Abstract
The concept of the "power state" (Machtstaat) was introduced into Danish historography in 1983/85 by Leon Jespersen as a concept "implying some of the elements present in a militarized state and in a tax state with increased expenditure on defence, administration, the court and diplomacy, a state which had also been strengthened partly for reasons of prestige". This rather broad definition was narrowed down by Knud J.V. Jespersen who in 1989 defined the power state as "a state existing by virtue of itself, outside and above the social classes. This type of government was an innovation of Renaissance Europe, caused especially by a new, expensive technology of war that forced the states to operate as organizers of a radically increased armies." Even if the power state turns up occasionally in modern Scandinavian scholarship, the concept is normally used neither in the broad sense of Leon Jespersen’s definition nor in the narrow sense of Knud J.V. Jespersen’s conception but in a diffuse manner indicating a military state or merely a strong government. This development is unsatisfactory for a concept that was introduced and refined in order to become a new research paradigm. It points to inherent difficulties or contradictions that can be analyzed by tracing the historiographical roots of the concept. According to Leon Jespersen the concept of the power state is derived from the "Prussian school" of history represented by scholars such as Carl von Clausewitz, Heinrich von Treitschke, Carl Schmitt and Otto Hintze. Of these, only Hintze actually uses the concept of the Machtstaat, and he does it only once in an influential article on the origins of the modern state from 1931. However, the concept of the Machtstaat can be traced further back. Already in 1868 the Swiss cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt used the word in a lecture to stigmatize the dreadful expansionist policy of the "monster" Louis XIV. To him the Machtstaat was a state that claimed full possession of the body and soul of the subjects and which used liberty, prosperity and culture as a front for the raw pursuit of power. A similar if not identical usage can be documented among German jurists contrasting the Machtstaat to the Rechtstaat (a state governed by the law). Among German political historians, however, the attitude toward power was much more positive. From 1906 (Friedrich Meinecke) until the 1950s (Gerhard Oestreich) the concept of the Machtstaat figured regularly among historians of the so-called Borussian (Prussian) school. To them the word implied much more than significant power. It pointed to the "great truth" that the essence of the state was power and that the pursuit of power was the highest duty of the prince. The background for their enthusiasm for power was two-fold. On the one hand, German idealism that had its basis in Hegel and Romanticism, tended to see states not as conglomerates of classes, elites and political interests but as spiritual entities endowed with true individuality and purpose. On the other hand, the historical experience of the "Reichsgründung" (the German unification culminating in the victory over France and the creation of the German Empire in 1871) which taught the lesson that German unity was achieved not by means of Liberalism and popular sovereignty but through Prussian military strength and power politics. In this philosophy of history, the military might, cunning and brutality associated with Prussian history and the house of Hohenzollern was redeemed by Prussia's "deuscher Beruf" (German calling) to the become a Machtstaat in order to ultimately realize German unity. This historiographical background puts the concept of the power state in perspective. In Leon Jespersen's version it is simply too broad and should be replaced by narrower operational concepts such as the military-fiscal state. Knud J.V. Jespersen's version of the power state actually has much in common with the Machtstaat of the Borussian historians. First and foremost, they share the idea of an autonomous state which exists for its own purpose and not as a vehicle for group interests. Secondly, they share a strong teleology even if the goal of Knud J.V. Jespersen's power state is not national but simply, even if implicitly, modernity. It seems, however, that in order to be logically coherent, and hence persuasive, Knud J.V. Jespersen's power state actually presupposes an explicit philosophical (Hegelian) idealism and modernization theory which it obviously lacks. Perhaps this is the reason why it has had such a limited impact in the scholarly community.
| Original language | Danish |
|---|---|
| Journal | Historisk Tidsskrift |
| Volume | 108 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Pages (from-to) | 30-65 |
| Number of pages | 36 |
| ISSN | 0106-4991 |
| Publication status | Published - 2008 |
Keywords
- Faculty of Humanities
- power state
- early modern
- Leon Jespersen
- military state
- Heinrich von Treitschke
- Borussianism
- history of concepts
- historiography