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Kropotkin's theory of the state: a transnational approach
This chapter examines Kropotkin's sociology of the state. It outlines his analysis of the modern European state's emergence in order to illuminate the transnational dimension of his thinking. Kropotkin presents a powerful critique of imposed uniformity and injustice in the context of an appreciation of linguistic and cultural diversity, or national difference. He establishes the artificiality of state organisation, which he associates with a particular principle of sovereignty, to highlight the fluid nature of state boundaries and the anarchistic and disintegrative forces that had the potential, sadly unrealised, to challenge the extension of statism in Europe. Kropotkin's argument, that transnationalism has the potential to undermine or reinforce statist principles helps explain his fears about the spread of European militarism, Prussian Caesarism and his apparently paradoxical stance on the war in 1914.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Politics and International Studies
Published in
Reassessing the Transnational Turn: Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies Routledge Studies in Cultural HistoryPages
43 - 61 (18)Citation
KINNA, R., 2015. Kropotkin's theory of the state: a transnational approach. IN: Bantman, C. and Altena, B. (eds.) Reassessing the Transnational Turn Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies. London: Routledge, pp. 43 - 61.Publisher
RoutledgeVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2015Notes
This is chapter three in the book, Reassessing the Transnational Turn: Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies [Routledge].ISBN
978-1-13-879720-8Publisher version
Book series
Routledge Studies in Cultural History;Language
- en