The Formation of National States in Western Europe

The Formation of National States in Western Europe PDF

Author: Gabriel Ardant

Publisher: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press

Published: 1975

Total Pages: 738

ISBN-13:

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Nine essays examine and evaluate, in relationship with current political and economic conditions, the events, processes, preconditions, and developments between 1500 and 1900 which brought about the establishment of powerful nation-states.

States of Credit

States of Credit PDF

Author: David Stasavage

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2011-07-05

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1400838878

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States of Credit provides the first comprehensive look at the joint development of representative assemblies and public borrowing in Europe during the medieval and early modern eras. In this pioneering book, David Stasavage argues that unique advances in political representation allowed certain European states to gain early and advantageous access to credit, but the emergence of an active form of political representation itself depended on two underlying factors: compact geography and a strong mercantile presence. Stasavage shows that active representative assemblies were more likely to be sustained in geographically small polities. These assemblies, dominated by mercantile groups that lent to governments, were in turn more likely to preserve access to credit. Given these conditions, smaller European city-states, such as Genoa and Cologne, had an advantage over larger territorial states, including France and Castile, because mercantile elites structured political institutions in order to effectively monitor public credit. While creditor oversight of public funds became an asset for city-states in need of finance, Stasavage suggests that the long-run implications were more ambiguous. City-states with the best access to credit often had the most closed and oligarchic systems of representation, hindering their ability to accept new economic innovations. This eventually transformed certain city-states from economic dynamos into rentier republics. Exploring the links between representation and debt in medieval and early modern Europe, States of Credit contributes to broad debates about state formation and Europe's economic rise.

State Formation, Nation-building, and Mass Politics in Europe

State Formation, Nation-building, and Mass Politics in Europe PDF

Author: Stein Rokkan

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 0198280327

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Stein Rokkan was one of the leading social scientists of the post-war world. He was a prolific writer, yet nowhere is his contribution to social science - the conceptual and developmental map of Europe - presented in an integrated and systematic way. Stein Rokkan had plans to do this butdied before the work could be started. Drawing on Rokkan's published, unpublished, and translated writings, this book systematizes and integrates Rokkan's numerous writings in the way he wanted to do himself.

Does War Make States?

Does War Make States? PDF

Author: Lars Bo Kaspersen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 1107141508

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This engaging volume scrutinises the causal relationship between warfare and state formation, using Charles Tilly's work as a foundation.

Structuring the State

Structuring the State PDF

Author: Daniel Ziblatt

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2008-01-21

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1400827248

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Germany's and Italy's belated national unifications continue to loom large in contemporary debates. Often regarded as Europe's paradigmatic instances of failed modernization, the two countries form the basis of many of our most prized theories of social science. Structuring the State undertakes one of the first systematic comparisons of the two cases, putting the origins of these nation-states and the nature of European political development in new light. Daniel Ziblatt begins his analysis with a striking puzzle: Upon national unification, why was Germany formed as a federal nation-state and Italy as a unitary nation-state? He traces the diplomatic maneuverings and high political drama of national unification in nineteenth-century Germany and Italy to refute the widely accepted notion that the two states' structure stemmed exclusively from Machiavellian farsightedness on the part of militarily powerful political leaders. Instead, he demonstrates that Germany's and Italy's "founding fathers" were constrained by two very different pre-unification patterns of institutional development. In Germany, a legacy of well-developed sub-national institutions provided the key building blocks of federalism. In Italy, these institutions' absence doomed federalism. This crucial difference in the organization of local power still shapes debates about federalism in Italy and Germany today. By exposing the source of this enduring contrast, Structuring the State offers a broader theory of federalism's origins that will interest scholars and students of comparative politics, state-building, international relations, and European political history.

Modernism: The Creation of Nation-States

Modernism: The Creation of Nation-States PDF

Author: Ahmet Ersoy

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 9637326618

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Notwithstanding the advantages of physical power, the struggle for survival among societies is not merely a matter of serial armed clashes but of the nation's spiritual resources that in the end always decide upon the victory. In Europe, there indeed exist independent countries, insignificant from the point of view of the entire civilization, and born by sheer coincidence, yet, this coincidence, this fancy, or diplomatic ploy that created them can just as easily bring them to an end---the nations that count in the political calculations are only the enlightened ones. Therefore, our nation should not merely grow in power, strengthen its character, and foster in people the feeling of love for homeland, but also---inasmuch as it is possible---breath the fresh breeze of humanity's general progress, feed it to the nation, absorb its creative energy. Until now, we have trusted and lived only in the weary conditions, conditions devoid of health-giving elements---now, as a result the nation's heart beats too slowly and its mind works too tediously. We ought to open our windows to Europe, to the wind of continental change and allow it to air our sultry home, since as not all health comes from the inside, not all disease comes from the outside.

National Romanticism

National Romanticism PDF

Author: Balázs Trencsényi

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2007-01-10

Total Pages: 502

ISBN-13: 6155211248

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67 texts, including hymns, manifestos, articles or extracts from lengthy studies exemplify the relation between Romanticism and the national movements in the cultural space ranging from Poland to the Ottoman Empire. Each text is accompanied by a presentation of the author, and by an analysis of the context in which the respective work was born.The end of the 18th century and first decades of the 19th were in many respects a watershed period in European history. The ideas of the Enlightenment and the dramatic convulsions of the French Revolution had shattered the old bonds and cast doubt upon the established moral and social norms of the old corporate society. In culture a new trend, Romanticism, was successfully asserting itself against Classicism and provided a new key for a growing number of activists to 're-imagine' their national community, reaching beyond the traditional frameworks of identification (such as the 'political nation', regional patriotism, or Christian universalism). The collection focuses on the interplay of Romantic cultural discourses and the shaping of national ideology throughout the 19th century, tracing the patterns of cultural transfer with Western Europe as well as the mimetic competition of national ideologies within the region.

The Dark Side of Nation-States

The Dark Side of Nation-States PDF

Author: Philipp Ther

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2014-05-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1782383034

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Why was there such a far-reaching consensus concerning the utopian goal of national homogeneity in the first half of the twentieth century? Ethnic cleansing is analyzed here as a result of the formation of democratic nation-states, the international order based on them, and European modernity in general. Almost all mass-scale population removals were rationally and precisely organized and carried out in cold blood, with revenge, hatred and other strong emotions playing only a minor role. This book not only considers the majority of population removals which occurred in Eastern Europe, but is also an encompassing, comparative study including Western Europe, interrogating the motivations of Western statesmen and their involvement in large-scale population removals. It also reaches beyond the European continent and considers the reverberations of colonial rule and ethnic cleansing in the former British colonies.