Legitimate Violence and the Normative Lacuna

Abstract

Max Weber’s definition of the state as the human community that successfully claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force has served as a foundational axiom of modern political theory. Yet Weber’s formulation functions primarily as a sociological criterion of statehood and belief in legitimacy, not as a substantive moral justification of coercion. When later theory treats this formula as a normative axiom, a lacuna appears: the criterion by which coercion is justified rather than merely recognized remains unspecified.

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