How War Makes States

UCL Uncovering Politics

The late great sociologist and political scientist Charles Tilly said that ‘war made the state and the state made war’. Fighting and winning wars was, he argued, a crucial part of the story of how modern states built their bureaucratic capacity and their ability to do all the things that we want states to do.

But this so-called ‘bellicist’ account of the origins of state capacity – seeing the modern state as rooted in war – does not go unchallenged. In particular, some critics see it as unduly Euro-centric and that it just doesn't work outside of Europe.

We are joined by Dr Luis Schenoni, who has just been promoted to Associate Professor in International Relations here at the UCL Department of Political Science and who is also Director of our Security Studies Programme. In his new book, due out in July this year, Luis challenges that alternative perspective. He argues that, even in Latin America, the bellicist theory – if properly understood – does a remarkably good job in explaining outcomes.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Luis Schenoni. Bringing War Back In. Victory, Defeat, and the State in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.

UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.