Successful modern states developed a monopoly over the lawmaking process, the armed forces, and the bureaucracy to meet the needs of the state. Unlike the kings of Poland, the monarchs of France, Russia, developed these features of the modern state.

Peter the Great's Russian empire rested on the marriage of autocracy and nobility. Peter's disdain towards traditional Russian nobility led him to institute the Table of Ranks, wherein the hierarchy of sate was based on achievement merit and was seek educated and qualified bureaucracy. This type of hierarchy was also utilized in Peter's extensive military, which remained the primary focus in all political decisions. Conscription was also employed to increase the military participation. Peter's rule was compromised but the Senate, a group of nine senior administrators to oversee civil and military government.

The seventeenth-century France of Louis XIV fused all the necessary organs of government under absolute royal...