Questions: Early Modern State Formation

Question 1

According to Charles Tilly's 'war makes states' argument, what was the primary driver of administrative centralization in early modern Europe?

• A. Enlightenment philosophers convinced monarchs that rational central government would improve welfare
• B. The Black Death reduced the noble population, leaving a power vacuum that monarchs filled
• C. Military competition between states forced rulers to build tax bureaucracies and standing armies to survive
• D. The Protestant Reformation transferred Church wealth to royal treasuries, funding new bureaucracies

Answer: (C)

Tilly's argument is that interstate warfare created a selection pressure: rulers who could not raise revenues and maintain armies were conquered by those who could. This competitive dynamic drove the construction of extractive bureaucracies (to tax) and military institutions (to fight). The modern centralized state emerged as a byproduct of organized violence, not from philosophy or inheritance.

Question 2

'Absolute' monarchs in early modern Europe held unlimited power over their subjects with no meaningful institutional constraints.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

So-called absolute monarchs were constrained in practice by customary law, noble privilege, regional variation, representative assemblies, the Church, and the simple administrative limitations of premodern states. 'Absolutism' describes a claim to sovereignty and a direction of travel, not a fully realized system. Even Louis XIV could not simply abolish the nobility or override all legal custom.

Question 3

How did the Peace of Westphalia (1648) formalize a new concept of state sovereignty?

Model answer: Westphalia established that rulers held sovereign authority within their own territories and that other states had no right to intervene in those internal affairs — including on religious grounds. This codified the territorial state as the basic unit of international relations.

Before Westphalia, the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy claimed cross-cutting authority over European rulers. Westphalia's settlement acknowledged each ruler's authority to determine religion in their territory and established non-interference as a norm. This is a founding moment of the modern international state system, which is still organized around the principle of territorial sovereignty.