In this episode, Stephen Mennell and Helmut Kuzmics discuss what in shorthand can be called the ‘political’ side of Elias’s work. Their conversation begins from the concept of ‘survival unit’, which Elias introduced in his last writings. What is the meaning of the concept? What are the effects of the long-term increasing size of survival units? In what circumstances can they contract instead of growing? The focus then turns to Elias’s theory of state-formation processes. Why is the monopolisation of violence central to state-formation processes, while they also involve a tangle of other processes: the growth of trade, towns, taxation, money, administration and military apparatuses? Next, what is the difference between state formation and ‘nation-building’ (the latter being the concept most frequently encountered in American sociology)? Or between national identity and nationalism? Or national habitus and national we-feelings? Both Stephen Mennell and Helmut Kuzmics have written extensively in this area over many years.
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