagan, but the real one by George Lucas — whole planets can be destroyed by a single weapons system. Today both adults and children recognise that as contemporary reality. This is paralleled by the more surreptitious growth of chemical weapons, persuading many commentators that the world may soon end, not with a bang but with a blister. If sociology has anything useful to say, it will have a large and receptive audience.

Capitalism and Militarism

The aim of this paper is less to write a history of the relationship between capitalism and militarism than to analyse their present relationship in the light of history. More specifically, I seek to answer the questions: what difference, if any, has capitalism brought to the nature and degree of militarism in modern society? And to what extent, if any, is the threat of militarism which, in its nuclear form, leans so terrifyingly over our society, to be blamed upon capitalism?

What Is the Polity

The sovereign state became the dominant political form in a relatively brief period that began in Westphalian Europe and continued with European colonization. Contemporary states face increased challenges from inside and outside, and a global crisis of authority looms. Although the state as a form is highly variable and not about to disappear, a growing number and variety of other polities are moving toward center stage. The initiators of this roundtable asked several distinguished social scientists interested in historical perspective how they might redraw the map of global political space to reflect better current polities, boundaries, and identities and what future changes in that map they might foresee. Each contributor approached the questions in distinctive ways. Robert A. Denemark argues for more attention to world system history. Hendrik Spruyt looks for historical sociological insights into international systems change. Barry Buzan and Richard Little predict a rapidly shifting world of postmodern states and a different zone of conflict. Janice Gross Stein focuses on the privatization of security. Michael Mann finds that states as ‘polymorphous’ entities still have a future. Yale H. Ferguson and Richard W. Mansbach close with a discussion of their “polities” model.

Workers on the move : the sociology of relocation

Preface 1. Industrial relocation and the conurbations 2. Public attitudes to migration and relocation 3. The workers dependence upon employment 4. The case-study company 5. The relocation 6. Movers and non-movers: relocation decisions 7. The movers in Banbury 8. The experience of the non-movers 9. Conclusions Methodological appendix Questionnaires used Bibliography Index.

Comments on Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers@@@The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 15002000 by Paul Kennedy Review by: Anthony Giddens, Michael Mann and Immanuel Wallerstein The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Jun., 1989), pp. 328-340 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The London School of Economics and Political Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/590276 . Accessed: 24/04/2013 19:03

Reply: Is Democracy, and was Fascism, Sacred?

I thank all three discussants for their comments, both laudatory and critical, and for expressing their own ideas on fascism and ethnic cleansing. I politely decline their suggestions for re-titling The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (Mann, 2005), though I do concede Jacques Semelin’s charge that I use the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ in a rather general way.For me, it serves only as a broad covering term for all the phenomena I discuss. I reserve precision (hopefully) for the numerous sub-types of ethnic cleansing which I define, ranging from assimilation to genocide. I would be more worried if he was accusing me of using these terms loosely.

Europe and the Rise of Capitalism.

Preface Acknowledgements Introduction 1. European Development: Approaching a Historical Explanation Michael Mann 2. States and Societies: The Miracle in Comparative Prespective John A. Hall 3. The Origins of Modernity: Caste and Feudality (India, Europe and Japan) Jean Baechler 4. The Uniqueness of the East Chris Wickham 5. China as a Counterfactual Mark Elvin 6. The Mamluk Military system and the Blocking of Medieval Moslem Society Jean-Claude Garcin 7. Islam: A comment Michael Cook 8. The Modernization of Japan: Why has Japan Succeeded in its Modernization? Jacques Mutel 9. The Russian Case Alain Besancon 10. Political and Social Structures of the West Karl Ferdinand Werner 11. The Cradle of Capitalism: The case of England Alan Macfarlane 12. The European Tradition in Movements of Insurrection Rene Pillorget 13. Republics of Merchants in Early Modern Europe Peter Burke 14. The European Family and Early Industrialization Peter Laslett Index specialists and students in history and sociology.

Processes of murderous cleansing/genocide: comment on Hagan and Kaiser

John Hagan and Joshua Kaiser are to be thanked for their powerful and well-evidenced contribution to the debate over murderous cleansing in Darfur (2011). Their main purpose is to show that it is in fact a case of genocide – as Hagan has already argued in the trenchant book he co-authored with Rymond-Richmond (2008b). They orient themselves to the UN definition of genocide, which is the basis of international law and criminal prosecution. Unfortunately, this definition is also loose. The core of the UN definition is ‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’.That expression ‘in part’ is the main problem for it would seem to qualify any intentional massacre as genocide, which means we would have no legal means of distinguishing between the Holocaust and My Lai. However, if one gives ‘part’ a territorial rather than a quantitative meaning, so that it is the intention to eliminate a people resident in a given territory, then that might be considered genocide. Thus the nineteenth century elimination of a Native American nation – which might only inhabit a single valley – by white settlers or cavalry would be covered. Indeed, the International Criminal Tribunals have seemed to follow this in the case of the former Yugoslavia, for the virtual total elimination of Bosnian Muslims from the Srebrenica enclave has been considered genocide while more diffuse and partial massacres of Bosnians elsewhere have not. Srebrenica might still be considered a borderline case, since it was so local, but the eliminations in Darfur considered here seem a little clearer. Our authors have largely established that the intention of at least some perpetrators was to eliminate several ‘African’ peoples from their homeland by both killing and forced displacement and that this was substantially achieved. They are not the only ones to have demonstrated this, but they have produced a considerable body of data ‘on the ground’ that this was genocide. This journal article could have considerable political and legal consequences. It is not often that sociologists can be credited with this. However, it is not so clear who is to