In October 2018, Armed Forces & Society published a special issue dedicated to broadening the perspective on military cohesion from the narrow focus on 20th and 21st Western state militaries and the microlevel. The special issue emphasized the need for a theoretical and methodological broadening of the study of cohesion: In order to understand the majority of armed groups in the world, it is necessary to investigate macro- and mesolevel preconditions of microlevel cohesion. Such preconditions include the existence of states, nations, and modern military organization. These are specific to modern, Western contexts, and rarely feature in historical or non-Western cases. In many cases, investigating these preconditions requires qualitative methods. In a critical response, Siebold contested some of the arguments of the special issue, claiming that our argument was exaggerated and our methodologies inadequate. In this reply, we seek to clarify some of the issues and arguments at stake.
Anarchy and hierarchy are two central concepts of International Relations theory but as conventionally defined they cannot describe political life for most of Western history. Neither concept describes the structure of medieval politics well. Rather, many different principles of differentiation existed simultaneously, both stratificatory and segmentary. The situation was closer to anarchy as understood as the absence of overarching principles of order rather than as ‘anarchy’ in the conventional sense used in international relations and absence of government. The power of the Popes over temporal rulers was considerable, but it never corresponded to the concept ‘hierarchy’ as conventionally understood either. Between c. 700 and c. 1300, Europe became more heteronymous as time went by, not less. More principles of differentiation were developed, and both Popes and kings became more powerful. The reinvention of the papacy after the ‘Investiture Controversy’ (1075–1122) created a system of law and practices in which European monarchs and realms were embedded, but it did not create an all-powerful papacy.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.