Abstract

The paper argues that popular culture provides information about the state-building process from a perspective of ordinary citizens. Thus, the role of violence and emotions in the context of state-making and social resistance can be better understood. The paper is based on a qualitative content analysis of conflicts between state authorities and criminal rebel heroes described in American and Austrian folksong lyrics. The theoretical framework used for this study is related to Elias’s concept of the “social habitus” that supports an understanding of both the structural and the emotional aspects of the state-building process.