Theories of World Society and War:

Luhmann and the Alternatives

Contradiction! Territorial Conflicts in World Society,

Institut for World Society Studies, University of Bielefeld, December 4-5, 2003

Submitted by:
Klaus Schlichte
Institute for Social Sciences
Humboldt-Universitt zu Berlin
Unter den Linden 6
D-10099 Berlin
kschlichte@yahoo.com
Violence so far has only a marginal place in the theory of social systems. For war the
situation is even worse. Apart from some remarks in Niklas Luhmanns major writings,
the theory of social systems has not dealt with the issue. The program still has to be
written, research has just begun (Stichweh 2001). Probably due to the world historical
timing of its origin, the historical ubiquity of violent politics was not that visible for this
theoretical stream.
During the period of post-World war II organized mass violence was largely absent in
Western Europe and in North America. Of course, some differentiations are necessary
in this respect (cf. section 1). But since 1945, large scale violence in Western societies is
rather remembered and narrated than experienced, and with other forms of physical vio-
lence it is not much different.
War was discussed like something absent, something that needed to be avoided at al-
most any cost. The huge shadow of the Cold War meant a threat, and this threat of ma-
jor war was real. As a result, war as an empirical phenomenon was neglected by many
social theories of that period, among them systems theory. Therefore, it is not very sur-
prising that in the writings on war, systems theory does hardly play any role.1
It is nevertheless interesting to see what social systems theory could contribute to the
understanding and explanation of organized violence and to relate this contribution to
what has been done with other theoretical orientations and in empirical research. This
paper will present some elements of this comparison, without claiming to be exhaustive
to any extent.

Empirical research on wars has delivered some insights in recent years that will be used
as a starting point. In the second section, I shall try to formulate some requirements that
an up to date-theory on wars would have to fullfil, in order to have a reference when
comparing two approaches in that regard in section three of this text. These two ap-
proaches are first the theory of social systems as far as it mentions organized violence,
and second a research program that was developed at the University of Hamburg over
the last 15 years and could perhaps be characterized as a marxist version of modernisa-
tion theory. I should also say right from the start that I have been participating in this

1
Summaries of theoretical debates on violence and war in world society are Levy 1989; Mendler-Schwegler-
Rohmeis 1991; Imbusch 1999.

2
program. This paper therefore is perhaps rather an exercise of self-examination than a
theoretical elaboration. I leave it to the reader to judge this.2

1. Observations on war in world society

The study of war is a field with many planters. Other than sociologists, also psycholo-
gists, anthropologists, jurists and political scientists investigate phenomena of organised
violence for at least fifty years with a great variety of theoretical orientations and meth-
ods. Overviews on results of these efforts are difficult to establish and are normally re-
stricted to one of these disciplines. From the perspective of International Relations - as a
sub-discipline of political science - at least five central observations on the empirical
side of warfare after 1945 can be summarized as follows:3

1. Growing number of wars: The number of wars lead per year has significantly grown
since the end of the Second World War. It reached a peak in the beginning of the 1990s.
After 1993, the number of wars has been oscillating around a somewhat lower level
between 35 and 40 wars led per year.

2. Predominantly intra-state wars: The huge majority of wars after 1945 have been in-
tra-state wars. In comparison to what is known about the global distribution of war in
earlier periods, the share of inter-state warfare has dramatically decreased.

3. War in the periphery: According to the numbers of the major "war counting units" in
social sciences, more than ninety per cent of wars have been taking place in the regions
of the so-called Third World. North America, large parts of Europe and, since 1960 also
East Asia, have not experienced warfare.

2
This text is not proofread by a native-speaker. I apologize for all Germanisms in my own sentences, and I
apologize also for all translations of other authors' writings from German or French into crude English.
3
References for these five major institutions of quantitative war research are given in Schlichte 2002.

3
4. Ever longer wars: Apparently linked to the predominance of intra-state wars the av-
erage duration of organized violence has grown ever since 1945. Intra-state wars are
also less easy to end by peaceful means, especially by mediation.

5. Few major warring states: The distribution of war participation among states is very
uneven. Whereas some states were not involved in warfare in a single instance since
1945, others figure prominently in the list. The US, France, the Soviet Union /Russian
Federation, Great Britain lead the list, just in front of regional powers like Iraq, India,
PR China, South Africa and Israel.

