Monopoly on violence

A monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force (sometimes referred to as the state's monopoly on violence) is the conception of the state expounded by sociologist Max Weber in his essay Politics as a Vocation (1919).

According to Weber, the state is that entity which "upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order." Weber's conception of the state as holding a monopoly on force has figured prominently in philosophy of law and political philosophy in the twentieth century.

Weber defines the state as a community successfully claiming authority on legitimate use of physical force over a given territory; territory was also deemed by Weber to be a prerequisite feature of a state. Such a monopoly, according to Weber, must occur via a process of legitimation.

According to Raymond Aron, international relations are characterized by the absence of the legitimate use of force in the relationship between states.

Max Weber's theory

Max Weber wrote in Politics as a Vocation that a necessary condition of statehood is the retention of such a monopoly. His expanded definition was that something is "a 'state' if and insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim on the 'monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force' (German: das Monopol legitimen physischen Zwanges) in the enforcement of its order."

According to Weber, the state is the source of legitimate physical force. The police and the military are its main instruments, but this does not mean that only public force can be used: private force (as in private security) can be used too, as long as it has legitimacy derived from the state.

Weber applied several caveats to this basic principle:

• Weber intended his statement as an observation, stating that it has not always been the case that the connection between the state and the use of physical force has been so close. He uses the examples of feudalism, where private warfare was permitted under certain conditions, and of Church courts, which had sole jurisdiction over some types of offenses, especially heresy (from the religion in question) and sexual offenses (thus the nickname "bawdy courts").
• The actual application of physical coercion is delegated or permitted by the state. Weber's theory is not taken to mean that only the government uses physical coercion, but that the individuals and organizations that can legitimize coercion or adjudicate on its legitimacy are precisely those authorized to do so by the state. So, for example, the law might permit individuals to use physical force in defense of self or property, but in this case, as in the example of private security above, the ability to use force has been granted by the state, and only by the state.