State Formation in Modernity

The aim of the seminar is to study the basic theoretical approaches that focus on the processes of state formation in the European area, but also in Latin America and Asia. Through the study of classical texts we will examine which combination of historical conditions encourages the establishment of the three basic state mechanisms: the fiscal mechanism, the judicial mechanism and the military mechanism. Additional emphasis will be placed on the way in which states appropriate space and time and develop organizational extractive and repressive capacities. The seminar will then focus on how the above mechanisms react or adapt to the process of commodification of economies, as well as the political results that this process produces at the level of state structures. Finally, it will be examined whether the processes of formation of these early states apply to modern attempts at state building.