TR3.5

Unit One Essay Planning

Huxley 2021-09-27 Mon 12:00

1 Here we go again.

1.1 Prompt

Essay option 1: In the early modern period, three of the four major power centers of the world unified under multi-ethnic, multi-religious empires (the Qing in East Asia, the Mughals in South Asia, and the Ottomans in the Middle East), while Europe remained politically fragmented into multiple, competitive independent states. Why was no European power able to unify their local state system the way the Asian land empires did? In a well-organized essay, answer this question by comparing Europe to any two of the above empires. Your essay should cite evidence from a variety of secondary sources from the unit pdf. A strong essay will use the sources as evidence for both specific historical events that demonstrate your thesis as well as for broader concepts and trends. All sources from the Unit 1 reader are fair game, including what we read before the last essay. 

Essentially, why coudnt they centralize? Compare and contrast essay. 

Essay option 2: According to Charles Tilly’s “bellicist” theory of state formation, states form to protect a territory from external threats. In the process of doing this (war-making), they develop the tools to eliminate internal rivals as well (state-making), and in order to fund these endeavours, they develop institutions like taxation to raise revenue from their territory (extraction). In order to maximize the wealth available for extraction and prevent property owners from needing private armies to protect themselves, the state establishes rule of law to protect property rights (protection). Using this theory as a starting point, compare state formation in two or three of the four regions we have studied (Europe, India, China, and the Middle East/North Africa): your goal should be to highlight an interesting contrast and pose a causal explanation for this contrast. Your essay should cite evidence from a broad variety of secondary sources from the unit pdf. A strong essay will use the sources as evidence for both specific historical events that demonstrate your thesis as well as for broader concepts and trends. All sources from the Unit 1 reader are fair game, including what we read before the last essay.

1.2 Possible topics

  • Broa
  • Bellicist theory is INCOMPLETE (duhn duhn dunnnnn!)
    • Bellicist theory is about war, and discounts other forms of danger. Should be danger (and maybe some accompanying changes instead of war.
      • Three paragraphs, three examples where other forms of danger required state-making
      • End with some conclusion about the concept of models / theories?
    • To think about: what other things require state-making besides war-making?
    • Easy essay if I can get evidence
  • How does Bellicist theory incorporate trade?
    • Is this managed by the state?
    • Only talks about interactions with other states if they are war.
    • Does trade require state-made organization?

=<1AM-jots!>=

  1. Bellicist theory is incomplete
    • Other forms of danger besides war require state-making
      • Plauge
        • Look at ottoman orthodox vs european new ways
      • Ideological
        • Religon?
          • Religon is effective way to control people, but religion can get threatened.
      • Income / profit
        • Silver inflation from Spain and stuff

    Bellicist theory: war making doesnt directly lead to statemaking. War making leads to need for statemaking which leads to statemaking or collapse.

    This is an imporant distinction that must be made {becuaseeeeeee}

    it allows us to say things that threaten the state lead to state making, effectively :)

    The nesscecity for the state leads to its creating. Ie. if the state gets hit, and its power is decreased, the cause of the hit can still be counted as an equivalent to war-making.

