The
monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force, also known as the
monopoly on violence , is a core concept of modern public law, which goes back to
Jean Bodin's 1576 work
Les Six livres de la République and
Thomas Hobbes' 1651 book
Leviathan. As the defining conception of
the state it was first described in sociology by
Max Weber in his essay
Politics as a Vocation (1919). Weber claims that the state is any "human community that successfully claims the
monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory"; thus, "the modern state is a compulsory association which organizes domination." In other words, Weber describes the state as any organization that succeeds in holding the exclusive right to use, threaten, or authorize physical force against residents of its territory. Such a monopoly, according to Weber, must occur via a process of legitimation.