This list is certainly not exhaustive as it only mentions a few observations from one
academic discipline. It shows, however, that there is not only the problem of how to
conceive war in appropriate conceptions and in an adequate language. There is also
some - still crude - knowledge of when and where wars have been taking place and who
was involved. The theoretical task is thus not only about construction. There are more
requirements for a good theory of war which shall briefly be elucidated.

2. Requirements for a theory of war

To compare theoretical approaches requires a common measure, a tertium compara-

tionis. As always there are different ways to establish such a yardstick. Insofar the fol-
lowing suggestion is as arbitrary as any other. But given the current situation of
"competition" in the field of social research and the state of "knowledge" in the field of
war studies, four main requirements seem appropriate:

a) Theoretical compatibility: Any theory of war must be linked to an established body of

social theory. As fruitful as mere phenomenological studies are for the development of
single ideas, they cannot replace the general function of theory, i.e. to shape the under-
standing of the world and to conceive conceptions. Theoretical contributions that allow
the combination of new insights on a specific topic with insights and general assertions

4
about other subjects are to be preferred to single-issue theories built around limited sub-
jects.

b) Integration of knowledge: War studies - including ethnographic/anthropological, so-

ciological and political science research - have produced an amazing amount of insights
and "empirical" findings over the last thirty years. This body of knowledge cannot be
ignored by any effort of theorizing on causations, structurations, and consequences of
war. Any theory of war must be able to integrate - or to render plausibel - at least large
chunks of these findings.

c) Conceptional adaptability: Contexts of war differ as much as actors, single events

and the "size" of organized violence. It is hard to imagine how a formal - e.g. biological
or micro-economic - theory could come up with more than banalities when dealing with
the historical record. The value of theoretical contributions is also to be judged by its
ability to take this diversity into account in its conceptional language. The task of any
theory of war is thus to come to terms with historical differences, with the variety of
motives and subjects around which - according to the actors' view - wars are fought.

d) Operationability: Any theory that cannot draw on an already established body of

knowledge - as it is the case when it wants to rely on its own specific vocabulary that is
not easily convertible in ordinary social science language - must at least offer alleys to
operational research. The phrase "wars are complex social phenomena" is perhaps the
most often printed phrase in books on this subject. But strangely, it has not yet led to
any bigger debate about how research should deal with this complexity, how wars
should be investigated or which methods would be appropriate for what purposes or
precise subjects. Modern theories must offer reflections and advices on these questions.

5
3. Theories on world society and war

War is a global and a historical phenomenon. As this is commonly acknowledged in the

community of war scholars4 one should expect that both characteristics would have en-
tered most theories on war, if not all. Surprisingly, this is not the case. Most theories on
war focus either on the psychological thesis - like the frustration aggression-nexus -, on
cycles of power theoremes and other single theses that shall explain why war occurs.

World society or the world system has almost never been the starting point for theories
on organized violence. Apart from the beginning attempts in the social systems para-
digm, there is only one major research project in which this has been attempted: the so-
called "Hamburg approach", developed in the 1990s at the University of Hamburg. 5 In
order to assess the possibilities and also possible obstacles for the study on war from a
social systems theory-perspective this approach might thus be worthwile to look at.

Here, this comparison cannot be exhaustive. First because an ad-hoc paper does not
offer enough space for that, and second, because there is not yet much writing from a
systems theory perspective. A few issues, however, can be discussed. The most impor-
tant among them is probably the concept of world society in general. Second is the issue
of where organized violence is located in the related theory. The following remarks
should therefore be understood as a list of some ad-hoc considerations.

The concept of world society

Both aforementioned approaches distance themselves from an normative conception of
society that still dominates in many parts of social sciences, and that societies are
framed by states. Instead, they stress the idea that there is only one society left, i.e. a
world society, and that this world society is not necessarily a normatively integrated
unity. But how then world society shall be conceived and which terms shall be used in

4
In the following, remarks on this community apply only to those from the discipline of IR, other social sciences
notwithstanding.
5
Theoretical groundwork of this school was done by Siegelberg (1990, 1994). The quantitative side of the pro-
ject is published by Gantzel/Schwinghammer 1995 (engl. 2000). For qualitative studies see Jung (1995), Kur-
tenbach (1991), Schlichte (1996) and Jung/Schlichte/Siegelberg (2003).

