Kropotkin's theory of the state: a transnational approach

Abstract

This is chapter three in the book, Reassessing the Transnational Turn: Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies [Routledge]. ; 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.