The Theory of Force

In one line

The theory of force says the state was born of conquest and lives by superior strength, so obedience is owed to whoever is strong enough to compel it.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the force theory holds that the state originated in the subjugation of the weak by the strong, that its essential characteristic is the possession of coercive power, and that political authority rests on the capacity to compel obedience rather than on any agreement, divine appointment or moral title.

The two claims inside it, which must be separated

Almost every mistake in answering this topic comes from running these together.

The historical claim. States actually arose by force. War, conquest and subjugation produced the earliest political units, and continued to produce them afterwards.

The normative claim. Force is what makes obedience owed. Might, in the slogan, makes right.

The first is largely true. The second is almost universally rejected. A good answer says so in its opening paragraph.

Who argued it

The ancient version. The claim that justice is nothing but the interest of the stronger is put in Plato's Republic by Thrasymachus, and answering it is much of what the dialogue is about.

The historical school. Nineteenth century writers, of whom Ludwig Gumplowicz and Franz Oppenheimer are the ones usually named, argued that the state arose from the conquest of one group by another and is essentially an organisation by which a victorious group exploits a defeated one.

The German account of the state and war. Writers in that tradition treated war as the means by which states are made and remade, and force as the state's defining attribute.

Anarchists, from the other side. Anarchist writers accepted the description entirely and drew the opposite conclusion: if the state is founded on force, it deserves no obedience at all.

Notice that the last group agree with the theory's premise and reject its conclusion, which is the fastest way to see that the premise does not carry the conclusion.

What is right in it

An answer that only refutes the theory misses several marks.

Historically it is well supported. Very few states were founded by agreement. Conquest, annexation, partition and revolution are how the political map was actually made.

Force is a real element of every state. Weber's own definition of the state is the human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Force is not incidental to the state; it is part of what the state is.

It corrects a sentimental picture. Contract theories can make the state sound like a club that members joined. Force theory is a useful reminder that boundaries were drawn by armies and that consent had nothing to do with where most people were born.