Where the State Feared to Tread

Dorit Geva

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2011, vol. 636, issue 1, 111-128

Abstract: This article places feminist state theorists in dialogue with the Weberian “bellicist†tradition, and argues that locating patriarchalism within modern European states remains a worthwhile endeavor. By tracing conscription exemptions for fathers and husbands in France from the French Revolution’s levée en masse through to Napoleonic conscription and into the first half of the twentieth century, this article shows that consideration for male citizens’ patriarchal positions was a consistent feature of French conscription. This is significant given that conscription was an especially powerful and invasive institution of modern states and central to states’ survival within interstate competition. Yet even this intrusive institution did not undermine local patriarchalism in the country many consider to be the cradle of modern mandatory conscription. An extractive state institution was built on crystallization of male familial authority at the level of on-the-ground citizens.

Keywords: patriarchalism; conscription; gender; France; Max Weber; family; state (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716211399245 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:636:y:2011:i:1:p:111-128

DOI: 10.1177/0002716211399245

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().