6
order to understand the working of this global entity? Here, the answers differ, and they
might differ in more than just terminological regards.

For systems theory, world society is constituted by communication. Its main divisions
are not those between states or regions but between different functional systems that
obey different codes. Functional differentiation, THE characteristic feature of modern
society, is also the main feature of world society.
For the other approach, the term world society first designates a historical process and,
second, it is used as a systematic category to denominate the global unity of social re-
production. The place that in theoretical architecture of systems theory is occupied by
general systems theory and its major distinctions is here filled by theoremes taken from
Karl Marx, Max Weber und Norbert Elias.The big historical movement that brought this
unification about is the development of modern capitalism and its global spread through
the European expansion. The emergence of world society is thus identical with the his -
tory of capitalism, of which Marx' theory of value is the most abstract theoretical formu-
lation.
Interestingly, these two versions do not create too much of a difference. One might ask
whether systems theory could not be a bit more precise about the historical process that
created this unity. But this and other questions do not change the general impression
that both conceptions of world society share a basic understanding of that process, as
Stefan Breuer puts it when he compares Marx' historical genesis of capitalism with
Luhmann's idea of autopoiesis:

"The tendency of restless self-valorization [in Marx, K.S.] is oriented towards the creation
of an autonomous system of pure Vergesellschaftung that is only based upon itself and
which changes all other pre-systemic elements into results of its own reproduction, creating
itself the conditions of this process. It is exactly this movement which Luhmann is sketch-
ing with his theory of autopoiesis" (Breuer 1992: 79).

The theoretical location of violence

For the Hamburg approach, the occurence of war is to explained along three structural
lines that are constituted by the Leitdifferenz of tradition and modernity. First are those
conflicts that are handed down from traditional forms of social life. Second, and in the
contemporary world more important, are those conflictive lines that result from the con-

7
frontation of modern forms of Vergesellschaftung with traditional ones, and third are
those lines that emerge as inner contradictions of modern capitalism itself. But contrary
to mainstream marxism, the Hamburg approach concedes to modern capitalism the abil-
ity to pacify social relations - capitalism has a civilizing side, too.
However, the "capitalization" of societies as the basic process of the modern era is a
conflictive and often violent process. The dissolution of older forms of social integra-
tion through the advancement of the world market or through direct political interven-
tion as e.g. by colonial powers is the major source of violent conflict in the modern era.
The remainder is a state affair. How and why states wage wars differs according to his-
torical contexts. The logic of wars between absolutist states in early modern history is
not the same as the logic of humanitarian intervention. What both share, however, is the
reference to the idea of "sovereignty" and the state's monopoly of the legitimate use of
violence. 6

In systems theory, as already alluded to, violence apparently has not attracted that much
attention. The perhaps most prominent location where violence is dealt with, is in
Luhmann's writing on modern states and their tendency to suppress violence that is not
"legitimate" state violence (2000: 192ff.). Violence is here first a "means of power" and
violence superiority was used to lay the groundwork for a political system in the modern
sense by "disarming the nobility" (2000: 49). Warfare in the early modern era than be-
came the monopoly of the state, and the linkage of warfare and fiscality then itself be-
came part of the process of the differentiation of a political system (2000: 383f.; 417f.).
Even if these considerations are rather dealing with the issue of violence in the context
of modern state semantics, this location also does not differ much from what can be
found in Max Webers, Norbert Elias, or earlier in Otto Hintze's work on the monopo-
lization of violence by the modern state. Also it comes very close to Pierre Bourdieu's
version of the change of political forms (1997).
In modern states then, violence is typically absent: "A powerholder does not need to
practice violence himself. It only needs to be plausibel that he could use others for prac-
ticing it (servants, the police, the military)" (Luhmann 2000: 55). Differentiated power

6
Humanitarian intervention looks like a breach of that idea, but on a second glance it is not: The entire idea of it
is to create such a monopoly anew. Whether the practice of humanitarian intervention is in fact resulting in an
institutional order that ressembles afar the idea of modern statehood is of course a different story.

