ELEMENTS IN A THEORY OF STATE-BUILDING - AN INQUIRY INTO THE STRUCTURAL PRECONDITIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL STATE-BUILDING IN EUROPE

This article tests the six hypotheses on successful state-building in Western Europe formulated by Charles Tilly (Tilly 1975a, 40). The key to state-building success in European history, with success defined as continuous survival as an autonomous polity throughout the period AD 1500-1900, is found to be the variable ''success in war'' operationali zed as the successful creation of formally institutionalized administr ative institutions for the transformation of economic resources into m ilitary power, regardless of whether these institutions evolved within the framework of a representative state-building format as in The Net herlands or a bureaucratic-absolutist format as in Prussia.