...for the Fabii to fight this way suggests that the Roman Republic itself didn't yet have that monopoly. And of course even in the modern period we have developed terms to express some of the fuzziness of the 'state' set. We thus talk about 'failed states' for... 3/21
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...like those of much of Gaul and Spain, the state/non-state typology still has tremendous value for understanding differences in the structures of these communities. 13/21
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The idea of 'state formation' is also valuable in situating Iberian and Gallic communities on a continuum of social change w/ Rome, at different points, rather than treating as completely alien forms of social org. because in many ways they are more similar than different. 14/21
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Moreover, abandoning the 'state' label completely makes the process of state formation - with its tendency to 'ripple' outward as non-state peoples form states to compete with neighboring states - harder for the student to discern. 15/21
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Of course we should stress in our scholarship and to students that state-formation is not one way! The Roman state forms, fails, reforms, fails *again*, reforms and then fragments leaving successor states and a large zone of non-state polities over western Europe. 16/21
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And I certainly endorse the idea, advanced by Hall that we should think in terms of "a world of individuals making choices which impact their contemporary space of time." Any serious discussion of states knows that they are not singular actors, but composite entities. 17/21
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I think a focus on webs of power is important, but I'd leaven that with some Hannah Arendt: force and violence are not power (and so 'military power' as used here, is almost but not quite a contradiction in terms). 18/21
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States use power to generate force, and can use force to generate power, but the are not the same; this is not a case of one kind of power being transmuted into another but of the interaction of two quite different things (see H. Arendt, "On Violence") 19/21
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In the end, I think ditching the idea of states, even for the ancient world, obscures more than clarifies. That said, think this article is a good place to start talking about states and the use of the label though - it makes some very good arguments - well worth a read. end/21
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But early Italian hoplite-esque combat is still regularly asserted, e.g.