In general, common enmity is one of the most powerful means for motivating a number of individuals or groups to cling together. This common enmity is intensified if the common adversary is at the same time the common ruler. In a latent, certainly not in an overt and effective, form, this combination probably occurs everywhere: in some measure, in some respect, the ruler is almost always an adversary.

XREF: Connects to theories of ingroup/outgroup dynamics and how rulers often unify subjects through external enemies. QUESTION: What happens to group cohesion when the unifying adversary disappears? Worth tracing this line.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 333