Weber famously defined the state as an entity that has successfully upheld the claim to monopolize "legitimate use of physical force" or 'violence' in a given territory. This excruciatingly Eurocentric definition subordinates society to the state, insofar as /1 #riots2020 https://twitter.com/RanttMedia/status/1266492006613868546

the state, its government, its policing and legal systems and institutions, its infrastructure, and so forth all form part of the broad axis of a circular self-legitimization: the state is the legitimate dispenser of violence because no other entity can challenge /2 #riots2020

it internally. In the Security Studies module I teach at University, one of the academic frameworks we use to define a failed state is by Joel S. Migdal. It defines a 'weak' state in ruthless terms, as a state which can't impose (violently or otherwise) itself /3 #riots2020

on society -- a concept otherwise known as the state-society antagonism. If a state cannot use its police, institutional, military, and so forth mechanisms and instruments to suppress dissent and antagonism, it's a "failed" state. This isn't a moralistic definition /4 #riots2020

There exists a better definition, however. First springs to mind Barry Buzan's definition of the state, which he calls "The Idea of the State": A state exists only if the people believe in its existence. If the people are disunited, or some feel excluded, then it /5 #riots2020

is not a 'strong' state. Think of the divide in perception over kneeling for the flag -- how an entire community of people have an entirely different conception of what is 'American', what's 'patriotic', what's 'justice'. This definition places politics at the core. /6 #riots2020

Yet, there is another one -- by George M. Thomas. Thomas distinguishes two kinds of 'power' that a state may possess: (1) despotic and (2) infrastructural. Infrastructural power is when the people trust in the institutions, laws, and systems of a state -- when they /7 #riots2020

feel represented by them. When they don't, they dissent and protest. A weak state is characterized by its reliance on its despotic power -- the power to violate, to maim, to kill, to suppress, to silence. Thomas was thinking primarily of autocratic states when he /8 #riots2020

made this distinction, and it has often been used to justify liberal imperialist schemes and doctrines. I believe we can take something from these three definitions, and Weber's original definition of the state, not merely to discuss whether USA is a failed state, /9 #riots2020

but more crucially to rethink in our minds the assumption made that we need a state to monopolize authority and violence; to represent us; to "bestow" us with its institutions that earn our trust. Behind every state, there is society. Society is dynamic, magmatic. /10 #riots2020

Perhaps it's not the American state that is getting weaker, but rather the people that are waking up to their power -- that are realizing that violence cannot be permanently monopolized to suppress, oppress, divide, destroy, maim, imprison, colonize and enslave. /11 #riots2020

Perhaps what we are witnessing is proof of the state's transcience, for what exists is humanity. Politics unbinds us -- mentally, spiritually, physically. The story of democracy is the continuous rupture and emergence of the people of equality against oppression. /12 #riots2020

Something similar happened in Gwangju, 1980, when a ruthless dictatorship was fought fiercely by insurgent minorities. The “[…] spontaneously generated strength of the transportation workers and the transformative power of their unified movement [that] showed the /13 #riots2020

potential of the masses. It was a beautiful moment when, of their own accord, the people threw their lives into the forefront of history” (in Hwang Sök Yöng, 1985). I salute you titans of #Minneapolis. The whole world is watching you write history. /14 #riots2020

I know you suffer right now. I know you would rather be living your lives in peace and prosperity, than having to risk everything to be "into the forefront of history". But we need you right now, just as you need us. We will stand with you. We can't let this story /15 #riots2020

become whitewashed. Please stay at this forefront. Change history and re-write it not in the name of color or race -- but of equality, freedom, and justice. As Frederick Douglass said:
"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?" /16 #riots2020

"I answer; a day that reveals [...], the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; [...] your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; [...], mere [...], hypocrisy" F. Douglass, 1852. /17 #riots2020 @davidgraeber