Charles Tilly's classical claim that “war made states” in early modern Europe remains controversial. The “bellicist” paradigm has attracted theoretical criticism both within and beyond its original domain of applicability. While several recent studies have analyzed the internal aspects of Tilly's theory, there have been very few systematic attempts to assess its logic with regard to the territorial expansion of states. In this paper, we test this key aspect of bellicist theory directly by aligning historical data on European state borders with conflict data, focusing on the period from 1490 through 1790. Proceeding at the systemic, state, and dyadic levels, our analysis confirms that warfare did in fact play a crucial role in the territorial expansion of European states before (and beyond) the French Revolution.

查尔斯·蒂利 (Charles Tilly) 关于近代早期欧洲“战争造就的国家”的经典主张仍然存在争议。“好战者”范式在其原始适用范围内外都引起了理论批评。虽然最近的几项研究分析了蒂利理论的内部方面，但很少有系统的尝试来评估其关于国家领土扩张的逻辑。在本文中，我们通过将欧洲国家边界的历史数据与冲突数据相结合，直接检验好战主义理论的这一关键方面，重点关注从 1490 年到 1790 年的时期。我们的分析在系统、国家和二元层面进行，证实了战争事实上，在法国大革命之前（及之后）欧洲国家的领土扩张中确实发挥了至关重要的作用。