8
then needs an ally: Law is acquiring the function of processing those kinds of contradic -
tions that in other systems might have developed violently (Luhmann 1984: chap. 9).

Again, between the two candidates differences seem to reside rather in terminology.
Violence in history is largely seen as a correlate of the emergence of modern systems.
Once established, modern societies show remarkable capacities to marginalize violence
to the "outskirts" of society. A couple of questions remain, however. One is how both
approaches explain the persistence of war in the contemporary world society - if this is
conceived as a predominantly modern one. Another issue is the question of how to ni -
vestigate events or chains of events that we consider wars?

4. Operationalizing theory

Until now, there is no "method" or operationalized version of how the study of organ-
ized violence would look like from a systems theory perspective. The Hamburg ap-
proach has developed a four-staged analytical model, called "the grammar of war" that
shall enable scholars to model causal relations as processes (cf. Siegelberg 1994: 179-
193). The idea of this "grammar" is not to offer a universal model of processes of "esca-
lation". Instead, it shall enable researchers to disentangle the myriads of information bits
he or she is confronted with when studying a war story. In this regard, it shall help to
think about the social surrounding and the social "content" of violent conflicts in a man-
ner that leaves room for contradictions, deadlocks and dynamics.
The first step of this model is referring to contradictions. The term here corresponds to
those differences that can be found on different levels of social contexts, be it center-
periphery relations, differences in social structures or the simultaneous existence of dif-
ferent modes of social reproduction. This understanding of the term contradiction differs
from a classical dialectic understanding of contradiction7 and it differs of course from
what is meant by the term in systems theory, which does not think of the expression of
"objective contradictions" as a meaningful term.

7
For Hegel, contradictions are always gleichursprnglich. Here, the term includes what is in Hegel's language
just opposition (Gegensatz) or difference (Unterschied).

9
The second step, crisis, is referring to the perceptions of those contradictions by the
actors themselves. The symbolic forms in which social actors perceive their environ-
ment and the values which enable them to decide about alternatives are engrained in
their social habitus, itself a supra-individual category. The reconstruction of this filter is
analytically the decisive step in order to include the actors observations into an explana-
tion, as these observations and their logic shape the course and dynamic of a conflict to
a large extent.
But this, conflict, is already the third step. It consists of reconstructions that concern
rather the organizational level. Even if many warring factions cannot be described ap-
propriately with theories of modern organisations, they need to solve certain equivalent
problems like mobilization, identifying opponents and finding addressees. And also,
they need to legitimize violence. It is this level that the bulk of literature on conflicts
and wars is dealing with. Focussing on "events" and on "processes of escalations" main-
stream research normally does not include what might be "behind" the obvious. That
antisemitism has its roots not in what its proponents believe is meanwhile acknowl-
edged. That the wars in former Yugoslavia were not about "ethnic hatred" is much less
so.
The forth step, war, is a question of grades. Some conflicts develop in intensity and
length to a degree that most oberservers would call them a war. Others don't. But
what is remarkable and needs investigation is that many violent conflicts gain their own
momentum. Their dynamique propre (Eigendynamik) is only marginally researched (cf.
Genschel/Schlichte 1997), and most writings about it are rather metaphorical. What is
interesting to see is that apparently violence can become the motor of war, it perpetuates
itself and becomes (perhaps?) systemic in character. This is obviously related to the
specific qualities of violence as a power means or mode of action.8

This "grammar" is certainly only a rough recipe. It is not yet very differentiated and
better alternatives might be developed. But together with other elements of the Ham-
burg approach is has led to a number of insights in single relations and to broader theses
(cf. Jung/Schlichte/Siegelberg 2003). Among those is the observation that differences in

8
This Eigendynamik is underlying the entire recent debate on "new" wars, on war economies or "cultures" of
violence, cf. Elwert (1995); Riekenberg (1999).

