It is probably in the nature of states to reproduce themselves by expanding their interests into new territories, such as those inhabited by decentralised societies. Doubtless the latter will be influenced one way or the other, even when the state resides, not in the vicinity, but farther away. Our present knowledge hardly allows us to model the effect of state expansion on decentralised peripheries, with respect to war and peace, in any great detail, and until recently two quite opposite scenarios have quite dominated the research. They originate in the Hobbesian and Rousseaunian worldviews briefly referred to above.
The first standpoint assumes that tribes are by nature peaceful and that warfare amongst them is not an original mode of action, but a result of state contact. Especially Brian Ferguson has advanced this view with primary reference to interaction between colonial authorities and indigenous societies in 19th and 20th century Americas, the so-called ‘war-in-the-tribal-zone-theory’ (Ferguson 1990; Ferguson and Whitehead 1992). The underlying idea is that a delicate, and predominantly peaceful balance between local tribes was shattered by the state intrusion and as a result widespread acts of war broke out. A similarity may here be noted to Clastres’ conceptualisation of tribal warfare as a defence mech- anism against the state. New archaeological evidence and analyses, however, seriously undermine this argumentation: war has existed among decentralised societies long before any state was ever present and for that matter continued to exist long after this major watershed (e.g. Thorpe chapter 10; Vandkilde chapter 5; Maschner and Reedy-Maschner 1998; Keeley 1996). This does not necessarily mean that ‘the tribal zone’ was unaffected, and it is quite likely that the actual level of warfare increased or decreased due to state meddling.
The second standpoint advances the contrasting opinion that state interfer- ence has the positive effect of pacifying inherently warlike tribes, but, as argued above, the level of war in decentralised societies has varied across time and space, and cases of peaceful societies can even be cited. This actual variability suggests that state intervention in tribal affairs has effects that logically also must vary from case to case. The configuration of power in itself makes possible
different strategic avenues for both parties: state dominance can notably be achieved through coercion and/or persuasion. Likewise, tribal subordination may imply strategies of collaboration and/or resistance that may again have effects on the modes of interaction internally between local groups – whether in a more peaceful or warlike direction (cp. Guha 1997: 20ff).
Monopolising the violence will surely be amongst the primary aims of expanding states, but will they necessarily succeed in pacifying the people they are trying to convert into subjects and by what means? In spite of the ideologi- cal construction of Pax Romana, the reactions of Germanic and Gallic tribes to the military and political expansion of the Rome were manifold, varying in a very complex manner between radical militarisation and intimate cooperation, and even emulation of the Roman state organisation. In more recent times there are several examples of immediate or ultimate success at pacification, but this was a two-sided process in which the colonised people acted strategically in their world.
In the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea, Gosden points out that pacification was not only the result of colonial efforts to impose a monopoly, but also due to local desires to stop fighting (chapter 13). Otto has in Manus region of Papua New Guinea observed a slightly deviating pattern (chapter 12). He points out that exchange was the crucial glue that ensured the functioning of the social structure and that warfare was traditionally utilised as an alterna- tive resource that contributed to the maintenance of the exchange network and hence in an essential manner to the reproduction of society. In this part of PNG the continued smooth functioning of the traditional exchange systems – rather than peace – was a key issue: a destabilisation of the existing exchange systems occurred first, probably due to impact of the state apparatus, and then as a result an acceptance of colonial authority and its efforts to monopolise violence. Importantly, prior to the decisions to engage in strategies of peace in the Manus province and other regions of Papua New Guinea – the actual level of internal warring was raised – apparently accentuated by the introduction of firearms. The chain of events can be roughly reconstructed as follows: First, in order to obtain firearms attacks were organised on Westerners, who then committed severe retaliations in which villages were destroyed and people killed or driven away. The Western punitive raids and the use of firearms in local warfare dis- rupted existing exchange relations and the ensuing malaise – probably ampli- fied by epidemic diseases – caused villagers to give up weapons and fighting, and as a consequence the whole social system underwent transformation ending with the firm establishment of colonial authority. A similar pattern of response also involving firearms has been noted among the Yanomami (Clastres 1994), and the adoption of horses among the Abipón of the Grand Chaco, likewise in South America, is known to have increased the level of internal warfare as well as the level of resistance against the Spanish colonisation (Lacroix 1990). In sum, this suggests a varied response to conquest and colonial hegemony and underlines that innovation in fighting technology is a variable that should also be accounted for.