    =</1AM-jots!>=

1.3 True Planing, Begin.

1.3.1 Evidence bin

  • Plague
    • "Contemptuous of European ideas and prac· tices, the Turks declined to adopt newer methods for containing plagues; consequently, their populations suffered more from severe epidemics. In one truly amazing fit of obscurantism, a force of janissar- ies destroyed a state observatory in 1580, alleging that it had caused a plague." Kennedy, 12
    • There was little improvement in communica- tions, and no machinery for assistance in the event of famine, flood, and plague-which were, of course, fairly regular occurrences. kenndey, 13
  • Inflation
    • In the late sixteenth century, inflation caused by a floodof cheap silver from the New World (see Environ- ment and Technology: Metal Currency and Inflation), affectedmany of the remaining landholders, who col- lected taxes according to legally fixed rates. Some saw theirpurchasing power decline so much that they could notreport for military service. Bulliet, 491
    • In the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries, however, precious metal poured into Spain from silver and gold mines in the New World, but there was no increase in the availability of goods and services. The resulting infla-tion triggered a "price revolut ion" in Europe-a gen- eral tripling of prices between 1500 and 1650. In Paris in 1650 the price of wheat and hay was fifteen times higher than the price had been in 1500. Bulliet, 494
    • As a result, the country faced the unsolvable problem of finding money to pay the army and bureauc- racy. Bulliet, 500
    • First, governments through- out Eurasia had attempted to displace the warlords and tame the aristocracies that had provided services to the crown by building armies and bureaucracies loyal to the central government alone. Building these armies and bureaucracies was expensive, and soldiers and bureaucrats had to be paid. Inflation raised the costs of maintaining them in the manner to which they had grown accustomed. gelvin, 33-34
    • States spen t an enormous amount of money to sustain their emp loyees. In Persia, for examp le, an estimated 38 percent of the state's expendi tures went to the army. Another 41 percent went to the imperial harem, the royal family, and royal attendants. States competed with the private sector for resources, and this drove up prices. gelvin, 35
    • This complicated situation resulted in revolts that devastated Anatolia between 1590 and 1610. Former landholding cavalrymen, short-term soldiers released at the end of a campaign, peasants overburdened by emer- gencytaxes, and even impoverished students of religion formed bands of marauders. bulliet, 491
  • Ideological
    • Europeans engaged in numerous conflicts pitting Catholics against Protestants. roberts, 45
    • Assuredly, the effort to renew the church and make it holy had an enormous and immediate impact upon politics. Sustained and serious effort to make human life conform to God's will as revealed in the Bible changed men's minds and altered their behavior. Wholesale violence sanctified by dogmatic differences quickly erupted, mcneil, 310
    • The act of eliminating internal rival forces and insurgents from within its own territories. systems and states, 11

1.3.2 Outline

  1. Thesis: Bellicist theory
    • Intro
      • Bellicist theory is incomplete
        • Bellicist theory is….
        • War making should be replaced with "need"
          • Many things replace need, such as x y and z.
          • Tilly leaves out the obvious, which is that failure to do this leads to crash
            • Allows proving things in the negative
    • P1
      • Plague
        • Ottomans kept old ways of dealing with plague instead of adopting new European ones which led to allot of plagues
          • Dealing with plague required organization that needed to be dealt with by the government
          • The Ottomans lack of state making (rejecting their orthodox beliefs..?) aided their downfall.
          • preventing this would require state-making
    • P2
      • Inflation
        • Spain created a massive influx of silver which led to massive inflation
          • people hired by the government can no longer be paid off
          • Causes efforts at autonomy
          • Which requires state-making to crush
    • P3
      • Ideological
        • States control their people with religion
        • when a new religion is introduced, that is a threat to the states control
        • so they perform "statemaking," and kill the members of the new religion
          • ex. the protestant revolution
            • protestant ideas threatened the power of the state
            • state decided to statemake-ify them

1.4 Writing time.

Charles Tilly is famously quoted as stating "War makes states and states make war" (Systems and States, 10). He lays out a theory of state making, claiming that a state has four primary functions: war making, protection, extraction, and of course, state making. Simply put, war making stems from the need to protect a territory, which then leads to extraction, protection, and state making. Tilly leaves out the obvious, which is that failure to achieve one of these functions would lead to a crash. War making does not lead to state making if one loses the war. {diagram} Tilly dubbed this idea "Bellicist Theory," bellicist meaning one who advocates for war. However, the error in this theory is in the namesake itself. Tilly overgeneralizes{wc}, ignoring many other causes that lead to state making in the same way that war making does. To amend this, 'need' should be in place of war making. {diagram} For war making, this need would be the need for protection against an enemy army, or the need for resources as acquired through war making. Throughout the course of this essay, I will examine places in which this amended Bellicist theory functions and normal Bellicist theory does not.