10
warfare do not follow the lines that the organisation of science has established. The
logic of wars in contemporary Sub-saharan Africa for example ressemble in some re-
gards more war events in early Modern Europe or in contemporary India then wars in
the contemporary Maghreb or organized mass violence in South Africa. The logic of
war is not a logic of regions.
Another striking feature of many, if not all, wars after 1945 is what is labelled in the
Hamburg approach "Ungleichzeitigkeit" - the recurring observation that in the social
habitus as well as in forms of organisation both modern" and "traditional" forms are
simultaneously present and at work. Global Vergesellschaftung did not start in the era of
already functional differentiated societies, but it has to be understood as the result of a
historical process that is still ongoing. World society is not yet thoroughly modern, and
the focus on processes of functional differentiation might be deceiving. It might hide
dynamics in contexts that are not thoroughly modern. Ungleichzeitigkeit is the signum
of world society, still nowadays. It is perhaps this observation that creates the biggest
challenge for attempts of systems theory to come to terms with organized violence in
world society.9

5. Conclusions: Where to go from here?

The theory of violence in world society is still a construction site, and it is not yet to be
seen whether the result will be a shopping mall, a prison or a favella. The two ap-
proaches considered here share a number of theoretical orientations. The usage of the
term world society, it seems, is already indicative of a perspective that is opposed to the
reductionism of formal logic and/or rational choice theories based on utilitarian models
and methodological individualism.
Also, both approaches seem to share the idea that history - or evolution - ,at least so far,
cannot be read as a story of progress or of self-conscious social change. Whether one
conceives history as evolution, as systems theory does, or as "Naturgeschichte", as
modern Marxism would have it, is basically again a question of terminology.

9
What is meant with the term Ungleichzeitigkeit could perhaps e reformulated as the simultaneity of two - or
more - forms of causality (cf.Luhmann 1995).

11
It is less clear how far commonalities will go. For a historical-sociological understand-
ing that is based on the "classics" Marx, Weber and Elias, there is basically only one
system, which is modern capitalism. And despite its cooptation of symbolic theories it
has kept a materialist orientation in so far as the abstraction world market is here con-
sidered "the true subject of world society" (Diner 1985: 328). This system can be stud-
ied in its historical evolvement or in its different inner functional working or contrari-
ness. Any further usage of the term "system" is restricted to a usage in an "as-if"-sense.
For systems theory, it seems, the applicability of its terminology goes much further,
with respective epistemological consequences and underpinnings. Within the system of
world society there is a multitude of systems, functional ones, but also many others. In
this theoretical strand, there is no hierarchy and no centre among these systems.

Systems theory certainly has something to offer for the study and theory of war in world
society. It seems promising for defining and specifying systems and logics of poltiical
formations: e.g. absolutism (cf. Kunisch 1987) but also on military /security as a world
system (cf. Kirsch 1998). "Observing observers" is a good technique for discerning the
specific causalities that are at work in different historical contexts (cf. Luhmann 1995).
Systems theory has the great merit that it has an built-in program of mistrust towards
allday-life conceptions and explanations. How things work almost always differs from
what actors think of it. With regard to the study of any empirical subject, however, this
insight must lead to operational consequences. How to talk about something, what to
look at, what questions to ask, what material to consult, what to compare - these are the
questions any empirical investigation has to face.
It might be dangerous to assume that the norms of sovereignty and territoriality as a
modern form of politicized space are sufficient core categories for the understanding of
political dynamics and political violence in world society. A closer look into non-
western parts of the world reveals that it is not the case what proponents of systems the-
ory seem to assume namely that within the state-system "any element is enjoying the
very same form of legitimacy" (Stichweh 2001). It might be true for the relations be-
tween states 10, but it is certainly not within states.

10
although this is questioned too, cf. Krasner (1999).

12
 Bibliography
Bourdieu, Pierre 1997: De la maison du roi la raison dEtat. Un modle de la gense du champ
bureaucratique, in : Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, no. 118, 55-68.

Diner, Dan 1985: Imperialismus, Universalismus, Hegemonie. Zum Verhltnis von Politik und konomie in
der Weltgesellschaft, in: Fetscher, Iring / Mnkler, Herfried (eds.): Politikwissenschaft. Ein Grundkurs, Rein-
bek, 326-360.

