The author leads us gently to the conclusion that the monopoly of law-making and the monopoly of violence are inextricable if not one and the same. By placing oneself outside the social contract, one provokes violence. It is intended to protect the social contract itself, only one element of which is the allocation of law-making powers. The author's reductionist predilections manifest more forecefully with every turned page. The people is not the one to grant the monopoly of violence - the nation does not even exist prior to the coalescence of this power.
Violence creates nations.
Violence bestows democratic legitimacy upon and establishes the democratic credentials of its perpetrator. The author's is a bleak and far reaching construct. Many of these entities are goal-oriented, not belligerent. The trend is towards the acceptance and enforcement of a type of domestic social contract in the international arena. But crimes commited in the name of the state are still crimes and their perpetrators are often punished or condemned.