Political Science I / The Formation of the Modern State
Practice question · Fill in the blanks

Complete the account of state formation.

Tilly summarised the process as: war made the ______, and the state made war. Paying for war required ______ at a new scale, which required an administrative apparatus. Bargaining with taxpayers produced ______ institutions. The Reformation broke the universal church's competing authority, giving the principle that the ruler decides the ______ of the territory.

Word bank: state · extraction · representative · religion · sovereignty · bureaucracy

Hints
  1. The first blank completes the most-quoted sentence in the literature.
  2. The last blank is the content of cuius regio, eius religio.
Show the answer

Tilly summarised the process as: war made the state, and the state made war. Paying for war required extraction at a new scale, which required an administrative apparatus. Bargaining with taxpayers produced representative institutions. The Reformation broke the universal church's competing authority, giving the principle that the ruler decides the religion of the territory.

Why

The four blanks are the causal chain in miniature: competition, extraction, negotiation, and the removal of the last rival authority. Nothing in it involves anyone deciding to build a state.

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