Bret Devereaux

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

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

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

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

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

Just because a work is old doesn't mean it isn't current. Arendt's dichotomy of violence and power is still a valid and quite prominent theoretical framework in the poli-sci/security studies space.

It is also, more to the point, useful. Power - the ability to create/organize collective action - is not the same as the ability to compel an action through violent or the threat of violence.