The Genesis of the Modern European State between Bourdieu and Weber: A Methodological Perspective

Imad Alsoos in Conversation with Julius Dihstelhoff

Reflecting on his methodological approach to researching Hamas and Ennahda during his recent fellowship with MECAM, Palestinian political scientist Imad Alsoos, in this conversation with Julius Dihstelhoff, explores how the intersection of symbolic power and social consent shapes the legitimacy of these movements. He emphasizes the role of embedded social practices in gaining public support for political authority.

This conversation was initially held as part of MECAM’s introduction week for the new fellow cohort 2024/2025, which took place in September 2024 at MECAM’s premises at Université de Tunis, Tunisia.

Julius Dihstelhoff (JD): Imad, your methodological contribution brings together two key thinkers. Why is it important to integrate the approaches of Max Weber (1864–1920) and Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002), and what makes your analysis particularly relevant for contemporary research?

Imad Alsoos (IA): Thank you, Julius. It is crucial because both Weber and Bourdieu offer profound insights into the formation of the modern state, though from different angles. Weber, for example, focuses on the evolution of loyalty within state bureaucracy—from charismatic and traditional authority to rational-legal authority, which is tied to the abstract notion of the state as an imagined entity. This transition underpins the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, a core concept in Weber’s analysis. Bourdieu, on the other hand, examines the state through the lens of social practices and symbolic power. He argues that the modern state emerged through the dominance of the legal field, which accumulated symbolic capital through practices embedded in the state and society. By combining Weber’s focus on the state’s coercive power with Bourdieu’s emphasis on symbolic power and social consensus, we gain a more comprehensive understanding of the state’s genesis and functioning.

JD: That’s an interesting combination of perspectives. You’ve mentioned before that your current research builds on Bourdieu’s focus on social practices. How do these everyday practices contribute to state formation, and how do they align or contrast with Weber’s focus on legitimacy through force?

IA: Bourdieu’s emphasis on social practices, which might seem trivial—like renewing a passport, filling out forms, or buying an apartment from a housing agency—illustrates how these practices are deeply embedded in what he calls field. These fields, especially the legal field, accumulate symbolic capital, which is power recognized by society as legitimate. Over time, this symbolic capital becomes as important as Weber’s notion of force in establishing the state’s legitimacy. Weber focuses more on the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence, whereas, Bourdieu shows that the state’s power also relies on widespread social practices that create a consensus around its authority. So, while both discuss state legitimacy, Bourdieu moves beyond coercion to include social acceptance through everyday practices.  

JD: It’s fascinating how these everyday actions can shape something as significant as state power. Shifting gears a bit, you’ve mentioned that in your research on Hamas, social practices were more revealing than the ideological frameworks. Could you elaborate on how these practices shaped your findings?

IA: Certainly. In my research on Hamas, I found that the group’s social practices—the way members interact with their communities and each other—provided deeper insights than their ideological statements. While the apparatus of ideas refers to intellectual traditions and dominant knowledge, the day-to-day actions reveal how power is exercised and maintained within the group. Bourdieu’s focus on social practices helps explain why these practices often take precedence over ideology or how ideology is integrated and translated to cement these social practices. By examining what people do, rather than just what they say, we can understand the real power dynamics at play. In the case of Hamas, this revealed a more nuanced picture of the group’s operations and influence than we could glean from ideology alone.

JD: Listening to you, it seems Bourdieu’s focus on social practice can challenge traditional theoretical approaches. You have also mentioned that Bourdieu was often frustrated by the reception of his ideas, especially during his lectures on the state. Why did he feel his methodology was being overlooked?

IA: Yes, Bourdieu was frustrated because many scholars focused on his critique of Weber rather than engaging with his methodological tools and sociological ways of thinking. He felt that they were too drawn to big theoretical debates, neglecting the practical tools he offered to understand social realities and the genesis of the state for that matter. In brief, his methodology is also an attempt to refine our understanding of existing knowledge in relation to knowledge production. For example, in his lectures, Bourdieu discussed the French Revolution, often viewed as a radical political shift. However, in his view, it was more about the legal field’s domination over other power structures. The legal field developed since the 12^th and the 13^th century and grew by accumulating human capital and becoming a field that competed with the political field of the king. Therefore, when the revolution occurred, the legal field of the parliament and the court, for instance, took over the state administration and formed what we call the modern European state. In other words, the state is a group of fields that compete over the symbolic power. The field that monopolises the symbolic power is the dominant field and in the case of the modern European state, the dominant field is the legal field. In so doing, Bourdieu was trying to show that by focusing on social practices, we could uncover the real transformations of power, beyond the dominant intellectual narratives.

JD: I am curious now to understand how Bourdieu’s approach holds up in your research on the Muslim state in Medina, where religious ideas seem to play a much more central role?

IA: That is a crucial point. Bourdieu’s framework, while incredibly insightful for understanding modern European states, faces challenges in contexts like the formation of the first Muslim state in Medina that was based on an earthy constitution in the 7th century. There, religious ideas and values played a foundational role in uniting tribes and forming the state structure. This suggests that, in some cases, ideas can precede and shape the practices Bourdieu focuses on. However, Bourdieu’s emphasis on social practices remains valuable. For instance, in his book The Introduction, Abdel-Rahman Ibn Khaldun’s theory of asabiyya (عصبية)—tribal solidarity or something a traditional form of symbolic power—aligns with Bourdieu’s idea that social practices, like alliances, are key to state formation. While religious values were central, the practices supporting those values were equally important in shaping the early Muslim state. According to Ibn Khaldoun, Quraysh tribe in Mecca, which included the Hashemite family of Prophet Muhammed, enjoyed a historical symbolic power in the Arab peninsula due to its control and maintaining of the Kaaba.

JD: It seems there is an interesting dialogue between these approaches. Do you think the limitations of Bourdieu’s framework in non-European contexts offer opportunities to refine his methodology for understanding other states?

IA: Absolutely. One of Bourdieu’s limitations is his focus on practices, which can sometimes underestimate the role of ideas, especially religious ones, in state formation. In the case of Medina, for example, religious values were crucial in unifying tribes and building a state – considered a shift from the previous social and political system. That said, his focus on how these values were implemented through practices remains useful. By blending these approaches—acknowledging the foundational role of ideas while still focusing on the practices that sustain them—we can refine Bourdieu’s framework to better understand state formation in diverse contexts. This opens the door to more comprehensive analyses of states beyond the European context he initially studied.

JD: Thank you, Imad, for these insightful reflections on integrating Bourdieu and Weber in your research. Your work highlights the importance of combining theoretical and practical perspectives to understand state formation. I look forward to seeing how these approaches evolve and how they might be applied to diverse historical and cultural contexts. This ongoing dialogue between theory and practice promises to deepen our understanding of the complexities of power and statehood.

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About the Authors

Dr. Imad Alsoos is a research fellow at the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb – Tunis. His research focuses on Hamas in Palestine and al-Nahda in Tunisia while in the opposition and in the office, with a comparative focus on their organizations and intellectual histories.

Dr. Julius Dihstelhoff has served since May 2020 as Academic Coordinator for the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM), which is based in Tunis. He is also post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Politics at the Centre for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) at Philipps University Marburg. His research focuses on Political Islam and German foreign policy in the Arab world since the so-called Arab Spring, with a special focus on Tunisian transformation processes.

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Citation: Julius Dihstelhoff; Imad Alsoos, The Genesis of the Modern European State between Bourdieu and Weber: A Methodological Perspective, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 19.09.2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/12bn3

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