The Bellicist theory remains consistent when war making is replaced with plague, a biological attack. Effective mitigation of plague requires a level of organization higher than a single person can achieve. Instead, it requires protection as provided by the state, perhaps taking the form of sanitation mandates or information as opposed to the formation of an army. This protection would require extraction, which, with the same logic as originally applied with war making, would lead to state making. An example of this occurrence–in the negative–can be found in the late 1500s during the fall of the Ottoman empire. Kennedy reports, "Contemptuous of European ideas and practices, the Turks declined to adopt newer methods for containing plagues;" (citation). Due to this lack of new method adoption, the Ottomans did not follow the modified Bellicist theory {wc}, and hence, "suffered more from severe epidemics" (citation). Instead, the Ottomans opted for methods such as destroying state observatories, "alleging that it had caused a plague" (citation). This failure to achieve the primary functions of the state, as described by Tilly, ultimately aided in the downfall of the Ottoman Empire.

Just like physical attack and biological attack, income attack{wc, intent?} also leads to state making. Income attack can manifest in many ways, one of which is inflation. When inflation occurred{tense?}, many countries whose "soldiers and bureaucrats had to be paid," "faced the unsolvable problem of finding money to pay the army and bureaucracy"(Citation, gelvin, bulliet). During the late sixteenth century, a flood of silver from Spain caused massive inflation, leading to the problem described above. This event has been dubbed the "price revolution[, with] a general tripling of prices between 1500 and 1650"(citation bulliet). This price revolution forced the Ottoman Empire to implement "emergency taxes," or, in other words, extraction (citation). In the Ottoman Empire, this inflation was so extreme that soldiers, peasants, bureaucrats, "and even impoverished students of religion formed bands of marauders"(citation bulliet). These marauders turned to internal plundering, and, expectedly, the government attempted to eliminate them. This process lines up exactly with Tilly's precise definition of state making: "The act of eliminating internal rival forces and insurgents from within its own territories" (citation). This elimination was of course an act of protection, and thus, it can be seen that income attack can be a replacement for war making while keeping Bellicist theory consistent.

A final example is ideological attack. A way states control their people is through a shared, commonly theological, ideology. When a competing ideology is introduced, this threatens the state's control, and thus, the state attempts to crush them. This process is seen time and time again throughout history, but perhaps one of the most notable examples is the Protestant Reformation. In the early 1500s, Catholicism was threatened by a new ideology, Protestantism. This ideological threat "had an enormous and immediate impact upon politics," and the state quickly decided to "pit[…] Catholics against Protestants" (citation)(citation). This ideological threat led to the state attempting to eliminate rivals within its territory, which, again, is Tilly's precise definition of state making. The original threat was not physical; there was no army the state had to protect itself against, and yet, the process laid out in Bellicist theory still occurred. ## Commence Google Docs Edit With broken formatting :sunglasses: Google Docs Essay

