Monopoly on violence

The monopoly of the state referred to in the General Theory of the State, the only state organs reserved legitimacy to exercise physical force or to legitimize ( Immediate coercion). It is a principle of all modern States and is considered one of the foundations for the functioning of the rule of law.

Basics

The term itself coined in 1919 in his lecture Politics as a Vocation, the sociologist Max Weber. He is in his essence - Six Books on the State ( 1576 ) and Thomas Hobbes, Jean Bodin already designed in his book Leviathan ( 1651) - as a result of state sovereignty.

The idea of ​​the monopoly of power wants the members of a community without it (eg, by way of vigilante justice ) to use force. The members refrain from enforcing any actual or alleged rights and claims by an individual coercion. Rather, they transferred their protection and enforcement throughout the state judiciary and executive bodies; So to courts or police and administration. These in turn are bound in a democratic state to the sanctioned by the Legislature to the law.

The emergence of the state's monopoly began with the emergence of states as such. Since the early modern period, the state has gradually established itself as the only force owners to other social forces in Europe. The aim was historically the power expansion of the monarch. This was inspired by the idea of ​​the state, which looked no longer the monarch, but an imagined own substance of the State as the monopoly of power.

The monopoly of power has replaced previous forms of conflict elimination as feud and vendetta as a means of enforcement. Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote in 1792: "For when dissension arise from fighting battles. The offense calls for vengeance, and vengeance is a new insult. Here so you have to come back to a revenge which does not allow new revenge -. , And this is the punishment of the state " In its ideal-typical expression of the monopoly protects the citizens against encroachments of others, by preventing violent abuse of rights or caprice of individuals or group. It represents a key framework condition for an anxiety -free as possible social life and is regarded as civilized progress.

Exceptions

The legal system of democratic states also knows exceptions to the monopoly of the state. For this example includes the right to defend themselves by force against unlawful attacks ( self-defense ) and to protect against other hazards ( emergency ).

The Civil Code of Germany defined individual exceptional cases in which citizens in the way of self-help may enforce the realization of private claims by force. These derogations are not, however, in a real contradiction to the monopoly of violence. On the one hand they are only valid if the state could not defend the interests to be protected. On the other hand, the exceptions relate their legitimacy from the State which they defined as the holder of the monopoly of power for its citizens before ( ex ante).

The force in the past, long controversial ( judicial Custom ) right of parents towards their children to educational purposes, to use force was abolished with the statutory definition of the right of children to a non-violent upbringing (→ child abuse ).

Likewise, the law now thoroughly controlled by the Violence Protection Act expansion of the state's monopoly on the family - and therefore on a very private area - be considered as another case of non- recognition of a "state- free" zone.

Widely accepted is a private right of resistance in the event that the state legal system fails, or the state itself becomes a threat to the rights of citizens. In the German Basic Law, it is in Article 20, paragraph 4 held ( right of resistance in Germany ).

Criticism

Fundamental criticism of the concept of the monopoly of violence is practiced mainly by anarchists and libertarians. They point out that the crimes committed by agents of the state crimes exceed those of "private" criminals by far and the alleged necessity of the concept of peaceful coexistence with it is invalid. In particular libertarian theorists such as Hans -Hermann Hoppe argue, based on economics findings that a monopoly of force must bring the same negative consequences as a monopoly in any other area.