A New Type of Warfare in Max Weber's Essay, Politics as a Vocation

The art of war has been a vital aspect of state-making throughout history. Max Weber contends in his essay, Politics as a Vocation, that the State is a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory” (Weber, 77), a definition that political experts cite to this day. However, many scholars today believe that we have created a new type of warfare, one that questions the validity of the statehood of current international powers as well as Weber’s own precedent for identifying States.

The current turmoil in Syria is an unusual circumstance. Since early 2011, the country has been plagued with civil unrest as fighting erupted between Syrian citizens and the government, causing a strong international reaction from other countries. When viewing the conflict through Weber’s lens, is it possible to rationalize the idea of Syria being a State in terms of the violence that has ensued? In order to come up with an answer, you need to ask two more questions in relation to Weber’s definition: Does the Syrian government successfully claim the monopoly of violence? Is the use of violence legitimate?

While the term “civil war” seems to be the “preferred term for the ongoing violence in Syria” (Keating, Would You Know a Civil War When You Saw One?), it is evident that the war has seeped out of Syria’s borders as other countries have attempted to intervene. Herbert Wulf writes in his essay, The bumpy road to re-establish a monopoly of violence, that “A characteristic of recent wars is a disruption or loss of the state monopoly of violence, as it can neither be adequately exercised nor can the rule of law be maintained” (Wulf). As much as the violence seems to be contained w...

... middle of paper ...

...onopoly”.

Furthermore, Weber also seems to assume a closed state system. As the world began to globalize more in the 20th century, interaction between States was simply unavoidable. For example, the spread of Communism during the Cold War began to blur the lines between Statehood and non-Statehood—some “States” held less power than separate parties within them (invading Communist powers). This discrepancy makes it difficult to distinguish who can be classified as a real State and who cannot, even decades before conflict arose in Syria.

While Weber’s definition of the State is flawed and should not be taken as the definitive word on what the State truly is, it does seems to encompass the real and nebulous idea, reaching closer to the true State’s vague epicenter. Weber provides us with a basis for further exploration of what it means to have legitimate statehood.