Elwert, Georg 1997: Gewaltmrkte. Beobachtungen zur Zweckrationalitt der Gewalt, in: von Trotha, Trutz
(Hrsg.): Soziologie der Gewalt, Sonderheft 37 d. Klner Zeitschrift fr Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Opla-
den, 86-101.

Gantzel, Klaus Jrgen /Schwinghammer, Torsten 1995: Die Kriege nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg bis 1992. Da-
ten und Tendenzen, Hamburg - Mnster.

Genschel, Philipp / Schlichte, Klaus 1997: Wenn Kriege chronisch werden: Der Brgerkrieg, in: Leviathan , 25,
4, 501-517. (engl. 1998 in Law and State)

Hassner, Pierre / Marchal, Roland (eds.) 2003: Guerre et violence aprs la fin de la Guerre froide, Paris

Imbusch, Peter 1999: Moderne und postmoderne Perspektiven der Gewalt, in: Neckel, S. / Schwab-Trapp,
M. (eds.): Ordnungen der Gewalt, Opladen 147-160

Jung, Dietrich 1995: Tradition-Moderne-Krieg. Grundlegung einer Methode zur Erforschung kriegsurschlicher
Prozesse im Kontext globaler Vergesellschaftung, Hamburg-Mnster.

Jung, Dietrich / Schlichte, Klaus / Siegelberg, Jens 2003: Kriege in der Weltgesellschaft, Wiesbaden

Kirsch, Jochen H. Ch. 1998: The Military of Guatemala and Niklas Luhmann's Theory of Autopoietic
Social Systems, M.A. Thesis, Virgina State University, >www.scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available.htm<
(November 20, 2003).

Kurtenbach, Sabine 1991: Staatliche Organisation und Krieg in Lateinamerika. Ein historisch-struktureller Ver-
gleich der Entwicklung in Kolumbien und Chile, Mnster - Hamburg.

Levy, Jack S. 1989: The Causes of War: a review of theories and evidence , in: Tetlock, P.E. et al. (eds.):
Behavior, Society and Nuclear War, New York, 209-233

Kunisch, Johannes 1987: La guerre cest moi! Zum Problem der Staatenkonflikte im Zeitalter des Absolutis-
mus, in : Zeitschrift fr historische Forschung, 14,1, 407-484

Luhmann, Niklas 1984: Soziale Systeme, Frankfurt a.M.

Luhmann, Niklas 1990: ber systemtheoretische Grundlagen der Gesellschaftstheorie, in: Deutsche Zeit-
schrift fr Philosophie, 38,3, 277-284

Luhmann, Niklas 1995: Kausalitt im Sden, in: Soziale Systeme, ...1, 7-28

Luhmann, Niklas 2000: Die Politik der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt

Mendler, Martin / Schwegler-Rohmeis, Wolfgang 1989: Weder Drachentter noch Sicherheitsingenieur. Bilanz
und kritische Analyse der sozialwissenschaftlichen Kriegsursachenforschung, HSFK-Forschungsbericht 3 /
1989, Frankfurt a.M.

Riekenberg, Michael 1999: Fuzzy Systems. M ax Horkheimer und Gewaltkulturen in Lateinamerika, in: Ibero-
Amerika Archiv 25, 3/4, 309-323.

13
Schlichte, Klaus 1996: Krieg und Vergesellschaftung in Afrika. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie des Krieges, Mnster -
Hamburg.

Schlichte, Klaus 2002: Neues ber den Krieg? Einige Anmerkungen zum Stand der Kriegsforschungen in den
Internationalen Beziehungen, in: Zeitschrift fr Internationale Beziehungen, 9, 1, 113-138

Siegelberg, Jens 1990: Schritte zu einer Theorie des Krieges, Universitt Hamburg, Forschungsstelle Kriege,
Arbeitspapier Nr. 13

Siegelberg, Jens 1994: Kapitalismus und Krieg. Eine Theorie des Krieges in der Weltgesellschaft, Mnster-
Hamburg

Stichweh, Rudolf 2001: Der Raum der Weltgesellschaft. Klassische Kriege, neue Konflikte. Das globale
System der Nationalstaaten und die Frage der Gewalt, in: Frankfurter Rundschau, October 2, p.18

14