1.4.1 The Amended Bellicist Theory

Charles Tilly is famously quoted as stating "War makes states and states make war" (Systems and States 10). He lays out his theory of state making, claiming that a state has four primary functions: war making, protection, extraction, and of course, state making. Simply put, war making stems from the need to protect a territory, which then leads to the other three functions. Tilly leaves out the obvious, which is that failure to achieve one of these functions would lead to a crash. War making does not lead to state making if one loses the war. {diagram} Tilly dubbed this idea "Bellicist Theory," bellicist meaning one who advocates for war. However, the limits of this theory are in its name itself. While incredibly insightful, Tilly takes an overly narrow view, implying that war making is the only cause that leads to state making. This viewpoint ignores many other causes. Replacing 'war making' with 'address need' appropriately amends this model. {diagram} For war making, this need would be the need for protection against an enemy army, or the need for resources as acquired through war making. Throughout the course of this essay, I will examine places in which this amended Bellicist theory applies to the historical record while normal Bellicist theory does not. When war making is replaced with plague, the underlying ideas in the Bellicist theory remain valid. Effective mitigation of contagious disease requires a level of organization beyond that which a single person can achieve. Instead, it requires protection as provided by the state, perhaps taking the form of sanitation mandates or information as opposed to the formation of an army. This protection would require extraction, which, with the same logic as originally applied with war making, would lead to state making. The fall of the Ottoman empire in the late 1500s demonstrates the explanatory power of the amended Bellicist theory—in the negative. Kennedy reports, "Contemptuous of European ideas and practices, the Turks declined to adopt newer methods for containing plagues." By "declin[ing] to adopt newer methods," the Ottomans failed to follow the amended Bellicist theory, and hence, "suffered more from severe epidemics." They failed to address the need. Instead, the Ottomans opted for methods such as destroying state observatories, "alleging that it had caused a plague" (Kennedy 12). This failure to achieve the primary functions of the state ultimately contributed to the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. Much like physical attack and biological attack, income attack can also lead to state making. Income attack can manifest in many ways, one of which is inflation. During the late sixteenth century, a flood of silver from Spain caused massive inflation. With the currency devalued, many countries whose "soldiers and bureaucrats had to be paid," faced "the unsolvable problem of finding money to pay the army and bureaucracy" (Gelvin 33-34, Bulliet 500). This event has been dubbed the "price revolution[, with] a general tripling of prices between 1500 and 1650" (Bulliet 494). The price revolution forced the Ottoman Empire to implement "emergency taxes," or, in Tilly's terminology, extraction. In the Ottoman Empire, this inflation was so extreme that soldiers, peasants, bureaucrats, "and even impoverished students of religion formed bands of marauders" (Bulliet 491). These marauders turned to internal plundering, and, as might be expected, the government attempted to eliminate them. This process lines up exactly with Tilly's precise definition of state making: "The act of eliminating internal rival forces and insurgents from within its own territories" (Systems and States 11). This elimination was of course an act of protection. Thus, it can be seen that the effects of an income attack can map to war making in the amended Bellicist theory. A final example of a limitation in Tilly's Bellicist theory—that is addressed by the amended Bellicist theory—is the ideological attack. One way states control their people is through a shared, typically theological, ideology. When a competing ideology is introduced, this threatens the state's control. Consistent with the amended Bellicist theory, the state attempts to crush them. This process is seen time and time again throughout history, but perhaps one of the most notable examples is the Protestant Reformation. In the early 1500s, Catholicism was threatened by a new ideology, Protestantism. This ideological threat "had an enormous and immediate impact upon politics," and the state quickly decided to "pit[…] Catholics against Protestants" (McNeil 310, Roberts 45). This ideological threat led to the state attempting to eliminate rivals within its territory, which, again, is Tilly's precise definition of state making. The original threat was not physical; there was no army the state had to protect itself against. Tilly's theory does not address ideological attack, and yet the process laid out in Bellicist theory still occurred.
Tilly's theory is deeply insightful, and has phenomenal explanatory power. But, in its efforts to explain the relationship of war making to other state functions, it limits its focus. War making, influential as it is, is a special case of a broader phenomenon. By amending Tilly's theory and replacing war making with 'address need,' Tilly's insights can be preserved and expanded. We have shown several examples where amended Bellicist theory applies and Bellicist theory does not, including plague, inflation, and ideological attack. Of course, these are only a select few cases where amended Bellicist theory can be applied. Powerful theories often start small, and are expanded over time as their true capability is discovered. This theory may be such a case.

Works Cited:

"The Rise of the Western World." The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000, by Paul M. Kennedy, William Collins, 2017.

"The Middle East and the Modern World System." The Modern Middle East: A History, by James L. Gelvin, Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 33–44.

"Southwest Asia and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1750." The Earth and Its Peoples: a Global History, by Richard W. Bulliet, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011, pp. 484–508.

"Europe's Self-Transformation." A World History, by William H. McNeill, Peking University Press, 2008, pp. 309–326.

Khakpour, Arta. Systems and States. August, 2020, docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vJnwwlECaFQkPPllsB68Ujhqd4zRIZwixMchTnO=g/. Google Slides Presentation.