The politicization of violence and the Mechanisms of state building in the first Pahlavi era

Charles Tilly is one of the most influential theorists in the field of macro-comparative sociology, which considers "war" as the origin and main source of social change and transformation, and especially the "state-building" project. According to Tilly's Theory, "violence" and its practices became an effective, efficient and legitimate element in the political society only when it became "political", that is, when it was used as a tool in the hands of the "absolute state" in line with the nation-building policies. For "accumulation and monopoly of power", fighting and suppressing domestic and foreign rivals and applying "social control" were used. Based on this, the main question of the present research is how war-making and politicization of violence (or the control and monopoly of illegitimate violence by the absolute ruler) in Iran during the era of Reza Shah provided the necessary foundations for the formation of the modern state and what position And did it have a function in the first Pahlavi state-building project? The findings of the research using the historical sociology approach of "Charles Tilley" and his central idea regarding the connection of "war and state building" show that the first Pahlavi government by implementing the four mechanisms of "removal and integration" such as; "War making", "institution building", "protection" and "extraction", through the development and strengthening of new forms of government institutions (political, administrative, cultural, judicial, etc.), effective steps were able to create Political centralism and in general the advancement of the modern state building project.